During the time of the early Church, it was commonplace for Caesar to be addressed as “Lord.” And this was more than a simple honorific title acknowledging that Caesar was the supreme political authority in the land. It also had pagan religious connotations since the Roman Empire as a whole was viewed by most people at that time as a dynamic union of the realm of the gods and the realm of the earthly city. The Empire was viewed as a sacred entity since it was expressive in microcosmic form of the macrocosmic world of the gods and the assorted “principalities and powers” that ruled the world as their subaltern agents. Thus, the affirmation “Caesar is Lord” was a statement of deep religious and political significance that affirmed, through an almost sacramental embodiment of the sacred realm in Caesar, the primacy of the Empire over all things.
Therefore, when Christians in the apostolic age made the public affirmation that “Christ is Lord” they were engaging in an act which was much more than an expression of a private devotional piety. They were also making a dangerous theo-political statement insofar as the doxological affirmation, “Christ is Lord,” was also an act of political defiance which indirectly denied that “Caesar is Lord.” In so doing, those early Christians were developing the first outlines of a theological politics that rejected the reduction of the Kingdom of God to any specific political form in a worldly register.
How easy and tempting such a reduction would have been for them! How easy it would have been for the early Church to affirm Christ as their “god” all the while affirming as well the existence of the Imperial gods. They could have placed Christ in the pantheon of Roman gods and then morphed into yet one more of the many mystery religions of that era. They would have retained their own unique religious devotion to Christ while avoiding the persecutions of the empire. This was surely a temptation, as some of the early heresies make clear (such as Marcionism, in which the attempt was made to expunge the Judaic elements of Christianity entirely) but it was a temptation that was resisted with a martyr’s fervor.
By resisting they created a form of Christian living wherein the pursuit of the holiness with which Christ had gifted them was seen as a process of Kingdom building that had political consequences, in spite of the fact, or perhaps because of the fact, that they made no direct political claims. Indeed, in the end, the small band of resisters conquered the very empire that had attempted to snuff them out.
Citizens and Strangers
I recall all of this in order to frame what I think is of paramount significance in the timely and very important new book from Kenneth Craycraft on the relationship between Catholic social teaching and the political challenges facing Catholics in the United States. The title says it best and first: We are to be loyal citizens of our nation but with an awareness that we are also strangers within it since we are a pilgrim people whose final home is not of this world. Therefore, our citizenship in any particular nation cannot be adopted as a stance of absolute devotion to any particular political regime. We can be citizens but only as sojourners whose presence will always be that of a negotiated strangeness or, put another way, of an alienation from anything that threatens to raise the penultimate goods of the political realm above the ultimate claims upon our citizenship from the Gospel.
But beyond these theological claims, the text goes further than merely to caution against the elevation of politics to a false ultimacy. There is a decidedly post-liberal tonality throughout the text and Craycraft is highly critical of the current American cultural and political landscape. For example, he lays down the gauntlet in his very first sentence:
Catholics in the United States today are liberal Protestants before anything else. To form our moral lives as Catholics is a constant battle to overcome the liberal Protestantism that we began to consume with our mother’s milk.
Craycraft, like many others, views modern American culture as the product of the confluence of Protestantism and the values of the Enlightenment. Therefore, there is baked into our national psyche an inherent hyper-individualism that is anything but metaphysically neutral. He sees this as the essence of “liberalism” in all of its various permutations and claims that both the Democratic and Republican parties are its exponents in only slightly differing ways. Both parties are animated by the deeply flawed moral anthropology of this liberalism. And this anthropology is characterized by Craycraft as containing at least two elements:
(1) radical personal autonomy and (2) an absolute commitment to individualism, characterized by the language of ‘individual rights’ as the basic moral foundation.
He views both of these principles as “corrosive of Catholic faith and witness” since the individualism in question is atomistic, if not monistic, and views the individual in isolation from, and in opposition to, all other individuals. This means that “the human person is not naturally social, and thus there are no natural social institutions.” This in turn means that all social institutions are ultimately merely “conventional–formed by the agreement of autonomous individuals in voluntary associations.
Living in the downstream culture
Herein resides in my view the true force and significance of this text and the aspect of the book most likely to generate backlash. Catholic apologists for the American settlement focus too much on the era of the founding, its principles, and its grounding in a fairly benign reading of Locke, and focus far too little on the actual downstream political and cultural entity that we actually got. Now is not the time to rehearse all of the shopworn debates about the founding and its compatibility or non-compatibility with Catholicism—and Craycraft, to his credit, spends only a little time on that question. Because, regardless of what the founders may or may not have intended, the fact remains that the downstream culture we got is more Hobbesian than Lockean.
We see this in the exponential increase in the power of the national security State and the alliance of that State with all manner of intelligence gathering agencies. And this is in addition to the collusion between this State and modern forms of corporate surveillance capitalism. We also see an increasing dogmatism from that State on all manner of issues which gives the lie to the notion that our government is non-theological. For example, we now live in a country where the government can take your eight-year-old child away from you if you insist on “misgendering” them. Therefore, in the religious domain, we are far closer to the Hobbesian Leviathan than we are to Locke’s “Letter Concerning Toleration”.
The metaphysics and anthropology that undergirds our culture today are at odds with the central principles of Catholic social teaching, making the situation we face today not all that dissimilar from that of the first Christians in Rome. They had to grapple with an Imperial political machine that embodied a rival theology and a broader culture in the throes of a decadent collective of concupiscence. And this is true today, even if America does not claim for itself, as Rome did, any explicit claims to absolute authority in a sacral order. Laced throughout Craycraft’s analysis is the undermining of this narrative of America’s “modest” claims for itself, and it is an analysis very similar to that given by post-liberal authors such as William Cavanaugh, Patrick Deneen, David C. Schindler, and Michael Hanby. Therefore, if you find those authors prescient and insightful you will find this text equally powerful.
Craycraft is clearly not, therefore, a neo-conservative Catholic intent on reconciling the faith with the broad contours of modern America. His mood is less optimistic and what he offers is far less ambitious than what we saw from some in the days of Ronald Reagan and the heyday of the American neo-con movement. At best, says Craycraft, what we can hope for is John Courtney Murray’s affirmation that Catholics can participate in good conscience in the American electoral process—so long as we do not take the foundational principles of our politics as “articles of faith” but instead treat them as mere pragmatic “articles of peace”.
Post-liberalism and Catholic social principles
I am surprised a bit by his willingness to approach Murray as helpful in this context since most post-liberal Catholic thinkers find in Murray an overly robust affirmation of the very political principles that Craycraft spends so much space warning against. But, looked at another way, one could say (as Craycraft does) that for the Catholic, “Murray’s suggestion that we take the moral principles as articles of peace is helpful for understanding that we may live (uneasily) on the moral foundations of the United States, but we can never really embrace them with unbridled enthusiasm.”
But these are concepts that can be reached without having recourse to Murray’s problematic constructions, which points, perhaps, to the fact that in appealing to Murray’s iconic status Craycraft is seeking to distance himself a bit from some of the other more “scorched earth” post-liberal Catholic critiques of liberalism. Indeed, that it is a caution against turning post-liberal theory into yet another attempt at reducing the Gospel to a particular political regimen.
To that end, Craycraft spends the middle sections of the book outlining the basic principles of Catholic social teaching as the only true alternative to all of the false metaphysical and anthropological assumptions animating modern culture. This is an extremely important section of the book since it points to an overall positive proposal rather than just a negative critique. Thus, to the question “how is a Catholic to approach our politics as a responsible citizen?” Craycraft provides us with an answer. He outlines what he calls the “four central pillars” of Catholic social doctrine. They are:
1. The inherent dignity of the human person
2. The solidarity of all humankind
3. The subsidiary nature of social structures
4. The common good
Space precludes me from going into each of these pillars to give them extensive analysis. Suffice it to say that his exposition of each shows that Catholic natural law reasoning is not something separated from the realm of grace, which flows from the Christological center. The Catholic not only can, but must, allow his moral vision to be informed by the light that Christ brings. And this is true because the very claim that reason is only truly itself when divorced from faith and existing in some alleged realm of pure Archimedean objectivity is a part of the erroneous epistemological apparatus of secular modernity. It is also, in our era of “woke cancel culture”, demonstrably not even the view of reason adopted by most seculars today.
