Cardinal Burke's advice for voting your conscience
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With the Nov. 5 election fast approaching, an esteemed US cardinal has stepped up to provide moral guidance to American voters.
Cardinal Raymond Burke took to X this week, posting comments useful for voters who are still sitting on the fence – given the moral limitations of both major parties – or who may still be searching for a "perfect" candidate.
The cardinal makes clear that, "Only if no candidate provides any ray of hope of serving, at least in some part, the common good … are we justified in not voting at all."
His counsel is especially relevant, given that millions of Christians intend not to vote in November – a fact reflected in numerous polls. Such inaction could determine the results of the election, and decide the fate of the nation.
Burke's advice provides essential instruction for anyone desiring to vote with moral integrity. It is especially useful for those confused by media spin or struggling with their own moral compunctions. It is divided into five parts, each a guide to a moral vote.
ONE
Above all, the cardinal calls Catholics to pray and fast for the nation, "that it will once again serve the good of all its citizens, especially of those who are threatened by the present prevalent anti-life, anti-family, and anti-religion agenda."
"Let us pray for the conversion of our national culture from violence and death to peace and life," he adds.
The prelate also encourages those who have not already done so to join in the Nine-Month Novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas.
The March 12–Dec. 12 novena invokes the intercession of the Mother of God "for the conversion of countless souls in our homes and in our nation to faith in God and obedience to His law."
TWO
Burke exhorts us to be "tirelessly steadfast in our opposition to the anti-life, anti-family, and anti-religion agenda which are destroying families, communities, and our nation."
He says it is urgent that we not only educate ourselves, but "raise the consciousness of the citizens of our nation to the manner in which these agendas threaten the common good, the good of individuals, of families, of local communities, of the nation."
To achieve this, he recommends the use of "all the means of communication at hand to speak to the hearts of our fellow citizens, for God has written on every human heart his law which serves human life, marriage and the family, and the practice of religion."
THREE
Burke advocates for educated voting, noting that it is imperative to study the agenda of each candidate. Such analysis will allow a voter "to see whether a candidate, even though he or she espouses morally objectionable programs and policies, will, in some way, limit the evil."
It is essential that, in our research, we compare candidates' positions on each issue categorically. In other words, we must judge a candidate's position on a particular issue against the position of his or her challenger on that same issue – for example, abortion-to-abortion, transgender issues-to-transgender issues, and so on. Any sort of "apples-to-oranges" comparison is illegitimate.
Michael Hichborn, founder of the Lepanto Institute, elaborates on this point. "It has to be a point-by-point comparison," he says. "You're not saying, this one's pro-abortion but this one's anti-immigration – they're not the same."
"If you're doing a point-by-point comparison," Hichborn notes, "you have to start with the issue of abortion, compare the two [candidates] at that level, then you look at the family issues … and you compare point-by-point at that level."
"Start with the non-negotiables first," he adds, "and then you can go into lesser issues … to come to the conclusion as to which one is the [morally] viable candidate."
Burke sums up this point, writing: "If a candidate will, at least, limit the evil, we must support the limitation while insisting on the need to eradicate the evil altogether."
FOUR
Here the cardinal encourages voters to consider whether a candidate "will, at least, hear the voice of a rightly-formed conscience on questions like procured abortion, sexual reassignment, and religious persecution."
If a candidate is likely to give an ear to, and engage in discussion with, the voter's moral questions, that candidate is preferable to one who will not.
In other words, Burke says, "[W]e must ask ourselves whether there may be some ray of hope to advance the transformation of our national politics in accord with the moral law by voting for a particular candidate."
FIVE
Burke acknowledges that "the desperate situation of our national politics today" may tempt some to conclude they cannot vote for any candidate.
But, he says, "if there is even the smallest ray of hope to effect some change … for the common good, it is not right for us to fail in responding to the ray of hope."
"Only if no candidate provides any ray of hope of serving, at least in some part, the common good, especially in what pertains to human life, marriage and the family, and the practice of religion, are we justified in not voting at all."
That's a high bar, given that Pope Saint John Paul II said, "We cannot live without hope."
'ON OUR CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE COMMON GOOD'
Cardinal Burke also directed voters to a pastoral letter he wrote while serving as head of the Archdiocese of St. Louis in 2004.
In the letter, titled "On Our Civic Responsibility For The Common Good," the then-archbishop recounts conversations he had while studying in Germany in the 1980s – discussions relevant to the approaching US election.
In one exchange, a Church sacristan, who was a teenager during the time of the Third Reich, relayed how he was still haunted that the people of his nation had permitted Nazi evils to go on for so long.
Burke recalls another German lamenting that his country's Catholic bishops did not do enough to teach against the evils of the totalitarian regime.
Such accounts bear obvious – and frightening – implications for the upcoming US election: the failure of a Christian to act, i.e., to vote, on Nov. 5 is akin to German citizens who did nothing – out of fear or spiritual sloth – to halt the spread of the godless, anti-Christian Nazi regime.
Cardinal Burke's guide, titled "Moral Questions regarding Voting," can be found @cardinalrlburke on X.
Dr. Barbara Toth has a doctorate in rhetoric and composition from Bowling Green State University. She has taught at universities in the US, China and Saudi Arabia. Her work in setting up a writing center at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahmen University, an all-women's university in Riyadh, has been cited in American journals. Toth has published academic and non-academic articles and poems internationally.
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