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Catholic Teaching On Tough Issues

Catholic Teaching On Tough Issues

Last updated on: October 5, 2026 at 4:02 pm by Mark Wilson

Catholic Teaching On Tough Issues 2026-10-05T16:02:45-05:00 Mark Wilson

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Here is what the Church, which in this article includes the Papal Magisterium and the USCCB, teaches on various contemporary spiritual and social issues that many of the Catholic faithful find difficult and challenging. There are a few comments from Catholic writers when needed to clarify a particular issue more clearly. This is not a complete list by any means but just some of the various issues I see come up in debate and discussion with various Catholics on social media.

Quirinale.it

Spiritual Issues

Hell

Facing Hell: What Catholic Teaching Says About The Afterlife |
A Resource Of Articles On Th Catholic Teaching Of Hell And The Four Last Things.

Hell is Real

CCC 1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, “eternal fire.”615 The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.

God Wants No One to Go to Hell

CCC 1058 The Church prays that no one should be lost: “Lord, let me never be parted from you.” If it is
true that no one can save himself, it is also true that God “desires all men to be saved” (1 Tim 2:4),
and that for him “all things are possible” (Mt 19:26).

Vatican II

The Second Vatican Council | USCCB

When Pope Saint John XXIII opened the Council on 11 October 1962, he spoke of it as the dawn of a day of light for the whole Church. The work of the numerous Fathers convened from the Churches of all continents did indeed pave the way for a new ecclesial season. After a rich biblical, theological and liturgical reflection spanning the twentieth century, Vatican Council II rediscovered the face of God as the Father who, in Christ, calls us to be his children; it looked at the Church in the light of Christ, light of nations, as a mystery of communion and sacrament of unity between God and his people; it initiated important liturgical reform, placing at its centre the mystery of salvation and the active and conscious participation of the entire People of God. At the same time, it helped us to open up to the world and to embrace the changes and challenges of the modern age in dialogue and co-responsibility, as a Church that wishes to open her arms to humanity, to echo the hopes and anxieties of peoples, and to collaborate in building a more just and fraternal society.

Thanks to Vatican Council II, the Church “has something to say, a message to give, a communication to make” (Saint Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Ecclesiam suam, 65), striving to seek the truth by way of ecumenism, interreligious dialogue and dialogue with people of good will.
Pope Leo XIV – General Audience of 7 January 2026 – Catechesis. Vatican Council II through its Documents. Introductory catechesis

Fraternity of Saint Peter and the Traditional Latin Mass

The Holy Father Francis, grants to each and every member of the Society of Apostolic Life “Fraternity of Saint Peter”, founded on July 18, 1988 and declared of “Pontifical Right” by the Holy See, the faculty to celebrate the sacrifice of the Mass, and to carry out the sacraments and other sacred rites, as well as to fulfill the Divine Office, according to the typical editions of the liturgical books, namely the Missal, the Ritual, the Pontifical and the Roman Breviary, in force in the year 1962.-Decree of Pope Francis confirming the use of the 1962 liturgical books – FSSP

Following a request presented by the Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, Pope Leo XIV received Father John Berg in private audience at the Vatican on Monday, January 19, 2026. He was accompanied by Father Josef Bisig, one of the founders of the Fraternity, former Superior General, and current Rector of Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, USA.

The cordial half-hour meeting was an opportunity to present to the Holy Father in greater detail the foundation and history of the Fraternity, as well as the various forms of apostolate that it has been offering to the faithful for almost 38 years. The proper law and charism that guide the sanctification of its members were recalled.

This audience also provided an opportunity to evoke any misunderstandings and obstacles that the Fraternity encounters in certain places and to answer questions from the Supreme Pontiff. At the end of this meeting, Pope Leo XIV gave his blessing, which he extended to all members of the Fraternity.

The Fraternity of St. Peter is grateful to the Holy Father for offering this opportunity to meet with him.
Audience with Pope Leo XIV – FSSP

“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too…  It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.”– Benedict XVI
Who We Are – Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter

Receiving Communion

Those who receive Communion may receive either in the hand or on the tongue, and the decision should be that of the individual receiving, not of the person distributing Communion. If Communion is received in the hand, the hands should first of all be clean. If one is right handed the left hand should rest upon the right. The host will then be laid in the palm of the left hand and then taken by the right hand to the mouth. If one is left-handed this is reversed. It is not appropriate to reach out with the fingers and take the host from the person distributing.
The Reception of Holy Communion at Mass | USCCB

Reading the Bible

A key concept for understanding the sacred text as the word of God in human words is certainly that of inspiration. Here too we can suggest an analogy: as the word of God became flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, so sacred Scripture is born from the womb of the Church by the power of the same Spirit. Sacred Scripture is “the word of God set down in writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit”. In this way one recognizes the full importance of the human author who wrote the inspired texts and, at the same time, God himself as the true author.

