Catholics and Politics: The Dynamic Tension Between Faith and Power

5. Between Church, Party, and Conscience: Protecting Life and Promoting Social Justice among U.S. Catholics

75 5 BETWEEN CHURCH, PARTY, AND CONSCIENCE Protecting Life and Promoting Social Justice among U.S.Catholics Mark M. Gray and Mary E. Bendyna A Catholic moral framework does not easily fit the ideologies of “right” or “left,” or the platforms of any party. Our values are often not “politically correct.” Believers are called to be a community of conscience within the larger society and to test public life by the values of Scripture and the principles of Catholic social teaching. Our responsibility is to measure all candidates, policies, parties, and platforms by how they protect or undermine the life, dignity, and rights of the human person, whether they protect the poor and vulnerable and advance the common good. —United States Conference of Catholic Bishops As the statement by the U.S. Catholic bishops above indicates, the teachings of the Catholic Church as well as pronouncements made by its leaders are often at odds with the partisan and ideological organization of the U.S. political system. The Church is opposed to abortion, euthanasia, cloning, embryonic stem cell research, and the death penalty and supports immigration and immigrant rights, social welfare programs for the poor, and programs to provide affordable and accessible health care and housing.1 This combination of issue stances cuts across the official platforms of both the Democratic and Republican Parties as well as the more general ideological distribution of issue positions in the U.S. political discourse between conservatives and lib- erals. If a Catholic wishes to cast a ballot that is entirely consistent with Church teachings , there is nearly always no valid choice. At the same time, for nearly a century the Church has encouraged Catholics to participate in electoral politics and vote their conscience. For only a short time in the late nineteenth century, after the emergence of mass democracy, the Church officially opposed the political participation of Catholic Italians due to the Vatican’s own con- flicts with the newly created Italian state and asked that citizens become“neither elected nor electors.”2 With the 1922 papal encyclical Urbi arcano Dei, a role for lay Catholic organizations in the political process, which would eventually evolve into European Christian Democratic Parties,began to emerge.3 As theVatican began to encourage Italian and other European Catholics to vote, often in opposition to Communist Parties, the Vatican began to take a more vocal role as a supporter of citizen politics. The inspiration for civic responsibility in the Catholic faith is often derived from Scripture in two commonly related New Testament passages that highlight the duty of citizenship.4 The first is the response Jesus gives to the Pharisees when asked if it is lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar and Rome. In Matthew 22:1, Jesus asks to see a coin and then asks, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” and they reply, “Caesar’s,” and he then instructs, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”The second is by Paul, who in Romans 13:6–7 instructs Christians to“pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Pay to all their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, toll to whom toll is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.” Prior to every U.S. presidential election since 1976, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has released a statement encouraging Catholics to vote and outlining Church teachings that are important to the political issues being debated. The 1999 statement,Faithful Citizenship: Civic Responsibility for a New Millennium, acknowledged the constrained choices of the U.S.political system,stating that“sometimes it seems few candidates and no party fully reflect our values. But now is not a time for retreat. The new millennium should be an opportunity for renewed participation. We must challenge all parties and every candidate to defend human life and dignity,to pursue greater justice and peace,to uphold family life,and to advance the common good.”5 The Vatican has provided instruction that constrains choices further. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 2002 doctrinal note, The Participation of Catholics in Political Life, observes that a “well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals.”6 In many political systems, including that of the United States...