Dogma and politics
Dogmas abound apparently. So, the question is: who has the better ones? We do. And that is because our dogmas complete reason and elevate it beyond itself, and yet in so doing make it even more reasonable. By contrast, post-critical forms of secular reason are self-cannibalizing and ultimately, therefore, dehumanizing. Craycraft gets this, and his analysis of the four pillars of Catholic social teaching make a compelling case for the Catholic Faith as the deepest, and only true, humanism, precisely because it does not shy away from explicitly theological categories in the name of some putative “neutral public language”. As such, Craycraft’s analysis shows us that Catholic social doctrine has a broad explanatory power as a heuristic synthesis of the full range of the human reality, which in turn gives it an enormously attractive appeal to those victims of our current cultural barbarism—people who are seeking an institution that has the nerve to defend sanity when all others have gone insane.
Finally, it should be noted that for Craycraft, as with all other genuinely Catholic political theorists, the category of “politics” is actually much broader than just “voting” and the electoral political process. The broader vision views the realm of the political as embodying the full range of our social relations and thus the full range of our social institutions. Therefore, a deep cultivation of the Catholic values inherent within various Catholic institutions–and other related institutions–is a form of political action separate from voting. Indeed, as Craycraft notes, a situation may arise, and probably often does, where voting is just not the most viable form of political action given the severe deficiencies of both parties and the candidates they put forward.
Thus, for Craycraft, the more important political category is the development of what he calls “civic friendship”. And he holds that our current electoral politics often act against a proper civic friendship. Therefore, “it may be that casting a vote is a violation of the obligations of citizenship, not its necessary corollary.”
All that said, many millions of Catholics do indeed vote. And, in this presidential election year, a text like this one is most needed and most welcome. Be that as it may, whether we vote or we do not vote, the biggest takeaway from this text for me is Craycraft’s Augustinian reading of the words of Jesus regarding rendering unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and unto God what belongs to God. And that reading is bracing as it reminds us, at the end of the day: what does not belong to God?
Citizens Yet Strangers: Living Authentically Catholic in Divided America
By Kenneth Craycraft
Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 2024
Paperback, 208 pages
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
That was well worth reading I found. I will be taking up Craycraft’s book. Thank you.
The US Republic is a failed political entity which has degenerated into a ‘democracy’ which is actually a bankrupt socialist nightmare. Friedrich Hayek stated in “The Road to Serfdom” that the most venal and corrupt types of persons will inevitably rise to power in Socialism. We have ample proof of it again today as his warning was based on his experience with Nazism.
There is no hope for the survival of the USA unless three critical objects are accomplished:
1) repeal of the Federal Income Tax which has made slaves of us all; a sad consequence of the Civil War. It should be replaced with a Fair Tax or something similar collected by the States and remitted as per need to the central government for its enumerated powers.
2) term limits are vitally necessary for Congress and high government offices to eliminate the corruption of life long ‘public servants’ enriching themselves at the public trough. How many Bidens, Pelosis, McConnells, Feinsteins do we need to see the absolute necessity of term limits?
3) Universal suffrage must be eliminated. Only a net tax paying man and wife should have one vote to cast in concert. Otherwise the socialist government will continue to incentivize its dependent constituencies to undermine the will of those who believe in family and work.
Satan loves to Mock the Almighty even as he apes him and the true devolution of the USA lies in the fact that we as a people labor under the delusions of a trinity of powers established by the Prince of Lies;
1) Darwin – removed Godliness from Creation
2) Marx – removed Godliness from society and governance
3) Freud – removed Godliness from procreation
Our Church is generally supine to this malevolence and tacitly supports the party of death as a majority of Catholics have voted for the baby killers in the numerous past presidential ‘elections’.
I recall a beloved Monsignor declaring from the pulpit as his last words before a certain election “you didn’t build that.”.