Saint Jerome recalls that we can never read Scripture simply on our own. We come up against too many closed doors and we slip too easily into error. The Bible was written by the People of God for the People of God, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Only in this communion with the People of God can we truly enter as a “we” into the heart of the truth that God himself wishes to convey to us. Jerome, for whom “ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ”, states that the ecclesial dimension of biblical interpretation is not a requirement imposed from without: the Book is the very voice of the pilgrim People of God, and only within the faith of this People are we, so to speak, attuned to understand sacred Scripture. An authentic interpretation of the Bible must always be in harmony with the faith of the Catholic Church. He thus wrote to a priest: “Remain firmly attached to the traditional doctrine that you have been taught, so that you may exhort according to sound doctrine and confound those who contradict it”

Benedict XVI Verbum Domini: Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church (30 September 2010)

Devotion to sacred Scripture, a “living and tender love” for the written word of God: this is the legacy that Saint Jerome bequeathed to the Church by his life and labours. Medieval Europe learned to read, pray and think from the pages of the Bible translated by Jerome.In this way, “sacred Scripture became a sort of ‘immense lexicon’ (Paul Claudel) and ‘iconographic atlas’ (Marc Chagall), from which both Christian culture and art could draw”.[42] Literature, art and even popular language have continually been shaped by Jerome’s translation of the Bible, leaving us great treasures of beauty and devotion.
Pope Francis –Library : Scripturae Sacrae Affectus (Devotion to Sacred Scripture) | Catholic Culture

Ecumenism

Catholics, in their ecumenical work, must assuredly be concerned for their separated brethren, praying for them, keeping them informed about the Church, making the first approaches toward them. But their primary duty is to make a careful and honest appraisal of whatever needs to be done or renewed in the Catholic household itself, in order that its life may bear witness more clearly and faithfully to the teachings and institutions which have come to it from Christ through the Apostles.

For although the Catholic Church has been endowed with all divinely revealed truth and with all means of grace, yet its members fail to live by them with all the fervor that they should, so that the radiance of the Church’s image is less clear in the eyes of our separated brethren and of the world at large, and the growth of God’s kingdom is delayed. All Catholics must therefore aim at Christian perfection(24) and, each according to his station, play his part that the Church may daily be more purified and renewed. For the Church must bear in her own body the humility and dying of Jesus,(25) against the day when Christ will present her to Himself in all her glory without spot or wrinkle.(26)

All in the Church must preserve unity in essentials. But let all, according to the gifts they have received enjoy a proper freedom, in their various forms of spiritual life and discipline, in their different liturgical rites, and even in their theological elaborations of revealed truth. In all things let charity prevail. If they are true to this course of action, they will be giving ever better expression to the authentic catholicity and apostolicity of the Church.

On the other hand, Catholics must gladly acknowledge and esteem the truly Christian endowments from our common heritage which are to be found among our separated brethren. It is right and salutary to recognize the riches of Christ and virtuous works in the lives of others who are bearing witness to Christ, sometimes even to the shedding of their blood. For God is always wonderful in His works and worthy of all praise.
DECREE ON ECUMENISM –Unitatis redintegratio

The Council states that the Church of Christ “subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him”, and at the same time acknowledges that “many elements of sanctification and of truth can be found outside her visible structure. These elements, however, as gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, possess an inner dynamism towards Catholic unity”

Thanks to ecumenism, our contemplation of “the mighty works of God” (mirabilia Dei) has been enriched by new horizons, for which the Triune God calls us to give thanks: the knowledge that the Spirit is at work in other Christian Communities, the discovery of examples of holiness, the experience of the immense riches present in the communion of saints, and contact with unexpected dimensions of Christian commitment. In a corresponding way, there is an increased sense of the need for repentance: an awareness of certain exclusions which seriously harm fraternal charity, of certain refusals to forgive, of a certain pride, of an unevangelical insistence on condemning the “other side”, of a disdain born of an unhealthy presumption. Thus, the entire life of Christians is marked by a concern for ecumenism; and they are called to let themselves be shaped, as it were, by that concern.=

One of the advantages of ecumenism is that it helps Christian Communities to discover the unfathomable riches of the truth. Here too, everything that the Spirit brings about in “others” can serve for the building up of all Communities 65 and in a certain sense instruct them in the mystery of Christ. Authentic ecumenism is a gift at the service of truth.
St. Pope John Paul II Ut Unum Sint (25 May 1995)

I earnestly appeal to all believers, and especially theologians, to set their minds on Christ and his Gospel. Let us return, with deep devotion, to our common roots, to the faith of the early Church and the Church Fathers, in order to rediscover the apostolic and pre-confessional heritage which truly unites us as brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters in Christ.

