Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 17, 2020 / 05:00 pm (CNA).-
In an interview Wednesday, the chairman of the Federal Election Commission accused Catholic bishops of “hiding” behind the Church’s tax exempt status instead of backing political candidates, and insisted that priests and lay Catholics have a “right” to conduct political activity on parish premises.
The Catholic Church has had long-standing policies against endorsing particular candidates for political office. Experts in civil and canon law explained to CNA why Catholic clerics do not endorse political candidates, and why that issue touches on the religious liberty of the Church.
James E. Trainor, a Catholic, was appointed to the bipartisan commission by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate earlier this year. He spoke Wednesday in an interview with the website Church Militant.
In his interview, Trainor questioned the legal and moral authority of bishops to limit the endorsement of candidates from the pulpit and in the pews.
“I don’t think a bishop has the right to tell a priest that he can’t come out and speak… When the priest takes the vow [sic] of obedience to the bishop, it is in the area of faith and morals, but they have a higher duty to our Lord, and if the bishop is putting something out there that is not right then the priest has an obligation to the faithful to correct it,” he said.
Fr. Pius Pietrzyk, OP, is a civil and canon lawyer who was nominated by President Barack Obama and unanimously confirmed by the Senate to the Board of Directors of the Congressionally-funded Legal Services Corporation, which provides funding for legal aid programs.
The priest, who serves as a professor of canon law at St. Patrick’s University and Seminary in California, told CNA it is not the function of clergy to instruct the laity on who they should choose in the voting booth.
“The primary end of the Church is not the ordering of civil society,” he told CNA. “The primary end of the Church is the sanctification of humanity,” he said. “While the Church is concerned that secular society be just and moral, the prudential decisions on carrying that out is properly the role of lay people in the world.”
“While it is true, as the Second Vatican Council said in Gaudium et Spes, ‘the Church and the political community in their own fields are autonomous and independent from each other,’ that autonomy of the secular world does not mean an autonomy from natural and divine law. The Church must grant to the secular government its legitimate autonomy, and the legitimate freedom of Catholics within a particular country to participate in that governance.”
“Nonetheless,” he said, “the Church has a right and duty to elucidate the moral precepts that guide a society in properly fostering the common good.”
Trainor also said bishops are too cautious about their ability to engage directly in partisan politics under civil law.
“The bishops are using their nonprofit status as a shield to hide behind,” he said, “from having to make a decision about who to support [in the elections].”
He charged that bishops choose to be silent on political matters out of concern they might lose grants received by Catholic institutions for refugee resettlement and other federal programs.
Eric Kniffin, an attorney specializing in First Amendment and religious freedom cases, told CNA that, in practice, bishops have little reason to be concerned about government ramifications from political speech.
“The Internal Revenue Code, on its face, bars tax-exempt organizations—including churches and other religious organizations—from saying anything ‘on behalf of’ or ‘in opposition to’ a political candidate,” Kniffen said. “This restriction, often referred to as the ‘Johnson Amendment,’ is still on the books, even though President Trump has directed the IRS to be lenient in its enforcement of the law.
“At a practical level, the federal government has not had much appetite to enforce this rule,” Kniffin, who has worked for the Department of Justice and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, told CNA.
During the interview, Trainor also said that in his view, civil law prevents bishops from prohibiting their priests from endorsing candidates.
“If you look at it just from a legal perspective, the priest to bishop is still an employer-employee relationship and that’s the employer telling the employee what they can and cannot do.”
“We don’t tolerate that anywhere else, in fact there has been this huge uproar over NFL owners not allowing players on the field to be able to protest.”
But Kniffin told CNA that the comparison to NFL franchises was inapt, and that the legal ability of churches to regulate the actions of clergy is well established.
“The Supreme Court recently affirmed that the First Amendment’s church autonomy doctrine guarantees churches ‘independence in matters of faith and doctrine and in closely linked matters of internal government,’” he told CNA. “This doctrine prevents government from interfering with the relationship between churches and their members and between churches and their ‘ministerial’ employees.”
