Christianity and Socialism

Choosing a candidate isn't a single issue decision for bishops

Posted by John J. Myers March 04, 2008 10:42PM
Categories: Hot Topics, Politics
In an op ed essay on Monday, Joe Feuerherd, a former reporter for the National Catholic Reporter, argued that the nation's bishops are warning Catholics that they risk their salvation if they vote for the wrong candidate. And, he said, the bishops always seem to make opposition to abortion thelitmus test, almost to the exclusion of all other issues.

Today, knee-deep into election hype-steria, I am beginning to see an unfortunate repeat of the events of 2000 and 2004, when pundits, politicians, media in even some candidates for office sought to paint the Catholic bishops as bad guys manipulating parishioners into voting for a particular candidate based on one issue alone.


Already, commentators are pointing to a document from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops - "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship" - as reason to claim that the Catholic Church is a one-issue only political interest group.

That simply is not true.

Over the past 30 years, every version of Faithful Citizenship has focused on the full spectrum of the church's concern for the problems and challenges of living in society today. At the center of this spectrum is the commitment to the sanctity and dignity of every human life - the only natural center from which to proceed. The church calls for Catholics to look at the "tough issues." The church has never issued a guide urging people to vote for one party or another, or one particular candidate.

With Faithful Citizenship, the bishops call on America's Catholic voters to judge issues and the candidates in the light of the transcendent truths of right and justice. The current version, finalized in November 2007, is explicit in this teaching:

"What faith teaches about the dignity of the human person and about the sacredness of every human life helps us see more clearly the same truths that also come to us through the gift of human reason. Because we are people of both faith and reason, it is appropriate and necessary for us to bring this essential truth about human life and dignity to the public square. We are called to practice Christ's commandment to 'love one another' (Jn. 113:34) and to protect the lives and dignity of all, especially the weak, the vulnerable, the voiceless."

Not convinced? Still think that the church is trying to slant people only to the abortion issue? How about this?

The Catholic bishops have spoken out against the war in Iraq, and called on the US government to begin to transition that country toward peace. They have called on the legislative and executive branches of our government to find a permanent and solid solution to adequate health care for the poor. They seek fair living wages for all workers and for access to decent affordable housing. They seek an end to the death penalty, racism and torture - acts that never can be justified. It's all in Faithful Citizenship.

Here in New Jersey, the Catholic bishops have been instrumental in helping to abolish the death penalty, in calling for adequate healthcare funding for the poor and affordable housing, in calling for access to quality education for the poor, for justice for victims of the modern-day slavery of human trafficking, and for immigration reform. Again, Faithful Citizenship echoes these themes.

If there is a one-issue focus at work here, it is this: all human life matters.

Too often, politics is a contest of powerful interests, partisan attacks, and nano-messages. Through Faithful Citizenship, the bishops call for a different kind of examination: one shaped by moral convictions of well-formed consciences and focused on the dignity of every human being, protection of the weak and vulnerable, and the common good.

That is an agenda that transcends political parties and campaign promises.

I have a problem with pundits, candidates and even the average person in the street bristling when a bishop speaks about the need for Catholics to make decisions about political issues based on the centrality of the dignity of human life. Political parties censure their members all the time for not toeing the line. The members comply and no one complains. But when a bishop reminds Catholics to reach back into their faith when deciding issues, or accepting the responsibility of public life, the clamor of false indignation is deafening.

What am I looking for? The same thing that every solid American citizen should be looking for. I seek a candidate who knows that every one of us alive today began life on a very elementary nature, and understands that all future rights to which each of us is entitled wouldn't mean a thing if this life were not allowed to develop.

I seek a candidate who is dedicated to nurturing a person's opportunity for growth from the moment of conception through birth, early childhood, education, years in the workforce, retirement, final years and natural passing.

I am looking for a candidate who will work to ensure that we do not accept short-term answers to problems, or quick fixes, or solutions that sweep problems under the rug and out of sight. Such expedient measures are done at a cost to human life and dignity.

