Typically there is the strong notion and tendency of considering politics and the Catholic faith as a dichotomy. Yet this dichotomy is false and not one to be adopted. We must live our Catholic faith in every facet of our lives including our influence in politics. Grounding our citizenship in our religious beliefs is not just a right but also a moral duty and a gift to American democratic life. Therefore, it is safe to say that there is a Catholic linkage between personal faith and public action.
Why the obligation to partake in shaping the moral character of society through politics? It is a requirement of our faith. It is a vital part of the Royal Mission we have received from Jesus Christ, who presents us a vision of life revealed in Catholic Sacred Scripture and Tradition. Christ, being “the Word made flesh” showed us the supreme love of our Father. He showed us what it truly means to be human. This love that Christ has for us lets us realize our human dignity with clearness and forces us to love our neighbors as he has loved each of us. What is true and good is shown to us by Christ; meaning that which is in accord with our human nature as free and intelligent beings created in the image and likeness of God. Furthermore each of us has been endowed by the Creator with dignity and rights.
The baptized and the Church individually and together exercise their Royal Mission through their involvement in politics. The baptized are to work towards restoring to creation all of its original value. The Church serves as a leaven and as a kind of soul for human society. In addition, the Church works towards a heavenly city penetrating the earthly city “through her individual matters and her whole community” (GS 40). Together their Royal Mission to the world is the promotion of the dignity of the person, which Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia has stated, “the Catholic church cannot stay, has never stayed and never will stay out of politics.” Restoring the value of the individual who is not to be treated or viewed as an object is the ultimate concern of a Catholic’s involvement in public life.
The lay faithful, for the sake of achieving the task directed to them, being members of the worldly order, in the way of serving persons and society, must never abandon participation in public life. This is through “the many different economic, social, legislative, administrative and cultural areas which are intended to promote organically and institutionally the common good” (CL 42). The way for achieving a public life that is true to human development as its goal is solidarity. “Solidarity is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far” (CL 42). Solidarity is seeing others – whether it be a person, people of a nation, not just as an instrument, but as one’s neighbor, to be made a sharer, on par with one another, “In the banquet of life to which all are equally invited by God” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 39). Solidarity is both a social principle and a moral virtue. We are one human family regardless of national, racial, ethnic, gender, ideological or economic boundaries.
Pope Benedict XVI recently highlighted the American hostility towards Catholicism when he stated, “It is imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States come to realize the grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres.” As Catholics, bringing our moral convictions into public life does not threaten democracy or pluralism, but enriches the individual and the nation. We have a duty to teach about human life and dignity, marriage and family, war and peace, the needs of the poor and the demands of justice.
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