What's a Catholic to Do on Election Day?

Election Day is upon us. What’s a Catholic to do when faced with such awful choices?

Pope Francis isn’t much help. He just says to pick the lesser evil, while pretty much saying that both candidates are bad — Trump on not welcoming the stranger, and Harris on abortion.

It’s my sense that many, if not most, American Catholics will pull the lever for Trump, on the basis of abortion alone. But when did Catholics become single-issue voters? Being pro-life means more than just opposing abortions. It also means — or should mean — opposing capital punishment, state-sanctioned euthanasia, and unjust wars. It should also mean ensuring that there are adequate resources for mothers and their children once those children are born. Nor does the need for assistance stop at just mothers and children: We need a social safety net to ensure that all humans in need have enough. As Jesus tells us in the Gospel of Matthew, “Whatsoever you did for one of the least of these, my brethren, you did for me.”

In any event, I don’t consider Trump much of an ally on the abortion front. He oversaw the watering down of the abortion plank in the Republican platform, and he said Arizona’s abortion law goes too far. From a Catholic perspective, his boast that he’s the “father of IVF,” whatever that was supposed to mean, remains problematic. And although she’s obviously not the candidate, voters shouldn’t just gloss over Melania Trump’s passionate support for abortion rights in her new memoir — and she’s allegedly a Catholic!

Of course, Harris is radically pro-abortion and would codify the right to an abortion into federal law. We also know that she has a history of persecuting pro-lifers, whether it was weaponizing California’s Department of Justice when she was Attorney General to raid the home of a man who’d taken undercover videos exposing corruption at Planned Parenthood, or co-sponsoring a California bill that required crisis pregnancy centers to publicly post on their premises where women could get an abortion – a law that the Supreme Court later struck down as an unconstitutional example of forced speech.

So which candidate actually is the lesser evil?

If you go by friendliness toward Catholics alone, Trump comes out looking much better. He notably wished Mary a happy birthday on the feast day or her nativity, and he invoked the St. Michael prayer on the archangel’s day. Then he had someone come out on stage to sing “Ave Maria” to honor Corey Comperatore, the man killed during the attempt on Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania. Granted, this all feels like empty pandering, especially coming from someone who famously called Paul’s epistle “Two Corinthians” and couldn’t cite a favorite Bible verse (or even a favorite testament!) when pressed for an answer. (But he’ll happily sell you a low-quality patriotic Bible for $60.) I have a hunch that J.D. Vance, himself a Catholic, put Trump up to these overtly Catholic overtures. There's no way Trump came up with these ideas on his own. After all, I don’t exactly see Trump acting like a Catholic, or a Christian of any kind. Talk is cheap.

But at least he’s not sitting in on nomination hearings and suggesting that being Catholic makes someone unfit for office, as Harris did when she came dangerously close to imposing an unconstitutional religious test for public office on three occasions. In every case, Harris questioned judicial candidates’ suitability for office based on their membership in the Knights of Columbus — and, by extension, their stance on abortion.  

Setting all this aside, what do Catholics do who take a wider view of life issues? Republicans are better on abortion, and Democrats are better at social services for the poor and needy. But neither is a reliable ally when it comes to war and capital punishment.

My advice is to support the American Solidarity Party, whose platform is completely in alignment with Catholic social teaching. Peter Sonski won’t win this time around, but what’s more important: seeing a bad candidate win, or standing by your political and religious principles? We’re never going to get better candidates if we keep giving bad ones our vote, and now is as good a time as any to work toward changing the political conversation in America and living our values.

Whatever happens at the polls, let us all hope and pray for the best for the country and its people.

(Photo: ResearchGate, Creative Commons license.)