With Election Day looming less than ten days away, one of the princes of the Catholic Church is offering American Catholics some guidance on how to cast their ballots. Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, former archbishop of St. Louis and former prefect of the Vatican’s Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, issued instructions last week on how American Catholics should approach the upcoming presidential election.
“As Election Day approaches, many have raised serious moral questions regarding how to vote,” Burke began in a letter posted to his personal website. Referring to former President Donald Trump’s weakened stance on abortion and his watering down of the Republican Party’s platform, which previously maintained a staunch commitment to defending unborn life, the cardinal explained that “we confront a situation in which both major political parties espouse certain agenda which are flagrantly contrary to the most fundamental tenets of the moral law…” However, American Catholics must ask, “In fulfilling our civic duty to vote, how can we be obedient to the law of God written upon our hearts in the present situation of deplorable moral and therefore cultural decline and decay?”
First, Burke urged that American Catholics “pray and fast for our nation that it will once again serve the good of all its citizens, especially of those who are threatened by the present prevalent anti-life, anti-family, and anti-religion agenda, by obedience to the moral law.” He asked his fellow Catholics to “pray for the conversion of our national culture from violence and death to peace and life” and encouraged in particular beseeching the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of the Americas.
Secondly, Burke explained, “we must be abundantly clear and tirelessly steadfast in our opposition to the anti-life, anti-family, and anti-religion agenda which are destroying families, communities, and our nation.” He continued, “Today, there is an urgent need for individuals and associations of individuals to raise the consciousness of the citizens of our nation to the manner in which these agenda threaten the common good, the good of individuals, of families, of local communities, of the nation.” Burke urged American Catholics to “use all the means of communication at hand to speak to the hearts of our fellow citizens, for God has written on every human heart his law which serves human life, marriage and the family, and the practice of religion.”
Again likely referring to the adjusted policies of Trump regarding the moral evil of abortion, Burke advised, “We must study carefully the agenda of each candidate to see whether a candidate, even though he or she espouses morally objectionable programs and policies, will, in some way, limit the evil.” Thus far, Trump and his Catholic vice presidential pick, Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), have stipulated that they would not sign a “national abortion ban,” but have indicated that they would not approve of abortion at a federal level and would even defund the abortion giant Planned Parenthood. “If a candidate will, at least, limit the evil, we must support the limitation while insisting on the need to eradicate the evil altogether,” Burke added.
The American cardinal also advised, “We must further consider whether it is reasonable to hope that a candidate in question will, at least, hear the voice of a rightly-formed conscience on questions like procured abortion, sexual reassignment, and religious persecution, that is, whether there is hope that our opposition … will receive any hearing at all.” He said that while “the agenda of both major political parties is so fundamentally objectionable,” Catholics must ask themselves “whether there may be some ray of hope to advance the transformation of our national politics in accord with the moral law by voting for a particular candidate.”
“Before the desperate situation of our national politics today, some have concluded that they cannot vote for any candidate, but, if there is even the smallest ray of hope to effect some change in view of effecting ever greater change for the common good, it is not right for us to fail in responding to the ray of hope,” Burke further declared. He continued, “Only if no candidate provides any ray of hope of serving, at least in some part, the common good, especially in what pertains to human life, marriage and the family, and the practice of religion, are we justified in not voting at all.”
“Yes, the present situation of national politics is morally disgusting,” Burke added, “but we are a people of hope and can never excuse ourselves from continuing the daily work of seeking the conversion of our personal lives and the transformation of our national culture.”
Both Trump and his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, have made efforts to curry favor with Catholic voters over the past several months, but a recent survey showed that potentially 19 million American Catholics may simply choose not to vote this year. Cardinal Burke’s warning would seemingly urge these Catholics to reconsider their obligation to their country and to the moral law and to determine which candidate presents the best hope for the moral law to thrive in the U.S.