Let us affirm with Fr. Altman that you cannot be a Catholic and vote for the DemoncRats.
I, for one, would not bet all of my financial assets on the USA surviving as a constitutional republic for much longer. Some might say I’m being pessimistic; I would call it simply realism.
Actually, Hayek wrote that the “worst” types of persons will inevitably rise to power in any bureaucratic setting in which dotting I’s and crossing t’s is highly valued. The political system’s structure does not matter. The reason the U.S. worked well for so long was it had little in the way of bureaucracy.
“At best, says Craycraft, what we can hope for is John Courtney Murray’s affirmation that Catholics can participate in good conscience in the American electoral process—so long as we do not take the foundational principles of our politics as ‘articles of faith’ but instead treat them as mere pragmatic ‘articles of peace.’”
I couldn’t agree more, but I’m afraid we may have come to the natural end of this project for two reasons:
1. There is no way (with the two party system that has evolved) to jump from our current trajectory to the parallel track that would bring about the Four Pillars above; and
2. The “articles of peace” seem to be fraying, if not disintegrating altogether, since the darkness of sin has led the populace (essentially unchurched and uncatechised) to abuse their freedom, choosing depravity. In this regard, Christians are increasingly marginalised as haters, minimising their ability to promote the common good.
As John Adams presciently noted, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Your quote from John Adams says it all.
We think alike. Here is my comment that I posed on Dr. Chapp’s web page:
Years ago I read an essay in Commonweal that purported that America and the United States were really two different countries. The United States was a secular republic of limited power. America was a Christian country which was the source of public morality. It would seem that some of the Founders (John Adams in particular) shared this view. This leads me to rephrase Craycraft a bit:
“Murray’s suggestion that we take the moral principles as articles of peace is helpful for understanding that we may live (uneasily) on the AMORAL foundations of the United States, but we can never really embrace them with unbridled enthusiasm.”
I would argue that the majority of American Christians diminished America and embraced the amoral foundations of the United States with unbridled enthusiasm only after World War Two, though this was a minority view for many decades before. Perhaps it was the peace brought into existence by the frying of a couple of cities that sparked this enthusiasm?
Thanks Dr. Chapp for an interesting article.
Your quote from Craycraft that “Catholics in the United States today are liberal Protestants before anything else” reminded me of definition of American Catholics that I read some time ago – that “American Catholics were protestants that went to Mass.”
Craycraft notes that there are situations ” where voting is just not the most viable form of political action…” However, I believe that voting is probably the only viable form of political action that over 90% of adults can make.
The topic of voting reminded me that I reread the bishops” voting guide not long ago. The document says that abortion is the preeminent issue, but then goes on to say that if you believe that another grave moral issue is more important, then you can vote for the pro-abortion candidate. Not helpful advice. I think that it is very easy, for example, for someone with a $100,000 dollar student loan to think that a pro-abortion candidate who says he will cancel that loan to believe that is a grave moral reason to vote for that candidate.
And what do the bishops say about immigration? They have new terminology – not illegal aliens, or even undocumented immigrants, but “newcomers, authorized and unauthorized.” This is terminology not meant to inform opinion, but rather to shape opinion.
They then list a variety of social issues where there can reasonably be a wide difference of opinion on how best to address them. I do not see this document as a helpful voting guide.
On the bright side, I doubt that one weekly Mass going Catholic in a hundred will read the 92-paragraph voting document.
Craycraft’s vision is ultra refined idealism. His prime principles reduced to their essence, dignity, solidarity, abeyance of social structure, the common good are as distant from the core of Christ’s new dispensation as are those of Hobbes. To suggest that we should refrain from voting in this coming election reveals his loss of contact with reality.
While the emperor’s gods may hold sway our God doesn’t pretend that we should refrain from addressing political as well as moral injustice of the highest order. Yesterday’s Roman empire and a nascent Christianity is distant in structure and jurisdiction from today’s catholic citizenry, citizenry with the moral and juridical capacity to stand and witness for justice.
