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 Bishop James Conley, “Catholics have an obligation to vote.”
Bishop Conley: “Voting Helps Protect the Unborn, the Family,
the Poor, and the Freedom of Conscience”
Courageous Priest News Flash: Happy All Saints Day! I am giddy like a little school boy, our family is going to visit the grave site of Servant of God Augustus Tolton, the first African American priest in the United States. Please don’t forget to visit the graveyards, you may receive plenary indulgences for the Holy Souls until November 8th.
We are proud to announce that we are teaming up the with Conception Abbey Printery Press. By doing so we will share in the apostolic labors of the monks of Conception Abbey. They will be sponsoring our posts from now until Christmas. We will be featuring Christmas Cards, scented soaps made by the nuns, Nativities, and Keepsake Religious boxes.
We also plan on doing the Christmas Calendars again. More to come on that hopefully in the next week.
By Bishop James D. Conley: Southern Nebraska Register
Election Day is a reminder of our obligation to one another—our obligation to support the common good, and to build a civilization of love.
Voting is a civic duty.
Sadly, many Catholics in our state do not vote on Election Day. I don’t understand why. I have never missed voting in an election ever since I reached voting age. Even during my 12 years of living in Rome, I never missed voting in an election year through an absentee ballot. Voting is a means of expressing our hopes for our communities, a means of pursuing justice, and of building a culture of life. Voting is a means to help protect the unborn, the family, the poor, and the freedom of conscience and faith in public life. Voting is a civic duty. It seems to me that not voting, unless there are very grave reasons to abstain, is a sin—and when we fail to vote for reasons no better than apathy or forgetfulness, we ought to confess that.
Whenever possible, Catholics have an obligation to vote—particularly when critical issues are at stake. Today, in our country, critical issues are certainly at stake. Abortion remains our national shame. Our failure to protect the unborn is a failure of the highest magnitude. The right to life is the foundational human right.
Religious people are being systematically marginalized in public life, in business, and in schools. The sanctity of marriage as we have always known it, is being undermined. The family, and the right of children to have mothers and fathers, is under attack.
And the dignity of the poor, whom we are called to love zealously, is often undermined by policy initiatives and greed.
We are connected to every single member of our community—living or dead. We ought to pray for them. And we ought to do all that we can to build a culture of justice, of liberty, and a culture of life.
Slight editing
Bishop James D. Conley
 from Courageous Priest
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