Fr. Mike's Message - 11/02/2020 - Saint Francis Borgia

Dear SFB Parish Family,

Thank you for all of your prayers and support as Fr. Tony has dealt with Covid-19 and as I have had to quarantine. This is not what either of us would choose to do, but we want to do our part to contribute to everyone's health and safety. Again, we are so appreciative of your prayers and support!

As we prepare to head to the polls in a couple of days, I want to share again some of the information I offered a couple of weeks ago regarding the upcoming election. I invite all of us to take our privilege and responsibility to vote seriously and in the context of faith. While I wouldn’t dare to tell you how to vote, it is the responsibility of each of us to vote according to our conscience and to have a well formed conscience enlightened by our faith. A good resource for reflection prior to voting comes to us from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) entitled Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship. You can find it on the USCCB website at www.usccb.org or at this link: https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/faithful-citizenship/forming-consciences-for-faithful-citizenship-title.

In a recent column in the St. Louis Review, Archbishop Rozanski highlights two important applications from the USCCB document, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,

“If I can highlight just two points from the document, to help form and challenge the consciences of everyone in preparation for the election, it would be these.
First: If you don’t hold that abortion is the pre-eminent moral issue of our time, and if you don’t struggle to justify voting for a candidate whose record or policy would favor or even expand abortion, then you probably aren’t forming a Catholic conscience in preparation to vote. Second: If you think that other serious issues like race, immigration and the environment can be dismissed or ignored, and if you don’t struggle to justify voting for a candidate whose record or policy would be contrary to Catholic teaching on these matters, then you probably aren’t forming a Catholic conscience in preparation to vote.”

Thank you for your attention to this matter and for doing our part to participate in the life of our country by taking our responsibility as citizens seriously. Let’s pray for God’s wisdom to guide us and our nation as we choose our next leaders.

Be well. Have a great week. Hope to see you soon.

Have a great week!
Fr. Mike Boehm