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EXERCISE YOUR SACRED RIGHT TO VOTE
“In a secular society, voting is the closest thing we have to a sacrament. We must protect this sacrament,” said Dominican Sister Quincy Howard, O.P., in an essay earlier this year. She was expressing a concern we all share: that our electoral process remains free and fair and protected from outside influences. As U.S. citizens go to the polls to elect their next president and other officials, it is important that voters are able to place their trust in their leaders. But first, they have to be able to place their confidence in the system through which those leaders are elected.
For most people, voting is a sacred obligation and also a privilege. With this simple, brief act, citizens express their values and priorities for government and society. As Catholics, we’re particularly charged with voting in the key of life. Pope Francis and our bishops remind us that’s no uncomplicated matter. In a century that faces enormous challenges and grave threats to our natural environment, respect for life includes a profound commitment to the measures that must be taken to safeguard the life of planet Earth. Voting for life also means earnest discernment of the common good, so that the poor, the sick, the elderly, the differently abled, the child, and the stranger are considered with each decision made in our name.
Exercise the sacrament of the vote, like every sacrament, as an act of worship.
—Alice Camille,
reprinted with permission from TrueQuest Communications
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