Editor's note: The following is a homily given by Fr. Tran on Sunday, October 28th. It is posted here as part of
Catholic World Report's desire to contribute to the discussion regarding principles of responsible citizenship among Catholics.
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For the past 41 years, the Catholic Church in America has celebrated October as
Respect Life Month. This is a month in which our bishops have asked us to
reflect upon, pray about, and renew our commitment to the defense of all human
life. Today, I should like to address this issue vis-À-vis our civic duties as
Catholic Americans.
Three months ago, I preached on our moral obligation “to pay taxes, to exercise
the right to vote, and to defend [our] country” (
CCC 2240).
In
that homily, I said that we are Catholic Americans; we are not American
Catholics. In the term American Catholic, American is the adjective, which
means that it qualifies the noun Catholic. To qualify our Catholicism is to
qualify our faith, to qualify our allegiance to our Creator, to qualify our
love for our heavenly Father. Those things we do not qualify, hence, we are not
American Catholics.
In the term Catholic American, Catholic is the adjective, which means that it
qualifies the noun American. As Catholics, our patriotism is tempered by our
faith, our love of country is subordinated to our love of God, our decisions in
the body politic and our actions in the public square are all determined by a
conscience informed by faith. That is what it means to be a Catholic American.
As Catholic Americans, our Church teaches us that responsible citizenship is a
virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation (cf.
Forming
Consciences for Faithful Citizenship). If a
Catholic conscience obliges us to participate in political life, then it stands
to reason that we must participate in a way that is consistent with our
Catholic faith. When it comes to matters that are purely political, then there
is a great deal of latitude in our prudential judgments. This is the purpose of
political dialogue. How much should people be taxed? What should the speed
limit be? Should there be a minimum wage, and if so, what should it be? What
are just immigration laws? There are many sides to these issues and men of good
will differ in their opinions. Healthy political debate will hash out these
issues for any particular country. The Church only gives us moral guidelines to
form our Catholic conscience when engaging in these debates. She gives us the
pale, if you will, that we should not step beyond in our political discourse.
Within the pale, however, there is much room for disagreement and political
discourse. After all, human governments are human institutions, hence, they
cannot be perfect. There is usually not one correct answer.
The fundamental principle that under girds our political discourse, however, is
respect for the dignity of the human person. Governments exist to protect the
common good—to protect people because of our inherent dignity as beings created
in the
imago Dei, the image and
likeness of God. 6. In 1998, the American bishops stated this principle thus:
“Any politics of human dignity must seriously address issues of racism,
poverty, hunger, employment, education, housing, and health care. Therefore,
Catholics should eagerly involve themselves as advocates for the weak and
marginalized in all these areas.
Catholic public officials are obliged to address each of these issues as they
seek to build consistent policies which promote respect for the human person at
all stages of life. But being ‘right’ in such matters can never excuse a wrong
choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life. Indeed, the failure to
protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any
claims to the ‘rightness’ of positions in other matters affecting the poorest
and least powerful of the human community” (
Living the Gospel of
Life: A Challenge to American Catholics,
23). In other words, since the issues of racism, poverty, hunger, employment,
etc., are fundamentally issues of respect for human dignity, it is logically
inconsistent that one could be right on those issues while wrong on respecting
the dignity of the most innocent and vulnerable human life, the unborn and the
elderly. “You believe I have a right to an education, but I don’t have a right
to life?” “You believe I have a right to housing, but I don’t have a right to
life?” “You believe I have a right to health care, but I don’t have a right to
life?” “Well, how do I get those things if I’m not alive?” This is what the
bishops meant when they said, “the failure to protect and defend life in its
most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the ‘rightness’ of
positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the
human community.”
So, now we see where the pale is. Catholics must address the issues of
education, housing, health care, etc. But within the pale, there is not one
right answer to those questions. We should not resort to personal attacks or
straw men when discussing these issues. What is beyond the pale is a lack of
respect for the dignity of human life at its most vulnerable stages: the very
young and the very old.
In 2002, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, commonly known as the
CDF, which was then headed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, issued a document
entitled
Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation
of Catholics in Political Life. In this
document, the man who would become Pope Benedict XVI, laid down the moral
principles that we as Catholics use to form our consciences when entering into
the body politic. In that document, the CDF stated, “Democracy must be based on
the true and solid foundation of non-negotiable ethical principles, which are
the underpinning of life in society” (
Doctrinal Note, 3). Non-negotiable ethical principles are “moral
principles that do not admit of exception, compromise or derogation” (
Doctrinal
Note, 4). That is, principles that are
beyond the pale because they are foundational to any society, they “concern the
integral good of the human person.” Some of the issues explicitly named in the
document are abortion, euthanasia, protection for the rights of the human
embryo, monogamous marriage between a man and a woman, protection of minors,
and religious freedom.
People often wonder why capital punishment and war are not on the list. They
seem to also be issues to respect for human dignity. The difference is that
capital punishment and war are not intrinsically evil; they are not evil in and
of themselves. Both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition teach us that there
are times when a government can justly execute criminals and there are
situations where a government can justly go to war to defend its people. These
are prudential matters that are within the pale, that men of good will can
disagree on, which is why virtue and character matter in our political leaders.
What is beyond the pale is the intentional killing of innocent human life, the
redefinition of marriage and the family, and the denial of religious freedom.
