Electoral Responsibility

The editors of America magazine write that both presidential candidates have taken positions that are incompatible with the moral law.

How will the United States change after Nov. 6? The political rhetoric has verged on apocalyptic. Yet while the outcome of the U.S. presidential election will have far-reaching consequences, especially for those who live at the margins of American society, candidates and voters alike should recall the words of the Psalmist: “Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save” (Ps. 146:3). That caution is especially poignant for many Catholic voters, who are once again caught between their desire to participate in civic life and the sad fact that both presidential candidates have taken positions that are incompatible with the moral law. That the candidates’ moral miscalculations extend even to the gravest questions of life and death only further vexes the Catholic conscience.

The entire editorial is here.

Happy Independence Day

Timothy Cardinal Dolan, archbishop of New York, discusses the Catholic call to faithful citizenship in this video produced by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, of which he serves as president. To read the U.S. Bishops’ statement Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, go here.

Bishop Hubbard on political engagement

Today’s Times Union carries an abridged version of the homily that Bishop Howard J. Hubbard delivered on Tuesday at a Mass coinciding with the Public Policy Day for New York Catholics, organized by the New York State Catholic Conference. Here is an excerpt:

However, when entering the public debate people of faith cannot claim moral superiority for our position simply because we quote from the Scriptures or church teaching. We owe the public a careful accounting of how we have come to our moral conclusions, and we must translate our faith-based positions into language that can serve as a basis for civil discourse in a religiously pluralistic society.

The inclusion of explicitly religious moral values in the public debate requires us to keep the moral factors central to it and to set an example of how this can be done with sensitivity and rationality. We must demonstrate that we can keep our deepest convictions and still maintain civil courtesy. We must show that we can test others' arguments but not question their motives and that we can presume good will even when we disagree strongly.

There is an equally important battle to be won within our church itself, namely, that of the legitimacy of Catholic social justice advocacy, which is as much a part of our tradition as the proclamation of the word and the celebration of the sacraments.

Many Catholics are unaware of the church's social teaching, and Catholics are also the least likely of the faith groups to participate in civic engagement. We are more comfortable in running food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters for the homeless than in advocating with our elected representatives for public policies that will address the root causes of poverty and injustice.

Many, especially some in the media, portray the Catholic community as being concerned only about abortion or issues of human sexuality. We are proudly concerned about these issues because they deal with the sanctity of life. Indeed, we have addressed this explicitly in our opposition to the radical reproductive health care act. Yet we are also gravely concerned about the education of the young, service to the poor through food programs, affordable housing and employment, creating a viable path to citizenship for newly arrived immigrants and assisting to inmates in their reintegration in the community,

You can read more here.

It runs in the family

Rex Smith, the editor of the Times Union, also is familiar with religion, since the clergy in his family include his paternal grandfather, maternal grandfather, father and brother. Cousins and uncles also became clergy. So when he talks about religion, he is not without some standing.

On Christmas, his column in the Sunday Times Union dealt with religion and politics, topics close to the hearts of those who read this blog.

Mr. Smith discusses his father’s view about the role that people of faith should play in the world, and he goes on to quote an influential African-American theologian, Howard Thurman, a student of Gandhi and a mentor of Martin Luther King Jr., who wrote:

"When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flock, then the true work of Christmas begins:

"To find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among others, to make music in the heart."

We recommend the entire column, which is available here.

Where have all the voters gone?

There is an excellent editorial in the most recent issue of The Spotlight, which has weekly editions in Albany, Schenectady and Saratoga counties. The editorial notes that voter turnout in the Capital District is roughly 30 per cent, not too far from the average number of Catholics who attend weekly liturgies. We do not claim that there is any connection, but we believe that both numbers should be raised – significantly. As we have written previously, that is one of the goals of this blog, to get people more involved in their parishes and in their communities.

The Spotlight editorial notes:

It’s certainly no secret Americans are not voting as much as they used to. Whether that has to do with quality of politicians, our go-go lifestyle or too much television, we can’t honestly say, but we can say this is particularly bad in local election years like this one.

To use a handy example, in 2009 something like 60,000 people across Albany County headed to the polls to select their local leaders. That sounds pretty good until you consider the fact there were nearly 200,000 registered voters in the county at that time, for a voter turnout of around 30 percent.

(Oh, and by the way, right now there are about 60,000 county residents of voting age who evidently haven’t even bothered to register to vote. The numbers are similarly poor in other parts of the area.)
. . .
At the end of the day what your local government is doing may very well have a bigger impact on your day-to-day life. Local governments pave and plow roads, maintain sewer lines and police our communities. They also levy taxes, so on Election Day the people who vote are literally controlling who is behind part of that dreaded property tax bill.

That’s really the crux of this whole diatribe. Your vote keeps politicians honest and working for you (and they are often very well compensated, we should add), and it’s simply stunning so few people are willing to take five minutes to exercise that control.

The editorial concludes:

If you’re one of the unregistered residents of this county, it’s too late for this go around, but registering is easy. Simply visit online or call your board of elections and you can get them whole thing done by mail.

To those who are signed up: Go out there and be heard.

We could not agree more. Read the entire editorial here.

Rendering unto Caesar

Earlier this month, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan preached on one of the most familiar Gospel readings, which contains these words of Jesus, “Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but to God what belongs to God.” He notes that, “for 2000 years we, His followers, have been struggling to keep that delicate balance.”

Jesus and His Church, of course, have always encouraged us to be “in the world but not of it,” so, political responsibility, faithful citizenship, is a duty, a virtue . . .

For 2000 years we followers of Jesus have been trying to balance our duties to God and our duties to Caesar, to our government, longing for a society where the two orders are allied, not in conflict.

Our attempts these past two millennia have been awkward. At times we have erred on the side of our faith, believing that government owes religion certain privileges, power, dominion, even that government should enforce and impose a particular creed. This, of course, is theocracy; it is bad for the believer, bad for the Church, and bad for society, as we have learned the hard way.

At other times, we have erred on the side of attributing to the government a power and an authority reserved to God alone, reducing faith, religion, the Church, to a harassed, handcuffed hobby.

He then goes on to quote Blessed John Paul II, who spoke the following words on the mall in our nation’s capital thirty-two years ago:

Human-Christian values triumph when any system is reformed that authorized the exploitation of any human being; when upright service and honesty in public servants is promoted; when the dispensing of justice is fair and the same for all; when responsible use is made of the material and energy resources of the world -- resources that are meant for the benefit of all; when the environment is preserved intact for the future generations. Human-Christian values triumph by subjecting political and economic considerations to human dignity, by making them service the cause of every life created by God.

They both are correct. To read the rest of the homily, go here.

Catholic lethargy in public square

Russell Shaw, a contributing editor at Our Sunday Visitor, writes incisively about the documents issued by our bishops and the Vatican, and how few of us read them or even know about them. For all the work that goes into preparing these documents and statements, the sad truth is that, for the average person in the pews, they do not exist.

I was reminded of this by news of a study showing only 16 percent of American Catholics recall even hearing about the most recent of the “political responsibility” statement published quadrennially by the American bishops. And three-quarters of those who’d heard of it said it had “no influence at all” how they voted in 2008.

Yes, a small number of professional Church watchers have been arguing about these documents ever since the bishops’ conference began publishing them in 1976. They have been, and to some extent still are, a big bone of contention between liberal and conservative Catholic activists. Whether that will be true of the version forthcoming for next year’s election remains to be seen.

But hold that argument for another day. The point I’m making now is that, except for the activists, very few Catholics have read or heeded these much-discussed documents.

It’s no surprise. As somebody who drafted many bishops’ statements some years ago and did media relations on behalf of many others, I have no hesitation about saying it’s been this way a long time. Not just with bishops’ documents either. The same is true of documents from the pope and Roman Curia. Catholics by and large don’t read them or know what they say.

There are several reasons. Church documents tend to be long and difficult for people without much practice reading them. These days they’re readily available on the Internet, but people still must make a small effort to access them — and they don’t. Priests rarely preach on them, and while Catholic papers faithfully report on them, many Catholics can’t be bothered to read the Catholic press to find out what’s going on.

