That was a very powerful video. It actually reminded me very much of what I admired (as a non-Catholic) about the Catholic university I attended. I was particularly drawn to the final line - "Vote your Conscience".

As I understand it, Catholics think of conscience as that little bit of God within each of us, guiding us toward God and away from sin (i.e. separation from God). That direct experience of God's guidance is something that each individual person has to listen for, and learn to hear, and work at following, each day. The Church can help to guide and teach; but ultimately, it's the responsibility of each individual to listen to the voice of conscience inside themselves and act from that.

The true beauty of this ad, then, was that it really didn't tell anyone how specifically to vote. I suspect that Don's comment - about seeing only one way to vote if you "truly" consider yourself Catholic - actually misses the point about conscience entirely. The point of conscience is that people have a CHOICE, and are best served by being FREE both to listen to their conscience and to make that choice. It's a gut-wrenching state of affairs for we mortals, but that's the funny ol' universe we live in. And really, if we don't like people having choices, isn't that something we should be taking up with God?

Anyway, this ad strikes me as being strongly pro-choice AND strongly pro-life - which is, I suspect, where most people stand on the issue. I think it's a shame that the discussions I usually see and hear about it are rather more polarized than that. Does that make me "liberal" for being nuanced or "conservative" for respecting the true nature of the universe God gifts us? Or is "liberal" v "conservative" just another polarization that leads people of conscience farther from their God?

Regards, and thank you for placing the ad where I stumbled across it.