In Philippians 4:6, the Apostle Paul tells us:
Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline: think on these things.
The advice is excellent, since we are formed by what we attend to. But what does it tell us about politics? People say we should pay attention to politics, but it’s full of things that aren’t true, modest, just, holy, or lovely.
For proof, spend a couple of hours on Twitter. You’re much more likely to see Paul’s “works of the flesh,” like “enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, [and] envies” (Gal 5:20-21), than “fruit of the Spirit,” like “charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, [and] longanimity.” (Gal 5:22-23)
There are reasons for that. Politics means working with people, including stupid, irrational, and ill-intentioned people, and inducing them to cooperate. It also means conflict, not always conducted fairly, and forcing people to do things they oppose—often with some reason, since it’s rare for all legitimate arguments to be on one side. These activities are not absolutely inconsistent with sanctity, but they’re not conducive to it either.
Beyond that, politics notoriously involves lying. A politician won’t get anywhere unless he can tell stories that are simple, dramatic, and compelling, and to do that reliably you need to edit the facts—sometimes a lot. And how many politicians are willing to dispense with fear, anger, and hatred to stir up their followers? Fear and anger are sometimes justified, but the temptation to appeal to them does not depend on that.
Also, Jesus said it was difficult for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Lk 18:25), not because riches are always ill-gotten or otherwise bad but because the rich “are choked with the cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and yield no fruit.” (Lk 8:14) The same would certainly apply to politicians wholly consumed—as they all seem to be—in acquiring, keeping, and exercising power.
It is hard to imagine a modern democratic politician as a saint. Few saints have been politically active, and even fewer voluntarily chose a political career (royal saints were born to it) or were canonized for their overall political activity rather than particular acts leading to martyrdom.
Recent Catholics with a reputation for saintliness and an interest in politics have usually failed to combine those qualities with good sense. John Paul II may have been an exception. But Jacques Maritain—to pick an example—showed amazingly bad judgment promoting his friend Saul Alinsky, and Dorothy Day’s pacifism and anarchism allowed her to combine intense political interests with avoidance of obvious basic issues.
So, why get involved? Sometimes it’s a matter of self-defense. Most of us can’t affect politics much, but politics can affect us and what we love a great deal. As they say, you may not be interested in it, but it is interested in you. And since each of us has some political influence, at least in cooperation with others, it seems we should use that influence to promote good things, and especially to oppose bad things.
In principle, politics has to do with cooperation for the common good, but in practice Lenin’s “who/whom”—do unto others before they do unto you—is often a better description. That’s all the more so today, when trust, honor, and rational public discourse are in short supply. Worse, the technological outlook and disappearance of any public sense of the transcendent has turned politics for many people into a messianic substitute for religion that combines a false idea of the good with an insistence on radically transforming the world.
The result is that influential public positions, including positions of intellectual leadership, are often held by bigoted cranks who loathe—and want to destroy—both their opponents and natural human tendencies. Recent developments regarding transgender ideology provide examples.
Under such circumstances efforts to secure even basic physical aspects of the common good—national defense, suppression of criminal violence, safeguarding public health—fail because they lose their connection to reality. And rational discussion of equally basic but less physical aspects of the common good, like stable and functional family life, are wholly out of reach.
What do we do under such circumstances? How do we combine the good and the effective in politics when conditions are so unfavorable? And what do we do about the corrupting effect of much political participation?
First, it seems that the search for broad common ground with public institutions and our fellow citizens is becoming less realistic. Catholic functionaries, who like working with other functionaries, naturally like the idea. But there’s no common ground on basic issues today, and that makes broad systems of cooperation ever more difficult.
A humane system of law and government, or of health, education, and welfare, is impossible without a humane concept of human nature and the common good. That is why Catholics have run into difficulties collaborating with a healthcare system dominated by technocrats who basically view it as a branch of the biotechnology industry devoted to maintaining human economic assets, scrapping them when no longer needed, and, where money is available, providing consumer goods like babies, abortions, extended lifespans, and sex change operations.
So, what to do? If people are promoting bad things, we can help to some extent by providing good things, but above all by showing why they are good. Rather than emphasizing collaboration with an inhuman system, the Church should emphasize her own charitable activities. But more than that she must concentrate on her central function, presenting the truth about God and man. The growing insistence on policing discussion, displayed for example in the fear and outrage regarding Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, suggests that such an effort has its difficulties. But it also shows it can have important practical effects—otherwise, why the insistence?
