When Politics And Religion Intersect

What is the surest way for a deacon or priest to get himself into trouble? By preaching about politics from the pulpit.

Whenever politics is the subject of a sermon most people will become offended or angered. Some people will take what is said as a condemnation of a certain politician or political party. Others will say that the preacher’s words were too strong while still others will claim that they were not strong enough. One or two people may even storm out of the church enraged that anyone would dare mix religion and politics.

In today’s society we have a tendency to want to separate politics and religion. We see religion as having to do with the after-life and politics with the here-and-now. Religion is private and politics is public. We do not want religious leaders to comment on public policy and we do not want politicians meddling in Church doctrine and discipline. We want to have a clear separation and even a towering wall between the two.

However, as with most issues in life, politics and religion are not always easy to keep apart. As followers of Christ, in particular, we are not only called to be saints in the Kingdom of God but good citizens of our country and of our planet. We bring our faith into everything we do - not only into our homes but into our communities as well. Faith for the Christian is never just a private matter. It touches upon every aspect of our lives including the choices we make as citizens of this great country.

Today’s readings help us reflect on why we are called as a Church to be involved in the political process of our country and how we are to do it.

First of all, our responsibility to stay in touch with current events, to vote our consciences and to lobby our politicians is founded on the commandment that we love our neighbor as ourselves. In the public sphere, our love for neighbor displays itself most keenly in our support for the poor and the needy. As followers of Christ, it is our duty to stand up for the most underprivileged members of society. It is our vocation to give a voice to the voiceless. Though they are the ones who most need the support of government, their concerns too often go unheard because they lack the money and influence to lobby politicians. Many like the unborn, children and immigrants cannot even vote. It is up to us, then, to use whatever influence we have to make sure that their needs are heard and acted upon.

Why should we care for the poor? Because God does. Our first reading from the prophet Amos makes it very clear that God takes note of any injustice that is visited upon the poor. Because they have no one else to defend them, our Heavenly Father promises that He will stand up for them. God will judge harshly those who have failed to see justice done for the powerless. When we stand before Him, we want to be sure that we did all we could in this life to be on the side of the little ones whom He cares so much about.

Concern for the poor is not only good religion, it is also sound politics. Government should be on the side of the needy. Wealthy people can take care of themselves. It is the poor who need government to defend them against those who would exploit them. Also, as the saying goes, “Everyone does better when everyone does better.” When the hungry are fed, when the homeless have shelter, when the penniless get an education there is less crime, less disease and less restlessness in society. We all benefit when the common good is served.

Secondly, today’s gospel teaches us that we are all called to be faithful stewards of the good things God has given us. This refers not only to the way we manage wealth, but to our use of this planet. As a society we have become increasingly aware of how our lifestyle affects the environment. In particular, as Christians, we should have an even greater concern for the planet as God’s creation and for nature as the revelation of His goodness and providence. We should be at the forefront of efforts to reduce pollution and preserve nature for everyone’s enjoyment especially for the generations to come.

Our involvement in environmental conservation is particularly important in our world today. Too often, environmental activism is used as a cover for population control. In much of Asia and Africa, we see the distribution of contraceptives, forced sterilization and coerced abortions promoted as a way to reduce the population in the name of cleaning up the planet as if human beings are another form of pollution. As followers of Jesus committed to the belief that every person is made in the image and likeness of God we have an obligation to influence the environmental movement. We must promote the dignity of human beings who are also part of the environment rather than treat them as pollutants to be exterminated for the supposed good of the planet.

Finally, our second reading teaches us that we should pray for politicians and all those who have authority over us. We too often have a disdain for those who enter politics. However, we should be praying for them, asking God to guide their hearts to do justice for the poor and to preserve our planet. Their actions have a tremendous influence over our lives so we should be raising our hands daily to our Heavenly Father asking Him to give us women and men of courage, insight and virtue to lead us as a country and as a world to be more peaceful and more just.

Well, it seems that not too many of you have walked out on me today. I thank you for opening your mind and heart to this message which can too often be seen as too controversial for the pulpit. However, as followers of Christ, we are called to bring the good news of God’s love wherever we go including into the public square and the voting booth. In particular, we are called to announce God’s love for the poor and to preserve His creation for the good of all. Then God’s Kingdom will increasingly influence the earthly city making His peace and justice more of a reality in our world today.

Another lesson from the past week

Can a devout, pro-life Catholic ever in good conscience vote for a pro-choice candidate?

This week's Senate election in Massachusetts offers an interesting case in point.

Though Massachusetts has the second largest Catholic population by percentage, a serious pro-life politician never reaches the ballot. The Democratic candidate for Senate, Martha Coakley, stuck to a staunchly pro-choice platform including opposition to parental notification when minors seek abortions and to the right of individuals to protest outside abortion mills. The Republican candidate, Scott Brown, is also pro-choice but accepts the need for limits and regulations on abortions including a ban on partial birth abortions and conscience protections for health care professionals. Joe Kennedy, the Independent candidate, does not articulate his views on abortion on his website. However, given his permissive views on same sex marriage and other cultural issues, one may assume that he is solidly pro-choice.

Does this sad state of affairs mean that the pro-life voter has no choice in conscience except to boycott the election or write in a candidate? By no means. In my opinion, because Martha Coakley's views on abortion are so extreme, Scott Brown's position - though deeply flawed - ensures that important measures such as conscience protections for medical professionals and the ban on public funding for abortions would stay in place. So important are these issues in my opinion that even if the third party candidate were pro-life, a vote for Scott Brown could still be morally justified. The possibility of the third party candidate actually winning would be too small to entrust him with our vote. And it could result in the more extreme candidate being elected. Therefore, keeping in place the important restrictions on abortion achieved to this point makes a vote for Scott Brown a good one in conscience despite his pro-choice views.

It should be noted, however, that this is a good moral choice because the only other viable option was a candidate with such extreme views. Were her views more moderate or if there had been a viable pro-life candidate, the moral reasoning would be quite different.

Nothing convinced me more of our need to oppose Martha Coakley's candidacy than an interview she gave prior to the election on her opposition to conscience protections for medical professionals. Pushed on the issue by the reporter, she finally conceded that individual consciences should be respected. However she quickly added that devote Catholics then should not work in emergency rooms. This raised the specter of religious litmus tests for health care workers and emergency rooms staffed by Doctor Mengele's.

I suspect that, like the issue of conscience protections, none of her other extreme views, spoon-fed to her by Planned Parenthood and Emily's List, would stand up to logical scrutiny or be palatable to the people of the Commonwealth. Yet she would be willing to impose them on the health care community, and by extension, to their patients.

If those of us who value life had boycotted the election, she may have won and carried her radical, anti-life agenda to the Senate floor. For all his flaws, Scott Brown was the only choice against even further erosion of the right to life.

The Bishop and the Politician

I have heard friends lament that the Church is once again in the news this time denying a politician, Representative Patrick Kennedy, communion. They fear that it is more bad press which the Church doesn't need and that it gives the media another opportunity to lambaste the bishops. I, on the other hand, think any opportunity to put the Church's opposition to abortion on the front page is a good thing. At the very least, it gets people talking about this important issue and gives us an opportunity to dispel some persistent myths.

One of the most frequently heard criticisms of the Church's actions over the past years is that it is the role of legislators to represent their constituents, not their personal beliefs and certainly not the mandates of their Church. According to this view, Representative Kennedy is simply upholding the settled law of the land and the wishes of those who elected him to office. For him to go against the wishes of his constituents because of his personally held views would be a violation of his oath of office.

This line of argument was first proposed by Mario Cuomo when he was the governor of New York and has been echoed by every pro-abortion Catholic politician since. However, it does not hold up to scrutiny because it is not at all the way that politicians behave. Politicians routinely support and promote legislation which flies in the face of the values of their constituency. For instance, though the first Gulf War was largely supported by the people of Massachusetts, Senator Ted Kennedy voted against it and was applauded for his courage. He was not representing the opinion of the people of Massachusetts, but his own personally held views. Most recently, the state legislature in Massachusetts enacted a law legalizing same-sex marriage though a majority of Massachusetts residents opposed it at the time. For that reason, the representatives would not allow the legislation to be placed on the ballot knowing it would go down to certain defeat. Again, their actions were not reflecting the interests of their constituents, but their personally held beliefs or the desires of an especially powerful and vindictive special interest.

In the current debate over health-care reform, Representative Kennedy has made it known that he would not support a bill that lacked a public option even though a majority of his constituents oppose it. Neither would he support a bill which did not include coverage for abortions, though his constituents oppose it. It is his personally held view that the public option and coverage for abortions are essential elements of any health-care reform package, and he is more than willing to impose that view on the people who elected him to office. But protections for the most vulnerable in society, the unborn child, he is not willing to either support or promote.

The fact is that Representative Kennedy has the clout because of his family's legacy to enact legislation to protect the unborn child from destruction and perhaps even convince his constituency that such laws are a good thing. He chooses not to whether because he does not agree that abortion is a heinous act or because he is under pressure from special interest groups within his party. Whatever the case, the values and interests of his constituents have nothing to do with it.

It is time for Representative Kennedy to admit that he does not think abortion is wrong and to accept the consequences his support for it has on his relationship with the Church. Of course, there is always hope that he will experience a conversion and become a champion of the rights of the unborn. With prayer and the continued persistence of our Catholic bishops to articulate clearly and forcefully how abortion harms the common good and undermines the future of our country, it is a possibility.

The Cost of a Human Life

I read an interesting opinion piece in the Boston Globe on Saturday ("The Cost of not enacting health care reform", by Linday Bilmes and Rosemarie Day 10/07/09)

The authors argue that we work under the erroneous assumption that we are saving money by not insuring more Americans. However, sick and dead people do not work and do not spend money. By insuring more Americans we both save and extend their lives giving us more workers to increase our productivity and more consumers to boost our economy.

It turns out that the government estimates the value of each human life in terms of its contribution to the overall economy to be 7 million dollars. This is important to the cost benefit analysis of government programs. For instance, if a government program costing 100 billion dollars were estimated to save only 100 lives, it would not be considered worth the expense.

The authors apply this cost benefit analysis to the current health care proposals assuming that it will save 40,000 lives a year:

US government agencies typically use a figure around $7 million to represent the lost economic output from each death. If we conservatively use only half the government figure, or $3.5 milllion, it suggest that the annual cost to the US economy of 40,000 deaths is about $140 billion. That adds up to a cost of more than a trillion dollars over a 10 year period - even taking future inflation into account - well above the cost of enacting a health care package.

I find this a compelling argument. But I wonder if these authors would consider applying the same calculus to abortion. If so, we would find that the cost to the economy of ending 1.5 million unborn lives annually is a staggering 5.25 trillion dollars. If we were to multiply that over the 36 years since the legalization of abortion in the US, we would have a sum requiring exponents to calculate. If the price of doing nothing to provide healthcare to the 40,000 people who would otherwise die without it is too high, what is the cost of allowing millions of unborn children never to see the light.

Amnesty International

Amnesty International is a non-profit organization which does important work keeping human rights issues in the forefront of public consciousness as well as offering support to prisoners of conscience. Unfortunately, they have decided to tarnish their mission by including abortion as one of the fundamental human "rights" they work to promote and defend. I took the opportunity of a fundraising letter I received from them to voice my disapproval.
To whom it may concern,

Thank you for the opportunity to sign a card in support of prisoners of conscience.

Unfortunately, in conscience, I cannot make a monetary contribution to your important work because of your organization's support for abortion.

Your failure to recognize the rights and dignity of the most vulnerable among us - namely, the unborn - undermines in a tragic way the goal you seek to achieve. If a government can revoke or fail to recognize the rights of any one of us, how can we then stop it from violating the dignity of all of us?

I pray that your important work of calling to the world's attention the violation of human rights by governments will continue unabated. Nonetheless, I must protest in the strongest terms possible your exclusion of human persons at their most vulnerable stage of development from among those who deserve protection.

Pro-Life Prayer

Last week was the annual March for Life in Washington. It strikes me that, more than ever, I am hearing people talk about praying for the conversion of the President. It could be because we have never had a President who is so aggressive in his ambitions for the pro-abortion agenda. Nonetheless, I think we are realizing that the struggle is not only for "hearts and minds" but for souls. Our compelling and reasonable defense of the sanctity of life too often hits hearts that are hardened and only prayer can soften them. And so, I found this prayer on the EWTN website:




A Pro-Life Prayer For Our President And Public Officials

Lord God, Author of Life and Source of Eternal Life,

Move the hearts of all our public officials and especially our President, to fulfill their responsibilities worthily and well to all those entrusted to their care.

Help them in their special leadership roles, to extend the mantle of protection to the most vulnerable, especially the defenseless unborn, whose lives are threatened with extermination by an indifferent society.

Guide all public officials by your wisdom and grace to cease supporting any law that fails to protect the fundamental good that is human life itself, which is a gift from God and parents.

You are the Protector and Defender of the lives of the innocent unborn. Change the hearts of those who compromise the call to protect and defend life. Bring our nation to the values that have made us a great nation, a society that upholds the values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all.

Mary, the Mother of the living, help us to bear witness to the Gospel of Life with our lives and our laws, through Christ, Our Lord.

Amen.



Imprimatur:
January 22, 2009
Most Reverend Robert J. Baker
Bishop of Birmingham in Alabama

(cns photo)

Get ready! It's coming!

As we recommit ourselves to advocating for the rights of the unborn, the question will increasingly be raised: What about the death penalty? The argument will be made that if the Church is willing to publicly upbraid Catholic politicians who promote abortion, it should also be prepared to give the same treatment to those who support the death penalty.

We need to be ready with some answers.

I have to admit at the outset that I am against the death penalty. As I see it, our legal system is simply not perfect enough to ensure that every person who is sentenced to death is really guilty of the crime he or she is being accused of. The likelihood of an innocent person being put to death - no matter how remote - gives me pause. A life sentence in prison can always be reversed, but a death sentence is permanent.

Furthermore, I think Catholics who do support the death penalty should examine their consciences to ensure that their support is not a result of ignorance, prejudice or vengeance.

That being said, I can't say that I find the death penalty to be a morally equivalent evil to abortion. Nor do I think that there should be an equal urgency to end the practice.

First of all, capital punishment is an extension of a government's responsibility to protect its citizens. It can be argued that capital punishment acts as a deterrent, that is, that people are less likely to commit violent crimes when they know that they may be put to death as a result. Just as the police are authorized to use deadly force to protect citizens and the armed forces to protect the nation, so the legal system may be allowed to use the death penalty to protect the public from criminals.

In the case of abortion, the government fails at its responsibility to protect the innocent. Those who are the most vulnerable, who have no voice, are the very ones who are excluded from protection.

Secondly, people do not find themselves on death row for no reason. Police and prosecutors do not randomly pluck people off the street and sentence them to death. Rather, people receive the death penalty because they chose to commit a crime. Furthermore, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, they are presumed to be innocent and are entitled to be represented by an attorney and to be tried by a jury of their peers. The death penalty is not founded on a presumption that the guilty do not have a fundamental right to life. Rather, the lengthy appeals process afforded to them indicates just the opposite. It can be argued that the judicial system is unfair and can inadvertently prosecute innocent persons (I certainly believe it's a possibility). Nonetheless, it does support the basic right to life of the accused by requiring a high threshold of certainty before leveling a sentence of death.

While the death row inmate gets her day in court, the unborn child has no advocate and no appeals process. Until an attorney is appointed to defend the rights of every unborn child, then I cannot agree that the death penalty is an equal violation of human rights.

Finally, the sheer numbers of abortions as compared to capital deaths is staggering. In 2007 there were 42 inmates put to death in the United States while there were approximately 1,370,000 abortions committed. While only one unjust death of an innocent person is too many, the fact that there are so many abortions each year convinces me that it is a moral issue requiring much more urgency than the death penalty. So many more lives are at stake. At current rates, if it took us ten years to end the death penalty, 420 lives would be lost in the interim. However, if it took us ten years to end abortion, 13,700,000 lives would be lost. If over a million inmates were put to death annually in U.S. prisons, then I might agree that it is a morally equivalent issue. But, given the sheer numbers, it is impossible to argue that the death penalty is as urgent or more urgent than abortion.

In his book, Render Unto Caesar, Archbishop Chaput of Denver argues that abortion is the "foundational" moral issue of our time. It challenges us as a society to decide whether we will be a nation in which the rights of all persons are honored or whether we will be a nation in which the powerful can veto the rights of the weak. The death penalty, pre-emptive war, social justice and other moral issues are certainly compelling. All people should examine their consciences and their attitudes regarding these questions. But, like civil rights in the '60's and slavery in the nineteenth century, abortion is the defining moral question of our time. Because it is premised on the denial of a right to life for a class of people and because of the sheer number of its victims, I cannot foresee any rational argument being made that another moral issue demands equal or greater attention or urgency.

More on Conscience

I absolutely understand the unease many Catholics feel whenever the Church discusses who among the faithful may or may not receive Communion, especially when the debate involves politics. It gives the impression that the Church is using the Eucharist as a weapon. Nonetheless, exclusion from the Eucharist is the consequence of a Catholic politician's exercise of conscience. Any exercise of conscience which contradicts an external authority comes with a sanction. The conscientious Catholic when faced with a choice which contradicts the hierarchy must accept that such a choice places him or her outside of the community to some extent. That is why courage is such an important virtue for the development and exercise of conscience. If we are to champion the primacy of conscience, we must be aware of and accept the consequences of its exercise. And, that may include exclusion from the Eucharist.

I would question, however, whether many Catholic politicians are in fact exercising their consciences when they support pro-abortion policy. As many of them explain it, they claim to be personally opposed to abortion but supportive of it because of the wishes of their constituents. If this is true, then they are in fact violating their consciences. That is, they are taking a position which contradicts their personally held views solely because of an external authority - namely, their constituents. I cannot read the human heart, and I am certainly in no position to judge; but when these same politicians also support partial-birth abortion which a majority of their constituents oppose, one wonders whether their loyalties do indeed rest with their constituents or with the powerful pro-abortion lobbying interests.

This leads us to another important point. Taking a position which contradicts an authority does not necessarily make it a decision in conscience. If a person is ill-informed or has a psychological aversion to authority, then that decision is not based on moral principles and values. Likewise, just because a moral choice happens to coincide with the hierarchy does not necessarily mean that it is not a conscientious choice.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am a Catholic currently married outside of the Church. As my wife and I work toward sacramentalizing our marriage, I have decided to fast from the Eucharist. My wife has made the opposite choice. My decision is no less an exercise of conscience because it coincides with the Church's teaching. Neither is my wife's decision necessarily made in conscience because it contradicts Church teaching. Again, I am in no position to judge anyone, whether it be my wife or a Catholic politician. I am simply a man whose conscience compels him to witness to the truth as he understands it in hopes of moving the discussion from antagonism to dialogue.

To Conscience!!

These comments are inspired by an opinion piece I discovered on-line by a retired priest named Fr. Emmett Coyne which was brought to my attention thanks to the blogging of Deacon Greg Kandra. Fr. Coyne's piece can be found on Deacon Kandra's blog at http://deacbench.blogspot.com.

In all fairness to Fr. Coyne, he is not attempting a systematic treatment of conscience in the life of the voting Catholic. Nonetheless, he lays out the issue in a way which I think obscures the important points he is raising.

I always feel uncomfortable when conscience and authority are assumed to be at odds with each other. In point of fact, they are partners. Conscience depends on external moral authorities, and external moral authorities rely on conscience. Fr. Coyne demonstrates this by using authorities to support his argument for conscience. He tells us the story of his friend whose allegiance to the Democratic party compelled him to leave priestly ministry, recalls the heroic witness of Franz Jagerstatter who refused to join the German army in World War II and cites the classic work on conscience by Cardinal Newman, "A Letter to the Duke of Norfolk". Fr. Coyne's position as a Catholic priest is also a source of authority for his argument. Since I cannot pretend to be his equal in terms of service to the Church nor probably in terms of education, I will have to rely on the authority of reason and my powers of persuasion to make my case. Either way, conscience always makes reference to external moral authorities. This is because the moral life is a shared, community effort.

Not only do our consciences rely on authority to help them in their formation, but authority itself relies on conscience. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church, to give one example, is comprised of men who are themselves endowed with consciences. They bring their consciences to bear daily when interpreting and applying the Church's teaching. And, what is the Church's teaching if not two thousand years of committed Christians in conscience applying the truths of Sacred Scripture to the demands of everyday life?

It is true that conscience and authority often find themselves at loggerheads. Nonetheless, defining or illustrating them as warring factions, I fear, obscures their role in the moral development of Christians and the witness of the People of God in modern society.

All this being said, the heart of the issue is that each individual Catholic must vote according to his or her conscience. The hierarchy may not dictate a candidate or political party to us. Nonetheless, Catholics have a right to receive guidance from the Church's teaching authority in the development and exercise of their consciences. This includes guidance as it relates to political and social issues. I agree with Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, Colorado when he argues that abortion is the "foundational" moral issue of our time. That is, the issue of abortion challenges us as a nation to decide whether the right to life will extend to all human beings or whether one group of humans will be able to judge the lives of others as unwanted, undesirable or burdensome and so worthy of destruction. War, unequal distribution of wealth, the death penalty and the environment among others are no doubt pressing moral issues. Nonetheless, it is hard to imagine that any of these trumps abortion in scope or in its sheer number of victims.

One might argue that the sum of those other moral issues outweighs the one issue of abortion and necessitates a vote for a pro-abortion candidate as a lesser evil. Or, one may argue that even the most devoted pro-life candidate will not be able to overturn Roe-vs-Wade single-handedly. I wouldn't expect to be convinced by those arguments personally, but they could be made more or less successfully as a proportionate reason for voting for a pro-abortion candidate. My sense is that this is Fr. Coyne's position. If he had focused on making a case for this proportionate reason, his article would have been more helpful.

The real tragedy in all this is that we have lost the ability to speak to one another about these moral issues. We tend to set up opposing camps and fire barbs at each other from behind our fortified walls. One wonders whether being Republican or Democrat, pro-life or pro-abortion, liberal or conservative is now any different from being a Red Sox fan or a Dodger's fan. When we set up a discussion of conscience and authority as antagonists rather than partners in the search for truth, we only make dialogue more difficult. By giving the impression that the conscientious Catholic may poo-poo the hierarchy in political and social matters, I fear that Fr. Coyne's article contributes to the antagonism rather than facilitates the dialogue.