About voting, in 1868 and under different circumstances the papacy actually prohibited Catholics from voting in the new kingdom of a unified Italy (the sticking point was the oath of office). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_Expedit Today, what would refusal to vote actually mean, both as a cultural message, but also in terms of default into more-or-less (?) disastrous practical outcomes?
But, this reader is perplexed by your other remark:
“[Chapp’s] prime principles reduced to their essence, dignity, solidarity, abeyance of social structure, the common good are as distant from the core of Christ’s new dispensation as are those of Hobbes.”
“Distant from the core”? The Catholic Social Teaching is the exercise of moral principles (fortitude, temperance, justice, and prudence), and is organized in greater specification in the Catechism and then in the Compendium of the Catholic Social Teaching (2004): https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html
Centerpieces are as Chapp lists: first, the integrity of the Human Person, and (therefore) Solidarity, Subsidiarity, and the Common Good (Chapters 3 and 4). If I may humbly propose, the protection against any of these themes and others degenerating into ideologies (a concern we share), “prudence” requires that they be presented integrally and in irreducible pairs:
Centering above all on the “transcendent dignity of each human person,” we then have: (1) the transcendent human person AND the family, always together, (2) wider Solidarity AND concrete Subsidiarity, always together, (3) Rights AND Responsibilities, always together, (4) informed Conscience AND faithful Citizenship, always together, (5) the option for the Poor AND the dignity of Work, always together, and (6) Solidarity/Subsidiarity AND sustainable care for God’s Creation, always together.
Comparison of the anti Catholic Masonic Italian government that had wrested the papal states from the papacy to an integral Catholic population in the United States free to vote, actually obliged to vote in favor of justice [see John Paul as well as Benedict on voting] is a non sequitur. You’re certainly free to abstain from voting in order to profess your cultural messages whatever they may be. Please do not pretend that the rest of us should.
“The inherent dignity of the human person, the solidarity of all humankind, the subsidiary nature of social structures, the common good”, Craycrafts prime principles reduced by Chapp are general concepts that can apply to secular humanism and Marxist socialism. If you’re perplexed it may be that you’re a priori reading a conclusion into my comment. A core is different from a primary concept. Core is the interior, detailed argument or essence of something.
Or, instead of misreading your comment, maybe I actually agree–with the remark that to not vote can be a “default […] into disastrous practical outcomes.” Too compact? To not vote is to fail to offset someone else’s vote.
The other concern, that the CST can be corrupted apply to “secular humanism and Marxist socialism,” is not an idle speculation. Surely this is the reason why, in his writings on CST (e.g., Centesimus Annus), Pope St. John Paul II repeatedly used the explicit term “transcendent [!!!] dignity of the human person.” (I also used this term deliberately.)
The threat of our time is that the secular state is built on moral quicksand, unless it grounds itself in BOTH natural law (a much eroded assumption) AND an openness to transcendence and God, as if these still exist in a some terrestrially meaningful way!
What this foundation looks like today and institutionally, probably short of a confessional state, is the space that CST, if done right, wants to fill. David L. Schindler makes the case for a communio society of love within which, then, a distinct juridical order might then be insulated from materialistic ideology. Grace is not something that is simply added to nature. In retrospect, Vatican II also was oriented toward such a conversion of society, itself, rather than only being a player among emergent nation-states or their elites and power blocks.
I think we’re on the same page, but more pages are surely required. Not sure, here, that synodal fluidity will get it done!
Thank you Peter for the further explanation of your responding comments. And in the interchange I benefit from your knowledge. “David L. Schindler makes the case for a communio society of love within which, then, a distinct juridical order might then be insulated from materialistic ideology. Grace is not something that is simply added to nature” is certainly along the lines of my thoughts. My concern during this watershed moment is what’s the better, perhaps required response.
If we remain silent and refrain from witness to truth and injustice what distinguishes us from liberal protestants?
I hear what you are saying Father Peter, but I think many liberal Protestants would say that they do witness to truth & injustice. It’s just that their perspective of truth & justice can differ from ours. And wokeness is a sort of quasi-religious belief system with its own rituals & dogmas. Cancelling isn’t unlike excommunication excepting in that excommunication is meant to be more medicinal than extinguishing.
