Years ago, I had an interesting conversation with a seminarian in America who kept bringing the solutions of Church problems to politics. Finally, I said to him (he was one of my students), "You are looking to politics to save us instead of Christ, the Gospel, the Church."
He stopped talking. He admitted that many seminarians were caught up in politics, even leftist politics, instead of looking to Chris on the Cross. He changed.
One reason why so many Catholics vote socialist is that they think the governments will save society and their particular culture. Not so.
Without a moral framework, without religion, all governments fail to protect their own people. Such governments pass immoral laws, as we have seen here.
Politics and governments must serve God first and then man.
From the saintly Pope Leo XII in Immortale Dei:
Man's natural instinct moves him to live
in civil society, for he cannot, if dwelling apart, provide himself with the
necessary requirements of life, nor procure the means of developing his mental
and moral faculties. Hence, it is divinely ordained that he should lead his
life-be it family, or civil-with his fellow men, amongst whom alone his
several wants can be adequately supplied. But, as no society can hold together
unless some one be over all, directing all to strive earnestly for the common
good, every body politic must have a ruling authority, and this authority, no
less than society itself, has its source in nature, and has, consequently, God
for its Author. Hence, it follows that all public power must proceed from God.
For God alone is the true and supreme Lord of the world. Everything, without
exception, must be subject to Him, and must serve him, so that whosoever holds
the right to govern holds it from one sole and single source, namely, God, the
sovereign Ruler of all. "There is no power but from God."(1)
and
As a consequence, the State, constituted
as it is, is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties
linking it to God, by the public profession of religion. Nature and reason,
which command every individual devoutly to worship God in holiness, because we
belong to Him and must return to Him, since from Him we came, bind also the
civil community by a like law. For, men living together in society are under
the power of God no less than individuals are, and society, no less than
individuals, owes gratitude to God who gave it being and maintains it and
whose ever-bounteous goodness enriches it with countless blessings. Since,
then, no one is allowed to be remiss in the service due to God, and since the
chief duty of all men is to cling to religion in both its reaching and
practice-not such religion as they may have a preference for, but the religion
which God enjoins, and which certain and
most clear marks show to be the only one true religion -it is a public crime
to act as though there were no God. So, too, is it a sin for the State not to
have care for religion as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical
benefit; or out of many forms of religion to adopt that one which chimes in
with the fancy; for we are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which
He has shown to be His will. All who rule, therefore, would hold in honour the
holy name of God, and one of their chief duties must be to favour religion, to
protect it, to shield it under the credit and sanction of the laws, and
neither to organize nor enact any measure that may compromise its safety. This
is the bounden duty of rulers to the people over whom they rule. For one and
all are we destined by our birth and adoption to enjoy, when this frail and
fleeting life is ended, a supreme and final good in heaven, and to the
attainment of this every endeavour should be directed. Since, then, upon this
depends the full and perfect happiness of mankind, the securing of this end
should be of all imaginable interests the most urgent. Hence, civil society,
established for the common welfare, should not only safeguard the well-being
of the community, but have also at heart the interests of its individual
members, in such mode as not in any way to hinder, but in every manner to
render as easy as may be, the possession of that highest and unchangeable good
for which all should seek. Wherefore, for this purpose, care must especially
be taken to preserve unharmed and unimpeded the religion whereof the practice
is the link connecting man with God.
More here: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_01111885_immortale-dei_en.html