(Photo Credit Phil Scroggs – Unsplash)
By: Dan Sherven
Deciding how to cast your vote is never easy. Brendan Steven, executive director for CatholicConscience.org has been working to help from a Catholic perspective.
“Some people misunderstand,” Steven says. “and think Catholic voters can only pick certain options, based on certain definitive teachings of the Church. But the reality is, there’s so much space for discernment in deciding what the right policy is.”
CatholicConscience.org is a voter-engagement organization offering a Catholic lens for elections. Steven is active with several Catholic organizations and ministries in Toronto and is a parishioner of St. Basil’s Catholic Church.
“That process of figuring out, what are the most important issues for our country, and the most important issues for the perspective of our Catholic Faith, is actually a discernment,” Steven says. “That’s essentially up to every individual Catholic.”
The role of prayer, in discerning — or deciding, who to vote for, is front and center, to Steven.
“There is a prayerful, and thoughtful, and well-researched, and involved process of discerning your vote as a Catholic,” Steven says. “And two faithful Catholics, going through the exact same process: involving prayer, and learning more about the parties’ platforms, can discern totally different choices.”
Surprising to some, Steven does not advocate for any one political party.
“Rather than going to Catholics and saying, here: from our perspective, are the five most important issues facing Catholics, in this election. What we try to do, is provide people resources, so they can look at the parties’ policy commitments and platforms. Through the largest range of Catholic social teaching possible.” Steven says.
“So they can do their research and discern,” Steven says. “What are the issues facing us? What are the issues that most engage our Faith perspective?”
There are also moral and ethical considerations when one casts his or her ballot. “When we get into political choices,” Steven says, “we enter into the space called remote cooperation with evil. Whatever party we vote for, that party could then make policy choices or pass laws that go against the tenets of our Catholic Faith. But the challenge is that cooperation is remote.”
“Just because I vote for a candidate doesn’t mean I’m responsible for a decision that that party makes, two or three years down the line.”
Additionally, Steven says, there is no ‘perfectly Catholic’ party in Canada, but he thinks that in every party’s platform, “you will find the Holy Spirit, at work, in a number of their policy choices.”
He says the opposite is also true.
“We’re discerning a tough call, between deeply imperfect choices, so inevitably, that complicates our discernment of conscience.”
And an election during a pandemic has its own challenges.
“Elections Canada has given us so many options to vote,” Steven says, adding there are mail-in ballots, and advanced polling days, before the Sept. 20 election.
“Elections Canada has done an amazing job this year putting in strong protocols to keep people safe. And their website goes through all those protocols.”
He says the pandemic “has made people realize just how important a role the government plays in our lives.” Adding, “it’s critical that we not just vote. But we, as a Catholic community, engage with our elected officials during and in between elections to make sure that our voices are heard, and Gospel values are heard in the public square.”
The pandemic has also shown the reality of global inequalities, and sometimes, global instabilities.
“Many other places on Earth don’t have access to the vaccines that we do,” Steven says. And, he notes, the Church itself is the largest charity in the world.
So, Steven says, “not just in this election, but going forward for Catholics, given the connections we have as a global Church, to some of these very fragile parts of the world, I think we can play a bigger role in advocating.”
Steven recognizes the temptation to focus on personalities during an election. “Canadian voters tend to vote, based on who the leader of the party is, and personality-driven aspects,” Steven says. “Everyone who voted for Justin Trudeau, in 2019, couldn’t have known there was a pandemic coming … [but] we want to vote for people who we can trust to handle unexpected situations.”
Still, he stresses the importance of parties’ platforms.
“The parties that form government do take those platforms into government and use them as a blueprint for how they’re going to govern,” Steven says. “It does give us a very strong indication, of what a new government will do after they win an election.”
The election is Monday, September. 20. To aid in the discernment process CatholicConscience.org has filmed a virtual forum featuring Catholic representatives from Canada’s major parties as they offer perspectives on issues facing our country through the lens of Gospel values and Catholic social teaching. Click here to watch
 |
Dan Sherven is an author from Regina, SK. |