You’re right mrscracker, there’s a religiosity to woke liberal protestants. And assuredly we can include Biden, senator Dick Durbin et Al as the catholic Woke.
Furthermore they agree that all social institutions are by nature subsidiary as claimed by Craycraft. That monumental error is what the Catholic Left believes, for example that the social institutions family and religion are subsidiary.
We read: “Catholic apologists for the American settlement focus too much on the era of the founding, its principles, and its grounding in a fairly benign reading of Locke, and focus far too little on the actual downstream political and cultural entity that we actually got.”
David L. Schindler’s earlier book, “The Heart of the World, Center of the Church” (Eerdman’s, 1996), offers a similar critique of Catholic Liberalism (Anglo-American Culture, Economics, the Academy), and a presentation of Communio Ecclesiology (the Academy, Intellectual Life, Time in Eternity, Theology/Gender and the Future of Western Civilization, “Thomism” and the Human Person).
“In light of these [neo-conservative] texts, we must say that man images the CREATIVITY [italics] of God the Father and Creator only in and through the RECEPTIVITY [italics] of Jesus Christ and his mother Mary. The divine creativity of which human creativity is the image, in other words, is first that of Sonship and not that of Fatherhood. We are ‘sons in the Son’: we represent the creativity of the Father only through the Son (cf. Col. 1:15-16), and indeed through the archetypal creature, Mary–the freedom or love of both of whom consists first in receptive obedience. Thus my first and basic point: human freedom is RECEPTIVE [italics] freedom before it is CREATIVE [italics] freedom–or, better, is a freedom that becomes authentically creative only by being interiorly receptive” (Schindler, p. 118).
Politics is downstream of culture; and all politics is ultimately theological.
“Craycraft’s Augustinian reading”.
The Augustinian dualism between the city of God and the earthly city doesn’t equate to the conflict between Church and State. On the contrary, Augustine asserts the necessity of civil order, which simply aims to ensure peaceful coexistence among opposing interests.
The contemporary relevance of Augustine (according to Reinhold Niebuhr, Étienne Gilson, Sergio Cotta, Joseph Ratzinger) paradoxically coincides with the antiquated nature of the medieval version of his thought, with the definitive decline of that political Augustinianism that provided the theoretical legitimization of papal supremacy over imperial power in the controversy spanning from Gregory VII to Boniface VIII.
The Augustinian model differs greatly both from Origen’s potentially revolutionary eschatology, which tends to delegitimize the orders and laws of the State as they do not conform to evangelical dictates, and from the political theocracy of Eusebius of Caesarea, which, identifying Christian universalism with Roman universalism, lays the ideological foundations upon which Byzantium will establish its “Christian” empire.
This dual distinction from Origen and from Eusebius allows us to consider the model expressed in “De civitate Dei” as absolutely non-theocratic, despite Augustine hinting at a possible use in that direction, particularly in his Epistle 93, addressed to Bishop Vincent.
As Gilson stated, “the problem of the two cities has become that of the two powers, the spiritual one of the popes and the temporal one of the States or princes.”
As Ratzinger wrote, “Augustine practically took as a basis the situation of the Church of the catacombs when he designed his determination of the relationship between Church and State. The Church does not yet appear at all as an active element in this relationship, the idea of Christianizing the State and the world definitely does not belong to the programmatic points of Saint Augustine.”
This does not imply indifference towards the world and the “res publica” but rather means that “his doctrine of the two cities aims neither at ecclesiasticizing the State nor at statizing the Church, but, amid the orders of this world, which remain and must remain worldly orders, it aspires to make present the new force of faith in the unity of men in the body of Christ, as a transforming element, whose complete form will be created by God himself, once this history has reached its end.”
The “return to Augustine” thus coincides with the awareness that ours, like the time of early Christianity, is more than ever the time of “grace,” the time of a Christian community that knows itself to be “without homeland,” a community of strangers that accepts and uses earthly realities but is not at home in them, of a civitas which, outside the image of a besieged fortress, worn out by conflict with power, perceives the condition of beginnings: “Christianity that still thinks directed towards the limitless spaces of the nations and still has hope for the salvation of the world” (von Balthasar).
