Forging a "Gospel-inspired political culture"

An excellent essay from the Freeman on CST in political life.

Fr. Roy Cimagala avoids the partisan bickering that so often accompanies any mention of Catholic Social Teaching. That he avoids this while discussing politics must be accounted yet another inevitable sign of the coming Apocolypse! In fact, his only political slam is an equal-opportunity one:

In a talk about business ethics that I gave to a group of young entrepreneurs recently, one came up with a naughty grin and a naughtier question.

"Father," he asked, "is there also such a thing as political ethics?"

I must admit that I could not help but be naughty myself as I replied: "Well, my son, if ever there was, I'm afraid it had no chance to survive, what with all the crooks and clowns we have as our political leaders!"

Then he gets down to the serious business of presenting Catholic Social Teaching in the context of political life:

Of course, when sobriety returned, I had to say there surely was such a thing, there should be, and that it was important to promote and spread it as widely as possible. It should be the fruit of a Gospel-inspired political culture.

I immediately quoted what the Compendium of the Church's Social Doctrine had to say about this:

"Fostering a social and political culture inspired by the Gospel must be an area of particular importance for the lay faithful." (555)

Politics should not be driven simply by any kind of ideology and much less by purely personal interests.

And I proceeded to describe what this Gospel-inspired political culture may involve. The Compendium gives the following very interesting points:

* For the lay faithful, political involvement is a worthy and demanding expression of the Christian commitment of service to others. (565)

In other words, politics should be encouraged to all those who have the proper conditions for it. It should not be left in some exclusivist hands, those who for practical more than Christian reasons may find it convenient to be there.

* Those involved should be absolutely convinced of the necessity of the moral dimension in doing politics through thoughtful contributions to the political debate, planning and the chosen actions. (566)

This should be made clear from the beginning. Otherwise, we will be wasting our time and opening ourselves to more complicated problems.

* The exercise of political authority should be seen as service to be carried out always in the context of moral law for the attainment of the common good.

He also addresses an important issue that I've seen rear it's ugly head too often:

* A method of discernment, at both the personal and community levels, should be developed to help lay faithful to identify steps that can be taken in concrete political situations with the view of putting into practice the principles and values proper to social life. (568)

* This method of discernment can be structured around certain key elements, like: Knowledge of the situations, analyzed with the help of the social sciences and other appropriate tools; systematic reflection on these realities in the light of the unchanging message of the Gospel and the Church's social teaching; identification of choices aimed at assuring that the situation will evolve positively.

* However, an absolute value must never be attributed to these choices because no problem can be solved once and for all. Christian faith cannot impose a rigid framework on social and political questions.

I feel this where many times we commit mistakes. We tend to absolutize options that cannot satisfy everyone. We have to have room to accommodate legitimate variety of positions.

There can be many more that can be said, but these few points may suffice for the moment. I hope that we can find time to study them well and to cultivate the relevant attitudes and virtues. This is indispensable.

Too often I've witnessed well-meaning Catholics equate CST principles with specific policies of certain political parties. They condemn any opposing policy as a violation of CST a priori. Such unfortunate misrepresentation of CST only encourages its marginalization from political discourse. CST is not the property of the Democratic party.

Nor, for that matter, is it the property of the Republican party. For some odd reason, other well-meaning Catholics roll their eyes at any mention of certain principles of CST. Particularly if they sound like certain policy objectives of Democratic solutions. Some have even been known to focus on false dichotomies between Life principles and other CST principles, i.e. preferential option for the poor and solidarity. This uninformed understanding of CST also contributes to its continued marginalization from political discourse.

Fr. Cimagula makes clear that the principles of CST should guide policies to address specific concerns. There's no permenant systemic implementation of CST that will earn the imprimatur. However, policies that do not take CST principles seriously do a grave disservice to the Common Good. Whateve defies them defies justice. Societies, for some odd reason, do not do well when this happens.

Therefore a full understanding of CST and a consistent effort to apply said teaching are noble goals that all Fools should seek. Let's get beyond our partisan bickering about what we think they are or what they should do. Let's live our politics through our adherence to CST, rather than the other way around. The only thing we have to lose is the injustice of living apart from the Truth.