VATICAN CITY (CNS): Catholics must not promote or vote for any laws that would lead to attacks on human life, says a new document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
While freedom of conscience leaves Catholics free to choose among political parties and strategies for promoting the common good, they cannot claim that freedom allows them to promote abortion, euthanasia or other attacks on human life, the congregation said.
The 18-page ‘Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life” was approved by Pope John Paul II and released on January 16 at the Vatican.
“Those who are involved directly in lawmaking bodies have a ‘grave and clear obligation to oppose’ any law that attacks human life,” it said. “For them, as for every Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them.
“A well formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals,” it said.
The central focus of the document is an explanation that in a democracy, Catholics have a right and a duty to vote according to their consciences as formed by Church teaching.