Christ must not become a “foreign word” in our world. Our world needs ecumenical witnesses to Christ who make him known through their lives and actions, for Christ alone is the living source capable of fulfilling humanity’s deepest longings.
Pope Leo XIV To the Delegation of the Lutheran World Federation (1 October 2026)

Private Revelation

God is present and active in our history. The Holy Spirit, who flows from the heart of the risen Christ, works in the Church with divine freedom and offers us many valuable gifts that aid us on the path of life and encourage our spiritual growth in fidelity to the Gospel. This action of the Holy Spirit can also reach our hearts through certain supernatural occurrences, such as apparitions or visions of Christ or the Blessed Virgin, and other phenomena.

God is always present in human history and never stops bestowing his gifts of grace upon us through the workings of the Holy Spirit, daily renewing our faith in Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. It is the responsibility of the pastors of the Church to keep their faithful always attentive to this loving presence of the Most Holy Trinity in our midst, as it is also their duty to protect the faithful from all deception. These new Norms are but one way in which the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith places itself at the service of the pastors of the Church in docile listening to the Spirit at work in the faithful People of God.

Norms for proceeding in the Discernment of alleged Supernatural Phenomena (17 May 2024)

Il Presidente della Repubblica Sergio Mattarella incontra Papa Francesco

Social and Moral Issues

Prejudice

Anti-Muslim bigotry is not unrelated to anti-Judaism and antisemitism in the histories of Europe, North America, and the Catholic Church. Similar
stereotypes have been leveled against Muslims and Jews, and both groups have faced discrimination, albeit differently, in Christian Europe. The Church’s ongoing commitment to improve Catholic-Muslim relations is a natural extension of its obligation to seek reconciliation with the Jewish people, their faith, traditions, and culture.

In earlier generations of American history—and sometimes still today—Catholics were wrongly portrayed as untrustworthy, oppressive to women, disloyal, and intent on imposing our law and way of life on others. Jews, Mormons, Asian-Americans, Africans and African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, and other groups have also been smeared with harmful and untrue stereotypes. Today, Muslims in the U.S. and elsewhere also face unfair stereotyping, and it’s important that we be aware of what those problematic stereotypes are.

Just as we would not want others to define Catholicism and the Church by our worst moments in history or our present-day sins, we must avoid making generalizations about Muslims and engaging in collective blame. Stereotypes make us perceive the other group as one-dimensional and
monolithic, and can lead us to make unfair and untrue contrasts between ‘us’ and ‘them’. –Islamophobia A Guide for US Catholics on Anti-Muslim Bigotry.pdf

True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ;(13) still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should see to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching of the word of God they do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ.

Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel’s spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.

Besides, as the Church has always held and holds now, Christ underwent His passion and death freely, because of the sins of men and out of infinite love, in order that all may reach salvation. It is, therefore, the burden of the Church’s preaching to proclaim the cross of Christ as the sign of God’s all-embracing love and as the fountain from which every grace flows.
Nostra aetate

Racism is a serious offense against God precisely because it violates the innate dignity of the human person. At its core racism is a failure to love our neighbor. Since we cannot claim to love God unless we love our neighbor, we can only be one with God if we reject racism and work aggressively to remove it from our personal lives, our church, and our society.
In God’s Image: Pastoral Letter on Racism, Archbishop Harry Flynn of Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, 2003, #30.
Papal Encyclicals and Pastoral Letters Addressing Racism

Persecution of Christians

The horror of the persecution taking place in the world today, as terrorists cut the throats of Christians in the “complicit silence of so many authorities”, began with Jesus himself and has continued throughout the history of the Church. This is why Christianity cannot exist without martyrdom. The witness of the Armenian community, which is being “persecuted simply for the fact of being Christian”, must teach each person to have the same courage as those martyrs, in case “one day persecution should happen here”

“May the Lord make us feel today in the body of the Church the love of our martyrs and also our martyrial vocation. We do not know what will happen here. We don’t know!”. But, should this persecution happen here one day, may the Lord give us the grace of testimonial courage that all of these Christian martyrs had and especially the Christians of the Armenian people”.
Persecuted for being Christian (7 September 2015)

Dear friends, throughout the history of the Church, it is above all the martyrs who remind us that God’s grace is capable of transforming even violence into a sign of redemption. Therefore, joining with our brothers and sisters who suffer for the name of Jesus, let us confidently seek the intercession of Mary, Help of Christians. In every trial and difficulty, may the Blessed Virgin console and sustain us.

