Questions that Catholics should ask about the candidates

Every election year, the Catholic bishops of North Dakota, working through the North Dakota Catholic Conference, examines issues facing Catholic voters.

North Dakotans will decide, in November, whether to legalize recreational marijuana. The North Dakota Catholic Conference opposes the measure. The proposal is nearly identical to HB 1420 from the 2021 legislative session. In its testimony against that bill, the conference stated that the proposal “does not advance the common good and poses harms to families, children, our most vulnerable and the community. Instead, it signals that marijuana is safe, without regard for those families and communities it leaves behind.” The full testimony can be found on the conference’s website at https://bit.ly/3d5R8IZ.

When it comes to candidates, the Catholic Church does not support or oppose any candidate or political party. Instead, it encourages Catholics to examine the candidates through the eyes of faith and reason. To assist Catholics, the conference provides questions that Catholics should ask about their candidates or, if the occasion arises, ask the candidates directly. Some of the questions concern issues that are more important than others. Some concern policies, like attacks on human life, that a Catholic can never support. Catholics can, however, legitimately disagree about how to address some other issues. All the issues deserve our attention.

Where does the state candidate stand?

Creating a sanctuary for life

• • Promoting and funding policies and programs that help pregnant women, mothers and newborns?
  • Maintaining bans on abortion, assisted suicide, euthanasia, the death penalty, human embryo research and commercial surrogacy?

Religious liberty

• • Protecting the exercise of religion?
  • Protecting the right of religious organizations to serve the public in accordance with their beliefs?

Family and education

• • Enabling parents, financially and in other ways, to choose the best educational setting for their children?
  • Opposing policies that mandate acceptance of false gender ideologies?

Poor and vulnerable

• • Ensuring access to health care while respecting human life, human dignity and the religious and conscience rights of health care providers?
  • Providing services to those in need, especially families facing financial hardship and persons with disabilities, mental illness and addictions?
  • Protecting families and communities with a criminal justice system that focuses on restoration, rehabilitation, prevention and elimination of racial and ethnic bias?
  • Welcoming properly-vetted refugees, regardless of race, nationality or religious affiliation?

Economy and environment

• • Ensuring a just wage, economic initiative and pro-family work policies?
  • Promoting family farms, rural communities, and a food system that respects the dignity of labor and workers?
  • Respecting the right of local communities to manage their own affairs for the common good?
  • Fostering stewardship of our natural resources?

Where does the federal candidate stand?

Human life

• • Protecting unborn human life and ending abortion nationwide?
  • Repealing the federal government’s use of the death penalty?
  • Prohibiting the use of federal funds to pay for abortions?
  • Protecting the right of the states to create sanctuaries for life by legally protecting unborn human life?
  • Promoting and funding policies and programs that help pregnant women, mothers and newborns?

Religious liberty 

• • Protecting the exercise of religion?
  • Protecting the right of religious organizations to serve the public in accordance with their beliefs?

Family and education

• • Enabling parents, financially and in other ways, to choose the best educational setting for their children?
  • Opposing policies that mandate acceptance of false gender ideologies?

Immigration

• • Achieving comprehensive reforms that offer a path to citizenship for the undocumented who live in the U.S. and do not have a criminal record, expand family reunification, secure our borders and establish humane border enforcement?
  • Welcoming properly-vetted refugees, regardless of race, nationality or religious affiliation?

Poor and vulnerable   

• • Ensuring access to health care while respecting human life, human dignity and the religious and conscience rights of health care providers?
  • Providing services to those in need, especially families facing financial hardship and persons with disabilities, mental illness and addictions?
  • Maintaining and increasing funding for poverty-focused development assistance to poor countries?
  • Acknowledging the harm done to Native Americans by the federal government’s assimilation policies?

Economy and environment

• • Ensuring a just wage, economic initiative and pro-family work policies?
  • Promoting family farms, rural communities, and a food system that respects the dignity of labor and workers?
  • Respecting the right of local communities to manage their own affairs for the common good?
  • Fostering stewardship of our natural resources?

When all candidates hold a position that promotes an intrinsically evil act, the voter may take the extraordinary step of not voting for any candidate or, after careful deliberation, vote for the candidate deemed less likely to advance such a morally flawed position and more likely to pursue other authentic human goods.

Catholics have an obligation to participate in the democratic process. Remember to vote and, no matter what the outcome, become involved in the legislative process.