The 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign has opened the eyes of many Catholics to what the American Bishops have called “Faithful Citizenship”.It should also open our hearts and lives to the wisdom offered by the Catholic Church for the vital work of political, social, economic and cultural participation. That body of teaching is called “Catholic Social Teaching”.
This campaign season presents us with a new opportunity to absolutely reject the narrow partisanship of both the so called “right” and the so called “left”. It is time to really come to understand the Social teaching of our Church, inform our participation by it and then offer its principles and wisdom to all men and women.
I have long been concerned with the vital role that Catholic citizens must play in the rebuilding of a collapsing Western culture. If we are going to not only expose the expansive and corrosive effects of the “culture of death”, but actually help to build a new "culture of life" and a "civilization of love" to replace it, we must become the conscience of every Political Party, while not being wrongly contained by or beholden to any of them.
Our adversaries regularly try to marginalize us, accusing us of being "single issue" in our political concerns. They are simply wrong. Abortion is not the only issue we are concerned about. It is the tip of an iceberg, in the words of the late Servant of God John Paul II, it is the "cutting edge of the culture of death".
Any time human persons are treated as "products" to be used, aborted, discarded, manipulated…. there we find the rancid fruit of the "culture of death" and use. When abortion is finally illegal, and it will be, we will have much work to do if we seek to build a new society where true social and economic justice informs our life together.
This work will require a new form of Catholic Action in every segment of human culture.
Among all Christians, indeed all people of faith and good will, we who are Catholic are the ones who will be judged the most severely - if we fail to act. The biblical principle is applicable here: "To those, to whom much is given, much more will be required!"(Luke 12:48)
Those who bear the name "Catholic" profess that we believe that the "fullness of truth" subsists within our Church. What does that really mean? Does it truly have implications upon our citizenship and our social, economic and cultural participation?
The prophetic "Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World" (Gaudium et Spes "Joy and Hope") promulgated in 1965 at the Second Vatican Council, has much to teach us in our present hour. It begins with these words:
“The joys and hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts. For theirs is a community composed of men. United in Christ, they are led by the Holy Spirit in their journey to the Kingdom of their Father and they have welcomed the news of salvation which is meant for every man. That is why this community realizes that it is truly linked with mankind and its history by the deepest of bonds.
Hence this Second Vatican Council, having probed more profoundly into the mystery of the Church, now addresses itself without hesitation, not only to the sons of the Church and to all who invoke the name of Christ, but to the whole of humanity. For the council yearns to explain to everyone how it conceives of the presence and activity of the Church in the world of today.
Therefore, the council focuses its attention on the world of men, the whole human family along with the sum of those realities in the midst of which it lives; that world which is the theatre of man's history, and the heir of his energies, his tragedies and his triumphs; that world which the Christian sees as created and sustained by its Maker's love, fallen indeed into the bondage of sin, yet emancipated now by Christ, Who was crucified and rose again to break the strangle hold of personified evil, so that the world might be fashioned anew according to God's design and reach its fulfillment.
Though mankind is stricken with wonder at its own discoveries and its power, it often raises anxious questions about the current trend of the world, about the place and role of man in the universe, about the meaning of its individual and collective strivings, and about the ultimate destiny of reality and of humanity.
Hence, giving witness and voice to the faith of the whole people of God gathered together by Christ, this council can provide no more eloquent proof of its solidarity with, as well as its respect and love for the entire human family with which it is bound up, than by engaging with it in conversation about these various problems.
The council brings to mankind light kindled from the Gospel, and puts at its disposal those saving resources which the Church herself, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, receives from her Founder. For the human person deserves to be preserved; human society deserves to be renewed. Hence the focal point of our total presentation will be man himself, whole and entire, body and soul, heart and conscience, mind and will."
The Church refers regularly to herself as an "Expert in Humanity" precisely because Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man. The Incarnation of Jesus Christ gives us insights into the aspirations, destiny and hopes of every man and woman.
