Time to choose: voting with a Catholic conscience.

When a born-again Methodist from Texas is touted as the Catholic candidate while the Catholic candidate from Massachusetts is treated as an apostate, you know that the Catholic community has been chopped and blended in the great American food processor. Catholics don't think alike, not about the candidates or the issues. Catholics certainly don't and won't vote as a bloc. We are more like other Americans than we are like--well, like ourselves. This diversity on policies and politicians is not a bad thing. Still, 2004 is a tough presidential election season for those who continue to think, as I do, that the Catholic tradition can help inform our political choices and shape our responsibilities as American citizens.

E. J. Dionne writes: "There is no Catholic vote," and koan-like concludes, that's why "it's important." Both campaigns believe that Catholics are the undecided voters in the swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Each candidate needs most of those states to win 270 electoral votes. I say both campaigns believe they need those votes because their polling data show that Catholics are among undecided voters who are socially conservative and economically liberal; in other words, ambivalent in their political views--they could go either way. Pollsters and political consultants are paid handsomely to divine where those voters are and what will swing them one way or the other. Republicans have homed in on the factoid that those who attend a religious service weekly are more likely to vote Republican. Ergo if you can identify Catholics who go to Mass every Sunday, deluge them with the Republicans' opposition to Roe v. Wade, stem-cell research, and gay marriage, and get them to the polls, they will vote Republican. Meanwhile, the Democrats are working for the votes of older Catholics, especially women, because they care about poor people, and of younger Catholic women because they are prochoice. Do consultants, Democrat or Republican, really understand the Catholic vote? How could they? Catholics themselves, especially the bishops, don't appear to.

So to paraphrase: Yes, there is not a Catholic vote and that's why it's important to parties, pollsters, and consultants, and a mystery to everyone else. The majority of Catholics who do not live in swing states will not be wooed by either party. We have to make up our own minds. The 2004 election is critical; some argue that it is one of the most important in the country's history. I agree, and here are the decisions I have made as a Catholic.

My first decision: I will vote. There is a billboard on Manhattan's West Side Highway that announces to northbound drivers: "100 million people made a big impact on the last election. They didn't vote!" That's almost half (49.8 percent) of the voting-age population. Sloth may be a major factor. The candidates are another. In this election, Bush and Kerry are vying for the title, "lesser of two evils." That may lead some Catholics to stay home, while others may go to the polls and vote only for dogcatcher. My friend and Commonweal columnist, John Garvey, gave his quadrennial thumbs down on the candidates in the September 10 issue. As usual, I disagree with him. On the other hand and unusually, I agree with conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks. In this election season, he writes, "Our problem is that most people are disengaged from great public matters. Consumed by private pleasures, they almost never invest their passions in dreams of a better world. We could use a little more idealistic zeal, a little more hope and confidence." We Americans could also exercise a little more responsibility for what our government does in our name and demand a little more accountability for where our resources and tax dollars go--to Halliburton, for example. In this election there can be no principled reason not to vote. We all must take responsibility for our country's actions and direction.

My second decision was to establish priority among an array of critical issues. Here are my top three.

First, what started out as a "war on terror" has become a "war with the world." Should we continue on this path?

Yes, there are terrorists. They would like to bring down the United States and the West--at least a peg or two--and they have no qualms about how to do it. The attacks of 9/11 on the World Trade Center, the explosions at the Bali nightclub and on the Spanish commuter trains, and the hostage-taking of the innocents--the school children of Beslan--have killed thousands of people and maimed thousands more. A loosely connected network of Islamic terrorists has the means, the skills, and the will to kill, to torture, and to terrorize. What will they do when they get their hands on nuclear weapons? They must be detained, contained, thwarted, and stopped. Because they are a network and not a nation, this effort has to be worldwide, cooperative, nuanced, and intelligently planned and executed. This is not what is happening today.

The Bush administration has badly bungled the struggle against terrorism by thumbing its nose at the UN, by quarreling with our allies in NATO and Europe, by invading Iraq, and by ignoring nuclear proliferation. By going to war in Iraq, it has turned not just governments, but whole populations, against American policies, while insuring the growth of A1 Qaeda-like groups and networks. As the disarray in Iraq and Afghanistan becomes ever more apparent, the Bush-Cheney campaign ignores the subject. There is no sign that any lessons have been learned from the mistakes made in Iraq: the rush to war, the cooked intelligence, the failure to deploy enough troops, the botched reconstruction, and the lost peace. It is an unjust war mounted on a lethally expansive notion of preemptive war that in a second term could also justify attacks against Iran, Syria--in fact, any place deemed a threat by the Bush administration. Indeed, what will the world conclude if the American people actually elect Bush this time? This administration cannot be trusted with the weapons and resources available to the most powerful nation in history, nor can they be trusted to pursue the struggle against terrorism.

