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PART III
Goals for Political Life:
Challenges for Citizens,
Candidates, and Public Officials
91. As Catholics, we are led to raise questions for political life other than
those that concentrate on individual, material well-being. Our focus is not on
party affiliation, ideology, economics, or even competence and capacity to per-
form duties, as important as such issues are. Rather, we focus on what protects
or threatens the dignity of every human life.
92. Catholic teaching challenges voters and candidates, citizens and elected
officials, to consider the moral and ethical dimensions of public policy issues.
In light of ethical principles, we bishops offer the following policy goals that
we hope will guide Catholics as they form their consciences and reflect on
the moral dimensions of their public choices. Not all issues are equal; these
ten goals address matters of different moral weight and urgency. Some involve
intrinsically evil acts, which can never be approved. Others involve affirma-
tive obligations to seek the common good. These and similar goals can help
voters and candidates act on ethical principles rather than particular interests
and partisan allegiances. We hope Catholics will ask candidates how they
intend to help our nation pursue these important goals:
•
Address the preeminent requirement to protect the weakest in our midst—
innocent unborn children—by restricting and bringing to an end the
destruction of unborn children through abortion and providing women in
crisis pregnancies the supports they need to make a decision for life.
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