November 2007 Archives

The  bishops are clearly upset with pro-choice Democrats who defend themselves by saying that they are with the bishops on issues of justice and peace, but the bishops are equally upset with Republicans who oppose programs to help the poor and say that abortion is the only issue that matters. Both conservatives and liberals will find things in the bishops' document to love and hate. The  continued endorsement of the "consistent ethic of life," made famous by the  late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, will please liberals because it makes clear that the bishops do not want to become a single-issue lobby. Conservatives will like references of abortion, human cloning, and research on human embryos as "intrinsically evil." Although some bishops have denied Communion to pro-choice politicians and have told Catholics not to vote for them, this document does not endorse either position. On Communion it quotes the Holy Father on "eucharistic consistency" and the politician's grave responsibility in society to support laws shaped by "fundamental values, such as respect for  human life, its defense from conception to natural death, the family built upon marriage between a man and a woman, the freedom to educate one's children, and the promotion of the common good in all its forms...." If Rudy Giuliani and Hilary Clinton are the nominees, the abortion issue may be irrelevant because both are pro-choice. But Republicans could still argue that with the  Supreme Court one vote shy of overturning Roe v. Wade (court watchers would  debate this), Giuliani will make the difference by appointing the deciding judge. Even if such a nominee could be approved by the Senate, Democrats would argue that the chances of overturning Roe v. Wade are slim, and an overturn would only toss the issue back to the states. In any case, the candidate who comes closest to striking out under the bishops' criteria is Rudy Giuliani, who is pro-choice, pro-war, and not big on programs to help the poor. 

Religion and politics are often a combustible combination. There is an inevitable tension between matters of faith and matters of power. We are called upon to love our neighbors, but what about when those neighbors wish us ill? How often can we, should we turn the other cheek? As Catholics, we are called upon to oppose abortion, and we are also commanded to oppose unjust wars. Such demands make it hard to participate in the political process when to vote for Democrats often means to violate the former commandment, and to vote for Republicans often requires that we violate the latter. What can one do other than drop out?

Dropping out is not an option, as the Catholic bishops remind us in their new statement on faithful citizenship: "In the Catholic tradition, responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation." We are thus stuck between a rock and a hard place. 

Historically we can see both positive and negative aspects of the mix of religion and politics. Much of the American civil rights movement was, for example , faith-based and faith-driven. So, too, are fundamentalist religious wars in our time.

In the United States, separating church from state was designed to benefit both the church and the state. In a diverse, pluralistic society, to impose a narrow, faith-based doctrine on a secular people was an invitation for trouble and repression. The delicate democratic balance demands respect for all voices, and it is in this context that the bishops' contribution can make a positive addition to the heated rhetoric of contemporary politics. A responsible contribution by the Catholic bishops would be all the more welcome after the embarrassing 2004 fiasco, when many bishops openly sided with the Bush administration and against  John Kerry,  a Catholic, over the single (and admittedly important) issue of abortion. Uncomfortably neglected by these bishops were transgressions of the Bush administration (a war of choice, the death penalty, the use of torture) that in fairness should not have been ignored  by reasonable and fair-minded men of faith. Thus, the recent draft statement on the role of Catholics in the political arena is an opportunity to right the wrongs of 2004 and contribute valuable insights to the role of religion in the political arena.

Sadly, the bishops fall short. They do recognize a wider range of important issues than was obvious in the 2004 election, but they still pay especially close and repeated attention to abortion and mention war, health care, torture, human rights, a special option for the poor and vulnerable, and those issues that might  favor Democrats over Republicans more in passing than as central to the faith of Catholics. 

In a world that desperately needs moral grounding, the statement by the bishops lacks what is needed to apply Catholic teaching to matters of politics. They diminish their credibility as they appear to be mere partisan advocates of a particular party and administration, force-feeding a select few issues into the public consciousness while skating quickly over those important issues that might lead voters away from their party of choice. In spite of the fact that the bishops insist their document is not a partisan tool, this is precisely what it is in danger of becoming. The bishops lose the moral high ground as they wallow in the muddy muck of partisan politics. 