Rather than damn the bishops, as some critics would, for "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship," I urge everyone - Catholics and non-Catholics alike - to read the document and learn for themselves that it is an insightful and responsible challenge to look for the higher values in political life today.

Isn't this what America is all about?

John J. Myers is the archbishop of the Newark Archdiocese.


My Commentary:

Posted by Zemack on 03/11/08 at 4:25PM
Joe Feuerherd, in his February 24, 2004 article, condemns the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for their "right-wing lurch." He then calls for "Universal Healthcare" and "social justice" ( a euphemism for coercive government exploitation of the productive members of society)." But on these issues, at least, Mr. Feuerherd and Mr. Myers are on the same page.

Mr. Myers calls on us to respect "the dignity of the human person and...the sacredness of every human life." Then he calls for "fair living wages for all workers and for access to decent affordable housing...[and] adequate healthcare funding for the poor and affordable housing,...[and] access to quality education for the poor."

How will these goals be attained? By the same means employed by every "humanitarian" who seeks to practice "charity" with other peoples tax money...by brute, physical force. Or, to use Mr. Myers' more polite terminology, through "the legislative and executive branches of our government."

What about the "dignity" of the job-producing businessman who will be compelled to pay his employees more than they are worth to him? Or the "dignity" of the low-skilled worker who will find himself priced out of a job? Or the "dignity" of the young entry-level worker who finds the economic ladder closed to him because the lower rungs have been kicked out by arbitrary, coercive government "living wage" edicts?

What about the "dignity" of all those who would be trapped into dependence on government, at the expense of the violation of the rights of their fellow citizens?

And what about the "dignity" of the self-reliant, productive citizens at all income levels who have provided for their own welfare by their own efforts only to see their earnings drained away for the unearned benefit of others through the legalized theft of income redistributionist "government funding" (an injustice that should be eliminated, not expanded)?

Mr. Myers' sop to "human reason" and "moral convictions" is a veneer. Reason and morality end when force, governmental or otherwise, becomes the means to any end. To call for an end to war, only to advocate the use of force by the "legislative and executive branches of our government" against its own citizens is, to be polite, a profound contradiction in one's "moral convictions". To talk of the "dignity of every human being" rings hollow to someone forced into "modern-day slavery" for the sake of "the weak, the vulnerable, the voiceless". All to be accomplished in the name of "the common good"...that sinister historical siren song of all those who seek forcible domination over the lives, property, and productive work of others.

There is no "different kind of examination" here. Mr. Myers, the Bishops, and their "Faithful Citizenship" agenda do not transcend politics. It is an alignment with the political Left...a tired old call for the tyranny of Socialism, the political system that turns everyone into either a slave or a moocher...or both. There is no dignity for the human being that has been stripped of his individual rights.

There is only one social system that is truly based on "the commitment to the sanctity and dignity of every human life", Capitalism (which does not exist in America today). It is the only system based on the individual's inalienable right to his life, and the derivative rights to his liberty, property, and the pursuit of his own welfare and happiness. It is the only system whose government is limited to the protection, not violation, of those rights of not only the "weak and vulnerable", but of all people...the able, the talented, the intelligent, the inventive, the productive, i.e., the life-givers... the strong and successful. It is the only system that protects men from exploitation by power-lusters and seekers of the unearned by banishing all use of physical force in human relationships, except in self-defense. As a consequence, it is the only social system that establishes the necessary conditions required to lift people out of poverty (and into a life of prosperity and dignity)...the freedom to engage in mutually advantageous production and trade.

If the bishops were truly committed to "the sanctity and dignity of every human life", it would embrace Capitalism, renounce the use of force by "the legislative and executive branches of our government", and leave care of the "the weak, the vulnerable, the voiceless"...i.e.,the truly helpless needy of which the bishops claim to champion... to the domain of voluntary, uncoerced charity.