Paragraph 22 of that same document, the favorite passage of the late Servant of God John Paul II, and one which he helped to write, gives the foundational reason why we who bear the name Christian have a “Social” obligation:
"The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come, namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. It is not surprising, then, that in Him all the aforementioned truths find their root and attain their crown"
The Catholic Church proclaims a vision of the vocation of every human person. She offers principles from which to build a new and true “humanism”. She has the "competency" to speak to all of human life and the ordering of the human community because like her Savior, she walks the way of the person.
It is in her Social Teaching that the Catholic Church offers principles for building such a just society. The sad fact is that some Catholics do not really understand the social implications of their Baptism.
At the heart of being a Catholic Christian is having a deep, abiding, dynamic, growing relationship with the One who is Himself the "Way, truth and Life", Jesus Christ. It certainly means having what our evangelical Christian friends often call a "personal" relationship with Jesus.
However, it cannot end there. To belong to Jesus is to belong to His Body, the Church.
Our implantation into His Body, the Church, through Baptism, has ongoing implications concerning who we are to become and what we are called to do. We are invited into a continued transformation through the grace mediated through the Sacraments. We are invited to immerse ourselves in the Living Word and incorporate it into our lives.
Then, as we live in the Church, a new humanity joined together in the communion of His love, we are also sent into the world on mission.
We now, in a real sense, live in the Church. That ecclesial identity is the framework from which we participate in the continuing mission of Jesus Christ until He returns. The Church is intended to become the home of the whole human race. As some early Patristic sources put it so well, it is the “world reconciled” and the “world in the process of transformation”.
In our day we should acknowledge that we have "un-evangelized" and “un-catechized” but baptized Catholics.
This is why the late Servant of God John Paul II issued a call for a "New Evangelization". It is also why his wonderful successor in the Chair of Peter continues to champion this call as he teaches repeatedly on the truth that the Christian life is an “Encounter” with a Divine Person, Jesus Christ and, in Him, a call to live our lives differently.
Living the Catholic Christian life requires ongoing instruction in the faith and its application in our lives.
One of the classical definitions of "theology" is "faith seeking understanding." All Christians need to have good theology. What we call "Catechesis" or instruction in the faith, must be more than what happened in our experiences of parochial school, Father or Deacons homilies on Sunday, or even our attendance at C.C.D. as a child.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a gift from the Holy Spirit.The problem is it remains unread by too many Catholics. The sections in the Catechism on “Social Issues”, if actually read and understood, provide more help in helping us to inform our faithful citizenship than much of what has been written by many who profess their versions of what political positions, both “left” and “right” and all in between, they think we should hold.
In addition, the Church has now compiled the entirety of what is called her “Social teaching” in a “Compendium” which is easily understandable and well indexed. It is a tremendous resource for Catholics, indeed all Christians, who are serious about Catholic Action. How many “leaders” out there in the arena of political, social and economic action have ever referred you directly to that Compendium? Did you even know it exists?
Our Catholic faith does not just speak to our "personal" lives. It is also not "private". It is to inform and transform the way we both view and live our lives. It has profoundly public and social implications.Our Catholic faith is to be lived as an integrated whole, a "Unity of Life".
Yet there is a prevailing "separation between faith and life" operative in many Catholics. This has been rightly called "one of the greatest errors of our age." That expression was a part of the "Pastoral Constitution" cited above and has been repeated by the Pope’s since that Council:
"This council exhorts Christians, as citizens of two cities, to strive to discharge their earthly duties conscientiously and in response to the Gospel spirit. They are mistaken who, knowing that we have here no abiding city but seek one which is to come, think that they may therefore shirk their earthly responsibilities. For they are forgetting that by the faith itself they are more obliged than ever to measure up to these duties, each according to his proper vocation.
"Nor, on the contrary, are they any less wide of the mark who think that religion consists in acts of worship alone and in the discharge of certain moral obligations, and who imagine they can plunge themselves into earthly affairs in such a way as to imply that these are altogether divorced from the religious life.
"This split between the faith which many profess and their daily lives deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age."
Addressing this “separation between faith and life” was a reason for the issuance by the Holy See of its’ “Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life". It is another great resource offered by the Church to guide us in undertaking our political participation. In it we read these words:
"It is a question of the lay Catholic’s duty to be morally coherent, found within one’s conscience, which is one and indivisible. There cannot be two parallel lives in their existence: on the one hand, the so-called ‘spiritual life’, with its values and demands; and on the other, the so-called ‘secular’ life, that is, life in a family, at work, in social responsibilities, in the responsibilities of public life and in culture.
