Voting
by VP
Posted on Tuesday March 03, 2026 at 12:00AM in Quotes
"There may be an added obligation of voting on special issues or against persons who support them. For example, if a state attempted to put through a bill authorizing the appropriation of funds for birth prevention literature, methods, facilities, etc., then the citizen would be bound in conscience to oppose such a measure at the poll. If a candidate were known to advocate birth prevention, mercy killing, easy divorce laws, and the like and it were known that he would use his influence to push bills or legislation on such matters, then the citizen would be bound to vote against this candidate."
The whole point is that the citizen must be a man of principle and of intelligent action. The ordinary citizen alone is not powerful, but banded together with the rest of the people he helps to exert a combined force that rules the country. He must see what is right and do what is right, just as much at the polls as at Sunday Mass or at business. Indeed he may even have to sacrifice for the common good. Monsignor Ryan declares that at times the Catholic voter must disregard his economic interests for the sake of religious interests. "If any party were proposing and had the power to enact a law abolishing parochial schools," he cites as an example, "no amount of beneficent economic proposals would be an off-set. it would be the plain duty of the Catholic citizen to vote against the candidates of such a party." And this obviously holds in any danger of great harm to the Church of state." Catholic Principles on Voting, Rev. Fr. Titus Cranny S.A. 1952
"As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable. Among these the following emerge clearly today:
- - protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death;
- - recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family - as a union between a man and a woman based on marriage - and its defence from attempts to make it juridically equivalent to radically different forms of union which in reality harm it and contribute to its destabilization, obscuring its particular character and its irreplaceable social role;
- - the protection of the right of parents to educate their children." Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI, 30 March 2006.
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- "I am asked what principles should, in my opinion, govern a voter's action in the coming Presidential election. It is assumed that both candidates are objectionable and that the choice is between two evils. Ethically no one is obliged to make such a choice, and if conscience forbids, the alternative is to refuse both. Otherwise immoral men and parties can always impale the conscientious citizen upon one horn of a dilemma. A dignified and respectable position is then one outside of parties altogether. In such a case there is no savor of that political indifference which is so dangerous in a democracy."
"But suppose each party offers the voter something that he believes to be evil, and that he dislikes for reasons good to himself both candidates; is he justified then in compromising? Certainly not; for in this case it ceases to become a compromise of judgment and becomes a compromise of conscience. No one is morally justified in voting for something which he believes to be evil. The doctrine of choosing the lesser evil is on a par with that other devilish one, "the end justifies the means." The Ethical Record Volume 2 ,1900.
- " In the coming contest," he (Charles Sumner) said, "I wish it understood that I belong
to the party of freedom, to that party which plants itself on the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. I
hear the old political saw, that "we must take the least of two
evils."...For myself, if two evils are presented to me I will take
neither...There are matters legitimately within the range of expediency
and compromise. The Tariff and the Currency are of this
character.(...) But the question before the country is of another
character. This will not admit of compromise. It is not within the
domain of expediency. To be wrong on this is to be wholly wrong. It is
not merely expedient for us to defend Freedom, when assailed, but our
duty so to do, unreservedly, and careless of consequences.
But it is said that we shall throw away our votes and that our opposition will fail. Fail, sir! No honest, earnest effort in a good cause can fail. It may not be crowned with the applause of men; it may not seem to touch the goal of immediate worldly success, which is the end and aim of much in life. But it is not lost. It helps to strengthen the weak with new virtue, to arm the irresolute with proper energy, to animate all with devotion to duty, which in the end conquest all. Fail! Did the martyrs fail when with precious blood they sowed the seeds of the church? Did the discomfited champions of Freedom fail who have left those names in history that can never die? Did the three hundred Spartans fail when in the narrow pass they did not fear to brave the innumerable Persian hosts, whose very arrows darkened the sun? Overborne by the numbers, crushed to earth, they left an example greater far than any victory, and this is the least we can do. Our example will be the mainspring of triumph hereafter. It will not be the first time in history that the hosts of slavery have out-numbered the champions of freedom. But where is it written that slavery finally prevailed?"
These words, uttered at the outset of Sumner's political career, state the rule of his life. They express the feelings, too, of those who led the greatest independent movement in our history, and give their reply to the argument by which all such movements are discouraged. (...) He presided at a ratification meeting in Faneuil Hall, where he said that "a new party" had been formed whose leading principle was opposition to the extension of slavery and to its longer continuance wherever the national government was responsible for it, thus early stating the position soon to be taken by the Republican Party." American Statesmen: Charles Sumner 1900
