After any election, it is worth reflecting on what motivates our support for candidates and what our political engagement should look like. Catholics are aided in this task by the teaching of the U.S. bishops in their document “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” first released in 2007 and most recently updated in 2023. That document effectively summarizes the beauty of Catholic social teaching and serves as an excellent guide for forming our consciences, but it fails to adequately address the political disenfranchisement of Catholics in our two-party system. It gives no consideration to the potential for a third party to shift the political landscape toward a holistic incorporation of Catholic social teaching and thus misses an opportunity to counteract the despair found in the bleak landscape of contemporary American politics.
The current iteration of “Faithful Citizenship” is consistent with past editions in identifying the “threat of abortion” as “our pre-eminent priority.” It also emphasizes that Catholics are “not single-issue voters,” and that “dismissing or ignoring other serious threats to human life and dignity” would be a distortion of church teaching. However, when both major parties threaten human dignity in serious ways, dismissing these threats is precisely what a binary choice encourages us to do. Rather than accept the false dichotomy of the two-party system, the bishops should provide encouragement to counteract this tendency by breaking from the major parties.
We also need to recognize the harm to the pro-life movement that can come from electing ostensibly pro-life candidates who lack what “Faithful Citizenship” calls the “comprehensive commitment to the life and dignity of every human being from conception to natural death.” The repeal of Roe v. Wade was both a constitutional and moral victory, but as the aftermath of that Supreme Court decision has made clear, legal restrictions on abortion divorced from a consistent life ethic make for a poor long-term political strategy. This is especially true if a candidate seems to take a pro-life stand because of political expediency rather than moral conviction. Political expediency is also indicated by the revision of the Republican Party platform this past July, which removes commitment to a nationwide abortion ban and includes support for in vitro fertilization.
Further, many Republicans do not articulate the beauty of the pro-life position. It is difficult to argue that life is sacred while fighting against common-sense gun regulation and promoting the death penalty; it is difficult to argue the importance of protecting the most vulnerable in society while attempting to shut down Catholic houses of hospitality on the border; and it is really difficult to argue that “pro-life is pro-woman” while excusing misogyny at the highest levels of political leadership.
We need to do more than adopt isolated pro-life policies. We need to incorporate the pillars of Catholic social teaching into the American political ethos.
Recognizing this need, and inspired by examples of Christian democracy in Europe and Latin America, a small group came together to form the American Solidarity Party in 2011. Since its inception, the A.S.P. has experienced remarkable growth, including a 50 percent increase in donors in the past three months. The A.S.P.’s 2024 presidential candidate, Peter Sonski, appeared on the ballot in seven states and was certified for write-in votes in 23 others, an achievement showing the potential for further nationwide growth.
Votes are still being counted, but in the states where Mr. Sonski was listed on the ballot, he received over 24,000 votes, a more than threefold increase over the votes cast for the A.S.P. in those states in the 2020 election. The enhanced support in this election cycle, which included American Solidarity Party candidates in several state and local races, will bolster the party’s threefold strategy of running for local office, building campaign infrastructure for statewide races and achieving Federal Election Commission recognition as a national political party committee (which enables better coordination of contributions and spending).
The path forward for any third party in America is a hard one, leading many would-be supporters to fear the specter of the “wasted vote” and conclude that supporting a third party would be fruitless. But this conclusion overlooks the fact that 43 percent of the electorate currently identifies as independent, and it ignores the many instances in our history in which non-major-party candidates have won seats to Congress or been elected governor.
The more fundamental fallacy at work in the wasted-vote mindset is the notion that the sole purpose of voting is to win. The purpose of voting is to express support for a candidate, which can influence politics even if that candidate is not elected. A small percentage of the vote cast for a third party can be enough to affect election outcomes, which prompts the major parties to adjust their platforms in order to reach out to the voters that they lost. It also sends a clear message about the true desires of the electorate and breaks down the guise of support that might otherwise encourage the winner to claim a “popular mandate” for his unpopular policies.
The very existence of a nationally recognized political party based on Catholic social teaching has numerous benefits aside from directly affecting policy. For those outside the party, it provides an exposure to Catholic social teaching and demonstrates that it results in a consistent political platform. For party members, it provides a forum for meaningful discussions about the application of the teaching and a network for political activism. Furthermore, it enables the reclamation of public discourse by reminding us that something beyond the either-or dichotomy of the two-party system is both possible and attractive. Finally, it gives hope in the knowledge that we are not alone in our yearning for a more just society.
Unfortunately, the U.S. bishops do not mention the option of a third party in their “Faithful Citizenship” document. They write that “Catholics may feel politically disenfranchised,” but their only response to this remarkable understatement is the suggestion that, “when necessary, our participation should help transform the party to which we belong.” They advocate political activism but do not acknowledge that it can be more effective when votes may be taken elsewhere, rather than taken for granted by the major parties.
In their “Faithful Citizenship” document, the bishops should recognize the value of third-party voting and challenge the exasperating assumption that we must choose between the Democrats and Republicans. They should acknowledge that “winning” a political contest is meaningless when the election of either major candidate would not be a victory for human dignity. Rather than implicitly accept the lesser of two evils, they should encourage Catholics to support candidates that fully embrace Catholic social teaching, without regard for political calculation.
My prayer is that the bishops revise “Faithful Citizenship” to enrich our imagination and embolden our aspirations, encouraging us to not only be faithful to church teaching, but also to be full of faith in God’s assistance. In the meantime, when we engage in politics, let’s bring everything we have. Let’s bring our rallies, our letters to representatives, our polite discourse with neighbors and our principled vote. But above all, let’s bring our two fish, our five loaves and the faith that they will be multiplied.