Fr. Pietrzyk explained that in the mind and law of the Church, the relationship between a bishop and priest is much more than employer-employee.
“It is completely inappropriate, and a violation of the Church’s legitimate autonomy, an autonomy recognized in the First Amendment to the Constitution, for a federal official to opine, under the cloak of that office, on the duty of obedience owed by a priest to his bishop,” he said.
“There is a tendency among U.S. government officials – whether federal bureaucracies or local judges – to try to fit the Church into a secular category,” he told CNA.
“Certainly there are aspects of the bishop-priest relationship that look like employment. The diocese usually pays the priest’s salary, provides him health insurance, etc. But it is an ongoing mistake on the part of secular authority, and indeed a violation of the freedom of religion, to force the employer-employee model as the primary or only way of understanding that relationship,” the priest added.
“The document Christus Dominus, a decree from the Second Vatican Council on the Pastoral Office of the Bishop, said that, ‘[Bishops] should regard the priests as sons and friends.’”
“At the same time,” Pietrzyk told CNA, “the bishop is the head of the diocese, as a father in a family. The ministry of the priest depends on his submission to the legitimate authority of his bishop. Thus, as Pope St. John Paul II wrote, ‘there can be no genuine priestly ministry except in communion with the one’s own Bishop, who deserves that filial respect and obedience.’”
“Every Catholic, and even more so a priest, has a duty to submit to the legitimate governance of their bishop,” he said.
George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told CNA that in his view Trainer’s comments reflected a serious misunderstanding of the relationship between priests and bishops in the Church.
“Mr. Trainor seems woefully ill-informed about the relationship between the bishop and priests of a diocese,” Weigel said.
“He also seems to think of his fellow-Catholics as dolts who require specific instructions on voting from their religious leaders.”
Weigel reflected on a longstanding American anti-Catholic stereotype that bishops and priests direct Catholics about how to cast their votes.
Trainor’s view “mirrors the false charge laid against Catholic immigrants for decades by anti-Catholic bigots, which suggests that Mr. Trainor is also not very well versed in U.S. Catholic history,” Weigel said.
Fr. Pietrzyk told CNA that as chairman of the FEC, Trainer “is certainly free to opine on the freedom, in American law, he is not competent, however, to evaluate the provisions of ecclesiastical law.”
“The ministry of a priest in a sacred place, like a church, may be legitimately directed by a bishop,” Pietrzyk said.
“In addition, preaching within a sacred place, even a parish church, may be regulated by the diocesan bishop. Absent that guidance, a pastor does exercise that authority within his own parish. However, simply because he is the pastor does not give him the right to act contrary to the directives of his own pastor, the bishop.”
“As Pope St. John Paul II emphasized, the ministry of the pastor is not genuine when it runs contrary to the legitimate direction of his local bishop.”
[…]
According to Abp. Wenski’s own phrasing of Gov. DeSantis’ statement, “he described any comparison of unaccompanied minors from Cuba in the early 60’s with those from Central America today as ‘disgusting’”.
In the next sentence, the archbishops says “no child should be deemed ‘disgusting’ — especially by a public servant.”
What public servant did, Your Excellency? Certainly not Gov. DeSantis – by your own admission. He was addressing the “parallel,” which many Floridians of Cuban heritage find contemptible.
Clearly Abp. Wenski is passionate about his advocacy, but he would likely deem it unjust if DeSantis were to twist the archbishop’s statements in like manner.
Note also that Democrats, led by “Catholics for Biden” Co-Chair – had a $100,000 attack ad ready **as soon as the archbishop made his remarks.**
Who tipped them off early?
An apology is in order. +Wenski’s staff fed him false talking points. Fire the bureaucrat(s) responsible and apologize. Honor is more important than federal funding of the USCCB’s immigration NGO’s.
