A national confraternity of Catholic priests and deacons has released an app that offers moral principles for Catholics to learn about and use before voting this November. The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy explained in a press release about the new app: “Although there are several important issues voters need to consider when electing political leaders, the fundamental right to life is the foundational issue.” On the app’s website, there is a page on the right to life, which emphasizes that abortion, euthanasia, genocide, terrorism, human cloning, and research on human embryos are all intrinsic evils. The other webpages on the site focus on the topics of religious liberty, economy, and immigration. As CatholicVote previously reported, the Catholic bishops of Colorado recently issued a list on what values need to be prioritized when voting. The bishops put the sanctity of life as the primary value. The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy’s new app can be downloaded onto smartphones, tablets, or other devices. The webpage offers a prompt about downloading it or adding it to the homescreen of the electronic device, to serve as an app. The app is non-partisan and is meant “to be a tool to help voters make an intelligent decision and to bring their well formed conscience into the voting booth on Election Day,” the Confraternity states on the app’s main webpage. The statement adds that citizens of democratic republics are morally obligated to vote and Catholics must strive “to affiliate with political parties that coincide with one’s moral conscience and ensure that their policies and platforms do not endorse anything evil.” Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of the Archdiocese of San Francisco currently serves as the group’s episcopal advisor, according to the Confraternity’s website. The criteria provided on each of the issues are based on a letter on receiving Holy Communion worthily by then-Cardinal Prefect Josef Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, and on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) 2011 document “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.”
Born during the turbulent era of the French Revolution, Saint Jeanne Jugan rose above hardship and a lack of formal schooling to become a profound vessel of Christ’s mercy. After losing her father at a young age and working through her youth as a kitchen maid and nurse, her life radically changed one freezing night when she encountered a blind, paralyzed elderly woman with nowhere to go. Jeanne carried the woman back to her own home, placed her in her own bed, and began a lifelong mission of radical hospitality. This act of profound love blossomed into the Little Sisters of the Poor , a thriving community dedicated to sheltering and honoring the destitute elderly. Despite later facing heavy trials—including being unjustly sidelined and stripped of her leadership by a controlling chaplain—Jeanne accepted her obscurity and exile with a joyful spirit, resting her complete trust in God's hidden providence until her death in 1879. In our daily lives, Saint Jeanne Jugan invites us to lo...
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