Good books in the sense of, to find out what’s going on with others and the world.
“Catholics in the United States today are liberal Protestants before anything else.” Ignoring for a moment that Craycraft’s definition of “liberal” isn’t the common definition, I would argue that “liberal” Catholics act and vote like “liberal” (mainline?) Protestants while “faithful”(you know, the ones that actually go to church) Catholics act and vote like faithful evangelical/Protestant Christians. Having said that, since the vast majority (75%) of Catholics are not consistent Mass goers, Craycraft is probably more right than wrong.
It is all very simple. Our political freedom is a gift from God and from those who gave their lives in order to bequeath it to us. We must use it in order to care for and protect Christ in the least of His brethren, and use it in order to hand it on to the next generation as a gift to them, just as it was a gift to us.
Why should God allow us to continue to have political freedom if we won’t use it to protect the life of the child in the womb, to protect confused children from having their genitals mutilated, to stop child sex trafficking?
The Early Church didn’t have the political freedom we have. They couldn’t use peaceful elections to correct injustice. We can. We have political freedom. We must use it to end the violent abuse of the least of the brethren of Christ. We will do that or quickly lose it.
Whatever we fail to do for them we fail to do for Him. We are only a heartbeat away from being judged by Him.
Entirely correct Harry.
God bless you, Fr Peter!
Thanks Larry, much to think about: to vote or not to vote, and if we vote, how to vote. If we vote for “the lesser of two evils” is it moral to vote for evil? And if it IS moral to vote for evil, is there a point where the evil is too much and we can no longer vote for it? If there IS a point beyond which we must go, how do we know when we reach it? And if there IS a point is it the same for everyone?
The “lesser of two evils” argument begs the question of the possibility of a third party in our country. Would it be possible for a third party to win the election? Is there a large segment of voters who constitute a silent majority who could change the moral laws of our country for the better? And if it were possible would it even be the right thing to do? ( yes we must know the answer to this question even if it seems to no “no brainer “ ) Going further, would it be better to “throw our vote away” if we supported a third party candidate that we thought that didn’t have a ghost of a chance to win just to make a statement.
Going even further: another option is conscious objection to politics and total non participation . This is the most radical, but truly an option.
Since the Church seems to allow us a great degree of freedom in political involvement ,we should be careful not to judge those who come to different political conclusions. We must allow charity and remain friends. The last election was very polarizing and divisive and we must avoid it in the future. Charity must always prevail.
Sorry, but this article is written at a level that is beyond most bishops, priests, deacons, and laity! Whether we like it or not, we must be extremely concrete and clear. No votes
No votes for people who don’t respect that human life begins at the moment of fertilization! No votes for people who support killing pre born babies! No votes for people who think it’s ok to mutilate children’s genitals. No votes for people who do not support marriage as a lifelong and exclusive bond between one man & one woman.
I agree, but that’s why I will not be voting. Those who do not actively support one of your “no votes” categories still welcome into their party those who do. It’s not like they don’t, on rare occasion, get up on their high horse and expel party members for what they see will be political gain. They certainly ran off Todd Akin when he made an admittedly stupid comment about “legitimate rape”. (Akin clearly meant forcible rape, which is the most obvious kind of rape and what people immediately assume when they hear the word. That does not save his comment, but he obviously did not mean that any kind of rape is “legitimate” in the sense of being morally permissible.) However, when the Nevada GOP dropped their platforms against abortion and gay marriage, they were condemned, but certainly allowed to remain within the national party.
Sorry, but I’ve seen way too much of this thing. These two examples come immediately to mind, but they are by no means unique. Both political parties are very literally (no, I do not mean figuratively) willing to make deals with the devil to get power. Put not your hope in princes; put not your faith in political parties, either.
I say this with a great deal of disappointment. I used to think there was a real difference between them, but I have been betrayed too many times. They are just playing the “good cop / bad cop” game; neither one is on our side.
I have learned to be distrustful of generalizations about Americans.
