Thought readers of this blog would be interested in what Martin Marty has to say about the effort to repeal the estate tax:
Sightings 10/18/04
Estate Tax: Repelling the Repeal -- Martin E. Marty
November is approaching, which, in the Protestant/Evangelical half of America, is often "Stewardship Month." For those whose charities' fiscal year begins in January, it is also the month for budget-setting. As a former pastor of a congregation, I remain mindful of stewardship. As a former board member of a church-related college and employee of a faith-based, non-profit health care system, I am also mindful of the role of estate-planning, "planned giving," and the value of long-term gifts to colleges, hospitals, and social service agencies. So Sightings has me scanning the secular press for relevant material to pass on, with little need for comment in some cases.
For example, an October 7 column ("A Costly Free Lunch") by my favorite Wall Street Journal columnist -- yes, I have one! -- Albert R. Hunt, with whom I regularly disagree, spells out his viewpoint. "In 2000, individuals made $212 billion in charitable contributions. Much flowed out of generosity and genuine commitment. Some, however, was facilitated by tax planning, particularly the estate tax, where donors could provide for themselves in their lifetimes and their alma mater or charity after their death."
Now the administration wants the estate tax to be repealed, claiming that such a move would help farmers save their farms. "This may be good politics, but it's a fraud." An Iowa State University economist several years ago could not find a single true Iowa family farmer who had to sell the farm to pay estate taxes. (In fact, few Iowa farmers pay the tax at all.) Hunt cites economists who say the repeal will not affect 99 percent of the people. He disagrees; the "death tax," as would-be repealers have it, "is more than simply affirmative action for heirs of rich people." A repeal would mean the loss of $60 billion a year in revenues and it would also hurt state revenues, which piggy-back on them.
The "huge problem," however, is that "it would drain colleges, universities, hospitals, museum, and even churches [repeat: 'even churches'] of much needed funds." How much drop off is expected? The Congressional Budget Office (not "some soak-the-rich band of wealthy-hating lefties," notes Hunt) estimates that overall charitable giving would decline between 6 and 12 percent, from $13 to $25 billion a year. "Charitable bequeaths would suffer even more."
The administration's goal is to eliminate the whole estate tax program by 2010. Why didn't more colleges and hospitals fight against the tax votes of recent years? "There is a ... sinister explanation. Many of these institutions have wealthy trustees who would personally benefit from a measure that would hurt the institution they're supposed to be serving."
Forget "small businessmen and farmers" and entrepreneurs, who, it is alleged, suffer because of the estate tax. In Hunt's eyes, that claim is a "fraud" and a "sham." Join Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, who have given economic reasons not to have the tax repealed. A repeal would put "$60 billion a year back in the hands of mostly wealthy Americans while further squeezing middle-class Americans and some of the institutions that bring the greatest value to our lives." Like colleges, universities, hospitals, cultural institutions, and, yes, "even churches."
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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
In a posting on October 12, Rick Garnett provided a link to a piece that Gerry Bradley (Notre Dame) and Robby George (Princeton) published in National Review Online earlier this week. (If you haven't read the Bradley/George piece, please do so.) Cathy Kaveny has written a Op-Ed piece in response. I asked Cathy for permission to share her piece with the readers of this blog, and she agreed. For those of you who aren't familiar with Cathy, who holds a joint appointment at Notre Dame--law and theology--here are some relevant facts:
Professor M. Cathleen Kaveny, a scholar who focuses on the relationship of law and morality, was named the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law in 2001. She earned her A.B. summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1984, and holds four graduate degrees from Yale University including her M.A. (1986), M.Phil (1990), J.D. (1990) and Ph.D. (1991). A member of the Massachusetts Bar since 1993, Professor Kaveny clerked for the Honorable John T. Noonan Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Professor Kaveny has published over forty articles and essays, in journals and books specializing in law, ethics, and medical ethics. She has served on a number of editorial boards including The American Journal of Jurisprudence, The Journal of Religious Ethics, the Journal of Law and Religion, and The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics. She has been a Senior Fellow at the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago (2002-2003) and the Royden B. Davis Visiting Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Georgetown University (1998). Professor Kaveny is a member of the Steering Committee of the Catholic Common Ground Initiative, which was founded by the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin to help overcome polarization within the Catholic Church. She also serves on the advisory board of the University’s Erasmus Institute, created in 1997 to focus on reinvigorating the role of religiously-based intellectual traditions in contemporary scholarship.
Now, here is Cathy Kaveny's Op-Ed:
Rambo Catholics and John Kerry
A few members of the American hierarchy and a number of influential and aggressive conservative lay Catholics are trying to bully their fellow American Catholics into voting for George Bush. See, e.g., Robert P. George and Gerard Bradley, "Not in Good Conscience," http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/george_bradley200410120849. From the perspective of these "Rambo" Catholics, it's not enough to be convinced that abortion is intrinsically wrong: One has to believe that the only acceptable remedy for the social evil of legalized abortion is a second Bush term no matter what its cost in other matters of the common good, and no matter what its likely effectiveness in reducing the incidence of abortion. No Catholic, according to this group, could possibly cast a vote in good conscience for Kerry; it's akin to a vote for slaveholders or Nazis.
The inflammatory rhetoric demonstrates that this is a high stakes poker game: everything is on the line here for the political fortunes of the Rambo Catholics, that is. To see why, ask yourself what their rhetoric commits them to doing if Kerry wins.
Will Rambo Catholics turn against the American government? In a notorious article in First Things (1996), Robert P. George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University (and a member of the President's Council on Bioethics), argued that the very legitimacy of the American government is hanging by a thread because of Roe v. Wade. While we can buy some time by arguing that Roe is bad constitutional law, he tells us that ultimately we have to face the fact that it is the province of the judiciary to interpret the Constitution. It seems to me that George would have to consider the election of Kerry, who could appoint as many as four Supreme Court Justices, to be the last straw: He writes, "If the Constitution really did abandon the vulnerable to private acts of lethal violence, and, indeed, positively disempowered citizens from working through the democratic process to correct these injustices, then it would utterly lack the capacity to bind the consciences of citizens. Our duty would not be to accept a common mandate, but to resist."
What form would that "resistance" take? Surely not just normal political protest. Would Rambo Catholics pressure the US Bishops to bless an armed revolution against the American government? Would their call now be for faithful Catholics to secede from the United States, to form another Holy Roman Empire? Are they really ready to lead us into another Civil War? Or if they are not ready, would the only reason be the prudential consideration that they are not likely to win? If they don't advocate full scale revolution, what forms of guerilla tactics will they allow to disrupt the workings of the government? Taken at face value, it is hard to see where else this logic and their rhetoric could lead.
As long as Bush remains president, the full force of their position is blunted: no need to engage in resistance, because the hope of overturning Roe by changing the composition of the Supreme Court remains alive. If Kerry is elected however, the radical--and potentially violent--implications of their rhetoric will be unmasked for what it is: an outrageous verbal bluff. They ought to be reduced to silence, because they have given themselves no verbal space for working within the system for incremental change, and because the revolutionary alternative they have left for themselves is preposterous. Silence does seem to be a fitting consequence for making an outrageous verbal bluff, and a fitting penalty for ecclesiastical bullies (particularly, in my view, if combined with withdrawal to a life of monastic prayer).
Will Rambo Catholics pressure the Vatican to cut off diplomatic relationships with the United States if Kerry wins? Will they demand that the Pope refuse to accept the credentials of a Kerry ambassador to the Holy See? What will they say if the Vatican decides to cultivate, as best it can, a candid and open relationship with the only remaining superpower in the world, led by a practicing Catholic? If challenged, the Vatican would likely say that it is maintaining diplomatic relations with Kerry, not because it supports his position on abortion, but because it believes that doing so is necessary for the common good, to advance the interests of the weakest and most vulnerable around the world (including the unborn). In technical terms, any appearance of legitimacy they unintentionally lend to Kerry's abortion policies is called permissible material cooperation with evil. But the Vatican's reasons for maintaining diplomatic relations with Kerry wouldn't be different in kind from the reasons that faithful Catholics might vote for him instead of Bush. Indeed, Cardinal Ratzinger has recently clarified that it is not always wrong for a Catholic to vote for a politician who supports legalized abortion, provided that she does so not in order to support abortion, but in order to achieve other essential aspects of the common good.
