Cardinal seeks study of major issues, not telling people how to vote

Published: 2004-04-27

ROME (CNS) -- When church leaders speak out about major issues like abortion during an election campaign, they are not telling people how to vote, Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington said. Instead, they are encouraging Catholics to study the candidates' positions on a wide range of questions and weigh them all very carefully, Cardinal McCarrick said in an interview with Catholic News Service April 27. Life issues like abortion and euthanasia come first because "without life, you cannot have any other human values," the cardinal said. But the church is not a single-issue institution, he said. "One (issue) may be primary, but there are many issues that have to be considered. There are probably people who are with us on one issue but against us on many other issues. All these things have to be weighed very carefully -- without giving anybody any direction on how they should vote," he said.

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