Notice:

Dear Blogger,

You may wish to look at, in particular, the next to last article on energy and the comments. (Click on April and scroll down to Energy.) There have been two excellent thoughtful rebuttals to the part of my article in which I caution against single issue voting. I do submit that the bishop’s agree with me in their article on “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.”

What do you think?

With grateful thanks to those of you who have offered prayers for my family.

Susan
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Dear Reader.

For the record, on my own behalf, I was called into question (see Energy) because in my bulletin paragraph I did not quote the bishops regarding the attention that must be given intrinsic evils when one decides for whom to vote. However, in the bulletin in which that paragraph was due to appear, (happened to come a week later) the bishops two sided summary page, designed for bulletin insert, The Challenge of Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, was inserted into the bulletin. It was there because I myself had chosen to order, pay for and submit that document so that the parish would have exactly what the bishops document says. Following is my censured paragraph.

What do we need to do now? Clearly energy resources are an issue for the coming election. We will have to form our conscience, balancing issues. It isn’t easy. We need to consider that the U.S. Bishops united declared, “Catholics are not single issue voters. A candidate’s position on a single issue is not sufficient to guarantee a voter’s support…both opposing evil and doing good are essential.”3 What do the bishops tell us about how we can decide between the intrinsic evil of abortion, for example, against say energy, health care, the war in Iraq and other compelling issues? The bishops tell us, “A voter should not use a candidate’s opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity.”3 Political decisions, they say, require the exercise of a well-formed conscience aided by prudence, which is the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason. The bishops do not tell us how to vote; they give us guidance in forming our own individual conscience.