So will the Rambo Catholics apply the same bullying tactics to the Vatican that they have applied to their fellow Catholics in the United States? Will they accuse Rome of giving scandal by cooperating with a leader they have lumped in with the Nazis? Will they set themselves firmly against Vatican policy, bemoaning the Church's lack of fidelity to the purity of divine moral teaching? Will they go into schism, like Archbishop Marcel Lefevre, who rejected the Second Vatican Council as inconsistent with the true Catholic faith? Not very likely in my view. But how, then, can they escape the charge of a cynical and abrupt about-face in their position?
Never bet against the "house"--especially in a high stakes poker game. And in the Catholic Church, the "house" does not belong to the Rambo party. It belongs to the party of the "poor banished children of Eve." I have taken the name from a prayer addressed to Mary, the mother of Jesus (said after Mass in the old days for the conversion of Russia): "Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and out hope! To you do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to you do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears." The "poor banished children of Eve" are trying to make their way the best they can in the shadows of a world still marred by sin.
What are the "house rules" of the Church belonging to the "poor banished children of Eve"? One was set long ago by St. Augustine. The faithful, the members of the City of God, cannot expect to set up a political government on this earth that is free from injustice, even gross injustice. Augustine argues that political life East of Eden will inevitably entail an admixture of good and evil, by divine design. God suffers the wheat and tares to grow alongside one another in the City of Man until the end of time; to attempt to uproot the tares, particularly by violence, may well inflict untold harm upon the wheat. If Kerry is elected, it will become abundantly clear that the articulated strategy of the Rambo Catholics involves burning down the entire field. Such blatant violators of house rules should turn in their chips.
What happens if Bush wins? As they consider how to vote, Catholics counting themselves among the "poor banished children of Eve" should ask themselves this question. Would the most vulnerable members of our society really be better off if the world's only superpower were governed by Bush and his allies, or by John Kerry and his? In my view, the answer to that question is becoming clearer with every inflammatory thing the Rambo Catholics say and write.
I want to pursue one point in John Breen's response to my earlier posting becuase I think it addresses a fundamentally important question. John says, "isn't it more important to be faithful than to be effective? That is, because we are dealing in the case of abortion with the foundational issue of who counts as a member of our society (i.e. who is a person) perhaps our vote should stand on the principle of the matter rather than on causal arguments open to serious challenge."
I think the question is what does it mean to be faithful in this case. That is, is an act of greater faithfulness for one who is morally opposed to abortion to vote for (i) a candidate who says he is against abortion if one believes the candidate's policies are not the most condusive to eliminating abortion or to promoting the sanctity of life from conception to death; or (ii) a candidate who says he is pro-choice but whose social welfare policies (access to health care, minimum wage, etc) one believes are more likely to create a situation where fewer people feel trapped into having an abortion and whose policies one believes are overall more promotive of sanctity of life. (I recognize that at some level this is too simplistic - there is a lot else that is required to try to eliminate abortions, and whoever is elected those things need to be done.)
As I was thinking of this the other day, what came to mind was the parable of the two sons in Matthew. A man asked his two sons to go and work in the vineyard. One told the father no, but afterward changed his mind and went. The other said yes, but did not go. The answer to Jesus question of which did the will of the father was the first, not the second. (Jesus went on to tell his followers that tax collectors and prostittues are entering the kingdom of God before them.)
I struggle with this issue and would be happy to hear from others (assuminmg there are people not yet tired of this thread).
--Susan
Susan Stabile said she found that what was missing in some of the critical responses to the Roche editorial in the NYT was the issue of the effectiveness of means. That is, it is one thing to talk the language of life and another thing to enact policies that work to bring down the number of abortions. She also claims that none of the responses in the blog addressed Roche's point that some of the highest rates of abortion are found in countries where abortion is illegal. Both of these points warrant additional discussion.
I disagree with Susan's assessment on several grounds. First, the relationship between the frequency of a certain form of conduct and its legal prohibition is complex. Murder is against the law here in Chicago, but that hasn't kept the Windy City from claiming the dubious distinction of being the nation's murder capital. The country's freeways generally forbid driving over 65 mph, but speeding is common as are the accidents that such behavior causes. Although the exact correlation between an act and its prohibition is inexact, one thing seems to be fairly certain, at least intuitively, and I would venture to say empirically, namely, that if there were no legal prohibition against murder in Chicago or speeding on the highways we would see an even greater occurrence of both. Part of this would have to do with the absence of fear of punishment by the state, part of it would have to do with didactic role of law, a role made all the more significant in a pluralistic country like our own.
