We Now back into the liturgical Ordinary Time of the Year, for just a few weeks before Lent starts, our attention shifts from commemorating and celebrating historical events, such as Christmas, Epiphany, and the Baptism of the Lord to discipleship, or as we have been saying, what we’re going to do in our own lives about all these events.

With all the media coverage about the presidential primaries that we’ve been hearing and will be seeing well into the spring, I hope it will be helpful to review some points on how we can be both good disciples of the Lord Jesus and good citizens at the same time.

Now let me reassure you: this is not going to be a political speech. (and this is always very delicate to have to speak about.) But in no way am I trying to infringe or intrude upon every American’s sacred right to vote.  Nor is this reflection about any political party.

I’m just drawing upon document that came in last week from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington.

To begin, the American Catholic Bishops note that our country is facing a group of unique political challenges, the likes of which we haven’t ever before in our history:

The war experience and its human costs,

Divisions over race and ethnicity,

Immigrants struggling with immigration laws that need to be reformed,

Drastic differences between the rich and poor, the haves and the have-nots,

The threats of terrorism here and abroad,

Care of the environment,

And the life issues from abortion to stability of traditional marriage to capital punishment,

And certainly the need for health care reform.

Discipleship connects with citizenship, not just in “rendering to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God’s,” as Jesus said, but even more importantly as living out His command to love one another. (John 13:34)

Pope Benedict expands on this in his first encyclical - God is love.

He says “charity must animate the entire lives of all and therefore also our political activity, lived as ‘social charity.’”

Therefore, our nation’s tradition of many faiths and ethnic cultures is enhanced, not threatened, when religious groups and people of faith bring their values and convictions into public life.

Our bishops insist that the Catholic community itself brings to the political dialogue a consistent moral framework and broad, historical experience serving those in need.

That is why, in the Catholic Tradition, responsible citizenship, abiding by legitimately passed laws and participating in political life, at least by voting, is a moral obligation.

And in order to do this effectively, we have to have well-formed consciences.

What is a well-formed conscience these days?

Really, not much different than it’s ever been.

It starts with being as informed as possible about the issues and challenges mentioned above.

The war,

Racial and ethnic diversity,

Poverty,

Terrorism,

Environment and global-warming,

All the life issues,

Health care reform

And the economy and unemployment, to name the major challenges.

Then, after we’ve become as informed as we can, we ask ourselves what would the Lord do in these situations.

And that’s where, of course, there will be as many different answers as there are people voting, because we all see life through our own eyes, and not anybody’s else’s.

But in a democracy such as ours is in America, we vote on candidates who will represent our personal decisions on these issues.

And that’s the last part of the process: we are good disciples of the Lord, and at the same time, good citizens of the USA when we look around at the candidates who are running, and then, in the spirit of what we think Jesus would want, we vote for the ones we think will be able to succeed in making the differences we want to see in the future.

So, Thank you.