With campaigning for presidential primaries underway, and the release of the U.S. bishops' quadrennial statement on politics and elections, "Faithful Citizenship," attention turns to the intersection of faith and politics.
In this month's Viewpoints, Liz Quirin, editor of The Messenger (Diocese of Belleville, Ill.), takes to task those politicians who espouse a private morality very different from their public actions. Tom Sheridan, editor emeritus of The Catholic New World (Archdiocese of Chicago), notes with disappointment that almost 50 years after John F. Kennedy's successful run for president, questions still are raised about candidates' particular religious beliefs.
Private morality versus public actions
By Liz Quirin
"I am personally opposed to this law, but as an elected official I must support ..." You fill in the blank. How many times have we heard these words from our elected officials? Let me count the ways: constantly on the abortion and capital punishment issues, on just war, on immigration and countless other social justice issues.
Somehow, when a man or woman is elected to an office, a kind of split personality develops, or maybe comes with the territory. If you are opposed to killing on any level, it would seem that you could not support these policies under any circumstances.
Consider the scenario of the faithful sitting side by side in the pews at weekend liturgies and then running over your brothers and sisters in Christ as you beat a hasty exit from the parking lot.
The lessons learned and the Eucharist shared make little or no difference in the way we conduct our business during the rest of the week. Our personal moral and ethical choices are generally made during our time at work and play rather than during the liturgies.
Most of us do not have the power to decide life-and-death issues for others as do those in elected office, and we sometimes watch with a sense of horror at the decisions that are being made in our names.
We stand by, sometimes physically present, as a prisoner is wheeled on a gurney from death row to a chamber where a lethal injection is administered while a Catholic governor who says he is personally opposed to the death penalty does nothing to stop an execution.
We can't have it both ways, yet somehow we accept the policy of private morals and public acquiescence. Where is our moral outrage at these officials when we know what they are saying, if not ridiculous, certainly baffles even the most obtuse among us?
We don't really believe what they are telling us, but we don't challenge their words or their actions.
At the end of the day, we are to blame because we don't do anything to hold them to their personal beliefs. We have power that we decline or refuse to exercise. That power exists at the ballot box.
If we don't believe them or accept their personal versus public personas, we must exercise our own moral responsibilities and require them to give us a better, more plausible explanation for their actions.
Are we suffering from that same myopic view of the world where we tell people we don't believe in death through abortion or legal injection yet we sit in our safe and comfortable homes without lifting a hand to stop what happens?
Our justifiable outrage surfaces when something personal happens to us, to our families, to our neighbors. Otherwise, we absent ourselves not only from specific action but from the conversation altogether. We have too much to do, too many issues of our own, and we certainly don't want to "get involved" in trying to change the world.
Personal morality must be exercised in public, for the good of all of God's people, not just when it suits us or those who are elected to represent us. How many times have you heard someone say, "I was not elected to promote my own personal agenda but those of my constituents"?
It's time to elect people whose personal agendas we know and support so they can stop using that as an excuse to vote for the status quo. The least we can do is tell them early and often that we don't believe them, and if they want to continue in their present elected roles, they should stop using personal/private morality now.
What should a candidate's faith mean?
By Tom Sheridan
I was a 16-year-old Catholic high school senior the year John Fitzgerald Kennedy ran for the White House.
The media was full of stories about the candidate's religion and his passionate insistence that Rome wouldn't direct his administration.
Unlike many detractors, we certainly didn't expect the pope to be a "shadow" president, but we did hope Catholic values and sensibilities would surface now and then.
Three years later I was in college and working for the Archdiocese of Newark's newspaper on a dark November day when word flashed that America's first Catholic president was dead.
Suddenly the religion of a president --- for a while, at least --- didn't seem important.
Fast forward a few years. Every chief executive is --- at least for public consumption --- a churchgoer. A few have worn their faith more openly: Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush.
Today, though, in some significant ways, it's 1960 all over again. Questions of a candidate's faith are raised as part of the campaign for the White House in 2008.
A little historical perspective. American voters have always cared about the faith (or at least the religion) of their leaders. A candidate's religion wasn't necessarily a plus, but the wrong religion was surely a negative.
The reaction when Al Smith, Irish and Catholic like Kennedy, sought the presidency in 1928 was even greater than it was in 1960. Raw emotion was punctuated by outright fear.
This time around, Mitt Romney, a Mormon, has faced some of those questions. As with JFK, much of the criticism stemmed from lack of knowledge of that minority Christian group and a confusion regarding its values.
Today, the evangelical Christians are also taking some of the heat once directed at Catholics. And the concern is similar: Would a president in the pocket of the evangelical branch of Christianity govern for that special interest --- or for the masses (if you'll forgive the pun)?
But even the evangelical monolith has cracks: Recently TV preacher Pat Robertson threw his support to oft-married Republican pro-choice Catholic Rudolph Giuliani, proving once again the truth that politics does indeed make strange bedfellows. Of course, some Catholic groups believe Giuliani should drop the Catholic label entirely.
Sniping about candidates' faith continues.
Barack Obama, a member of the Church of Christ, is accused of being Muslim. Hillary Clinton, raised Methodist but who has attended Baptist churches, is condemned by opponents who don't believe she can have any faith at all. Romney and Fred Thompson exchange barbs about who deserves pro-life support. John McCain alternately calls himself an Episcopalian and a Baptist, depending on where he's campaigning.
There's more, but you get the picture.
What should a voter expect from a candidate who claims a faith connection?
At its heart, virtually any faith proclaims the goodness of people and a hope for favor from God, no matter what that deity is called.
That has long been a Christian theme. At an October audience, Pope Benedict XVI quoted St. Maximus and cited the obligations of citizens to support policies that help the poor and promote peace and justice.
That's what we, the voters, no matter our religious stripe, have the right to expect from our leaders: Governance that's at least guided by the principles of the religion they espouse.
As Catholics, should we expect candidates, especially those calling themselves Catholic, to heed church teachings in their lives and administrations? It would be nice, though not realistic in this pluralistic culture.
But should we expect them to at least recognize and follow broader religious values that help the poor and promote justice? Well, yes.
And we voters, of course, have a way to encourage that. It's called the ballot box. Liz Quirin is the editor of The Messenger, the newspaper of the Diocese of Belleville, Ill.
Tom Sheridan is editor emeritus of The Catholic New World, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Chicago, and writes from Ocala, Fla.
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