Catholic identity in the American Public Arena
Archbishop Chaput is such a wonderful speaker and First Things posts his January 11, 2008, presentation in New Orleans, “Catholic Identity in the American Public Arena.” I was going to post snippets from it, but it is all too good to choose from.
1. George Orwell said that one of the biggest dangers for modern democratic life is dishonest political language. Dishonest language leads to dishonest politics—which then leads to bad public policy and bad law. So we need to speak and act in a spirit of truth.
With the presidential election upon us this year this point is quite appropriate. "Dishonest language leads to dishonest politics" is exactly right. So often language is used to obfuscate instead of to communicate. Whether it is "choice", "therapeutic cloning", "death with dignity", etc; words are used to direct us from the reality of what they are talking about.
2. Catholic is a word that has real
meaning. We don’t control or invent that meaning as individuals. We
inherit it from the gospel and the experience of the Church over the
centuries. We can choose to be something else, but if we choose to call
ourselves Catholic, then that word has consequences for what we believe
and how we act. We can’t truthfully claim to be Catholic and then act
as though we’re not.
3. Being a Catholic is a bit like being married. We have a relationship
with the Church and with Jesus Christ that’s similar to being a spouse.
If a man says he loves his wife, his wife will want to see the evidence
in his love and fidelity. The same applies to our relationship with
God. If we say we’re Catholic, we need to show that by our love for the
Church and our fidelity to what she teaches and believes. Otherwise
we’re just fooling ourselves, because God certainly won’t be fooled.
Amen.
4. The Church is not a political
organism. She has no interest in partisanship because getting power or
running governments is not what she’s about, and the more closely she
identifies herself with any single party, the fewer people she can
effectively reach.
5. Scripture and Catholic teaching, however, do have public
consequences because they guide us in how we should act in relation to
one another. Loving God requires that we also love the people He
created, which means we need to treat them with justice, charity, and
mercy. Being a Catholic involves solidarity with other people. The
Catholic faith has implications for social justice—and that means it
also has cultural, economic and political implications. The Catholic
faith is never primarily about politics; but Catholic social action,
including political action, is a natural byproduct of the Church’s
moral message. We can’t call ourselves Catholic, and then simply stand
by while immigrants get mistreated, or the poor get robbed, or unborn
children get killed. The Catholic faith is always personal but never
private. If our faith is real, then it will bear fruit in our public
decisions and behaviors, including our political choices.
This is the same point that Pope Benedict makes in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est.
6. Each of us needs to follow our own conscience. But conscience doesn’t emerge from a vacuum. It’s not a matter or personal opinion or preference. If our conscience has the habit of telling us what we want to hear on difficult issues, then it’s probably badly formed. A healthy conscience is the voice of God’s truth in our hearts, and it should usually make us uncomfortable, because none of us is yet a saint. The way we get a healthy conscience is by submitting it and shaping it to God’s will; and the way we find God’s will is by conforming our lives to the counsel and guidance of the Church that Jesus left us. If we find ourselves disagreeing as Catholics with the teaching of the Church on a serious matter, it’s probably not the Church that’s wrong. The problem is much more likely with us.
Preaching on what conscience actually is is so important considering how "following your conscience" has become synonymous with license.
7. But how do we make good political
choices when so many different issues are so important and complex? The
first principle of Christian social thought is: Don’t deliberately kill
the innocent, and don’t collude in allowing somebody else to do it. The
right to life is the foundation of every other human right. The reason
the abortion issue is so foundational is not because Catholics love
little babies—although we certainly do—but because revoking the
personhood of unborn children makes every other definition of
personhood and human rights politically contingent.
8. So can a Catholic in good conscience vote for a pro-choice
candidate? The answer is: I can’t, and I won’t. But I do know some
serious Catholics—people whom I admire—who may. I think their reasoning
is mistaken, but at least they sincerely struggle with the abortion
issue, and it causes them real pain. And most important: They don’t
keep quiet about it; they don’t give up; they keep lobbying their party
and their representatives to change their pro-abortion views and
protect the unborn. Catholics can vote for pro-choice candidates if
they vote for them despite—not because of—their pro-choice views. And
they also need a proportionate reason to justify it.
9. What is a proportionate reason when it comes to abortion? It’s the kind of reason we will
be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when
we meet them in the next life—which we certainly will. If
we’re confident that these victims will accept our motives, then we can
proceed.
10. The heart of truly faithful citizenship is this: We’re better
citizens when we’re more faithful Catholics. The more authentically
Catholic we are in our lives, choices, actions and convictions, the
more truly we will contribute to the moral and political life of our
nation.
His reference to proportionate reason he has used before, but it is still the purest definition there is.
Known as 
Regarding item #6, Benedict XVI has written that “Conscience is the highest norm and . . . one must follow it even against authority. When authority--in this case the Church’s Magisterium--speaks on matters of morality, it supplies the material that helps the conscience form its own judgment, but ultimately it is only conscience that has the last word.” Is this slavishness to one's conscience synonymous with new order obedience (in the "spirit of Vatican II," of course)?
Voting pro-life, even just in terms of the abortion issue, may be trickier than merely looking at where the candidates fall within the pro-life/pro-choice binary. Those labels are most often applied with respect to what a candidate would do legally in regards to abortion. The legal front is an important one, to be sure, but I can nevertheless conceive of situations in which the “pro-choice” candidate is more effective in reducing abortions (both short term and long term) than a “pro-life” candidate.
Hope does exist.
