This commentary was written by Kevin Woster for South Dakota Searchlight, an online news organization.

It’s important to understand a couple of things about the No on G signs stuck in the grass and affixed to the front of Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in western Rapid City.

First, Blessed Sacrament has the right under IRS rules to speak out against Amendment G, the proposed constitutional amendment to restore abortion rights in South Dakota. Lobbying by churches on ballot issues is allowed. It’s taking a public position on candidates for elective office that can jeopardize a church’s tax-exempt status.

Second, while abortion is deemed the “preeminent priority” for Catholic voters by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and South Dakota’s two bishops, not all Catholic churches — even in conservative western South Dakota — are as active as Blessed Sacrament is in fighting Amendment G.

The Catholic Church isn’t just one thing. It isn’t just one massive brain pondering the mysteries of faith and life and death and the wonders waiting in the great beyond. It isn’t just one heart beating to the exact same set of beliefs.

It is a complicated organism of 1.3 billion believers around the world, 52 million of us in the United States, with a shared love of established rituals and a general set of the same beliefs but with variations of thought and conscience.

So when you drive past Blessed Sacrament you’re seeing part of that complicated organism of faith. When you drive past St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church in North Rapid City where my wife and I attend mass, you’re seeing another part.

You won’t see any No on G signs outside of our church. You’re more likely to see signs directing people to our food pantry. Step inside and you might see No on G materials on the lobby table, but you’ll also see Stand with Immigrants and Refugees signs on the bulletin board and sign-up information for Head Start.

The No on G signs at Blessed Sacrament reflect the Catholic Church’s longstanding commitment to respect and protect life from conception to natural death. So do similar signs at Catholic churches elsewhere in the state and at Catholic schools in Sioux Falls.

Yet among individual Catholics in South Dakota and across the nation there is disagreement on banning abortion. A Pew Research study released last spring indicated that six of 10 Catholics in the United States support legal abortion in all or most cases. But only 34% of surveyed Catholics who said they attend mass weekly support legal abortions. Twice that many — 68% — of Catholics who said they attend mass monthly or less support abortion rights.

The Catholic Church considers it sinful to miss the Sunday mass obligation without an adequate reason, such as illness or inability to get to church. So the most committed Catholics are those least likely to support abortion rights, the Pew study found. Even so, a third of those Catholics said they support abortion rights, although many might not express it openly.

Lay Catholics also disagree to one degree or another on less-explosive issues, including same-sex marriage, in vitro fertilization, the death penalty, euthanasia, universal health care, immigrants and refugees, climate change, social justice and workers rights.

The church has positions on all of those areas, with focus and priorities that might vary from state to state, diocese to diocese and even parish to parish and priest to priest. And within those states and dioceses and parishes, there are variations of opinions and conscience among the laity.

Speaking of conscience, Pope Francis asks Catholics to be informed by Catholic teachings in all areas as we decide how to vote. In the presidential election, for example, Francis considers Donald Trump to be anti-life on immigrants and refugees and Kamala Harris to be anti-life on abortion. So the choice, the pope says, becomes the lesser of two evils, in their policy positions, at least.

He doesn’t try to make the choice for us, but leaves that to us.

Like my Jesuit pope in Rome, my Jesuit pastor in North Rapid City encourages us to examine candidates and issues carefully and search our consciences, with Catholic teachings serving as our guide. He doesn’t direct or command. He informs and inspires.

At many Catholic churches in South Dakota abortion might seem to dominate all other issues, especially in an election year with a controversial amendment about abortion on the ballot. That doesn’t mean it’s the only issue the priests and laity of those churches care about. It means many are following the “preeminent priority” standard pushed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and echoed by the two bishops — in Sioux Falls and Rapid City — here in South Dakota.

In publicly opposing Amendment G, our South Dakota bishops stand together with a number of evangelical Protestant pastors in the state. But they stand apart from a coalition of other South Dakota faith leaders from the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ who have taken a public stand in support of Amendment G.

So it’s a complex, highly emotional issue where leaders and lay people of faith can and do disagree. As the Pew study indicated, that’s true within the Catholic Church.

In our Catholic parish, respect for life from conception to natural death is a deeply felt, firmly embraced imperative. But so are many related life issues that are essential parts of Catholic teaching. They include welcoming the stranger (immigrants and refugees), fighting climate change and protecting the environment, respecting and assisting the poor and marginalized, promoting a livable wage and accessible health care, fighting gun violence and doing our best, in our small, imperfectly human ways, to bring the light of Christ into the world.

On that last one in particular, all Catholics — including this one — could do a lot better, regardless of how we vote in an election.