As we are all aware, perhaps even painfully so, the election season has arrived. This year has the particular importance of being the election year for president as well as our usual other local and national races.

It seems that almost every presidential election that I can recall has been called one of the most important in the history of our country. Often, that kind of language is more a motivational tool used by both parties to encourage their faithful to vote than it is an immediate reality.

But as we look around and see the deepening of the moral, cultural and societal decline in our country, a decline that has admittedly been growing for decades, it is hard to overstate the importance of any election at this point in history.

The Catholic bishops have issued once more their statement on the guidance of conscience in preparation for voting. Entitled, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” it can be accessed online at http://www.rockforddiocese.org and at http://www.rockforddiocese.org. If you do not have a copy, I encourage you to take a good look at it!

The document makes clear that it is not the role of the bishops to tell the faithful whom to vote for or against. Rather, it is our duty to help form consciences and to remind the faithful of the Catholic principles that need to be the basis for an authentic and moral Catholic engagement with our society through the electoral process.

It is the duty of faithful Catholics to contribute to and, when necessary, to change, our societal path on the basis of a decision of a rightly formed conscience based in the moral values and principles that we receive in faith.

While the entire document provides helpful guidance, paragraph 22 under the heading of “Doing good and avoiding evil” in “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” is particularly important. It is the section that discusses “intrinsic evils.” The document defines them as actions, “so deeply flawed that they are always opposed to the authentic good of persons. … They must always be rejected and opposed and must never be supported or condoned.”

This reminds us that there are policies and actions for which there is no rationale that would enable us to claim a right to support them or vote for them on any basis of a rightly formed conscience. Examples given in the document are support for the taking of innocent human life, such as facilitating or funding abortion or euthanasia, as well as cloning and research in human embryos.

The document also lists genocide, torture, racism, and the targeting of noncombatants in acts of terror or war.

Given the most recent developments, we should also see efforts to undermine the God-given nature of marriage as a life-time commitment between a man and a woman as well as threats to religious liberty as being intrinsically opposed to God’s plan for every human being.

At the heart of understanding our civic duty to shape our society, and the values that flow from our commitment to Christ is, one might say, a view of the whole.

That is, we cannot separate our lives into a private and a public sphere. We have seen the tragic results for individuals and for our society when we treat the values of our religious convictions as a Sunday-only personal choice and not as the truth entrusted to us by God for the good and salvation of ourselves, our families and the world.

“I am personally opposed but I don’t want to impose …” are some of the sorriest of words when it comes to truth and moral values.

As election day approaches, start to prepare now. Study, pray and form your conscience. Political parties and the talking heads will try to sway us to get the “Catholic vote.”

Let’s meet that challenge by forming our consciences to be truly faithful citizens.