No one is forced to be Catholic. So there is never a legal imperative. Catholics are informed by their Church and vote accordingly. Disobedience to the Church's teaching is, of course, common as well. The Catholic Church does not want to run the civil government. But it has a position, which comes from its unique insight into the Divine Law. If the government through whatever civil mechanisms, -- elections, courts, constitutions written and rewritten, -- promulgates the laws that are intrinsically evil according to the Church, these laws have to be disobeyed, or one ceases to be Catholic.
The five non-negotiable points represent the current issues where the Church sees the battle line drawn and clarity is needed. It is binding on the Catholics to vote according to that list. Some things are not on the list, not because the Church has no position on them, but because the position is not reducible to a simple unconditional yes or no. For example, the death penalty, progressive taxation, or the war in Iraq are issues where a good Catholic can favor either side (and be with the left or with the right as he does so). Permissive laws regarding pornography, divorce, and birth control are unfortunate but are in the area of personal behavior that tends to only impact the actor.
Let me comment on the Catholic view on the biblical law and its interaction with the civil government. The Church teaches that the law of the Old Testament, -- so called Law of Moses -- was given by God to the Jews in a unique covenantal way. Jesus gave us Christians another set of laws, which are not to be understood legalistically. For example, where the Old Testament commands not to commit adultery -- a legally significant act -- Christ teaches us to keep a chaste attitude, which is not something you can legally prosecute. The Old Testament commandments, even the famous ten of them (they are over 600 in all) are either obeyed because Christ repeated them approvingly (honor your parents), or they are corollary to the two commandments of Christ to love God and to love one another, or we deduce them through reason as a part of the Natural Law (such are the prohibitions on the contraception). Or finally, we have rescinded them as the entire body of Jewish ceremonial and dietetic law. Besides, our attitude is different. For example, both the Jewish law and the Natural Law condemn adultery, but when the Jewish elders were ready with the stones Christ called for charity and self-examination, and removed the matter from the legal environment the Old Testament had placed it.
Not all Christians have the same understanding of the Old Covenant. Some would hold a theonomic view that Christians are to reconstruct a society run by the Jewish Law of the Bible. We consider it heretical because it is pharisaic and condemned by Jesus in principle, -- even when He agreed with the law's intention. Moreover we do not read the Bible in the literalist way as a book of laws, so we could not even agree with the theonomists on what these laws are.
The Church considers sex to be only for procreation, therefore we are dealing with a distinguishing between a purpose and a method. If someone uses any method of birth control, then they are engaging in an act for other than procreation
Regarding the alleged hypocrisy of allowing natrual family planning but not artificial non-abortifacient birth control. The general Christian teaching is that means matter. If a permissible or even laudable result is achieved through the evil means, then the act remains wrong. So we are comfortable allowing for non-procreative sex when prudential reasons exist not to have another child for the sake of marital unity, yet forbidding certain means to that end.
A more narrowly Catholic thing is the thinking in symbols. Barrier contraception is denial of God's design of human sexuality on a symbolic level, as it puts a barrier between what is ordained to be unity. Marital embrace that reflects the unity ont he symbolic level but utilizes the natural fertility cycle is God-fearing simply because it is natural.
As long as there is no "test" of Christianity to hold office.
f the government through whatever civil mechanisms, -- elections, courts, constitutions written and rewritten, -- promulgates the laws that are intrinsically evil according to the Church, these laws have to be disobeyed, or one ceases to be Catholic.
Yet Kerry was given Communion.
Marital embrace that reflects the unity ont he symbolic level but utilizes the natural fertility cycle is God-fearing simply because it is natural.
But is still hypocritical in that it permits pleasure over procreation only under "natural" means. Seems somewhat petty to observers. In other words, the intent of having sex without procreation is the same in either case, so why place this obstacle in the way? But I'm not Catholic any longer, so our two perspectives will never come together on this.