There is obviously more than one
issue here, but it is usually at this point in the discussion that someone
brings up the “one-issue voter” argument. When people make that claim, I like
to ask them, what if that one issue were slavery, or pedophilia, or even
women’s suffrage? If you agreed with a politician on every issue except for
one, that he wanted to bring back slavery, or that he wanted to legalize
pedophilia, or that he wanted to take away a woman’s right to vote, would you
honestly say to yourself, “Well, that’s only one issue. I agree with him about
everything else, so I’ll vote for him”? Or would the “rightness” of his other
positions be rendered suspect because of this one issue? It seems to me that it
depends upon what that one issue is. And the one issue we are talking about here
is respecting the dignity of human life, human life in its most vulnerable
stages. This is why a politician’s claim that he is personally opposed to
abortion, but he does not want to impose his beliefs on others is—if I may
borrow a term that has recently come into political discourse—a bunch of
malarkey.
The only reason to be personally
opposed to abortion is because one believes what is inside the womb is a human
being. If it is not a human being inside that womb, if it is just a lump of
cells and tissue, then there is no reason to be personally opposed to abortion;
destroying the embryo would be no different from removing a cancer. So, if one
is personally opposed to abortion, then one must believe that what is inside
that womb is a human being. And to say that one is personally opposed to the
destruction of an innocent human being, but one is not willing to impose that
view upon others is no different from saying, “I’m personally opposed to
murder, but I don’t want to impose my personal beliefs upon others.” “I’m
personally opposed to pedophilia, but I don’t want to impose my personal
beliefs upon others.” “I’m personally opposed to rape, but I don’t want to
impose my personal beliefs upon others.”
“But, Father, in those cases, you’re causing harm to someone else.” Exactly!
Abortion is not about a woman’s right to choose to do what she wants with
her
body. The scientific evidence is very clear
that the embryo has a different DNA than the mother; it is a different being
than she is. And reason tells us that if it was created by a human egg and a
human sperm, then that being is a human being. Hence, an abortion is not about
a woman’s body; it is about her child’s body. We want equal rights for all
women, including that woman in her womb. The mother’s choice was to engage in
the act that created that life. She certainly has the choice to engage in that
act or not. But once that life is created, then we are talking about someone
else’s body, not hers anymore. This is why the “personally opposed” argument is
specious at best and hypocritical at worst.
The hypocrisy lies in the fact
that these very same politicians have no problems with imposing the Church’s
other social doctrines upon society, her preferential option for the poor, her
teaching that even illegal immigrants have rights and human dignity that must
be respected, her teaching against incest, or her teachings about war, just to
name a few.
As Catholic Americans, which is to say as Catholics, we do not vote for
parties, but for principles. We judge political ideologies through the lens of
the Church, because political parties are fallible human institutions, whereas
the Church is a divine institution, founded by our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ, and guided through the ages by the third person of the Holy Trinity.
Now, as we all know, it is very hard to find a perfect political candidate.
They are human, after all. This is all the more reason why faithful,
knowledgeable Catholics need to be involved in the political process, to become
politicians themselves even. But what are we to do when no one fully upholds
the Church’s position on the dignity of human life, for example, when someone
is opposed to abortion, but supports it in cases of rape and incest? Only when
the mother’s life is in danger, not her health, for every pregnancy affects the
health of the mother, but only when her life is in danger is an indirect
abortion—i.e., the removal of the embryo to save her life, but causing the
unintended side-effect of the death of the child—morally allowed.
So, what is a Catholic to do when
no one fully upholds the Church’s teaching? In his encyclical,
Evangelium
vitae, Blessed Pope John Paul II answered
that question thus: “an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to
procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at
limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences
at the level of general opinion and public morality” (
EV 73). He specifically mentions abortion, but his moral
reasoning could be applied to any of the “non-negotiable ethical principles.”
We cannot support a politician
because of his inconsistent position—that would be formal cooperation in evil
and mortally sinful. But if his position were closer to a consistent ethic of
life, and his proposals would “limit the harm done,” then we could licitly
support that candidate to help move society in the right direction (e.g., in
situations like abortion and embryonic stem cell research) and to keep society
from going over the cliff (e.g., in situations such as euthanasia, marriage,
and religious freedom). We do not have to sit out of the political process
because no candidate is perfect. That would be as imprudent as not
participating in the political process at all.
These social doctrines of the Church exist to protect the common good, to keep
rulers from lording their power over those whom they rule, so that all human
life may respected and protected (cf. Mk 10:42). This is why Holy Mother Church
tells us that faithful citizenship is a virtue and participation in political
life is a moral obligation. I should like to end with a quote from the CDF that
states this principle far more eloquently than I can. “By its intervention in
this area, the Church’s Magisterium does not wish to exercise political power
or eliminate the freedom of opinion of Catholics regarding contingent
questions. Instead, it intends—as is its proper function—to instruct and
illuminate the consciences of the faithful, particularly those involved in
political life, so that their actions may always serve the integral promotion
of the human person and the common good. The social doctrine of the Church is
not an intrusion into the government of individual countries. It is a question
of the lay Catholic’s duty to be morally coherent, found within one’s
conscience, which is one and indivisible. … Living and acting in conformity
with one’s own conscience on questions of politics is not slavish acceptance of
positions alien to politics or some kind of confessionalism, but rather the way
in which Christians offer their concrete contribution so that, through
political life, society will become more just and more consistent with the
dignity of the human person” (
Doctrinal Note, 3-4).