Faithful Citizenship guide leads to confusion

O my people, your leaders mislead you,
 and confuse the course of your paths.
  – Isaiah 3:12

The bishops have announced that the infamous Faithful Citizenship voting guide remains unchanged for 2012. This document has been appropriately criticized for being so ambiguous as to be meaningless and worthless as a guide for Catholic voters.

At a time when the crisis of faith is very close to a "tipping point" what the faithful need are clear directions, not some smarmy mumbo jumbo that only serves to confuse the Catholic laity. We are up against legions of anti-Christian forces that have united to topple the Church. The bishops should be generals for Christ in this war; leading the charge. But instead they are sending the troops out to fight with conflicting orders, and then locking themselves up in the safety of their Cathedrals.

The only part of the Faithful Citizenship guide that has changed is the introduction. It lists six "current and fundamental problems". The bishops' list is disheartening because they seem to have deliberately chosen just enough issues from the Democratic Party platform to neutralize the abortion issue.

Here is a video of Cardinal Raymond Burke, the Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, speaking about how Catholics should vote on the issue of abortion. Notice that he is very direct and doesn't engage in the kind of two-faced language of the Faithful Citizenship document.



After the 2008 presidential elections, Cardinal Burke said that the Faithful Citizenship guide “led to confusion” among the voting Catholic population. He added the following comment.

“While it stated that the issue of life was the first and most important issue, it went on in some specific areas to say ‘but there are other issues’ that are of comparable importance without making necessary distinctions.”

Thanks to the decision by the bishops to leave the voting guide unchanged, the confusion begins once again in the 2012 elections. But this is apparently exactly what the bishops want. And yet they complain that in the past the document has been "misused to present an incomplete or distorted view of the demands of faith in politics."

What do the bishops expect? Such a vague and ambiguous document seems designed for each side to either spin to their advantage, or simply ignore as irrelevant. The new introduction even contains this totally baffling statement:

"It does not offer a voters guide, scorecard of issues, or direction on how to vote."

In other words it's a voters guide that offers no guidance. In fact we shouldn't even call it a "voters guide". That may work well in the absurd zen world of one hand clapping; but the Catholic Church guided by the Holy Spirit should be able to provide a clear direction for the faithful. Especially in times like these when the enemy is so clear. We are at a point where the very existence of the Church is at stake. So all the other issues fall by the wayside.

Abortion is at the heart of the dragon-like culture of death. Thrust a sword through this dragon's heart and the monster will be defeated.