"The branch, engrafted to the vine which is Christ, bears its fruit in every sphere of existence and activity. In fact, every area of the lay faithful’s lives, as different as they are, enters into the plan of God, who desires that these very areas be the ‘places in time’ where the love of Christ is revealed and realized for both the glory of the Father and service of others. Every activity, every situation, every precise responsibility – as, for example, skill and solidarity in work, love and dedication in the family and the education of children, service to society and public life and the promotion of truth in the area of culture – are the occasions ordained by providence for a ‘continuous exercise of faith, hope and charity’
"Living and acting in conformity with one’s own conscience on questions of politics is not slavish acceptance of positions alien to politics or some kind of confessionalism, but rather the way in which Christians offer their concrete contribution so that, through political life, society will become more just and more consistent with the dignity of the human person."
Let's consider political participation.
Perhaps more than in any other area, I believe that we have fallen short in our call to faithful citizenship. We often do so by either divorcing the implications of our faith from our public life or by confusing the relationship between the two.
Among even faithful Catholics, I think this latter mistake is more common. We see our identification as "Catholic" as an adjective. That is the greatest mistake.
Catholic is the Noun
My experience in political action and public policy work over many years has exposed me to many who act as though "Catholic" is an adjective. In other words, they view themselves as "Catholic" conservatives. Or as "Catholic"------, fill in the blank.
You should not be able to "fit" faithful Catholics in the prevailing categories of "left" or "right", "liberal" or "conservative." Nor should either major party ever have a "lock" on our support.
The Social teaching of the Catholic Church does not use such tired political labels and I maintain that we should not use them any longer as well. There are also areas where good Catholics can and do disagree. These are areas referred to what is called “prudential judgment”.
However, there are some contemporary “political” issues which are crystal clear. Both major political parties in the United States, Democrat Republican, fall short in several vital areas of concern.
On the fundamental human and civil rights issue of our age -- the inherent dignity of every human life - no matter what the age or stage of that life, from conception to natural death and all in between -- the current ruling elite of the party calling itself "Democrat" has left behind those of us who embrace the infallible teaching of our Church.
This position concerning the inalienable Right to Life is not simply a "religious" issue. It is also revealed in the Natural Law and is therefore binding on all men and women. We simply must not kill innocent human life. One cannot be both a faithful Catholic and what is euphemistically now called "pro-choice".
Like many of my fellow Catholic Americans, I grew up equating being Catholic with being a Democrat because -- at least I thought --Democrats cared more about the poor, the working class, the marginalized and those with no voice. The current ruling elite of the Democratic party has proven just how wrong that stereotype now is.
The current leadership of the Democrat Party has apparently embraced a counterfeit notion of "freedom" as a power over others and "choice" as a right to do whatever one wants, including taking innocent human life.
I am encouraged by organizations like “Democrats for Life” and the growing number of Democrats being elected to office who are truly, what I like to call, “Whole Life/Pro-life”.
However, the failure to hear the cry of the child in the womb at the leadership level of that once great Party is unacceptable and must be changed.
It is one more example of the unbridled hypocrisy of the current leadership. That Party can not claim to care more about the poor when it stops its ears to the ones whom Blessed Teresa of Calcutta called “Poorest of the Poor”.
Medical science has confirmed what our conscience has always known,that child in the womb is one of us. She is our neighbor and we should not kill our neighbor.
His or her voice cannot be heard now because it is muffled in the once hallowed home of the womb and disregarded by political opportunists. Once the first safe home of every human person, many wombs have now become hostile environments that can be invaded, at any time and for any reason, and reduced to chambers of horror for thousands of smaller persons, children, who have an inalienable right to be born.
Now, I address that other party in the United States, the Republican Party.
The “Grand Old Party” is not so grand. It has often earned the stereotype of its opponents that it cares about children only when they are in the womb and that once outside, it then proposes a public policy of "every person for themselves."