Thus, what many Catholics know about the Church and the teaching of the magisterium comes to them largely (if it comes at all) from the reporting of the secular media. And secular media generally do a better job covering high school field hockey than reporting important statements by the bishops and the pope.

And that is one of the reasons we will be making an effort in coming days to make people more aware of this blog. We hope that it will be a place where people can come for a quick update on what is happening in the area of peace and justice, primarily from a Catholic perspective, but also with an awareness that there are others in the world with many good and wise things to add to the conversation.

We also will strive to be a resource, with links to the many other resources available on-line.

We will explain not just why the Church is involved in matters of peace and justice, but also will offer opportunities for our readers to get involved as well.

To begin, take another look at the top right-hand side of this page. There you will find links not only to the website of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, but also the New York State Catholic Conference and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Also there is a link to The Busy Christian's Guide to Catholic Social Teaching, a fascinating, illustrated, easy-to-read presentation of teachings going back to Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum novarum, issued in 1891.

We hope that you will explore what we have to offer, and that you will return often to see what we have added.

Faithful Citizenship -- Doing Good and Avoiding Evil

From The Challenge of Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, a summary of the United States bishops’ reflection Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, available here.

How Does the Church Help Catholics to Address Political and Social Questions?

Doing Good and Avoiding Evil

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. These intrinsically evil acts must always be rejected and never supported. A preeminent example is the intentional taking of human life through abortion. It is always morally wrong to destroy innocent human beings. A legal system that allows the right to life to be violated on the grounds of choice is fundamentally flawed.

Similarly, direct threats to the dignity of human life such as euthanasia, human cloning, and destructive research on human embryos are also intrinsically evil and must be opposed. Other assaults on human life and dignity, such as genocide, torture, racism, and the targeting of noncombatants in acts of terror or war, can never be justified. Disrespect for any human life diminishes respect for all human life.

As Catholics we are not single-issue voters. A candidate’s position on a single issue is not sufficient to guarantee a voter’s support. Yet a candidate’s position on a single issue that involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion or the promotion of racism, may legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a candidate from receiving support.

Opposition to intrinsically evil acts also prompts us to recognize our positive duty to contribute to the common good and act in solidarity with those in need. Both opposing evil and doing good are essential. 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” (Encyclical Veritatis Splendor, no. 52). The basic right to life implies and is linked to other human rights to the goods that every person needs to live and thrive—including food, shelter, health care, education, and meaningful work. The use of the death penalty, hunger, lack of health care or housing, human trafficking, the human and moral costs of war, and unjust immigration policies are some of the serious moral issues that challenge our consciences and require us to act.

Faithful Citizenship -- The Virtue of Prudence

From The Challenge of Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, a summary of the United States bishops’ reflection Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, available here.

How Does the Church Help Catholics to Address Political and Social Questions?

The Virtue of Prudence

The Church also encourages Catholics to develop the virtue of prudence, which enables us “to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1806). Prudence shapes and informs our ability to deliberate over available alternatives, to determine what is most fitting to a specific context, and to act. Prudence must be accompanied by courage which calls us to act. As Catholics seek to advance the common good, we must carefully discern which public policies are morally sound. A good end does not justify an immoral means. At times Catholics may choose different ways to respond to social problems, but we cannot differ on our obligation to protect human life and dignity and help build through moral means a more just and peaceful world.

A just ordering of society

"The direct duty to work for a just ordering of society, on the other hand, is proper to the lay faithful. As citizens of the State, they are called to take part in public life in a personal capacity. So they cannot relinquish their participation “in the many different economic, social, legislative, administrative and cultural areas, which are intended to promote organically and institutionally the common good.” The mission of the lay faithful is therefore to configure social life correctly, respecting its legitimate autonomy and cooperating with other citizens according to their respective competences and fulfilling their own responsibility. Even if the specific expressions of ecclesial charity can never be confused with the activity of the State, it still remains true that charity must animate the entire lives of the lay faithful and therefore also their political activity, lived as “social charity”.

—Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, No. 29