A plain reading of the transcript shows beyond a doubt that Archbishop Wenski lied about what DeSantis said. One refreshing thing about the Florida governor is that he gives it as well as he takes it. He does it better, in fact. It surely helps to have the truth on one’s side. Wenski and his flacks should have known that by now. Perhaps one day DeSantis will train his fire on Wenski’s boss in Rome. It would be most welcome.
Separately, this incident highlights again the unholy alliance of the Catholic hierarchy with the cheap labor lobby and the Marxists of the Democratic Party. Every faithful Catholic should find it appalling.
Bravo to DeSantis’ team!
More Catholics need to call out our bishops openly when they lie so blatantly. And they do it quite often, especially when politics is involved. The bishops have shown repeatedly that they will do almost anything for their Democrat financiers.
In these days of plots so thick and twisted, readers appreciate any unravelling and unveiling of truth. Benefit of doubt extended in the archbishop’s direction shows greatness. May the blame game begin within the ecclesial-secular bureau-scratchit, and leave DeSantis out of it.
For the Archbishop to implicitly condone the migration of unaccompanied children, frequently subject to sexual molestation is itself immoral. For the Archbishop to distort the words of Governor Desantis claiming Desantis said children [rather than policy] are disgusting is slander, plain, clear, and simple. Being an Archbishop doesn’t remove culpability for either.
This what occurs in our nation when too many of our bishops become politicians in support of Pope Francis’ policy of open borders, and support by acclaim and vote the socialist leaning Party that supports and finances it. And a reason why the Church here continues to disintegrate in numbers, and why laity offer little support to the USCCB.
It may well have been a slip of the tongue, with a bit of stretching. I regret my judgment. Although he should have corrected his remark.
Its unfortunate that church hierarchy has chosen to defend and encourage illegal immigration. Great evils result from illegal immigration. Sex trafficking, drug dealing,gang activity, and rising crime of all kinds result from it. There is also great pressure on public taxpayer funds for their care, support and education, which by rights should go to the LEGAL CITIZENS who need it. Not to illegals.Illegal immigration is NOT a victimless crime and its too bad that so many Bishops are so insulated from the reality of trying to earn a living and pay bills, that they “OK” illegal immigration as some sort of benign welfare scheme. Not to mention the moral gymnastics required to justify an illegal act which breaks the law.These peoples OWN nation have a moral obligation to care for them. Not us. Ask the parent of a child murdered by an illegal exactly how benign the practice of illegal immigration really is.Maybe the Bishops should wring their hands over THEM for a change.
No surprise: Bishop Wenski is a blatant liar.
That makes him a candidate to be selected a Cardinal, in the fashion of His Eminence “$2 Million” Wuerl, who earned the distinction of this headline by the Ed Flynn before he left the CNA: Cardinal Wuerl Denies Denying that he Denied Knowing about McCarrick Molesting Seminarians.” (I think it was Seminarians, if memory serves.)
It was published right here on these pages at CWR.
It’s a new tradition…of sorts.
From the article:
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“Venezuelan and Haitian children who are fleeing dictatorship, socialism and violence”
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Since the pandemic hit we’ve been seeing members of the ruling establishment elite behaving like autocrats. They are often found in violation of their own rules. Many of them either said nothing or made excuses for the so-called “mostly peaceful” 2020 “Summer of Love.” As I recall VP Kamala Harris was active in arraigning bail money for the “Summer of Love” rioters. Many progressive DAs let the SOL rioters walk. Compared to this Jan 6 was weak sauce. When the ruling establishment elites got a taste of their own medicine it was the end of the world as we know it. Too much rules for thee and not for me.
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The problem with socialism, and communism is the unaccountable concentration of power in an all powerful state. Many Catholic Social Teaching advocates show a strong tilt towards statist solutions. The dictatorship, socialism and violence charges can be applied to the hard left Democratic party.