Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life

Labor Day has traditionally signaled the homestretch for presidential campaigns, but there is nothing traditional about this election.

For “Consistent Ethic of Life Catholics,” these are good times ecclesiastically and bad times politically. Within our church, Pope Francis is making clear by word and deed that a consistent and comprehensive commitment to protect human life is morally right, theologically sound and pastorally powerful. With his haunting metaphor of a “throwaway culture,” Francis calls us to protect “innocent victims of abortion, children who die of hunger or from bombings, immigrants...the elderly or the sick who are considered a burden, the victims of terrorism, wars, violence and drug trafficking, the environment….”