As we approach Election Day I am sure many share my sense of relief that we will have three or four weeks of peace before the campaign for the 2016 presidency begins.

Catholics in the United States are correct when they resent bitterly the attempt by popes or prelates to tell them how they should vote. That is an unacceptable intrusion in the private life of each citizen and is always unwarranted. Practicing Catholics know that we cannot support politicians who argue for the acceptability of intrinsic evils or who propose to violate divine law or the natural law. But well instructed Catholic people are well able to make these distinctions for themselves without the aid of the Church hierarchy.

There are some things that we are prone to forget: first, we are not a pure democracy where all decisions are always made by all the people. We are a republican democracy. That means that we choose people to represent us in the government (Congress, state legislature, city council) who have good judgment and will make judgments in accord with the common good. It distresses us too that sometimes the common good is not what is the best thing for me as an individual but is required by the needs of the whole community. That is what it means to be part of a

democracy.

It is distressing, too, that while we are supposed to be informed as to the choices we make in the voting booth in our country we have only one newspaper left (The Wall Street Journal, which alone is able to distinguish between the news and its opinion of the news). All the other media of public information evidence so much bias that they cannot be trusted.

I was discouraged to hear former Senator Bayh of Indiana, who had the reputation of being a straight-forward politician, when asked about the vitriolic campaign now being waged by both parties, gave a sigh and said something like, “Well, that’s just the way it is.” It discourages me that we are told by responsible public leaders that slander, calumny, and detraction are acceptable forms of political dialogue.

Then there are those who make bold to divide our people on the basis of envy or jealousy. Wisely did the founding fathers and mothers of our country stress the importance of the unity of our people. We should be afraid of those who fracture that unity for ignoble motives.

After going through all the foregoing, we have to be sure we vote for people who have a correct notion of justice. We have to vote for people who do not espouse intrinsic evils. A good example of intrinsic evil is abortion. It comes as a surprise to many Catholics that, besides being an ecclesiastical crime, abortion is a grave violation of the natural moral law and cannot be supported in any way.

As Americans we are always pleased when our country grows more prosperous, more skillful, and our people are more content, but we have to realize that sometimes government gets out of hand and we have to avoid that.