Archbishop Gomez calls on voters to incorporate faith into voting

Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles has called on Catholics to achieve a “unity of life” and let their faith form their political decisions as they prepare to vote this November.

“We have important obligations as citizens. But we have to carry out those obligations always in light of our duty to God,” the archbishop wrote in his Sept. 21 column for The Tidings.

The column is the first in a series he will write on the principles that should guide Catholics in thinking about this year's elections.

Archbishop Gomez observed that Catholics have a dual temptation with regards to faith and politics. They can either separate their beliefs from how they vote, or they can use their religion to justify their political projects.

But these two options both fail to bring about a “unity of life” in which the faith shapes “how we live and act,” and forms the “decisions we make in public life and who we vote for.”

Archbishop Gomez referred to Jesus' statement that one should “render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's.”

Because Catholics live in the world, we are called to work for the common good of society, to obey just laws, and to respect society and government—that is what we render unto Caesar, he said.

What we render unto God is faith, which means that “we can't forget about the Church's teachings and the demands of God's law when we are engaged in our public life.”

“The most important thing is to form our consciences. We have to make sure our participation and our contributions always reflect the moral and religious values that we find in the Scriptures and in the teachings of our Church,” Archbishop Gomez wrote.

When Catholics go to the voting booth, he said, there are non-negotiable aspects of Catholic social teaching that they should recall. Abortion and euthanasia, and families based on a marriage between a man and a woman are among those non-negotiables. These issues cannot be disagreed about among Catholics who have formed their consciences with the Church, he said.

But many issues are debatable among Catholics who have well-formed consciences. Archbishop Gomez pointed to issues such as taxes, government spending, how to deal with immigration and helping the poor as examples of topics that are matters of prudential judgment.

In these areas “sincere and faithful Catholics are always going to have legitimate differences of opinion over how best to apply the Church’s moral principles,” he wrote.

“What’s important is that we are always trying to think and act with the mind of Christ and the mind of the Church.”

The election and responsible Christian citizenship

Most Rev. Samuel J. Aquila
19 September 2012

Religious commentators often decry that public morality is dead—that secularism has rendered us a culture entirely devoid of moral values or judgments about our responsibilities to one another. Perhaps there is a sense in which this is true—a sense in which authentically hedonistic narcissism is the predominantly driving force of our culture.

But I don’t think that most people are narcissists. Or that American culture, at least, is devoid of the moral sense. Most people, I think, want to know what is right and to do it. Most people want to be good—because God made us to pursue goodness.

Unfortunately, very few of us can agree on what it means to be good.

If you’ve spent time listening to the political rhetoric of the past three weeks—first, from the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., and then from the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., you’ve heard a lot about living public morality.

Politicians over the past few weeks have talked about responsible budgeting, health care, war, the environment, abortion, marriage, education—and many other issues. And much of what’s been said has been couched in the language of morality. Policy, from both parties, is packaged in the idea that we have an obligation to care for one another, and that the particular policies being proposed will help us to do so.

Politicians know that most of us want to be good. They use the language of morality to support their programs precisely to appeal to our good nature. This is not a new methodology. Lincoln was an avid quoter of Scripture. So too were our Founding Fathers. So too were Presidents Clinton and Bush—they quoted Scripture even to disagree with one another.

Much of the political use of moral language is what George Orwell called the “the defense of the indefensible,” a rhetorical tactic to advance policy goals, or careers. But our political lives are inherently moral—all people should use their moral judgment to make determinations about what policies they support, what issues they advocate for, and whom they choose to elect.

We should live our public lives according to the dictates of our consciences. As Catholics, we must make political choices according to the teaching of our Church—and not separate our religious and political viewpoints. The Second Vatican Council reflected that a “split between the faith which many profess and their daily lives deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age.”

The Council continued: “Therefore, let there be no false opposition between professional and social activities on the one part, and religious life on the other. The Christian who neglects his temporal duties, neglects his duties toward his neighbor and even God, and jeopardizes his eternal salvation. Christians should rather rejoice that, following the example of Christ, who worked as an artisan, they are free to give proper exercise to all their earthly activities and to their humane, domestic, professional, social and technical enterprises by gathering them into one vital synthesis with religious values, under whose supreme direction all things are harmonized unto God’s glory” (“Guadium et Spes,” 43, emphasis added).

With regard to political life, the council urged laity to: “seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God. Laity live in the world, that is, in each and in all of the secular professions and occupations. They live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life, from which the very web of their existence is woven. They are called there by God that by exercising their proper function and led by the spirit of the Gospel they may work for the sanctification of the world from within as a leaven. In this way they may make Christ known to others, especially by the testimony of a life resplendent in faith, hope and charity. Therefore, since they are tightly bound up in all types of temporal affairs it is their special task to order and to throw light upon these affairs in such a way that they may come into being and then continually increase according to Christ to the praise of the Creator and the Redeemer” (“Lumen Gentium,” 31, emphasis added).

