A Catholic Can Vote for Hillary Clinton

A Catholic Can Vote for Hillary Clinton July 29, 2016

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via wikipedia.org / (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via wikipedia.org / (CC BY-SA 3.0)

But a Catholic

  • does not have to vote for her
  • wouldn’t agree with her on many policies nor their effects
  • would actively oppose and seek to correct the policies that deny a person his life or her dignity
    • and those policies denying life to the planet, and as a result, to humanity
  • likely wouldn’t leave the voting booth with complete joy upon voting for Hillary
  • may find that she can be legitimately disqualified from receiving a Catholic’s vote
  • may, in the end, go back to the first bullet, and not vote for Hillary

What’s a Catholic to do, if the legitimate decision is made to not vote for Hillary?

  • vote for a third party candidate
  • vote for Trump in a strong Democratic state, in protest of the DRC and Hillary
  • reconsider the second bullet, not vote for Trump because he’s unacceptable, and go back to bullet one
  • if not voting for a third party/write-in, choose to leave that portion of your ballot empty
    • in other words, be a conscientious objector

This is what the US Bishops say:

When all candidates hold a position that promotes an intrinsically evil act, the conscientious voter faces a dilemma. The voter may decide to take the extraordinary step of not voting for any candidate or, after careful deliberation, may decide to vote for the candidate deemed less likely to advance such a morally flawed position and more likely to pursue other authentic human goods.

Voting is messy.


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