Catholics and Public Life

Over the past several days, a number of MOJ contributors have offered important, challenging, and even provacative thoughts on a variety of issues including slavery, marriage, and abortion. Earlier this summer, a number of us addressed another pressing issue of the day dealing with embryonic stem cell research and related matters. The questions dealing with abortion and stem cell science are very much a part of current domestic debate. We tend to forget that the question of slavery is still very much a part of life in other places around the world, and we should not forget that this malignancy still plagues many souls today.

In the next few weeks, we, as members of local, state, and national communities, will be listening to candidates seeking election to a wide variety of public offices. Those running for elective office (and those who will be appointed by those who are elected) are or will be making promises about their positions on the issues of the day, both great and small. Some of the recent MOJ postings have offered a variety of views about what Catholics, be they voters or seekers or holders of office, should do regarding these issues. I would like to add a further perspective to these discussions and presentations.

One way of becoming familiar with the duty of a Catholic who has a role in public life as office holder/seeker or as elector is to be educated on what the Church has to say and teaches on specific issues. A Catholic's self education on what the Church teaches can begin with an examination of the Catechism along with the text references that richly footnote many of its entries. Some guidance on what Catholics in public life need to think about concerning hot-topic issues like stem cell research, marriage, and abortion, can be gleaned from John Paul II's Evangelium Vitae and Veritatis Splendor. There are also some extremely useful instructions from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and the Pontifical Academy for Life, and the Pontifical Councils for Justice and Peace and for the Family. These texts are easily accessed from the Vatican website (www.vatican.va) under the menu headings Papal Archive and Roman Curia.

As educators and adherents of CLT, we might consider how we can contribute to the public Catholic discourse (and education) on the issues that many in our nation will be discussing over the next several months by keeping in mind these texts. I suspect that some of us may offer interpretations of these texts that are at odds with the understanding given to them by other Catholics. Although I wish it were otherwise, I would also expect that some Catholics may offer interpretations that are not shared by others including those holding Church office. But, for the time being, I think it is a useful and important project to be well versed in what the Church is teaching on the public policy issues of the day that are beginning to appear in our discourse in MOJ forum. RJA sj