In a secular, pluralistic, and democratic society, is Catholic political partisanship good or bad? Eleanor Dionisio evaluates three types of Catholic political involvement in the 2013 Philippine elections: 1) partisan endorsement by bishops and clergy of specific candidates, 2) partisan campaigns by lay people for specific candidates on the basis of Catholic values, and 3) parties founded on Catholic principles. She weighs both the advantages and the disadvantages of each mode of engagement in politics. Although there are some benefits that can be derived from these forms of political engagement, she still agrees with José Casanova (Public Religions in the Modern World, 1994) that

“the primary place for the Catholic Church in general—and the Catholic Church in the Philippines in particular—is not in political partisanship, however principled. Rather, it is in the strengthening of civil society—especially in collaboration with those invisibilized and marginalized by domestic and global political and economic processes.” – from the Editor’s Preface