Two domestic matters are of the utmost importance because of their long-term consequences. The first is the size of the U.S. deficit. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the deficit will be $422 billion dollars in 2004; over the next decade the federal debt could climb by $4.9 trillion. This is up (or down, depending on your viewpoint) from a budget surplus of $150 billion when Bush took office. A significant proportion of the current deficit is due to the 2001 tax cuts, which favor the have-a-lots over the haves and have-nots. Those cuts were a down payment on a flat tax, that is, a nonprogressive income tax, which the Republicans will do their best to pass if Bush is reelected. That will increase the deficit and cut off funds for domestic needs: Give the rich more, the poor less, and squeeze the middle.

The second domestic matter concerns the environment and environmental regulations. The loosening of regulations governing pollutants in our water, soil, and air have been dazzling in their pace--and, often enough, covertly adopted through executive orders. More mercury, more air polluting emissions, more clear-cutting, more strip mining, etc., are upon us. The administration's refusal to press for greater energy efficiency, especially given the volatility of oil prices and apprehensions about oil reserves in the Middle East, is utterly irresponsible. (Dare we ask how much of the $50-a-barrel oil is supporting the terrorist network through the charitable works of the Saudis?) All of this, plus outsourcing of jobs and the environmental degradation caused by U.S. companies abroad, is very much part of anything-goes capitalism to which the Bush-led Republican Party subscribes. These and the failure to support and encourage research and development on alternative energy sources--all will come to haunt if not us, then our children and grand-children. There are health consequences, there are economic penalties, and there are justice issues embedded in this degradation of our air, water, and soil.

 Blue Salvia in August

Making their soft assertions
of blue upon the walk, the last
salvia blooms fall. A mantis,

inch-long and brown, grazes
the bare seed-shafts--flagged
now in the fullness of summer.

Against each measured step, she stills,
head turned to learn how
the leaves harden against the heat.

Steve Wilson

My list may seem incomplete because I have not included two issues that at least some Catholic bishops have made their top priorities: rolling back Roe v. Wade and blocking federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. Like the bishops, I am opposed to both abortion and stem-cell research on human embryos, though polls show many Catholics are not. Are these reasons to give Bush a second term and rule Kerry out of court? Since neither candidate will have much, if any, impact on either issue, I think not.

Let me explain. Since 1980, prolife proponents have argued that a Republican president will change the law by changing the courts. Over sixteen years of Republican presidents that has not happened. How can it? No Supreme Court is going to overturn Roe. Justice David Souter said it all, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, by declaring abortion a matter of stare decisis (settled law). The law will only change when the culture changes and women change their minds about abortion. Bush has said as much, and he is right about that.

Though George W. Bush is opposed to embryonic stemcell research, he compromised by permitting the use in federally funded research of germ lines developed from embryos destroyed before he made his decision. Scientists grumbled about their quality, but they've gone ahead and used them. In the meantime, research not funded by the federal government goes on without much regulation at all. In the United States, embryonic stem-cell research is inextricably linked to the abortion struggle and has acquired all the proponents and opponents that come along with that conflict. That has clouded our ability to assess the merits and the consequences of such research. In a different political climate I doubt that such research would be high on any scientific research agenda or on the political agenda. As far as I can tell, medical advances, such as they are, come from adult stem-cell research, which is still highly experimental, uncertain in outcome, and expensive. Catholics will never convince their fellow citizens that fertilized eggs are protectible human life (indeed, most Catholics aren't convinced). Another tack is needed. We need regulations that would prohibit making embryonic tissues or genetic material a commodity to be marketed like--well, oil. Legislation banning the buying or selling of human eggs or embryonic genetic material would go a long way toward removing the profit motive implicit in the research agenda of pharmaceutical companies working to develop treatments that will require wholesale amounts of fertilized eggs. Certainly the Bush administration would never introduce such legislation--and I doubt a Kerry administration would either.

That brings me to my third and final decision: the choice between President Bush and Senator Kerry. A mind experiment asking myself, "Under what if any circumstances would you vote to give Bush a second term," came up blank. But some positive thoughts came about his defeat--think of those who would leave with him. The departure of people like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, Condoleezza Rice, Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, and Paul Wolfowitz from positions of authority would be a positive for our country and the world.

About Kerry, I have come to the following conclusions: He will be no worse than Bush. He will avoid many of the conflicts I see a second Bush administration marching into, such as Syria and Iraq. Now, when I say Kerry will be no worse, I am hoping that he will do no harm, no more harm than has already been done in our name. I don't think that means he will or can summarily end our occupation of Iraq, but I think he will be more strategic and resourceful in supporting efforts at normalization and reconstruction. He will support legitimately elected governments in Iraq and Afghanistan, though they are unlikely to be secular, freemarket, or wholly democratic. He will resume the reconstruction of Afghanistan. I don't think he will launch another unjust war. I think Kerry will begin to repair our relations with the rest of the world, with Europe, with NATO, with the UN, and, through that, reel in the terrorists who are a threat to the whole world. He will have to raise our taxes. He will have to rescind measures adopted by this administration that harm our environment and undermine the health of our children.

"Do no harm" may not be an exciting campaign slogan. But, given the last four years, it could be a form of moral progress.

Margaret O'Brien Steinfels, editor of Commonweal from 1988 to 2002, is now co-director of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture.