I was gone for two weeks, taking my yearly retreat and a week of vacation home with the family. I emerged from my Fortnight for Relaxation to check the internet only sparingly, which was easy to do on retreat. Even though the place we stayed is no longer a retreat house, but a kind of hotel-bed and breakfast for Canadian pensioners, the internet access was blissfully limited, and nary a TV in sight. Once I hit my parents’ house the seclusion from the world became impossible, especially with the Republican Convention going on. I come from a long line of political junkies, so you bet it was on all the time.
During general election years I get many questions about Catholics, and people of faith in general, and how they should vote. I don’t believe a priest should endorse particular candidates, and Don Bosco advised against getting involved in politics; that’s our lay cooperators’ responsibility, if they feel so called. During his life he worked with all sorts of people of different political persuasions. As long as they didn’t try to limit his religious activity he would cooperate with them as best he could. Catholics, both lay and clergy, do have a responsibility to vote, even if getting involved directly in party politics is inadvisable. To that end I will discuss a few general guidelines that we can follow to help us make an informed, faith filled, decision this November.
I begin with the issue of moral values and how they should influence our vote. I often get the objection that values have no place in politics, because these are strictly personal in nature. We cannot legislate morality or impose a certain religious view on others. Some go as far as to say the Church shouldn’t comment on political or economic issues at all, that they are beyond Her competency. Besides, there is the principle of separation of Church and State that needs to be respected. To these objections I say, you have some things right, but others wrong. Let me explain.
As for the Catholic view on Church State relations, we have always understood that there are two realms; the secular and the religious. Both have different functions, and while both should cooperate with the other, there is a clearly delineated division of responsibilities. The Church shouldn’t dictate specific policies to the government and the civil authority shouldn’t interfere with the internal workings of religious bodies. But the Church has the right and the responsibility to comment on social and political matters because She is in the world, sharing in its joys and pains. Her members live and participate in civil society and are effected by its policies. It’s not the Pope’s job to determine the upper marginal tax rate or how many weeks of unemployment insurance should be granted to people out of work. But he does have the ability to suggest basic guidelines and principles for the just ordering of society based on Scripture and Tradition, rooted in reason informed by faith. After that it’s up to the prudential judgment of civil leaders, and the electorate, to act as they see fit.
I agree that it’s not the government’s job to regulate personal morality, and the Tradition backs me up. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that prostitution, while being gravely sinful, should not be outlawed. For him it was another form of extramarital sex that, while morally objectionable, is not in the public interest to criminalize. I’m not sure I agree with the Angelic Doctor on the particular issue of prostitution, but his general principle is correct.
In the case of marriage the government has a regulating interest because matrimony is more than simply a matter of who a person is choosing to sleep with. It has always been associated with family life, and the family is the building block of society. The family socializes the next generation. Our tax codes are built around it and the stable transfer of wealth from one generation to the next is facilitated by it. It is the basic support system for the individual, and when it fails the effects ripple through society. The Church is not opposed to the legal recognition of gay marriage because we believe a Commandment is being broken. It is this concern over the preservation of the family unit and stable ordering of society that is of greater consequence. Are there moral and theological reasons to oppose gay marriage? Yes, but these alone would not justify political action. This only becomes necessary when some aspect of the common good is seen as being compromised.
So I say yes, moral values matter, and should be promoted. We don’t need civil laws against particular moral failings, true. But we do need to understand the difference between personal rights and the common good, and not be afraid to participate in the political process when the latter is in danger.
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