"The way we get a healthy conscience is by submitting it and shaping it to God’s will; and the way we find God’s will is by conforming our lives to the counsel and guidance of the Church that Jesus left us."
Ahhh. "Beauty is truth, truth beauty.."
John L, the authority of the Magisterium speaks to our conscience much more than than do other authorities. It is much more likely that our discomfort, if we disagree with the teachings of the Church, comes from our own deficiency.
And Kyle, as to the pro-choice candidate being more effective in ending abortion, I doubt it. For that to be true, it would have to be true that a woman, when given all necessary help for her pregnancy and beyond, would choose life rather than death for her unborn child. Sadly, a single hour spent on the sidewalk in front of an abortion facility will rid any idealistic person of that notion.
If you have yet to meet the mother who would rather kill her child than "get fat", or "lose her boyfriend's love", or give up a personal goal or even the "fun" of a disordered, irresponsible lifestyle, you must not have spoken to more than a dozen abortive mothers yet. "Choice", while it is true that every mother has and may use her freewill, legally or not, assumes that the conscience is never disordered or selfish and KNOWS what is good.
Abortion, in any case, is not about a woman's choice, but about the successful marketing of Planned Parenthood's choices, and all choices that conform to the culture of death. Those who are actively pro-choice, in fact, do their utmost to ensure that pregnant women are not informed of options that would lead to the life of their child.
"as to the pro-choice candidate being more effective in ending abortion, I doubt it."
Yes, but your doubts do not bind other people's conscience.
That, Katherine, is true. I am not Peter. Not even close. But we can all question one another, and ourselves, (and a wise priest!) about whether the voice of "conscience" in a particular instance might actually be self-justification for a conviction to which we have become attached. How often do we find that when we surrender our obstacles to what the Church teaches, God takes care of all the "but, but, buts" we have stored up? It has happened to me often enough.
Short of a candidate saying that, as soon as he was elected, he would launch nuclear weapons, I can't think of what would constitute a "proportionate reason" for putting a "pro-choice" candidate in office.
Joanne and Cornelius,
If abortions occurred merely because they were legal, I’d say that the focus on the anti-abortion vote should be on candidates who would establish legal protections for the unborn. However, while we as a society are obligated to protect the lives of the unborn through the law, the larger project of reducing abortions requires more than legal remedies. Indeed, for legal protections for the unborn to persist, changes in culture and social-economic policy have to change as well. We have to address the circumstances that lead expectant mothers to have an abortion.
A hypothetical: Candidate A is pro-life, seeks to overturn Roe v. Wade, and supports a federal law banning abortions. However, there is reason to believe that his social-economic policies would increases and intensify the circumstance that are known “causes” of abortion. Candidate B is pro-choice, but has a zero-abortion policy and seeks to reduce abortions by promoting alternatives and programs that would assist expectant women with prenatal care, delivery, and post-delivery care. Which candidate is more likely to reduce abortions? I think that’s debatable. One could, I think, vote for Candidate B believing that if abortion ceases to be seen as a “need,” then laws prohibiting abortion will be easier to enact and maintain. One could vote for Candidate A reasoning that legal protections of life are fundamental and have to come before we address the underlying circumstances. Again, I think it’s a debatable question.
Of course, it would be best to have a candidate who would outlaw abortion and remedy the situations and circumstances that lead to abortion.
"Of course, it would be best to have a candidate who would outlaw abortion and remedy the situations and circumstances that lead to abortion."
I agree with this. However, the number one cause of abortion is listed by PP as "unreadiness". The Right to Know act would surely help with that, and even more, de-funding Planned Parenthood and disallowing them, or any abortion provider, from becoming the sex educator in our school systems would help. What a woman needs when she is unready is support; not an assassin.
There are many non-profit organizations and individuals who are willing to help disadvantaged pregnant women. Their offers are not heard because of PP's marketing and because the media are sold on "women's reproductive rights." The compassionate pro-life voice drowns in "choice" propaganda. We need a passionate, authoritative, pro-life voice.
In any case, it is unjust to hold the unborn hostage until hearts change or society mends. And it is not compassionate to offer a troubled woman the means to kill her child. Too often I hear that the persons a post-abortive woman later finds most difficult to forgive are those who encouraged or allowed her to choose death for her child.
"So can a Catholic in good conscience vote for a pro-choice candidate? The answer is: I can’t, and I won’t."
Well, I think this is an unacceptable cop out. If anyone can argue from the Catholic faith's perspective that a Catholic "in good conscience" can EVER vote for a pro-death candidate I'd be interested to hear it.
"But I do know some serious Catholics—people whom I admire—who may."
Well, I might admire them for their flower-arranging or their organisation skills, but I certainly couldn't admire them for their grasp of the Faith.
"I think their reasoning is mistaken,'''"
I'll say.
"..but at least they sincerely struggle with the abortion issue, and it causes them real pain..."
Not as much pain as the aborted baby feels when it's ripped from its mother's womb. Bah!
"And most important: They don’t keep quiet about it; they don’t give up; they keep lobbying their party and their representatives to change their pro-abortion views and protect the unborn."
Maybe people are different in the US. This kind of approach just doesn't fly over in the UK. Let's face it; if you're prepared to put in office a person who supports the wholesale death of innocent (but non-voting) human beings, your personal angst isn't going to carry much weight with the candidate. You've already signed away your integrity 'cos you want that particular party to win, come hell or high water. They know that.
"Catholics can vote for pro-choice candidates if they vote for them despite—not because of—their pro-choice views. And they also need a proportionate reason to justify it."
WHAT could POSSIBLY justify voting for a child killer?