Getting ready to vote.

Wow! The bishops have yet another helpful website: Faithful Citizenship. It's not poetry or even "Doctor of the Church" material, but it does a good job of presenting the guidelines by which lovers of Jesus Christ should make their political decisions.

This is particular: "The Church is principled but not ideological. We cannot compromise basic principles or moral teaching. We are committed to clarity about our moral teaching and to civility."

Of course, the document makes the rather wild assumption that Catholics reading it will themselves have such clarity on their Church's "moral teaching." It fails to mention that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, for example. But it a well-formed priest or catechist presents it to the people with such clarifications, it may be quite helpful.

In a year when I wonder for whom I could vote in good conscience (besides Steven Colbert, of course), it helps to get back to basics.