Catholics in Northern Ireland are being urged to consider the positions of individual candidates in next week’s general election, and to “maximise the common good and diminish objective moral evil”.

This was the message from the Catholic bishops in Northern Ireland at the weekend, who also suggested questions to be put to candidates.

“It is regrettable that so many citizens today seem alienated and disheartened by the experience of politics, especially our younger people,” the bishops said. But it would be “regrettable if Christians and other citizens disengaged from the political process by not voting in the forthcoming Westminster election”.