Public Office—Church and Civil—and the responsibilities of discipleship

 

I would like to thank Steve and Patrick for there recent postings that rise and converge, to borrow from Teilhard, to one shared point about Catholics who are in public positions. I shall confine these brief remarks to these Catholics who hold public office, be it elected or appointed, and those who hold higher office within the Church. Steve also talks about theologians, but I will not address them in this posting—but I hope to do so at some point sooner rather than later.

I am attaching [Download araujo_essay_nd.pdf ] a brief essay that I did in the recent Notre Dame symposium on “law as a vocation” that may have some bearing on the issue and let readers know the perspective from which I come. My focus in this essay was on the public official and the obligations of discipleship that attend the Catholic public official’s exercise of civil office. I wrote this before the second letter was distributed by many of the same Members of Congress who also co-authored the first letter that was sent to Cardinal McCarrick about two years ago and to which I refer at some length in my essay. It is clear to me that in both letters, these Members of Congress have studied with some care (or at least the drafters of the letters have studied and the signatories have adopted) the obligations of Catholics who hold public office. With all respect to them, I think their understanding of their responsibilities as Catholics who hold public office is flawed as I try to point out in my essay.

It becomes clear to me that they, or their delegates, have made an effort to study what the Church teaches. In some cases those teachings are adopted by the Members of Congress who have subscribed their names to these two letters, but in other cases the Church’s teachings are put aside by these same public officials—perhaps for administrative convenience, as Master Thomas Cromwell purportedly said. It also seems that these officials, or at least some of them, believe that if they adopt many of the Church’s teachings but ignore or contravene others, they are still on solid ground as far as being faithful Catholics. I think such a conclusion is premature as will be apparent to those who read my essay. What the Church expects of them, and of all its faithful, is clear. And, it is this clarity that is obscured by their correspondence.

So what should bishops do in response? I am one of those people who likes to follow Cardinal Dulles’s wise words on such issues and assume that they, the public officials, may not know what the Church teaches. That means that its teachers, pastors and bishops in particular, have their work cut out. In short, the bishops have to make the teachings clear and direct these teaching activities specifically to these Catholic public officials.

However, these Members of Congress who have twice penned a letter have indicated that they believe they know what the Church teaches because they indicate familiarization with many of the Church’s teachings as expressed through relevant Church documents. But, their understanding of these teachings is flawed.

On one issue in particular (but maybe not the only issue), they ignore what the Church has taught about procured abortion and the duties of the Catholic public official toward this procedure that some hold to be a “Constitutional right.” The Church does not ask these influential public officials to do the impossible, but it does ask them to do the possible—to minimize or to mitigate, if they cannot repeal outright, the effect of these laws which permit this terrible and immoral procedure. These proper actions some of them refuse.

In such cases, the bishops should recognize that their teaching must continue for others. But different actions for those Catholic public officials who profess to be familiar with the Church’s teachings may well be in order when it becomes clear that they know the teachings but ignore or reject them.

So, what should the bishops do? I think they have a variety of appropriate options available. One would be to invite immediately these Catholic public officials to a personal or small group discussion that makes clear the risks of their behavior.

If their behavior continues, it is not the Church that has turned its back on them; it is they who have turned their backs to the Church. The concerned bishops must realize that it is their responsibility to take those actions that are firm, faithful, and guided by the mercy of God for all involved. The silence of bishops concerning these public office holders may be based on reasons that presently escape me, and I welcome the opportunity to be informed of what they might be. But surely any silence cannot be based on the episcopal consent to the actions of the public officials that I have briefly discussed here and in my paper.

Saint John Fisher, pray for us.    RJA sj