The Challenge of Forming Consciences For Faithful Citizenship

The Challenge of Forming Consciences
For Faithful Citizenship
cinops be gone Thursday, July 3, 2008

Preface: A July 4th Salute to America: For immigrants there is no country in the world greater than America. That alone tells us how great America is! And that a traditional Judeo-Christian America is worth fighting for. GHK – immigrant

Now for the U.S. bishops’ reflection: A print version of titled document is free at www.faithfulcitizenship.org. What follows are excerpts from each section.

Our nation faces political challenges that demand urgent moral choices…
A culture built on families, where some now question the value of marriage and family life. We pride ourselves on supporting human rights, but we fail even to protect the fundamental right to life, especially for unborn children.

We bishops seek to help Catholics form their consciences in accordance with the truth, so they can make sound moral choices in addressing these challenges. We do not tell Catholics how to vote. The responsibility to make political choices rests with each person & his or her properly formed conscience.

1.) Why Does the Church Teach About Issues Affecting Public Policy?
The Church’s obligation to participate in shaping the moral character of society is a requirement of our faith, a part of the mission given to us by Jesus Christ. Faith helps us to see more clearly the truth about human life and dignity that we also understand through human reason.

2.) Who in the Church Should Participate in Political Life?
In the Catholic Tradition, responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participate in political life is a moral obligation. As Catholics, we should be guided more by our moral convictions than by our attachment to a political party or interest group.

3.How Does the Church Help Catholics to Address Political and Social Questions?
“Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act…. {Every person} is obliged to follow faithfully what he {or she} knows to be just and right” (Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no. 1778). We Catholics have a lifelong obligation to form our consciences in accord with right human reason, enlightened by the teaching of Christ as it comes to us through the Church.

4.) The Virtue of Prudence:
The Church also encourages Catholics to develop the virtue of prudence, which enables us “to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1806)…
A good end does not justify an immoral means. At times Catholics may choose different ways to respond to social problems, but we cannot differ on our obligation to protect human life and dignity and help build through moral means a more just and peaceful world.

5.) Doing Good and Avoiding Evil:
A preeminent example is the intentional taking of human life through abortion. It is always morally wrong to destroy innocent human beings. A legal system that allows the right to life to be violated on the grounds of choice is fundamentally flawed. Similarly, direct threats to the dignity of human life such as euthanasia, human cloning, and destructive research of human embryo are also intrinsically evil and must be opposed. …

George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese