The importance of election and how believers should conduct themselves in the voting both.

Our late Pope, Blessed John Paul II released a letter for the whole world entitled, Christi Fidelis laiti-the Christian faithful. He said in this Encyclical letter (meaning a letter to encircle the globe for all men to hear) “Above the common outcry which is justly made on behalf of human rights; for example the right to health; to home, to work, to family, to culture is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other human rights, is not defended with maximum determination (my emphasis).”

John Paul went on to say that “human dignity is the most precious possession of a individual. The value of one person transcends the entire material world.”

This bears repeating!!! The value of one person transcends the entire material world!

The Church as never ceased to proclaim that all human rights are universal, indivisible, inter-dependent and interrelated.

In fact, the representatives of the Catholic Church to the United Nations have never fail to emphasis this fact of human dignity. The recognition of the gift in which we all share is the very basis for everything that we do whether spiritual economic or social. Without this recognition of the human dignity of every human being born or unborn there is no reason to speak of human rights or freedom.

And so it is very clear that the right to life is the first in our consideration of what is important in a given election.

The protection of human life is the fundamental realization and respect for human rights. Without this realization, this respect for human life, no other discussion for human rights can continue.

And so the Church will never yield in the face of all the violations that the right to life that every human being receives from individuals or from those in authority.

When the bishops of world came together in the 1960’s in what is know as the Second Vatican Council, they said and taught the great truth that all offenses against human life, including genocide, murder and abortion are poison for human society.

The relationship and inter connectedness between the recognition of human dignity, the right to life and the protection of other human rights and fundamental freedom are the fundamental action.

Too many people refuse to discuss the human dignity of every human person; refuse to recognize that gift that binds all human beings together-the gift of human dignity.

The right to life is the fundamental good to preserve in any election. There are those even within the Church who will try to distort and hide this fact which is commonsense. Without life, we don’t have anything.

Let us not let any candidate continue in any discussion of human rights, such as health care or social welfare, when such candidate refuses to recognize the human dignity and the right to life of every human person including the human person within the womb. And contrary to what some candidates of both political parties say, it is a scientific fact, not a matter of faith, that Human life begins at conception; and so, it is a scientific fact that it is a Human Person that is present at conception.

We would never vote for a candidate who doesn’t denounce terrorism but says, “I disagree with you on terrorism but I support health care reform.”

Any candidate who did not denounce terrorism would be unfit for public office. So too the candidate who does not denounce abortion, euthanasia, experimentation on life or other crimes against the human person; he or she is unfit for public office!

This is not just a matter of faith; it is a matter of human dignity and the protection of the life of every human person.

We are all bound together as human persons. Unless we protect one another and each human person we will all suffer the consequences. Our vote has eternal consequence for us and for other souls. As Catholics and believers, we cannot vote for a pro-death candidate without placing our soul in mortal peril! And I would add here, any person believer or not places their soul in mortal danger who votes for a candidate who denies the right to life of every human person. This so by reason of that truth which is written on every human heart. There are things that we all can not not know.

Solidarity binding us together as human beings. As the saying in the Jewish faith goes, “To save one life is to save the world!” Holy Mary Mother of God and mother of every human person, Pray for us. Amen.