Surely other means in addition to legal prohibition are needed if we are to reduce the level of abortion in this country, just as means other than strict murder statutes and speed laws are necessary to reduce murder rates and driving deaths. The issue is truly a cultural one and not merely a legal one. If reducing the number of murders and speeding deaths is truly one's goal, however, it makes little sense to endorse a candidate unwaveringly committed to making murder and driving over the speed limit a constitutional right.
Second, I thought there was a frankly devastating response to Roche's point that one must look at how a candidate proposes to achieve a moral aim that one supports. He pointed out that abortion rates have been lower under pro-choice administrations and that, bearing in mind a candidate's positive qualifications, this effectiveness could lead one to again support a pro-choice candidate for president notwithstanding his pro-choice credentials. The devastating response to this as I understood it was to point out the logical fallacy, post hoc ergo propter hoc. Just because lower rates of abortion have coincided with pro-choice administrations does not mean that the policies of those administrations were responsible for these welcome changes. As Richard Myers noted, a number of other causal factors could better explain this phenomenon.
Moreover, even if this is not the case, isn't it worth asking if being effective is all it’s cracked up to be? Sometimes, isn't it more important to be faithful than to be effective? That is, because we are dealing in the case of abortion with the foundational issue of who counts as a member of our society (i.e. who is a person) perhaps our vote should stand on the principle of the matter rather than on causal arguments open to serious challenge.
Third, Kerry's failure to vote in favor of the ban on partial birth abortion has nothing to do with Roche's argument. More importantly, his point in the second debate that he voted against the legislation because it failed to contain a health exception was pure casuistry. It was the skillful maneuver of a debater, not the clear and principled stand of a politician, even a pro-choice one. His point was "valid" as Susan suggests only if one accepts wholeheartedly the logic and meaning of Roe and its companion case Doe v. Bolton. The statute in question did contain a health exception. It did not contain a health exception as broad as "health" is defined in Doe. As anyone knowledgeable about Roe and its progeny know, Doe eviscerated the seemingly reasonable second and third trimester restrictions on abortion that Roe allowed. Under Doe, "health" includes "age" such that if an eighteen year old says she's too young to have a child, that qualifies as a "health" exception that the Constitution mandates.
Kerry also said in both the second and third debates that abortion is a constitutional right under Roe and that he will only appoint judges that will uphold the Constitution. With this jurisprudential polestar to guide him, one can only guess at the kind of judges Kerry would appoint if we still lived in the age of Plessy v. Ferguson.
Fourth, Susan began her post with the claim that surely no one disagrees with the claim that if one professes the Catholic faith, one must evaluate her political choices in light of that faith. I trust that is true for members of this blog. It remains, however, very much an open question with respect to Senator Kerry. References to his days as an altar boy aside, an honest assessment of his voting record in the Senate indicates that his faith is completely irrelevant to him with respect to this issue. Indeed, far from trying to reduce the number of abortions, he has worked to expand their number, by supporting federal funding of abortions, by trying to make them more widely available for military personnel, by his support of RU486 and in countless other ways. Indeed, an honest assessment of his voting record would lead one to conclude that, notwithstanding the claim that he thinks abortion is a bad thing, he never met an abortion he didn't like. So the problem with Senator Kerry, if we put to one side his rhetorical surplice and cassock, is that he doesn’t share the very goal on which our whole conversation is premised, namely, that reducing the number of abortions is a worthy goal to which we should all be committed.
Here (thanks to ZENIT) is a news account of a "congress held Oct. 7-10 in Bologna" dealing with "the complex and often controversial relationship between politics and faith." The participants included Cardinal Camillo Ruini:
The principal contribution Catholics can make to democracy today, noted Cardinal Ruini, is to defend the transcendence of the human being, notably the transcendence that implies our capacity to know and transform reality. In this sense it is a mistake to imagine that the Church is opposed to scientific progress, as it is often accused of being in conflicts over bioethical questions. But scientific progress should not cut itself off from ethical principles, he added.
Liberty is another important dimension of human transcendence. This liberty, the cardinal said, must respect the principle that the person is an end in himself and should never be reduced to a means. Only by respecting this principle does it make sense to talk of the rights that are common in modern democracy.
