Trenton, N.J., Aug 12, 2008 / 09:48 am
The Bishop of Trenton, New Jersey, has responded to an article in the Times of Trenton entitled, “U.S. bishops: Vote your conscience.” In his response, Bishop Smith states that the article trivialized “the issues and voting choices facing Catholics this year,” and failed to provide the readers with an adequate understanding of the U.S. bishops’ document, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.”
The July 30 issue of the Times of Trenton published an article summarizing the bishop’s statement, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.” However, Bishop Smith writes that, the article “failed to provide readers with an adequate understanding of this program and misrepresented the very spirit of the document.”
Explaining that the Times’ summary “is a serious oversimplification,” and that it “undermines the core message of their statement,” Bishop Smith writes “that Catholics are called to form their consciences in order to exercise faithful citizenship.”
The Bishop of Trenton gives a more detailed explanation of what this means in his reply: Forming one’s conscience “requires serious engagement and commitment” that “does not begin or end at the polling booth. We are even told how to form our consciences, beginning with a ‘willingness and openness to seek the truth and what is right through the study of sacred Scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church and continuing with an examination of the background related to the choices before us. We are told that forming our conscience also requires ‘prayerful reflection to discern the will of God’ (Section 18).”