Majority opinion doesn’t determine what is good and true.

We need to remember that democracy is not an end in itself. Majority opinion doesn’t determine what is good and true. Like every other form of power, democracy can become a means of repression and idolatry. When we divorce our politics from a grounding in virtue and truth, we transform our country from a living moral organism into a kind of golem of legal machinery without a soul.

This is why working for good laws is so important. This is why getting involved politically is so urgent. This is why every one of our votes matters. We need to elect the best public leaders, who then create the best policies and appoint the best judges. This has a huge impact on the kind of nation we become. Democracies depend for their survival on people of conviction fighting in the public square for what they believe—legally and peacefully, but zealously and without apologies. That includes all of us.

-Charles J. Chaput, the archbishop of Philadelphia. This essay is taken from an address delivered at BYU on Jan. 23, 2015. For the full address see more.byu.edu/chaput