In short, we should order our political life, and all our life, to the hierarchy of moral realities.

The problem is that no political party, and usually no candidate, fully represents the Church’s position on important moral issues. As Catholics, we need to think carefully about a host of issues—religious liberty, the environment, immigration, crime and punishment, economics, and the dignity of the family, of workers and of the human person are only a few of the many issues which require sound moral judgments.

Though there are a host of real moral issues for Catholics in public and political life to consider, every Catholic has a primary obligation to oppose legal protection for those things which are inherently evil—abortion, for example, and euthanasia. Legal and political protection for inherent evil social acts undermines the entire social welfare. Blessed John Paul II reflected that “it is impossible to further the common good without acknowledging and defending the right to life, upon which all the other inalienable rights of individuals are founded and from which they develop.”

The right to life must always be the first consideration of Catholics.

Beyond this issue, there are many other issues which Catholics should take seriously, which have grave moral consequences. We should do all that we can to support the Gospel imperative to care for the poor, the disenfranchised, and the needy among us. We should do so with a real respect for the person, and the family. Of course, there are many policy ideas and proposals on these issues, and we should evaluate them in light of the social teaching of the Catholic Church.

To fulfill our vocation in political life, inherent evil must be opposed—beginning with working by all just means to end legal protection for abortion. This should be primary. After that issue is resolved, there are many issues about which Catholics should think carefully, and actively propose real solutions. The richness of social teaching has much to offer our public morality.

Public morality is not dead, and most people want to pursue goodness. When we live our public lives ordered by the truth of Jesus Christ, we fulfill our vocations—witnessing to goodness, to justice, and to Christ himself.

Archbishop Gomez became a U. S. citizen the right way. He is to be commended.

A GOOD QUESTION

(A biblical refection on THE 25^th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – 23 September, 2012)

First Reading: Wis 2:12,17-20; Psalms: Ps 54:3-6,8; Second Reading: Jas 3:16-4:3

Gospel Reading: Mk 9:30-37

A good question is worth more than a hundred answers. Good questions are often in short supply in an age which lusts after certainty. We demand certain trumpets from the pulpit to the White House to Wall Street. Hesitation or the offering of a complex answer is viewed as weakness and lack of conviction. We want our leaders to always be sure – even if they are seldom right! We demand guarantees instead of hope. H.L. Mencken once said that every complex question has a simple answer and it is always simply wrong. Life is complex. We need thoughtful reflection and humble prayer to be prudent in our dealings with others. Good questions challenge us to think, pray and be prudent. Good questions force us to examine those areas of our lives we would rather leave in darkness.

Our second reading from James offers a good question for our consideration: “Where do the conflicts and disputes among you originate?” At first we respond: out there! It is society, our environment, the Zodiac or the difficult neighbor that accounts for all my problems and vices. If only I could remove the external, the internal would be fine. You see, at base I am really a swell person. It is circumstances or others which help to explain the way I am. Nice try! But James offers a different approach.

“Is it not your inner cravings that make war within your members? What you desire you do not obtain, and so you resort to murder.” Our troubles lie in the human heart. Because of sin we want to assert our will, wield power over and dominate everything and everyone for our selfish ends. Within our hearts we experience envy, rage and murderous intent. Our general hardness of heart destroys communities and families. The other is no longer a friend but an enemy; the other is not a gift but a threat; the other becomes hell from whom there is no exit (Sartre).

How are we to grow spiritually mature? Christ’s answer is most unexpected: “Whoever welcomes a child such as this for My sake welcomes Me.” The spiritually mature person must become childlike (not childish or immature). This is not easy. We try to fill ourselves up with an abundance of things, relationships and honors. Yet none give lasting peace. It is only when we open our hearts in childlike faith that God can fill us with what we truly need. If we try to find wholeness in the world, we are doomed to failure. The more we have, the more we want. The distractions are outside, but the cravings come from within. In our search for lasting peace, we look in the wrong places. Again the letter of James: “You ask and you to not receive because you ask wrongly, with a view to a squandering what you receive on your pleasures.”

Childlike conversion of heart often evokes the anger of those around us. We become a sign of contradiction. We challenge people to change and live in a new way. At first, other people are amused. Then they ignore us. When that no longer works, they turn against us. The book of Wisdom puts it in the following way: “[The wicked say:] ‘Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings …… With revilement and torture let us put him to the test …… Let us condemn him to a shameful death ……’”

To turn from our inner cravings and become childlike in our faith is to be on the road to spiritual maturity. However, we must not be surprised at the opposition of others. We are a challenge. We become a question to others. And questions are not always welcomed.

Note: Taken from Rev. William F. Maestri, GRACE UPON GRACE, Makati, Philippines: St. Paul Publications, 1990, pages 199-201.

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