I have also learned to be distrustful of generalizations about Catholics.
Therefore, when an author “lays down the law” by making an extremely broad generalization about American Catholics in his first sentence, he immediately forfeits my trust.
So, for example, the deep-seated but often unspoken beliefs about the world, the cultural preferences, etc. of a convert who grew up as a Southern Baptist in the heart of Dixie will surely be different from those of a cradle Catholic who was born in New York in the 3rd generation of Italian immigrants. Midwestern Catholics of Polish ancestry are likely to be quite different from southwestern Catholics whos parents crossed over from Mexico.
I can accept spherical cow arguments, but “all American Catholics are the same” is a non-starter.
Therefore, “it may be that casting a vote is a violation of the obligations of citizenship, not its necessary corollary.”
This seems directly opposed to directives given in recent election years by US bishops conference and individual bishops regarding voting by Catholics. If after due diligence on canidates or issues, Catholic voters can and should vote even if their vote is for the lesser of two evils,A Catholic cannot in good conscience choose not to vote simply on grounds that no acceptable candidate is on the ballot, is what I assume the bishops’ position is.
It’s always easier to support evil when you can tell yourself it is the lesser evil. We are too good at emphasizing the “lesser” aspect without actually taking stock of the certainty and gravity of the evil itself. We dare not make this a habit, or before we know it our material cooperation has become formal cooperation. For example, look at what has happened to the civil rights movement over the decades.
This is not a problem only for the Left.
“Catholics” in majority have voted for the greater evil of murdering babies in the womb. A non-vote is a vote for the greater evil.
Trump was so disappointed in the lack of Catholic support that now he has softened his stance on murder in the womb.
Our ‘shepherds’ are so weak that 5 Catholic Supreme Court Injustices cannot even protect the life of a fully developed baby in the womb.
A unified Catholic vote for life would change the whole nature of our national political arguments. Instead we have navel gazers who think we must retire in our self satisfied sanctimony.
Thank you Dr Chapp for this intelligent political presentation. I’m glad for the thoroughly insightful background I’ve gleaned from educated replies, Mrs. Cracker,
Absolutely pertinent topic. Hoping it’s not too late to awaken “The Sleeping Giant” (aka inattentive Catholics). I enjoyed viewing some of the “Catholics for Trump” recent gala. Invigorating young blood there.
Our Legion of Mary has discussed the topic of voting and we agree that it’s our Catholic civic duty, however distasteful our voting options might be. “Definitely “lesser of two evils “ is the standard.
Recall the statesman’s remark, “All politics is local”. That’s where practicality is seen, especially in a volunteer capacity, while concurrently working and/or raising families. Most people enter politics to “make a difference” locally.
It’s also where incumbents are tested. If re-elected upon their record, hopefully experience and integrity will serve constituents well, and in future higher office. More people will follow to fill the lower position ideally.
Citizens can form town committees to support grassroot candidates. In many towns those are non-existent and must be in the public eye to advertise issues and pro-life, pro- business candidates. And to disseminate voter guides, esp on-line. Family-friendly potluck events can be held outdoors in pleasant weather for meet-and-greet activities. Networking basically. Still in-person greatest way to convince voters. Invite the higher-up Conservatives to highlight the events esp. using local issues as springboards.
Not one word here about the Jews (not all Jews, but those who are in power) who are on the vanguard of every cultural evil, from abortion to pornography to the plandemic to the Gaza genocide. And the Holocaust is the established religion and official sacred dogma, absolving the Jews from all of their crimes and giving them official perennial victim status. How could the author not mention any of this? Perhaps the author should consider if he is fully Catholic or a syncretism worshipper of the new sacred imperium. Or is just silent for “fear of the Jews”?
So everything bad is the fault of the Jews? Nonsense. Your posting is anti Semitism and erroneous.
It’s funny how anti Zionists expect us to believe that Jews living in Israel aren’t Gods chosen people or real Jews, but Eastern European impostors, Khazars, etc.
But then when they want to validate anti Semitic conspiracy theories all of a sudden today’s Jews are actually Jewish.
Which is it?