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Cry of the Poor |
"How can it be that even today there are still people dying of hunger? Condemned to illiteracy? Lacking the most basic medical care? Without a roof over their heads? . . .
"Christians must learn to make their act of faith in Christ by discerning His voice in the cry for help that rises from this world of poverty."
-- Pope John Paul II
Novo Millennio Ineunte, no. 50
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Prince of Peace |
Have Mercy On Us
and on the
Whole World |
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 America's Christian Foundation |
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Blog submitted by WilliamSB on Sun 29 Aug 2004 - 06:58 h |
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Over no issue is our nation more divided in this election than over the issue of religion. George W. Bush has turned christian faith into a cheap rhetorical device, illicitly taking personal ownersip over the christian message to serve his private agenda. Instead of working with the good will of the different communities of people of faith, Bush aligned his campaigns and his Administration with divisive christian organizations who are expert at polarizing people.
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This is true even in the way George W. Bush targets the Catholic vote. Instead of seeking out a campaign advisor on Catholic relations from among mainstream Catholic clergy, Bush turned to the publisher of one of the most virulent and opportunistic right-wing Catholic publications in America, Deal W. Hudson of Crisis Magazine. This, alone, should be very telling; and should give pause to the sizeable christian community in the United States. In selecting someone like Deal W. Hudson for his religious advisor, George W. Bush -- a non-Catholic -- is attempting to impose his own vision of what it means to be Catholic on the Catholic community. And that is a Catholic Church far outside of the mainstream. Through Hudson and his network of conservative radicals, George W. Bush is attempting to portray the christian community as victims of a radical left-wing conspiracy to silence our voice; and Bush is, consequently, silencing our voice.
While I agree that the christian community -- even the Catholic community -- has something to say about government and public policy, I do not agree Bush's public policy agenda is genuinely aligned with what we have to say. And I do not believe we are victims of any left-wing conspiracy so much as we are victims of a right-wing agenda to dominate at all costs.
Fundamentalists dishonestly claim a left-wing conspiracy is the root cause of debate over seperation of Church and State. The debate itself, however, is legitimate; while the claim of an illicit liberal conspiracy is not. We do have a Constitutional doctrine of seperation of church and state in our country; even if how we define that doctrine is open to discussion. Certainly, the U.S. Supreme Court gets to weigh in on this question from time to time. To argue that the debate is illegitimate or a product soley of secular conspirators is a bold-faced lie. Yet, while the debate itself is legitimate, we unfortunately have radically extreme interpretations on both sides. At one extreme, they argue that the wall of seperation is absolute; and they hold suspect any law that even hints at having faith -- especially christian faith -- as its inspiration. At the opposite extreme, they argue that the wall of seperation is a judicial myth; and they hold that the government has a moral duty to represent itself as leading a christian nation -- whatever that is supposed to mean. Each extreme is suspicious of the other; and neither will cede ideological ground. If you had only the extremists to judge by, you would be left thinking the American community is locked in perpetual division. Both extremes, however, reveal a great deal of ignorance of America's history and a flawed understanding of the core values that lay at the very foundation of our democracy.
Most Americans have faith of one sort or another. So to argue for an absolute wall of seperation between church and state is to argue for a government so sterilized of human experience as to not authentically represent the life and aspirations of its citizens.
On the other hand, to argue that the wall of seperation does not exist at all is to set government up to interfere with the natural right essential to each person to discover meaning in life personally and to embrace faith freely. We, as Catholics, ought to be especially sensitive to this danger. American history is full of examples where the Catholic community has had to struggle to maintain our right to be free from State-sponsored coercion by Protestant zealots. That is why we have a Catholic parochial education system and organizations like the Knights of Columbus.
Most Americans understand these things, if only instinctively. And so most Americans are far removed from either of these two extremist interpretations.
In my own life as a Catholic American, my sense of who I am is informed by both the society in which I live and the faith by which I live. And each of these aspects of my identity influences the other. I could artificially divide these two aspects of my personal experience; and pretend, for example, that my faith-life does not inform my civic-life. But I would only succeed in lying to myself. How I engage in my civic-life, then, would be disingenuous at best. If I have any contribution at all to make in American society, it is first a contribution of myself -- Catholic and American -- wholly and honestly. While there is a healthy tension between these two aspects of my life, the two are not fundamentally opposed to each other. As a matter of fact, I have never experienced a greater unity of these two in forming a sense of mission in my life than I do now in opposing the immoral policies of this Presidential administration and working to build on Howard Dean's dream of solidarity in the American community.
Engaging in civic life as a Catholic American, however, does not necessitate setting up polemic divisions between people of faith and those without faith. In order to faithfully carry out our civic duty as informed by our faith, what really matters already lies at the core of our nation's foundation; because we, as a nation, hold as sacrosanct universal principles of natural law:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." -- Declaration of Independence
If faith informs our participation in political life, it first demands that we remain committed to those universal principles. Beyond that, we have only the moral duty to work for justice and the common good. Understood in their original context of christian humanist philosophy, those universal principles enumerated in the Declaration of Independence demand that each person has the right and the duty to search, for him or her self, the meaning of life and faith. Classic theology, in fact, recognizes the pursuit of happiness as the search for God.
We can, as Catholics then, preach the Gospel and encourage others to conversion. We as Catholic Americans can, and should, work to ensure our government's policies are just and contribute to the welfare of the common good. But we cannot -- either directly or through the State -- impose on another's private pursuit for meaning and virtue without interfering with a right our own faith informs us is fundamental to that person. To do so would not only undermine the U.S. Constitution, it would make a mockery of those very principles of natural law our christian faith affirms.
And we ought to be very wary of any politician who would presume to use our faith as a wedge to divide the American people.
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Theodore Roosevelt |
"To announce that there should be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American people."
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