Catholics and the Election: Why Bother?

By James V. Schall, S. J.

Two things strikes me as "certain" about the upcoming presidential election ­ warning, this is an "opinion": 1) the results will be largely influenced by Al-Quaeda's decision, through the use of selective terror, about how to manipulate its outcome in their favor. 2) Most Catholics, in terms of numbers, will vote for Kerry, as in the Clinton era. More clergy will vote for him than laity, again an opinion. It is not quite like living in the District of Columbia, where the Democratic Party will have, by a huge popular majority, three electoral votes locked in no matter what happens. But it is too early to be definitive, if one can ever be definitive on practical matters. War, and it is a war, has a way of changing, clouding everything, including minds.

One might sum up the Catholic "teaching" on voting in the following manner. 1) Citizens have the duty to vote, particularly when serious issues of private and public life are involved. 2) In most elections, a legitimate diversity of platforms and candidates exists such that both sides have something to be said for their case. 3) At times, neither candidate or party may defend human good or well-being. Then the lesser of the evils, as it were, may be better than the worse, though not voting for candidates who positively and consistently choose immoral positions is always an option. 4) Some issues are more important than others. This needs pointing out. As Philip Lawler rather bluntly put it: "As a group and with few noteworthy exceptions, the American bishops have avoided any clear condemnation, any disciplinary action, even any public sign of disfavor, for (Catholic) politicians whose public stands are in flagrant violation of clear and constant Catholic teaching" (Catholic World Report, March, 2004). Some people do wonder how serious Catholics are about the tenets of their own religion.

What is perhaps unique about this coming election, however, is that the status of the U. S. Catholic bishops as a group has never been lower. We all know the reasons for this and hope that the National Review Board's Report will serve as the beginning of a remedy. It is always a temptation of someone who has been severely compromised, to seek to gain reinstatement by emphasizing another more neutral area. The cynic thus will think that the bishops might seek to regain stature by pronouncing on politics in order to deflect from their failures in guidance and administration in their own backyard. There is bound to be some of this, though it is probably counterproductive. On the other hand, some issues must be addressed.

In his recent address to the Australian bishops (L'Osservatore Romano, 31 March 2004), the Holy Father remarked, after praising the Australian nation and Church, yet it is also true that the pernicious ideology of secularism has found fertile ground in Australia. At the root of this disturbing development is the attempt to promote a vision of humanity without God. It exaggerates individualism, sunders the essential link between freedom and truth, and corrodes the relationships of trust which characterize genuine social living. Your own reports unequivocally describe some of the destructive consequence s of ths eclipse of the sense of drift away from the Church: the undermining of family life; a drift away from the Church; a limited vision of life which fails to awaken n people the sublime call to "direct their steps towards a truth which transcends them" (Fides et Ratio, #5).

No American can read these lines and not feel right at home.

Within the American Church, we find two "proposals" to deal with this situation.

The first would be the "join it" view. Our religion, it is said, ought to be in conformity with our "culture." Our culture has "evolved," "progressed." The Church is not "up with the times." Its decline is caused by its adherence to outmoded doctrines and practices. Name three such issues that supposedly cause this "improvement" -- most actually have to do with "moral questions," as they are called. They are: Approve divorce, abortion, homosexuality, and all will be fine. This is what the culture is systematically doing and has been doing for generations now. The opposition of the Church to these things has been ineffective and half-hearted. It looks like "fanaticism," the worst sin. The reason is that there is doubt about the validity of what the Church "holds." Thus, a "new birth of freedom" will come with the brave souls and bishops who, openly or covertly, are "progressing" to these goals and their further ramifications.

The second proposal would be to reaffirm and reinvigorate the truth of what the Church teaches. This has not been tried in any energetic or intelligent fashion. It is astonishing that the predictions of Pius XII and Paul VI about what would happen to the culture if we did not practice and understand the Church's teachings have come true. They are embodied within our society as probably the dominant form. They have themselves become, under the name of "rights" -- to divorce, abortion, homosexual practices, cloning -- the prevailing structure of public life. As the Pope indicated to the Australian bishops, behind these practices is a whole ideology or philosophic position justifying them. He calls it "secularism."

Indeed, not too long ago, commenting on the California Supreme Court decision requiring Catholic Charities to include contraceptive coverage, the Wall Street Journal (March 10, 2004) wrote, "Secular absolutism is becoming the most potent religious force in America." Note the irony of "secularism" itself becoming in its own eyes a "substitute" for religion. It has become, in many ways, in fact, the established "religion" in this country. We just don't call it by its proper name. If one does not "agree" with its strictures and doctrines (and they are that), he is culturally "un-American" and will continue to be forced out of any public presence. Every legal effort is made to force religion to conform to secularism's opinions. It proselytizes unashamedly and claims it is only protecting our "rights."

Even though, in theory, elections are political events, the fact is that ultimately all political problems have theological undertones. There was a day, perhaps, when voting was not so important, when both candidates really were fairly equally and reasonably worthy. But there are standards that do measure what we uphold, where candidates stand. Perhaps no more politically confusing doctrine has every been fostered in the American Church than the famous "seamless garment" doctrine that made someone "pro-life" by listing a long list of controversial issues that, in effect, reduced the core life issues, against which secularism has so successfully fought, merely to one or two more debatable topics, the balance of which enables any candidate to claim he was "Catholic" no matter what his record on the key secularization agenda. Archbishop John Myers's recent statement, in effect reversing the "seamless garment" doctrine, by which the abortion issue was effectively downgraded, is a welcome sign.

Catholics and the Elections? In the "Introduction" to his 1942 book, Places, Hilaire Belloc wrote, "It is a nice question whether ignorance or stupidity play the greater part in human affairs." Why bother? Mainly, I suppose, to find whether the answer to Belloc's alternative applies to us. "Secular absolutism is becoming the most potent religious force in America." Its success, ironically, is measured by our voting record.

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Father James V. Schall is a Jesuit priest and professor of government at Georgetown University. His new book Roman Catholic Political Philosophy was released in May 2004.

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