Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I want to share some thoughts with you as together we face the forthcoming General Election. Our duty as citizens is to cast our vote. Our duty as Catholics is to vote in accordance with our faith.  That means with a conscience informed by the truth, motivated by the love which this Sunday’s Gospel describes, and supportive of those values which have in the past underpinned our society and which should continue to do so. These include respect for human life, for marriage and family, for freedom of religion and the promotion of an international order based on justice and the avoidance of war.

All parties standing for election have addressed issues such as the economy in a time of recession, fairer distribution of wealth, national security, immigration, health, education, care of the elderly, and law and order. Each has described how they would tackle these issues. But there are other issues which do not divide party from party, but rather citizen from citizen, candidate from candidate even within the parties themselves.

If truth be told, no mainstream party is ready to uphold the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. None wants to stand up unambiguously for the marriage-based family as the essential building brick of society which cannot be put on a par with civil partnerships.  None appears to consider the rights of conscience as paramount.

No manifesto distinguishes properly between inclusivity and uniformity. This key concept impacts on the right of parents to choose faith schools as well as the right to expect that a child, if adopted, is adopted in line with the principles of the Church to which they belong.  No manifesto explicitly defends the rights of the terminally ill against those who would advocate euthanasia. None would seem to support full and proper funding for hospice care and palliative medicine.

We might look in vain for manifestos addressing other moral issues of concern to us …concern about the immorality of the use or threatened use of weapons of mass destruction, such as Trident; concern about the unfair treatment of refugees; concern about the assumed role sometimes exercised by the press in condemning people and institutions without a right of defence; concern that citizens should be able to depend upon honesty and integrity among politicians, bankers and media barons; concern that on issues of conscience, party members should be free to vote according to their religious beliefs, free from unjust pressure.

Our task is made all the harder because it is virtually impossible to distinguish one party from another in respect of many of these key moral issues.  In these circumstances my advice is to set aside party political considerations and to recognise, where you can, the integrity of individual candidates and vote according to your belief that they can be trusted in those matters which our faith tells us are the most fundamental of all.

If I say to you “vote with your faith”, then I mean be enlightened by it, prayerfully reflect on the issues, and put your cross where it is deserved.

Yours devotedly in Christ,

+Mario Conti

Archbishop of Glasgow