BY Ian Dunn | April 10 2015 | 
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Church, charity aim to equip voters ahead of May 7 election
Publication Date: 2015-04-10
Two new guides aim to help Catholics make an informed choice when voting in May’s general election.
The Scottish Catholic Parliamentary Office has issued an online voters’ guide that aims to ‘identify the key areas which voters and politicians will find useful in the Church’s teaching.’ In addition the new engaGE15 website is an initiative from Christian public policy charity CARE to promote active engagement in the general election.
John Deighan, the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland’s parliamentary officer said, ahead of a formal election statement by the bishops [read here], ‘the Church’s role in politics is not to provide details of policies but she does provide sure principles which allow those in politics to build programmes based on a realistic understanding of human nature and society which arises from that nature.’
“Social problems seem to multiply and demand that increasing efforts and resources be found to deal with them,” he said. “The remedy includes a greater participation in politics by those committed to the common good and with an understanding of the values rooted by Catholic social teaching.”
The engaGE15 website provides a range of resources to empower Christian thinking about important issues and voter participation.
Gordon Macdonald, (above), parliamentary officer for CARE for Scotland, said he understood many Christians ‘struggle to decide who to vote for as all the mainstream political parties have a fairly secularist agenda.’
“Although most UK political parties have Christian roots, the rise of secularism has made it increasingly difficult for Christians to identify with any one political party’s whole policy programme,” he said. “We are called to live in, whilst not subscribing to the values of, the world and that includes politics.”
The new website carries information on the voting record of MPs on key moral issues such as abortion and assisted suicide. There will also be information on local Church hustings that are taking place across Scotland.
Mr Macdonald said that ‘increasingly Christians in Britain are coming under pressure for expressing their Christian faith.’
“The purpose of local church hustings or the election question times is to allow us to be informed about the views of candidates and the policies of their parties,” he added
—Read the full version of this story in the April 10 edition of the SCO in parishes from Friday.
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