What are we to do with church voter guides?

By J. Basil Dannebohm

Recently, a reader sent me a message expressing her displeasure at a situation which transpired in her Catholic parish.

Her message read in part:

“I’m livid. Our newly assigned priest used his sermon to tell us – by name – who to vote for in the midterms. After mass, there were ushers handing out voter guides in the lobby. Shouldn’t this crap be illegal?”

While the Evangelical movement has been intermingling politics and religion since its inception, the trend wasn’t commonplace in American Catholicism until the so-called “pro-life” movement’s “Summer of Mercy.” Since then, the Church has largely devolved into a lobbying arm of the GOP.

Make no mistake, however, while other denominations are playing catch-up, most of them are meddling in elections, too.

In August 2024, the National Religious Broadcasters Association sued the Internal Revenue Service, alleging their First Amendment rights to the freedom of speech and religion were violated. A little less than a year later, a joint court filing said that pastors who endorse political candidates from the pulpit shouldn't have to risk putting their churches’ tax-exempt status in jeopardy.

An article in The New York Times quoted Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, who said, “It basically tells churches of all denominations and sects that you’re free to support candidates from the pulpit. It also says to all candidates and parties, ‘Hey, time to recruit some churches.’”

A couple of years ago, a well-known Catholic priest photoshopped an image of himself with Donald Trump's hair. He launched a military-esque apostolate dubbed "Grace Force," and a podcast on which he promotes right-wing political views and offered to pay the legal fees of those implicated in the January 6th insurrection.

Then there’s the case of the priest who placed an aborted fetus on an altar, urging his followers to support Donald Trump. Another well-known social media priest once claimed, "You cannot be a Democrat and be a Christian."

In fact, he's not just wrong, his statement is abhorrently stupid and absurdly dangerous.

The political propaganda being pitched by the American Catholic Church: from pulpits, in parking lots, and in narthexes over the last few weeks takes a page from the same voter guides that instructed the faithful to vote for Donald Trump because he was “the pro-life candidate.”

Since then, the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops has been eating crow for their support of a megalomaniac who sends the least of these to places like “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Yet back when they stopped just short of endorsing him by name, political prelates didn’t seem to mind the fact that Mr. Trump had a track record of disparaging people with mental and physical disabilities, women, minorities, and “the left.” Neither did they seem to care that he was a convicted felon, an alleged rapist, and had an infamous history with a predator.

Pro-life, eh?

Therein lies one of the many flaws of said voter guides.

The organizations that publish the propaganda pieces are run by cafeteria Catholics. They go down the line, picking and choosing what tenets of the faith suit their political appetites, disregarding that which contradicts them.

Most of them aren’t pro-life. They’re pro-birth. They completely ignore the Church’s very clear teachings on ecology, social justice, the rights of women, and the death penalty.

For them, it’s all about the fetus.

During my brief time as a state legislator, I remember visiting with a nationally recognized and respected member of the pro-life movement. As we discussed the goals of her work, I remarked, “I suspect you hope to see the day that abortion is outlawed, and you can sit back and reflect on a life and mission well lived.”

“Well, not too soon,” the activist replied. “I want to be able to enjoy a ‘well lived’ life. If lawmakers like you ban abortion too soon, I will be out of a very well-paying job. I’m sure you can understand.”

On the contrary, I neither understand, nor condone hypocrisy. She wasn’t the only one within that movement who expressed such sentiments. Over the years, I’ve heard it quite a few times.

When it comes to voters’ guides being pitched by churches, regardless of the denomination, my advice remains the same:

Throw the damn thing away.

If you want to know where a candidate REALLY stands, don’t take them at their word or follow the advice of some guidebook. Rather, look at their voting record and FEC filings, both of which are public record.

The most efficacious countercultural revolution an individual can wage in a society that embraces anti-intellectualism, information silos, cults of personality, and algorithms, is to think for oneself.