Political discussions rarely serve as an opportunity to reflect on our convictions or better understand the perspectives of our neighbors. Instead, election season becomes a time of self-righteousness and contention, all the while overlooking human dignity and the common good. During Respect Life Month, we are painfully aware of the way our society so often overlooks dignity at all stages and circumstances.
When Jesus was questioned about politics, it was a trick question from those in opposition of His preaching. “Should we pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” Jesus’ response confounded His audience and challenges us still. Our Lord replied, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.” In this simple phrase, Jesus made clear that His followers would practice faithful citizenship.
As citizens, Christians must fulfill our obligations to our neighbors and communities. The Catholic Church teaches that human beings are relational and social creatures, so we are all are called to participate in the societies in which we live. In the United States, we are privileged to count voting for our elected officials among the ways we can participate.
Merely going to the ballot is not the extent of our faithful citizenship. We are also called to advocate for the common good by knowing and meeting with our local legislators and getting involved to better our communities. However, voting is a direct means of giving to Caesar what belongs to him. So, how do we vote while giving to God what is God’s? This question is particularly difficult when it seems no candidate fully shares our belief in respecting life at all stages and circumstances or our concern for the common good.
What is a Catholic to do? To give both to Caesar and to God what is their due, the Catholic must vote for human dignity. In other words, Catholics must resist the seduction of partisanship, demonization and ideology. Wherever human dignity is threatened, our vote must go to the defense of dignity.
Sadly, we live in a time when human dignity is in grave danger. Therefore, Catholics vote in such a way as to build a world where the poor are fed and the stranger given respect. We vote for the sake of the man on death row, that our justice system would recognize the sanctity of his life. This may not easily lead us to support one candidate or another, as neither party now calls for the repeal of the death penalty.
Human dignity today is threatened by overt violence. Violence from the unrestrained availability of guns has broken our public recognition of the dignity of life. Violence against our common home fails to honor the unique place of the human being in creation, as we all suffer, the poorest most of all, from the harm we continue to permit to our ecology. But Catholics must give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. So, we advocate and vote but not in pursuit of worldly triumphalism. We advocate and vote for dignity.
The preeminent threat to human dignity today is violence against life in the womb. As Pope Francis reminds us, “Every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ.” During Respect Life Month, we pray and work to build a culture that honors the dignity of life.
The incarnation proves the infinite dignity that God gives to human life from conception to natural death. Jesus’ birth to a human mother also reminds us that the violence against the preborn is an assault on the dignity of women. Our society permits mothers to suffer poverty and hopelessness and offers abortion as the solution. Catholics vote to protect the dignity of children and their mothers.
This election, we must remember our brothers and sisters who are smallest and weakest, whether in the womb or suspended in an IVF facility. Our preeminent concern is for these little ones. Tragically, candidates in both major parties have clarified that they will not protect the most vulnerable among us.
This leaves the Catholic citizen of the United States in a terribly difficult position. We can observe the dictates of our faith and accept that voting for human dignity is the command of faithful citizenship. But how do we do this in an election where a defense of human dignity cannot be squarely equated with either party?
This is a question that each of us must answer in the chamber of our consciences. In that place where we listen to God’s voice, we must ask how to steward our vote in defense of human dignity. Through prayer and a well-formed conscience, each of us can exercise our faithful citizenship by casting our vote for human dignity.
Will Kuehnle is the associate director of social concerns for the Catholic Conference of Ohio.