Faithful Citizenship

Disclaimer: dense, non-fluffy material ahead. This will take you a while to read and think through. And it may take you more than one reading, at that.  Feel free to skip if your mind's already made up about the Fall elections.  :)



Last year, the US Catholic Bishops Came out with a document, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States.” It went right over my head last year (at that point there were a lot of other things I was trying to figure out...), but it's been getting a lot more press in this election year, and so I've seen it again.

Catholic Social Teaching in general is being put forth as a guide to wading through the muck and mud of the political campaigns to help people make a morally sound choice in the Fall elections.

And, you know... the more I read of it, the more I am becoming convinced that the Catholics have figured out that elusive balance between "left" and "right", between liberal and conservative, between public and private morality, between social and individual responsibility. I think they get it, in a way that political parties and ideologies don't.

At least the church does, in its teaching. The people in it, though? Well...

Like all of us, they come by their convictions in many ways. Some are generationally handed down, some come from religious education, some are formed by the influence of peers and social pressure, some are formed by hard-earned lessons of our own experience.

As an example, if you've ever held a special needs child in your arms (like Sarah Palin's)... well, it simply reshapes whatever opinion your parents may have passed to you, or your friends told you that you should have, about the quality of that child's life. It just does.

It's the same with having a loved one who is serving in the military, or who is contracting a debilitating physical or mental illness, or who is "coming out" with beliefs or lifestyles that are antithetical to yours. It stops being theory at that point, and the relationship shapes your views on the subject.

Still, our experience is not God, even though we may act like it. And "our truth" is not necessarily society's truth, and society is *not* without common truth.

In fact, society *needs* common truths to guide its collective behavior (even anarchists have to agree on what is true, in order to act in concert, as we saw last week at the RNC.) Society also needs some measure of compassion and tolerance for those who are not "mainstream" in their life situation or their thinking, who hold to different truths in some areas.

It's a complicated business, voting. For in the voting booth, we are voting to shape our society, and define what should be its truths. We are voting to bring our society in line with our values, and with our view of what truths are common (or should be) for us all as a nation, from crime & punishment to caring for the unfortunate to economic fairness to education to private ethical and moral behaviors.

Yeah, all that.

So, how do I view the levers I will have to choose among in November? How do I assess which candidate or party will shape society toward what I think should be its commonly held truths?



Most of the rest of this post is taken from the current edition of The Catholic Spirit, a weekly newspaper sent to all parishioners in the Archdiocese here. If you visit the website, you'll see that I'm quoting extensively, although excerpting significantly as well.

Hey, it's my blog, I can highlight what I wish. ;) At least I'm crediting the source! That's more than Joe Biden did. :P



First, from an article by Stephen J. Heaney, from the University of St. Thomas, in which he introduces a serialized excerpt from the Bishops' Statement, this one about making choices.

Someone once told me that my thinking was too black and white. She thought more in gray. I said black-and-white thinking would be wrong if the topic is gray — but not if the topic is black and white.

In the [prior] segment of “Faithful Citizenship,” the bishops wrote of prudence. Prudence allows us to tell when the moral question is black and white, or gray. If it is gray, then there are several reasonable answers to the question; prudence then judges what seems to be the best course of action. But if the question is black and white, then so is the answer, and it is not prudent to act otherwise.

In today’s segment, the bishops emphatically argue that there are some clear black-and-white issues about which no people of good will can disagree. When a legal system permits an action which is intrinsically evil, we must always and everywhere oppose that action and that law.

(...)

Certainly we must both oppose intrinsic evil and promote good, but there is no moral equivalence between them. There may be many paths to the same good and people of good will may reasonably disagree about how to reach that good. There is, however, only one way to fight intrinsic evils: oppose them by all moral means. We may not compromise with the evil, hoping to accomplish some other goods.


And now from the statement itself:


Aided by the virtue of prudence in the exercise of well-formed consciences, Catholics are called to make practical judgments regarding good and evil choices in the political arena.

There are some things we must never do, as individuals or as a society, because they are always incompatible with love of God and neighbor. Such actions are so deeply flawed that they are always opposed to the authentic good of persons. These are called “intrinsically evil” actions. They must always be rejected and opposed and must never be supported or condoned. A prime example is the intentional taking of innocent human life, as in abortion and euthanasia. In our nation, “abortion and euthanasia have become preeminent threats to human dignity because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental human good and the condition for all others” (“Living the Gospel of Life,” No. 5). It is a mistake with grave moral consequences to treat the destruction of innocent human life merely as a matter of individual choice. A legal system that violates the basic right to life on the grounds of choice is fundamentally flawed.

