AUZENNE: Election Day 2023 – Whose side are you on?

People at the Smyrna Community Center in in Smyrna, Ga., visit an early voting location Nov. 3, 2022, during midterm elections. The U.S. Catholic bishops will discuss their quadrennial document "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship" during their fall general assembly in Baltimore Nov. 14-17. (CNS photo/Jonathan Ernst, Reuters)

On Nov. 7, an estimated 168 million Americans will cast their vote for local bond issues, state legislators, city councils, school board members, etc. Most of us will not make these decisions by carefully studying the ballot but will look instead to see which candidates and issues are supported by our preferred political party.

Research from the 2020 presidential election shows that in our era of red-vs-blue, us-vs-them politics, the influence of politically unaffiliated voters has become critical to winning elections. This group is made up largely of voters under the age of 30, who are motivated by messages of justice, inclusion and equality, much more than politics-as-usual.

They are less interested in supporting political parties and more interested in supporting solutions to problems like climate change, racial injustice and homelessness. They are tired of listening to leaders who tell them that “they are the future” while ignoring critical problems that require solutions right now.

With their calls for justice now, young people remind us that although patience is a virtue, impatience has a grace all its own. Impatience is the feeling that something is not as it should be in this present moment and that something greater is just ahead. Instead of dismissing it as naivety or entitlement, we ought to see that youthful impatience is more often rooted in hope; hope that if we can just push past the obstacles in our way, our actions can create a better, more just world.

But what will that world look like? What is the vision that young people are inspired to help create? What might our hopes for our country look like if they were not limited by allegiance to political parties? What would our politics look like if they were rooted in a desire for the common good instead of a desire to accumulate power?

Those of us on the upper side of 40 need to follow the example of young people who insist that politicians speak to their values, not their party affiliation. But young people also need our help to name those values and root them in a healthy, holy understanding of the human person. They need to understand that we cannot simply replace old fallacies with new ones and call it progress.

What can we say to young people who are rightly skeptical of politics? Very little. But we can show them with our actions what it means to seek the common good and uphold the dignity of all people, especially the poor and marginalized. We can join them in their efforts to build a culture of encounter that values and respects life. Most of all, we can show them what happens when Christians stop playing politics and take seriously our call to live the Gospel.

Our young people need us to accompany them as they face the challenges of this age. But we also need them — and their impatience — to see past the entrenched patterns of injustice that keep us stuck in the status quo.

Amy Auzenne, MSW, MACE, is the director of the Office of Evangelization and Catechesis.