Voting This Week?
Some friends here in town asked me to let you know about a new non-partisan resource for Catholic voters.
Boston, MA, November 1, 2006 – The nonpartisan group Catholics United for the Common Good released its Catholic Voting Project (CVP) voter guide for sixteen U.S. Senate races today. The online resource – available at www.votingcatholic.org - allows voters to compare the positions of leading candidates on some 20 issues important in Catholic teaching. It also offers a unique interactive voter quiz that will compare users' views to those of the Senate candidates and the U.S. Catholic Bishops.
Check out their home page too.
No guide is totally unbiased, so be sufficiently suspicious, especially with regard to the issues that mean the most to you.
posted by Mark Mossa, SJ at 10:43 PM
11 Comments:
I am finding this election to be very difficult. Neither of our senate candidates here in RI are pro-life. On the other life issues, they are basically the same.
As a pro-life Christian who happens to be socially and economically pretty liberal, I am really having a hard time figuring out who to support.
I was wondering about this group. This is a "real" Catholic group, concerned with Church teachings, not a front for VOTF? It seems to be "real" from the homepage, but I wanted to be sure.
Barb,
I don't believe it to be a front for VOTF. Their voting guide seems to include most issues of concern to Catholics, and not just politically liberal or politically conservative ones.
Anyway, I see it as another resource you can use to educate yourself about the upcoming elections, among others.
Seems a bizarre group. Instead of supporting a prolife, promarriage candidate in Minnesote, the group has chosen to attack her for being a member of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, and to demand a response from her as to whether she accepts the WELS belief that the pope is antichrist. This is bizarre.
Bill,
You're right. It seems a strange issue to focus on.
The voters' guide seems to be more helpful than some of the press releases on the group's website.
Rachel's Big dunk,
Is there a third party candidate running in your state that might be better than the republican or democrat running? I live in NJ (pity me ;) ) and NJ Right to Life has endorsed a third party candidate running for the Senate seat up for grabs here. you should check the ballot you get in the mail before you go to your polling place. Or RI's pro life lobbying group.
I can apprecite Rachel's dilemma. In my house district, I can choose between Jean Schmidt and Victoria Wulsin. An anti-abortion loose canon, or a pro-abortion political novice... I might just write my own name in on that one :)
A truly solid Catholic voters' guide doesn't exist.
Any such guide would have despair about the American party system wafting up from the pages.
And ditto on the Bizarro World focus on the WELS formulation of faith. Those are old creedal statements dating back from the immediate Reformation era.
You can find this stuff in virtually every Protestant denomination with acknowledged roots on the Protestant Reformation. I found similar whacks at "Romanist" beliefs from old documents archived on the official United Methodist website, for pete's sake.
But as an ex-Methodist, I'm not particularly game to pummel the UMC (much less its members) on this point. Unless they get all fatwa-y about my "apostasy" or something. ;-)
Dimes to doughnuts, the poor woman in Minnesota had no idea the stuff was even there.
Dale,
Thanks for weighing in. Both very good insights!
Dale, comment number 1:
((vigorous clapping))
My choices in MN are "sell out a little, or sell out a lot?"
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