Your Christian responsibility

Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

I might lose some readers on this one, but it needs to be said. If you have been given the privilege and duty to vote in a local or national election, it is part of your Christian responsibility to do so. Disliking all the candidates, not having time, or not knowing who or what to vote for aren’t reasons to neglect your duty. This isn’t my opinion; it’s what our church teaches:

The Council exhorts Christians, as citizens of both cities, to perform their duties faithfully in the spirit of the Gospel. It is a mistake to think that, because we have here no lasting city, but seek the city which is to come, we are entitled to shirk our earthly responsibilities; this is to forget that by our faith we are bound all the more to fulfill these responsibilities according to the vocation of each one. (“Gaudium et spes,” 43)

Who and what you vote for is between you and your conscience, and we must form our consciences according to our Christian faith. That is no easy task. Still, it is our mandate to do the hard work and to seek out the pastoral resources and catechetical documents that our church provides to help us exercise both our earthly and heavenly duties well.

This post was first published in “GIA Quarterly: A Liturgical Music Journal.”

Image credit: Photo by Masaaki Komori on Unsplash.