Pope John Paul II also contributed to the discussion:
A current threat to this authentic democracy is the tendency to relativism, added the Pontiff. This relativism can lead to the error of thinking that adhering to the truth is an obstacle to the democracy. But the truth as revealed by Christ is a guarantee for the human person of a full and authentic liberty, the Holy Father said. This truth, he continued, is the best antidote against ideological fanaticism, be it of a scientific, political or religious nature.
And, "the common good" was a central theme for the congress:
At another round-table discussion, Ornaghi called on Catholics to contribute to this reorientation of democracy. His call was echoed by another ex-president of the Constitutional Court, Cesare Mirabelli. In an interview Wednesday with Italy's Catholic daily, Avvenire, he explained that Catholics can play an important role by ensuring that democracy pursues the common good of society, rather than the more-limited interests of partisan groups.
Milan's archbishop, Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, also called for a greater attention to the common good in the political process. In his speech the archbishop explained that the Church's social doctrine, based on the Gospel, has an important role to play in providing an anthropological base for democracy.
This anthropological foundation is needed so as to avoid false ideas about the human person, social relations, sexual matters and relations with the world. Democracy should be centered on the person, he argued, but too often it seeks to manipulate or even destroy, instead of fomenting, personal development.
Cardinal Tettamanzi also spoke of a number of dangers for democracy. Among the threats he identified were ethical relativism, populism, and an excessive concentration of media and economic power. He called upon Catholics to help renew the moral and civil conscience of Italy by means of the promotion of values such as solidarity, subsidiarity and respect for the law.
The lay movement, Communion and Liberation, has published a statement on the election, "Elections 2004: A Call to Freedom." (Thanks to Amy Welborn for the link). Here is a taste:
As Americans who have encountered Christ’s victory in the life of the Church, we ask our leaders to guarantee the freedom to make our contribution to the common good, working together with all other citizens of our country through a respectful dialogue. We ask from those in power to allow—if not facilitate—the various societies to exist, flourish, and prosper. The first among these societies is the family and we support and advocate those policies that protect the family, such as respect for human life in all of its dimensions.
From this point of view, we also identify four sacred values that must be respected. First, we seek the freedom of association: the freedom to build structures, places, and institutions where members of our society can live, gather, and be educated. Next, we insist upon the freedom of education, that freedom that breaks every ideological imposition. We seek the freedom to establish relationships of solidarity with others, assisting all those in need. And we desire that our state recognize the principle of subsidiarity: giving the richness of society the first opportunity to establish structures and associations designed to respond to human needs.
Very well stated, in my view. It strikes me that, long after Election 2004 is over, these "four sacred values" will be helpful touchstones in any effort to think about the possibility and content of "Catholic Legal Theory."
I'm re-reading our co-blogger Kathleen Brady's paper, "Religious Organizations and Free Exercise: The Surprising Lessons of Smith," and I've been talking about it with a student of mine. I commend the paper to MOJ readers' attention. Here is the SSRN abstract:
Much has been written about the protections afforded by the Free Exercise Clause when government regulation impacts the religious practices of individuals, and if one looks for guidance from the Supreme Court, the rules are fairly clear. Prior to 1990, the Supreme Court had long employed a balancing approach that afforded - at least in theory - significant relief. Under this approach individuals were entitled to exemptions from laws which substantially burdened religious conduct unless enforcement was justified by a compelling state interest. In 1990, in Employment Division v. Smith, the Supreme Court abandoned this balancing test for all but a few categories of cases. Under the Court's new rule, the Free Exercise Clause does not excuse individuals from compliance with neutral, generally applicable laws that are not intended to burden religious exercise. Relief is only appropriate where laws are designed to thwart religious exercise.
The judicial landscape is much different when one turns to the free exercise rights of religious organizations. Government regulation frequently impacts the activities of religious groups, and clashes between religious organizations and regulators are common. Surprisingly, however, the Supreme Court has never directly addressed the scope of free exercise protections when government regulation interferes with the internal affairs of religious groups. There are cases involving religious organizations, to be sure, but in none of these cases has the Court addressed neutral government regulation that directly impinges upon internal church affairs.