If a "survival of the fittest" approach to the market economy becomes the most important priority of the current leadership of the Republican Party, it will continue to decline in size, and rightly so. If it goes even further, as a small minority has suggested, and removes the Pro-life platform, it will lose whatever support it has from many Catholics and other Christians.
The Republican talk of a "compassionate" conservatism must be more than talk. It must affirm our obligations in human solidarity- we simply are our brother’s keeper- and propose a Public Policy that acknowledges our special responsibility to assist the poor in our midst.
Though some may legitimately argue that “big government" solutions have not worked all that well in the delivery of charity - and even offer a Catholic ordering principle like subsidiarity to bolster their position- the debate does not end there, it only begins.
There is that other Catholic principle called Solidarity which can never be forgotten.
Our non-dischargeable obligation toward the poor demands that when so called “big government” solutions are rejected, something else must be offered to replace them. For example, the leaders of that Party could offer an approach to good governance which recognizes the value of the mediating associations to deliver that charity and then empowers them as partners.
Simply speaking of letting the market economy “work” is insufficient. Oh, I know, at this point many of the strident "conservatives" will call me a “liberal”.
I simply do not care.
The market must act in a moral manner, at the service of the person, the family and the true common good.To do so, it must be infused with the values that make human persons truly free. We must find ways to build a moral market economy which affirms the truth that markets were made for man (and woman) and not man for the market and which expand participation.
Finally, the very notion of “pre-emptive” warfare being trumpeted by some in the leadership of the Republican Party is antithetical to the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church and any classical understanding of what might ever constitute a “just war”. In so far as the Republican Party has become associated with this kind of militarism, it has much work to be done to garner the continuing support of Catholics. However, some in both major parties have fallen for this mistaken vision of international relations.
Finally, and sadly, the Democratic Party, at least at the National Leadership level, champions another war, a war on the womb. This war is egregious and condones the taking of innocent unborn life which is always intrinsically evil.
Informed faithful and engaged Catholic citizens are beginning to see the connection between the "Social teaching" of their Church and their participation in politics. They are not first Democrats or Republicans, conservatives, “neo” conservatives or liberals.
They are first, last and all in between Catholics. Catholic is the Noun.
The movement simplistically called the "religious right" tried, mostly without success, to include them in their “coalitions” and “alliances’ at the latter end of the twentieth century.We were never at home there.
As the newly rising movement called by some the “religious left” now tries to include us in their growing “Alliances” we must be very careful and rightly suspect.
Even if a group uses the phrase “Common Good” in its name or in its rhetoric, we need to examine such a group very closely. We need to look, so to speak, “under the hood” and kick the tires.Where does this group stand on the right to life? This issue is to our time what slavery was to another era. In fact, it has at its root the same evil root. It views persons as property to be used rather than gifts to be received and protected.
Those Catholics who once tried to fit in to the culture of the "religious right" learned they had about as much of a home therein as their immigrant ancestors did in some of the original colonies.
However, they may be less at home in what is now being called the "Religious Left." That is especially true if those who define "choice" as unimpeded abortion and defend the efforts to destroy marriage and the family and the society founded upon it lead or influence these emerging groups.
We need a new movement which starts with the truth as taught by the Catholic Church, no matter what it is "labeled" in contemporary limiting political terminology and offers a different model of political action. It is time for new voices and new leaders.Our call to political participation is rooted in our Baptismal vocation. It compels us to work toward a more just and authentically free society where the true "common good" flourishes.
This society must be a “culture of life” which welcomes children and promotes, protects and defends all human life, at every age and stage.
This society must defend true marriage, not use the Police Power of the State to redefine it, and recognize the family founded upon it as the first society and first mediating institution.
This society must be truly compassionate, hearing the cry of all of the poor and accepting its obligation to give a love of preference to them.
This society must promote authentic peace and true human freedom, along with all of its obligations. Building such a society will require an informed and faithful political participation and a new movement which cannot be easily labeled ‘Left’ or ‘Right’.
It is time now to build this new model of political participation. It should be a New form of Catholic Action, led by the lay faithful, which reaches out to all Christians, other people of faith and all people of good will.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce