As previously explained, I've enrolled in the University of Notre Dame's Satellite Theological Education Program (STEP) to pursue their Certificate in Doctrine. I've already taken three of the six required courses. I'm currently taking my fourth STEP course Catholic Social Teaching.
Week 4 is "Political Responsibility: Faithful Citizenship."
This week's lecture is by Michael Jordan Laskey and makes a number of claims I find problematic, especially in this passage:
We don’t get to bail. God requires our cooperation to take care of the planet and his children living here.
In the United States, one common reason Christians give for avoiding politics is fear of violating “the separation of church and state” – a phrase that doesn’t even appear in the United States Constitution, by the way. While our country’s founders didn’t want the government to sponsor or impinge on any particular religious tradition, the U.S. bishops argue in their CST document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship that people of faith have the “moral obligation” to use their free speech rights to bring their values and voices to the public square.
That passage is implicated by our main assignment for this week, which is to discuss (in just 150-200 words) "Imagine you have a Catholic friend who’s reluctant to get involved in politics in any way. In your own words, gently and persuasively describe why tuning out is not an option."
First, the lesson implies that there are uniquely Catholic positions on highly contested issues that all Catholics ought to espouse. Laskey's commentary, for example, at least implicitly assumes that Catholic political action would support amnesty for illegal immigrants and government spending on various social programs. On the other hand, he also offers what I would regard as a very liberal (in at least two senses of the word) reading of the Church's teaching on when it is licit to vote for a pro-abortion candidate. (Tellingly, perhaps, he chooses to call them "pro-choice" candidates.) In my view, the Church gives us a lot of leeway on issues like immigration and spending and much less so on issues of life.
Second, Laskey ignores the compelling questions about whether continued Catholic participation in the liberal social order is either desirable or even possible. Analyzing that question in this short a space is impossible, but suffice it to say that anybody thinking about the role of faith in the modern American public square needs to read Rod Dreher's book The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation
Having said that, of course, I'm not much of one for monasteries or arks. So when the instructor asked the question "When you hear the words religion and politics
together, what thoughts, feelings, or images come to your mind?," what came to mind was something Archbishop Charles Chaput wrote some years ago:
Politics is where the competing moral visions of a society meet and struggle. And since the overwhelming majority of American citizens are religious believers, it’s completely appropriate for people and communities of faith to bring their faith into the public square.
Real pluralism always involves a struggle of ideas. Democracy depends on people of conviction fighting for what they believe in the public square – non-violently, respectfully and ethically, but also vigorously and without embarrassment. People who try to separate their private convictions about human dignity and the common good from their involvement in public issues are not acting with integrity, or with loyalty to their own principles. In fact, they’re stealing from their country.
To be healthy, the political process demands that people conform their actions to their beliefs. For Catholics to be silent in an election year -- or any year -- about critical public issues because of some misguided sense of good manners, would actually be a form of theft from our national conversation.
Hence, when the instructor asked "Are you ever tempted to totally disengage from politics and current events?," I again look to Archbishop Chaput:
For religious believers not to advance their convictions about public morality in public debate is not an example of tolerance. It’s a lack of courage.
If we believe that a particular issue is gravely wrong and damaging to society, then we have a duty, not just a religious duty but also a democratic duty, to hold accountable the candidates who want to allow it. Failing to do that is an abuse of responsibility on our part, because that’s where we exercise our power as citizens most directly – in the voting booth.