This article begins by identifying three possible approaches to such regulation, all of which can be supported indirectly by Supreme Court precedent. The article then examines the Supreme Court's decision in Smith for guidance in choosing from among them. For some courts and scholars, the meaning of Smith for religious groups is simple: Religious groups, just like religious individuals, are not entitled to special exemptions from neutral state action. For others, however, Smith is not relevant at all to the free exercise rights of religious groups, and they look to other lines of Supreme Court precedent for appropriate standards. My examination of Smith reveals that Smith is not only relevant to an analysis of religious group rights but is also very helpful for choosing among the available options. The opinion in Smith raises a number of issues that clarify what is at stake in making this choice, and its lessons are surprising. When read carefully, Smith supports a broad right of church autonomy that prohibits government interference with internal church affairs regardless of whether the interference is intentional and regardless of whether the activities affected are religious in nature or more mundane matters.
This last claim -- i.e., that "Smith supports a broad right of church autonomy that prohibits government interference with internal church affairs regardless of whether the interference is intentional and regardless of whether the activities affected are religious in nature or more mundane matters" -- is a bold and important one. It also runs, as Kathy recognizes, against the grain of most scholars' understanding of Smith. I need to study the argument more closely, but I'd welcome any additional thoughts that Kathy has on the matter.
Of particular interest (to me) is the focus in this paper on the freedom (and freedoms) of association (and associations), and on the role that mediating institutions play in constructing a "landscape" within which persons can flourish. In fact, Kathy makes a very interesting move, from the Smith decision's focus on the importance of democratic processes in the accommodation and protection of religious, to a discussion of the conditions -- including a vibrant civil society, thickly populated with associations -- that are necessary for such processes to work well. It is also worth noting that the paper closes with several beautiful and evocative paragraphs about religious freedom.
Tne New York Times reported this morning that New York State's Comptroller, Alan Hevesi has ruled that the state's pension system will "recognize a same-sex Canadian marriage in the same manner as an opposite-sex New York marriage.'' Since NY already allows employees to name same-sex partners as pension beneficiaries the practical impact of the ruling is that certain benefits that go to spouses (automatic cost-of-living increases and accidental death benefits) can now be claimed by same-sex couples married in Canada.
Although several municipalities in NY have already determined to recognize Canadian marriages, this is the first statewide program to do so.
I suspect no one here disagrees with the statement of Cardinal George that if one professes the Catholic faith, one must evaluate her political choices in the light of that faith. But what I found missing in some of the responses critical to the Roche editorial is the issue of effectiveness of means, the discussion thread of last week that occasioned my posting of the editorial. Part of the evaluation of political choices in light of faith must be a consideration of how a candidate proposes to achieve the moral aims one supports.
None of the responses, for example, address Roches’s point that some of the highest rates of abortions are in countries where abortion is illegal. If that is true, how can one make the argument that faith compels one to vote for a candidate that proposes to make abortion illegal rather then seeking other means to attempt to bring an end to abortion?
Similarly, pointing to Kerry’s failure to vote for the partial-birth abortion ban (as one of piece cited in response did) ignores the valid point Kerrry made in the second debate. In that debate he expressed his opposition to partial-birth abortion but said he voted against the legislation because it did not contain even a narrowly defined exception for the physical health of the mother, something he believed to be required by the Constitutions. He is not alone in that belief - the three federal courts that have thus far addressed the statute have each held the statute unconstitutional on exactly those grounds.
The point here is not to defend the position of one candidate or the other, but merely to suggest that there is a real evaluative process here that can’t be short-circuited by simply looking at labels and who calls themselves pro-life the loudest.
Still more on issue of Catholics in political life, from Chicago's Cardinal George. Here are (just a) few interesting paragraphs:
The Church’s moral teaching therefore shapes a believer’s conscience as he or she participates in political life. Both officeholder and voter, if they profess the Catholic faith, evaluate their political choices in the light of that faith. Nevertheless, the faith is not sectarian; it supports moral positions in matters of life and death, war and peace, wealth and poverty that can be come to by people of no faith, positions that rely upon the light of right reason.
Catholic concern for the defense of human life, the safeguarding of global peace, the protection of the poor and similar concerns construct what Catholic moral teaching calls “the common good.” It’s a phrase that captures what the preamble to the United States Constitution speaks of when explaining the purpose of the federal union: to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty.”
