The vast majority of Christians are called to the lay state, so a knowledge of what this common, yet immensely noble and holy, state of life entails is essential. The Catechism (#897) tells us that: "The term 'laity' is here understood to mean all the faithful except those in Holy Orders and those who belong to a religious state approved by the Church. That is, the faithful, who by baptism are incorporated into Christ and integrated into the People of God, are made sharers in their particular way in the priestly, prophetic, and kingly office of Christ, and have their own part to play in the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in the world (See Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, #31).
The lay faithful are the front-line troops in the never ending moral combat to promote the true and the good. One of the most erroneous and subtly dangerous ideas ever is that somehow our religion and any and everything else in life should remain separate. A Catholic must live, witness, and, yes, vote, a well-formed Catholic conscience. The Second Vatican Council's 16 major documents refer to "conscience" 72 times, but never without a modifying term: "well-formed conscience," "mal-formed conscience", etc. As Catholics we have a serious moral obligation to form our consciences in accord with the objective and absolute norm of truth--that is, church teaching. This is quite simply another way of saying "put on the mind of Christ." One of the primary reasons that our country has largely become a moral wasteland is that we Catholics have done a dismally poor job of both forming our consciences and then living, teaching, and voting in accordance with them.
Abortion, artificial contraception, pornography, and all types of disordered lifestyles--which are not "alternative," but rather humanly and morally degenerative and destructive, could never exist in this once great country if the Catholic lay faithful were witnessing their faith powerfully and without compromise. This is never an excuse for persecution of any group, yet love desires what is best for the beloved--and this can never be immoral behavior.
Morality is not a subjective construct. Rather, it is inscribed in the heart and mind of every person. It is our business to accept our noble and holy lot as persons, and to act in accord with nature, not rebel against it. We run the risk today in our once largely Christian country of falling into that class of idolaters which St. Paul bitterly denounced because of their refusal to worship God and accept his teaching, despite their knowledge of him (See Romans 1:20-27).
As the old saying goes, "the more things change, the more they stay the same." The Holy Spirit, speaking through St. Paul, makes it pretty clear. Catholics today in the United States represent the single largest religious voting block in the country, yet we have had relatively little effect in recent years. The reason is that an enormous number of Catholics are not faithful to their lay state in life.
The Catechism (#898) teaches, echoing Vatican II, that: "By reason of their special vocation it belongs to the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God's will...It pertains to them in a special way so to illuminate and order all temporal things with which they are closely associated that these may always be effected and grow according to Christ and may be to the glory of the Creator and Redeemer" (See Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 31, 2).
In many ways this is, and should be, an age of the laity, an age wherein a great and noble vocation receives the attention, study, and nurturing it should; but, with an increase of knowledge comes an increase of responsibility. The church clearly teaches that: "The initiative of lay Christians is necessary especially when the matter involves discovering or inventing the means for permeating social, political, and economic realities with the demands of Christian doctrine and life. This initiative is a normal element of the life of the Church (#899).
We are not to be confused by empty rhetoric and the fallacy of what is "politically correct," especially when that is largely determined by the mind of a culture which will go down in history as grandly technological, yet singularly irrational; able to travel far into outer space, yet amazingly crippled in its ability to travel inwardly in order to be in touch with the high and lofty demands of its own moral nature. We should be mightily wary of a culture, rightly described as a "culture of death," that seeks to tell us how to live, imposing laws that are illicit and mores that are immoral.
If Catholics don't begin to form their consciences to the objective and absolute norm of Truth--Church teaching in faith and morals--and then live, witness, and vote that well-formed conscience, then, we may indeed find that this culture and this country will indeed, "end with a whimper, rather than a bang." For, "evil will indeed triumph if good men remain silent." For, having once-too-often called the truth a lie and lies the truth, having repeatedly asserted that the good is evil, and evil is good, life will cease. For this once great country, which was originally founded upon transcendent and immutable Christian principles and morals, having perverted itself into a state of terminal moral cancer, having contracepted itself into sterility and aborted itself into oblivion, will simply keel over and die--another wreck on the reefs of time. It is inevitable, unless we Catholics live, witness, and vote what we profess!