Life in Jesus Christ is the truest expression of who we are: our identity is rooted in His love. This life in God’s Son is lived by faith and through the gift of grace we can live, even in our temporal existence, as daughters and sons of God. When lived with a full prayerful understanding of these essential truths, faith becomes an integral part of all that we are. This includes informing our decisions in the political spectrum. To deny faith, or to compartmentalize faith into simply our personal “opinion,” is to lose sense of the value, meaning, and impact of faith.

We are created as social beings, and politics is one important way within a democracy for people to interact and exchange ideas and opinions. Politics can be the catalyst toward the creation of laws that either promote human dignity, or degrade it. Our system of governance is informed by, and also informs, the moral public consciousness. If we have “whatever happens” as our political motto then we risk the creation of governmental systems and laws that can grow increasingly hostile to the values of Christian faith.

But politics is limited, and the political slogans of any campaign should not lead us into believing that human effort alone is capable of creating a perfect utopian society. In Jesus of Nazareth Pope Benedict XVI alludes to the question of faith and politics when discussing the third temptation of Christ (worldly power), and he explains that we must “struggle to avoid identifying Jesus’ Kingdom with any political structure” because when this happens “faith becomes the servant of power and must bend to its criteria.” He further says, “No kingdom of this world is the Kingdom of God …earthly kingdoms remain earthly kingdoms, and anyone who claims to be able to establish the perfect world is the willing dupe of Satan and plays right into his hands.”

After the wealthy young man left disappointed (see Matthew 19:16-25), the apostles asked, “Who can be saved” and Jesus responded: “With God all things are possible.” Christ established a criterion between the temporal and the eternal, and always directs our attention toward the one true good, God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The political spectrum is one means by which our decisions should be informed by a conscience that is fully formed by the truth of faith. We can never forget, however, that as hopeful as we may be with the outcome of any political process, it is our shared faith in Christ that can plant the seeds of grace that manifest God’s loving will.