Next week, South Africa will vote in one of the most critical elections in the democratic era. The 2022 census shows that Christianity is growing in the country – 85,3% of South Africans identify as Christians. This means that Christians have influence and are probably one of the most prominent single-voting groups. It is important that Christians take their participation in the election seriously. 

Some Christians assert that religion and politics don’t mix. Others say that no political party upholds all their values and, therefore, they cannot vote. Both of these positions, I would suggest, contradict what Scripture and the tradition of the Church teaches. 

St. Paul says that we should be good citizens and subject ourselves to human institutions (Romans 13:1). In the First Letter of St. Peter, too, we are also told to be good citizens and do good (2:13-15). This does not mean that there are no tensions, but we are called to participate in societal structures and processes. 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) says that it is the duty of citizens to vote for the love and service of one’s country. It says that the service of the common good requires us to fulfil our roles in the life of the political community (2239). The CCC encourages participation, teaching that we all have co-responsibility for the common good (2240). Voting is a way of exercising co-responsibility for the common good.

In his Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II said that sometimes we have to consider participating in civil life by seeking to limit the harm done by laws we cannot uphold and, therefore, lessening their negative consequences. We cannot abandon our responsibility because something is not aligned with our moral code. 

The Church teaches that voting is a prudential judgment for each voter. Pope Benedict XVI said, “It is not the Church’s task to set forth specific political solutions and even less to propose a single solution as the acceptable one to temporal questions that God has left to the free and responsible judgment of each human person.” You choose who to vote for, informed by your faith. The Church will never tell us who to vote for. But the Church does tell us that we have the responsibility TO vote. 

No political party will ever uphold all the values our faith espouses. We also need to be careful to avoid becoming one-issue voters. We will have to choose some issues over others. This also does not mean that we should sit and rank them, saying that one issue is more important than another and that it determines all else. That is relatively easy but is not the most helpful way either. This week’s election takes place in an incredibly complex reality. We have to look at our reality carefully and, with that reality in mind, discern who might best be able to advance the common good with policies that are likely to work and strategies that support them. 

South Africa’s reality is a ticking social timebomb: massive youth unemployment, crippling poverty, deteriorating infrastructure – noted especially in the health and education sector and an economic structure that serves only a few. Many of the other social ills that challenge the common good find their genesis in the fact that people do not have access to the basics. These should be some of the important life issues we consider when making our mark. The value of the dignity of each person, created in God’s image, means that we cannot but take note of, for example, the dire poverty that is all around us. How we most effectively – long and short term – address this poverty is complex and contentious.

Careful comparing of other countries’ approaches may be a factor in how we adjust party policies – as is the consistency of how parties have delivered in the past. That is where being informed and making prudent judgement comes in. How will you make a responsible participatory decision next week?