Christians today are still suffering from discrimination and persecution in various parts of the world. In particular, I think of Bangladesh, Nigeria, Mozambique, Sudan and other countries from which we often hear news of attacks on communities and places of worship. God is a merciful Father, and he desires peace among all his children! My prayers are with the families in Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where in recent days there has been a massacre of civilians, with at least twenty victims of a terrorist attack. Let us pray that all violence will cease, and that believers will work together for the common good.
Pope Leo XVI Angelus, 16 November 2025

LGBT Issues

From General Principles | USCCB

Prejudice Against LGBT is against Catholic Teaching

In keeping with this conviction, the Church teaches that persons with a homosexual inclination “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.”2 We recognize that these persons have been, and often continue to be, objects of scorn, hatred, and even violence in some sectors of our society. Sometimes this hatred is manifested clearly; other times, it is masked and gives rise to more disguised forms of hatred. “It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church’s pastors wherever it occurs.”

Homosexual Acts Are Against Catholic Teaching

By its very nature, the sexual act finds its proper fulfillment in the marital bond. Any sexual act that takes place outside the bond of marriage does not fulfill the proper ends of human sexuality. Such an act is not directed toward the expression of marital love with an openness to new life. It is disordered in that it is not in accord with this twofold end and is thus morally wrong. “Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.”

Homosexual Inclination Is Not Sinful

While the Church teaches that homosexual acts are immoral, she does distinguish between engaging in homosexual acts and having a homosexual inclination. While the former is always objectively sinful, the latter is not. To the extent that a homosexual tendency or inclination is not subject to one’s free will, one is not morally culpable for that tendency. Although one would be morally culpable if one were voluntarily to entertain homosexual temptations or to choose to act on them, simply having the tendency is not a sin. Consequently, the Church does not teach that the experience of homosexual attraction is in itself sinful.

Heterosexuals Also Have Disordered Passions

The homosexual inclination is objectively disordered, i.e., it is an inclination that predisposes one toward what is truly not good for the human person.14 Of course, heterosexual persons not uncommonly have disordered sexual inclinations as well. It is not enough for a sexual inclination to be heterosexual for it to be properly ordered. For example, any tendency toward sexual pleasure that is not subordinated to the greater goods of love and marriage is disordered, in that it inclines a person towards a use of sexuality that does not accord with the divine plan for creation. There is the intrinsic disorder of what is directed toward that which is evil in all cases (contra naturam). There is also the accidental disorder of what is not properly ordered by right reason, what fails to attain the proper measure of virtue (contra rationem).

Immigration

What The Church Teaches About Abortion And Immigration |
What The Catholic Church Teaches About Abortion And Immigration

PIUS XII: The question of immigration today however presents entirely new problems. As always the welfare of the country must be considered as well as the interest of the individual seeking to enter, and in the nature of things circumstances will at times dictate a law of restriction. But by the same token circumstances at time will almost cry out for an easing of the application of that law. Wise legislation will ever be conscious of humanity and the calamities, distress and woes to which it is heir. –To the Members of the United States Senate of the Committee on Immigration (31 October 1947) | PIUS XII

From U.S. Bishops Issue a “Special Message” on Immigration
from Plenary Assembly in Baltimore | USCCB

Concern For Mistreatment of Immigrants

As pastors, we the bishops of the United States are bound to our people by ties of communion and compassion in Our Lord Jesus Christ. We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement. We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care. We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status. We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools. We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones.

Respect For Immigrants Does Not Mean Open Borders

We recognize that nations have a responsibility to regulate their borders and establish a just and orderly immigration system for the sake of the common good. Without such processes, immigrants face the risk of trafficking and other forms of exploitation. Safe and legal pathways serve as an antidote to such risks.

Abortion

Policy Issues | USCCB

What The Church Teaches About Abortion And Immigration |
What The Catholic Church Teaches About Abortion And Immigration

Taken From Evangelium Vitae (25 March 1995)

Abortion Has Always Been Against Church Teaching

From the beginning, the living Tradition of the Church-as shown by the Didache, the most ancient non-biblical Christian writing-categorically repeated the commandment “You shall not kill”: “There are two ways, a way of life and a way of death; there is a great difference between them… In accordance with the precept of the teaching: you shall not kill … you shall not put a child to death by abortion nor kill it once it is born … The way of death is this: … they show no compassion for the poor, they do not suffer with the suffering, they do not acknowledge their Creator, they kill their children and by abortion cause God’s creatures to perish; they drive away the needy, oppress the suffering, they are advocates of the rich and unjust judges of the poor; they are filled with every sin. May you be able to stay ever apart, o children, from all these sins!”.

Tough Choices

It is true that the decision to have an abortion is often tragic and painful for the mother, insofar as the decision to rid herself of the fruit of conception is not made for purely selfish reasons or out of convenience, but out of a desire to protect certain important values such as her own health or a decent standard of living for the other members of the family. Sometimes it is feared that the child to be born would live in such conditions that it would be better if the birth did not take place. Nevertheless, these reasons and others like them, however serious and tragic, can never justify the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.

Sometimes the woman is subjected to such strong pressure that she feels psychologically forced to have an abortion: certainly in this case moral responsibility lies particularly with those who have directly or indirectly obliged her to have an abortion. Doctors and nurses are also responsible, when they place at the service of death skills which were acquired for promoting life.

Legislator Responsibility

But responsibility likewise falls on the legislators who have promoted and approved abortion laws, and, to the extent that they have a say in the matter, on the administrators of the health-care centres where abortions are performed. A general and no less serious responsibility lies with those who have encouraged the spread of an attitude of sexual permissiveness and a lack of esteem for motherhood, and with those who should have ensured-but did not-effective family and social policies in support of families, especially larger families and those with particular financial and educational needs.

Death Penalty

The Death Penalty and Doctrinal Development –
Where Peter Is Capital Punishment and Catholic Doctrine | Robert Fastiggi

St. Pope John Paul II
Papal Mass, St. Louis, Missouri, January 27, 1999

The new evangelization calls for followers of Christ who are unconditionally pro-life: who will proclaim, celebrate and serve the Gospel of life in every situation. A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform (cf. Evangelium Vitae, 27). I renew the appeal I made most recently at Christmas for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary.
Statements from the Vatican on the Death Penalty | USCCB

Rescriptum “ex Audientia SS.mi” (1st August 2018)

NEW REVISION OF NUMBER 2267
OF THE CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
ON THE DEATH PENALTY –
RESCRIPTUM “EX AUDIENTIA SS.MI”

Recognition of Past Teaching on the Death Penalty

2267. Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.

Reason For The Revision on the Death Penalty

Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.

Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”,[1] and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.

War

Was not this the very end for which the United Nations came into existence: to be against war and for peace? Listen to the clear words of a great man who is no longer with us, John Kennedy, who proclaimed four years ago: “Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.” There is no need for a long talk to proclaim the main purpose of your Institution. It is enough to recall that the blood of millions, countless unheard-of sufferings, useless massacres and frightening ruins have sanctioned the agreement that unites you with an oath that ought to change the future history of the world: never again war, never again war! It is peace, peace, that has to guide the destiny of the nations of all mankind!
St. POPE PAUL VI Visit to the United Nations: Speech to the United Nations Organization (October 4, 1965)

Edward Feser@FeserEdward: (9:21 PM · Apr 11, 2026) Yet another reminder for those falsely accusing Pope Leo of departing from traditional teaching. Here is Pope Nicholas I in the 9th century characterizing war in terms even harsher than Leo’s, while acknowledging (as Leo has) that defense against aggressors is legitimate. (Quoted in John Eppstein, The Catholic Tradition of the Law of Nations, p. 196)

Nicholas !. Responsa ad Bulgaros, (Patrologia Latina); War is always satanic in it’s origin and you must always abstain from it. But if it be impossible to avoid it, that is in defence of oneself, of one’s country and of the laws of one’s fathers, it is without doubt lawful to make ready to meet it, even during Lent.

Pope Leo XIV@Pontifex (8:05 AM · Jun 18, 2025)

The powerful weapons used in modern wars threaten to lead us to a barbarism greater than that of the past. In the name of human dignity and international law, I repeat to those in positions of responsibility what Pope Francis used to say: ‘War is always a defeat!’ And with Pope Pius XII: ‘Nothing is lost with peace. Everything can be lost with war.’

Voting

Outlines for Clergy Formation Sessions on Faithful Citizenship.pdf

.The political realities of our nation present us with opportunities and challenges. We are a nation founded on “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” but the right to life itself is not fully protected, especially for unborn children, the terminally ill, and the elderly, the most vulnerable membersof the American family. We are called to be peacemakers in a nation at war.

We are a country pledged to pursue “liberty and justice for all,” but we are too often divided across lines of race, ethnicity, and economic inequality. We
are a nation of immigrants, struggling to address the challenges of many new immigrants in our midst. We are a society built on the strength of our families,
called to defend marriage and offer moral and economic supports for familylife. Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship – PDF (2023) | USCCB

The Pro-Life Issue

There are different interpretations of what the following quote means in terms of voting. I’ll leave it here and let the reader do further research on the matter.

A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favour of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons. Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion: General Principles (2004) | EWTN

Commentary on This Issue

Many suggested Cardinal Ratzinger was giving his blessing to voting for pro-aborts if there were enough other good things about them. But having a number of good points is not enough. As the Cardinal indicated, there must be counterbalancing reasons proportional to abortion.

Such reasons are not easy to come up with, particularly for candidates seeking offices that have the ability to impact abortion law significantly. These include the presidents who nominate Supreme Court justices and the senators who confirm them. One wants to weed out pro-abort candidates on the lowest level possible so that they can’t use their political track record to get elected to higher office. But the more impact the office has on abortion policy, the more weighty a reason must be to allow a vote for them.

What kind of reason would be needed to vote for a pro-abort candidate for president? Something unimaginably huge.
Jimmy Akin – Explaining Ratzinger’s “Proportionate Reasons” | Catholic Answers Magazine

What are “other reasons” why a Catholic may choose to vote for a pro-choice candidate? The Catholic may live in a political system in which there are only two major political parties and the field of candidates will be limited to only two who will have a viable chance of winning an election. There may be a scenario in which one of the candidates supports abortion rights but is otherwise well-qualified for office while the other claims to oppose abortion but is otherwise manifestly unfit for office. If a Catholic chooses to vote for the qualified candidate because he is able to responsibly discharge the duties of office, and not because of his support for abortion, then the Catholic is engaging in the “remote material cooperation” for which Ratzinger and the CDF allowed was morally permissible.

In a case like this, the constraints of the political system in which a Catholic finds himself with only two viable candidates from which to choose creates the “proportionate reasons” necessary to engage in the “remote material cooperation” involved in choosing the qualified candidate who favors abortion rights over the unfit candidate who claims to oppose abortion. Were there other viable candidates from which to choose, or if the choice to refrain from voting altogether didn’t create a situation in which the unfit candidate might benefit, the prudential algorithms for choosing one’s candidate would have to be adjusted accordingly.
A Catholic Apologist’s Guide To Voting As A Catholic | Michelle Arnold

Specifically, the future pope, writing in 2004, never discussed the “acceptability” of voting for a pro-choice candidate, but described the conditions under which a Catholic who voted for a pro-choice candidate would still be admitted to Holy Communion. He does not describe what proportionate reasons for participating in the politician’s evil would be, but whatever they were, it would have to be to prevent an evil proportionality greater than that of the destruction of innocent children in the womb.

When Cardinal Ratzinger’s comments are viewed within the general context of all his declarations, it’s clear that he thinks few justifications would suffice to outweigh participation in the evil of the politician’s pro-choice position and votes
Father Roger Landry – Library : How Should Catholics Vote | Catholic Culture

The Church recognizes that democratic politics is a matter of imperfect choices between inadequate or even corrupt candidates to achieve limited ends and the best result we can. Politics involves a lot of “ifs” and “what ifs” and “maybes” and best guesses and questions never quite answered. No candidate in American history has held a completely Catholic set of positions. And even if one did, we’d have to ask whether he really meant it and whether he’d really follow it. In almost every election, especially at the national level, one candidate gives you one thing the Catholic wants and takes away another thing, and his opponent does the same thing in reverse. Voting requires mature reflection and often struggle. It is not something the responsible Catholic does according to a simple formula. The Church does not tell us whom we can and can’t vote for, and here’s why

Conclusion

I’m sure given enough research I could include better examples and find more wonderful statements from the bishops and popes and perhaps other hot button issues. But here is what I found and I hope this will be a helpful resource to what the church teaches on certain issues that we as Faithful Catholics have to deal with in our current living situation.

Shalom To All

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