Is there a formula for mixing religion and politics? This rough outline suggests what is necessary if we are to have a healthy dialogue among believers and non-believers within a democratic and pluralistic framework: 

1. Religion must engage in the secular arena on secular terms.
2. Religions must persuade and not impose.
3. There must be a presumption of freedom of religion, thought, and action.
4. Religion must welcome and be open to all views and faiths -- embracing, not excluding.
5. Mutual respect must guide all deliberations and discussions.
6. Religion does not trump politics in a secular democracy.
7. There can be no absolute religious veto over policy.
8. It is important to have faith inform political belief, but that gives no special privileges.
9. We are all sinners, and humility, not arrogance, should guide us in discussions.
10. Religion cannot become the tool of partisanship, lest it lose all moral authority.

The nation's Catholic bishops have warned their people this week that the choices they make in the voting booth are something like the sins they admit in the confessional booth.  In an approach that even friendly commentators would hardly describe as subtle, the bishops warn the way a Catholic votes will have "an impact ... on the individual's salvation."

The bishops feel pretty good about themselves about this action, according to reports, and Russell Shaw, once their information director, says that they are "looking for hopeful signs that they have turned the corner" from the sex abuse crisis and regained the kind of moral influence they had a generation ago when they issued thoughtful pastoral letters on nuclear war and the economy. 

The bishops have turned a corner alright, but it is into the same blind alley in which they have been milling about, unsure of what to do, since the still unresolved sex abuse crisis exploded almost six years ago. 

The real reason they feel good is not because they seek to be visionary leaders but because they think that they have reasserted control over their people. Their idea of what has been wrong with the Church is what other authorities, including Church teaching, declare to be right: that mature faith is integrated as a master motive into the lives of believers so that, on their own they consult theological principles so that they can and, indeed, must follow their consciences in making their moral choices that include how they vote on election day. They don't need to be told, as if they had not reached the age of reason, about the gravity of the choices about war and peace and life and death that they make when they vote.

The bishops should examine themselves about the moral implications of the choices they have made, for example, about dealing with the still smoldering sex abuse crisis by church personnel. What can Catholics make of recent pronouncements by Church leaders that seem like talking points rather than deeply held moral convictions? Cardinal Francis George has suggested that the pursuit of justice by victims through recourse to the law is only about money. Chicago Auxiliary Bishop John Paprocki, recently gave a talk in which he equated the lawsuits about sex abuse with attacks on the Church and suggested that such pursuits were the work of the devil himself. Shepherds who utter such judgments should be more worried about their own salvation than about that of their flock.

The bishops are bound by canon law themselves. Do they wonder if their own salvation is not at stake if they do not take canon 213 seriously? It states that Catholics have a right to the sacraments but on the present ecclesiastical watch bishops have allowed a scarcity of the sacraments to develop, cutting down on masses rather than finding ways to call more lay people to the priesthood, and closing churches. This nationwide pattern does not take into account the large increase in Catholics, mostly Hispanic, predicted over the next generation. The challenge will be to open rather than close parishes and schools to serve them. Whose salvation is at stake in whether the spiritual needs of millions of new Catholics will be met?

Many of the men who wear miters think that the best way to lead the Church to 2025 is by returning it to 1925. They want to repeal Vatican II and magically bring back the devotions and practices of a wonderful but permanently ended era in American Catholicism. They apparently feel that it is dangerous for Catholics to be adult and to take responsibility for their own decisions in life. They seem uneasy about conversing with a generation of Catholics who know as much or more theology than they do.

What they seem to view as a way to restore their authority is to assert control and to expect submission from their people. Submission was, however, one of the most dangerous dynamics in the development of the sex abuse crisis, and the bishops should be as wary of demanding that as their people are of offering it. Most bishops are warm and healthy men who, after they get home from this week's meeting and have a chance to clear their heads, will realize that by treating grown-up Catholics as children, by putting their salvation at risk in the voting booth, they are dangerously eroding rather than recovering their authority.