Similarly, direct threats to the sanctity and dignity of human life, such as human cloning and destructive research on human embryos, are also intrinsically evil. These must always be opposed. Other direct assaults on innocent human life and violations of human dignity, such as genocide, torture, racism and the targeting of noncombatants in acts of terror or war, can never be justified.

Opposition to intrinsically evil acts that undercut the dignity of the human person should also open our eyes to the good we must do, that is, to our positive duty to contribute to the common good and to act in solidarity with those in need. As Pope John Paul II said, “The fact that only the negative commandments oblige always and under all circumstances does not mean that in the moral life prohibitions are more important than the obligation to do good indicated by the positive commandment” (“Veritatis Splendor,” No. 52). Both opposing evil and doing good are essential obligations.

The right to life implies and is linked to other human rights — to the basic goods that every human person needs to live and thrive. All the life issues are connected, for erosion of respect for the life of any individual or group in society necessarily diminishes respect for all life. The moral imperative to respond to the needs of our neighbors — basic needs such as food, shelter, health care, education and meaningful work — is universally binding on our consciences and may be legitimately fulfilled by a variety of means. Catholics must seek the best ways to respond to these needs. As Blessed Pope John XXIII taught, “[each of us] has the right to life, to bodily integrity and to the means which are suitable for the proper development of life; these are primarily food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care and, finally, the necessary social services” (“Pacem in Terris,” No. 11).

(...)

These are not optional concerns that can be dismissed. Catholics are urged to seriously consider church teaching on these issues. Although choices about how best to respond to these and other compelling threats to human life and dignity are matters for principled debate and decision, this does not make them optional concerns or permit Catholics to dismiss or ignore church teaching on these important issues.

Clearly not every Catholic can be actively involved on each of these concerns, but we need to support one another as our community of faith defends human life and dignity wherever it is threatened. We are one family of faith fulfilling the mission of Jesus Christ.

The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith made a similar point: It must be noted also that a well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals. The Christian faith is an integral unity, and thus it is incoherent to isolate some particular element to the detriment of the whole of Catholic doctrine. A political commitment to a single isolated aspect of the church’s social doctrine does not exhaust one’s responsibility toward the common good (“Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life,” No. 4)



Second, here are some points drawn from Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver in his new book, “Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life.”

It was described by reviewer George Weigel as "essential reading for serious Catholics in an election year fraught with consequence for core Catholic issues in 21st century America."

I quote from his review:

Here’s the argument, concentrated into nine key points (note - I concentrate even further.)

1 Schizophrenic Catholicism is neither Catholic, nor responsible, nor patriotic. “We have obligations as believers,” the archbishop writes. “We have duties as citizens. We need to honor both, or we honor neither.”

2 Postmodern secularist skepticism about the truth of anything is soul-withering; in C.S. Lewis’s phrase, it makes “men without chests.” The current social, political and demographic malaise of aggressively secularist Europe is an object lesson, and a warning, for America: “A public life that excludes God does not enrich the human spirit. It kills it.”

(...)

The most powerful “political” statement Catholics and other Christians make is to acknowledge the sovereignty of Christ as the first sovereignty in our lives.

This confession of faith in fact helps make democracy possible, by erecting a barrier against the modern state’s tendency to fill every nook and cranny of social space.

5 America was founded on the convictions that there are moral truths that we can know by reason, and that the state has no business doing theology.

The result was the vibrant, religiously informed public moral culture that amazed Alexis de Toqcueville in the 19th century. That distinctive American experience later shaped Vatican II’s teaching on religious freedom and the limited, constitutional state.

6 Work for social progress, however noble, is no substitute for ongoing personal conversion to Jesus Christ. True conversion will almost inevitably extract costs in politics.

Catholic politicians who seek to avoid these dilemmas by hiding in the underbrush of a public square stripped of religious and moral reference points should reflect on the lives of Thomas More and Martin Luther King.

7 There is a bottom line in all this: the life issues are “foundational . . . because the act of dehumanizing and killing the unborn child attacks human dignity in a uniquely grave way.”

8 Responsible citizenship means making choices, not simply voting the way our grandparents did. Citizenship is an exercise in moral judgment, not in tribal loyalty.

9 Nothing in politics is perfect, including candidates. Yet unless we fight for the truth, “we become what the Word of God has such disgust for: salt that has lost its flavor.”

Good stuff. Buy one yourself; buy another for a friend.




Hm. I think I just gave my friends the short version, even if it doesn't look like it. :) Lots to think about...

Happy voting!