THE Bishop of Shrewsbury has called on Catholic voters to consider their religious beliefs before going to the polls in this year's General Election.

The Rt Rev Mark Davies, whose diocese covers Wirral, made his plea weeks before an election statement is due to be published by the bishops of England and Wales.

Addressing delegates at a Diocesan Justice and Peace Day of Reflection at St Columba’s Church in Chester, Bishop Davies said the document aimed to help Catholics reflect on the questions at stake in 2015.

He said: "It will be a concise and readable document proposing a series of key issues which each Catholic voter should keep in mind before making that fateful decision.

“We meet just months before a General Election, which places in sharp focus an array of issues which are part of the political choices of this moment in time entrusted to us.”

Such issues, he continued, might include economics, government spending, the provision of health care, the care of the elderly, welfare, the alleviation of poverty, immigration, religious freedom and education, human rights and multiculturalism.

He added there would also be questions about the relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union, British military intervention, humanitarian aid, and the value of human life itself.

The question of assisted suicide, he told the meeting, and its consequences for the future of society will be decided by the Parliament that voters are about to elect.

Bishop Davies also said that the health of marriage and the family must be issues of concern to the electorate.

“The family is the first and vital cell of society of which not only the health and well-being of the young depend but the health and well-being of the whole of society."

He also proposed the recent Address of Pope Francis to the European Parliament would serve an inspiration for work in justice and peace and for contemporary politics with its powerful testimony to the sacred value of the human person.

Quoting the Pope, Bishop Davies said: “Only a Europe capable of appreciating its religious roots and of grasping their fruitfulness and potential will be immune from the many forms of extremism spreading in the world today not least as a result of the great vacuum of ideals we are currently witnessing in the West.

“If we are not proposing true and good ideals then into that vacuum, Pope Francis is suggesting, other dangerous ideas will come – they have come, they are coming.”