Florida Catholic | Voter Seminar

Seminar to prepare Catholic voters

The February 16 workshop, “Faithful Citizenship: Being Catholic in the Public Square” will help educate voters about participation in the electoral process and state lawmaking sessions.

CARLOS BRICENO | FLORIDA CATHOLIC ST.PETERSBURG BUREAU EDITOR

Published: 02.01.08

Contact Sabrina Schultz sab@dosp.org
727-344-1611, ext. 325.

ST. PETERSBURG | Over the years, Sheila Hopkins’ view of the political process has changed. She used to think her vote would not make a big difference in an election. But now, because of her job working at the Florida Catholic Conference in Tallahassee, she has changed her mind.

“I was one of those who said I should vote because I can,” said Hopkins, the associate director for social concerns and respect life for the Florida Catholic Conference, which serves as a liaison between the state government and the Catholic Church. “But (I thought) it probably wouldn’t make a huge difference. But what I’ve learned from working up here is that we as citizens do have tremendous opportunities to make a difference.”

That is the message she is going to tell those who participate in a Saturday, Feb. 16, workshop, “Faithful Citizenship: Being Catholic in the Public Square,” which will take place at Incarnation Parish in Tampa from 9:30 to 11:15 a.m.

One of the purposes of the workshop is to educate voters, said Sabrina Burton Schultz, the diocesan director for life ministry, which is sponsoring the event.

“It’s important for people to have a good sense of what issues the bishops of Florida and the Florida Catholic Conference have deemed most important this year for Catholics to work on and focus on,” she said. Some of the issues identified as key include immigration, respect life and the environment.

Another purpose of the workshop is to educate participants in visiting legislators during a process known as “Catholic Days at the Capitol.” These days will be March 11 and 12, and will include discussion of issues of concern to the conference, visits with legislators to discuss the issues, monitoring of floor sessions and the celebration of a Red Mass with the Florida bishops.

Hopkins said it is important Catholics realize that they need to be involved in the political process.

“If they don’t do it, who is going to do it?” she said. “We have a right to vote and we need to exercise that right to vote. We need to make sure that what we want, what we think is good and important is going to be taken up and considered.”

She said one of the points she makes in the workshops is that some lawmakers may not feel the same on issues of concern as Catholics do, such as the subject of abortion. So, Hopkins tells participants, the time spent with legislators is an opportunity to educate them. It is not a time to argue with them, she said.

“Sometimes you have an opportunity to touch them in a way or show them something that they maybe haven’t thought about,” she said. “If you try to argue or you say, ‘You’re bad because you feel that way’… all that’s going to do is make that legislator not want to listen to you. You have to build that bridge or build that relationship (so) that they will seriously consider what you’re trying to tell them. And maybe they won’t change their mind, but at least you put that out there for them to consider and to think about and maybe one day they will change their mind.”

Part of faithful citizenship also involves Catholics getting the information they need to “have a well-formed conscience” so that they can make good decisions in voting, said Schultz. “We don’t tell people how to vote.”

But diocesan officials and pastors are supposed to be careful about what kinds of materials are distributed on church grounds during the political season.

A recent incident at the Cathedral of St. Jude the Apostle in St. Petersburg demonstrated the type of activity for which parishes may need to be on guard. On Jan. 20, several people who identified themselves as pro–life Catholics began to place pamphlets on cars in the church’s parking lot, according to St. Petersburg Police Department spokesman George Kajtsa. The satirical pamphlet, copyrighted to controversial anti-abortion crusader Randall Terry, draws parallels between the long-defunct right to own slaves and abortion rights and suggests no Christian should vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights regardless of the candidate’s stands on other important issues.

Officials at the cathedral told the people to stop distributing the pamphlets, but they refused so the police were called, Kajtsa said. An officer made them sign a trespass card, in which they agreed not to trespass. However, they later came back, at which point Joseph Henry Landry, St. Augustine, and Terry’s wife, Andrea Sue Terry, Ponte Verde, were arrested for trespassing, Kajtsa said.

Schultz said every parish in the diocese has been sent the Florida Catholic Conference’s 2008 Election and Political Activities Guide, which sets forth some rules for pastors to follow.

One passage reads: “Parishes are not to distribute any materials that are not approved by the local diocesan bishop or the Florida Catholic Conference or made available to the diocese through the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.”

“They (the people who were arrested) can distribute (the pamphlets) somewhere else, but it becomes trickier if it’s on parish grounds, particularly when they’re asked in a kind way to leave, and they don’t comply,” she said, adding that the pro-lifers should have gotten some type of diocesan approval first if they wanted to hand out pamphlets.

Return to Diocese of St. Petersburg Front Page

Seminar to prepare Catholic voters

Other Stories