Catholics can contribute in particularly effective ways regarding issues where realities are hard to obfuscate because they touch us closely—for example, with regard to abortion, transgenderism, or what goes on in the schools. Truth really does have power regarding such issues, because control depends so much on silencing it.
But more broadly we need to present a full-fledged alternative to the system of belief now official. It’s important to oppose particular evils, but opposition to evil can’t be effective without illumination by a vision of how life can be better. And that is where Paul’s advice to form our thoughts by directing them properly comes in. We can’t present the truth unless we live by it, and for that we need constantly to attend to it.
However important it is to deal with disease, crime, and trash collection, we should place our greatest emphasis on health, virtue, and beauty. If we don’t like the present state of education, pop culture, public discussion, ideals of life, the world of work, or relations between the sexes, we need to search out ways to make them better. We need models, literary or real-life, to aspire to.
Individuals and groups are of course working on such things—education alone provides many examples. Dissatisfied Catholics tempted simply to complain need to support them any way they can. But whatever our situation and calling, we are all able to live better ourselves, and to display concretely what that involves to our neighbors. And that is normally the best thing we can do politically.
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“However important it is to deal with disease, crime, and trash collection, we should place our greatest emphasis on health, virtue, and beauty.”
Catholics in the public forum, clerics in pulpits, and politicians all ought to present the ideal, the virtuous, the good, the beautiful, and the true. We should all be signposts for what edifies, what builds up culture. Priests like Father Altman would have been safer and more effective in presenting the ideals of virtue, what we should all be aspiring toward and left the hearers to decide for themselves what among the many examples in current society does not conform with virtuous living. For example, talk about the goodness of being fruitful in marriage rather than its evil counterpart – contraception. Talk about the blessings of life and how the most defenseless need our protection, rather than being against its evil counterpart – abortion. Talk about the truth of human sexuality in the marriage of one man and one woman for life, rather than its evil counterparts – divorce, homosexuality, beastiality, sodomy, transgenderism, etc
Let’s leave the denouncing, the low-slung epithets, the gutter talk to Francis who has made a habit of it in his papacy.
Perhaps the best starting would be to begin with removing the highly partisan politics between the rad trads and progressives within the Church for which their is no middle ground, the confusion from Rome that translates into confusion from the pulpits and in the classroom. The question the Church needs to ask herself may be as simple a “ Where do we go from here, Lord?
Reach out and I can point to what your State is doing that’s noble and rightminded in politics. These perverted bills get passed because there’s no pushback.
I’ve seen far far too many Catholics
are either too scared or too ignorant about Church teachings on bills involving
divorce, homosexuality, beastiality, sodomy, transgenderism, etc.
Catholics have an obligation to stop evil when it’s in your State like it is.
Reach out & I’ll point to your State’s issues. Their websites are very transparent on the bills. In Maryland, just go to https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite
“It also means conflict, not always conducted fairly, and forcing people to do things they oppose—often with some reason, since it’s rare for all legitimate arguments to be on one side. These activities are not absolutely inconsistent with sanctity, but they’re not conducive to it either.”
Conflict involves punishment and force. PROPER (i.e. just) punishment is a good. There is a virtue called vindication – legitimate vengeance.
https://www.english.op.org/godzdogz/the-life-of-virtue-vindication/
“Beyond that, politics notoriously involves lying. A politician won’t get anywhere unless he can tell stories that are simple, dramatic, and compelling, and to do that reliably you need to edit the facts—sometimes a lot. And how many politicians are willing to dispense with fear, anger, and hatred to stir up their followers? Fear and anger are sometimes justified, but the temptation to appeal to them does not depend on that.”
There is absolutely no place for lying anywhere in – or outside of – politics. That said, one needn’t necessarily fully disclose. Sometimes truth can be opposed by prejudices which aren’t easily overcome. More important than lying is the presence of error(s). This is why there must be religious tests for public employment.
“So, why get involved? Sometimes it’s a matter of self-defense. Most of us can’t affect politics much, but politics can affect us and what we love a great deal. As they say, you may not be interested in it, but it is interested in you.”
In “The Lord of the Rings” it was remarked that even those without swords can still be killed by them. The most obvious example of such a dynamic today is the unjust (AFAIK) aggression of Russia against Ukraine.
I haven’t worked since almost the end of 2020. I know where justice is and how it ought to be administered, but law enforcement, courts, and legislators have been actively or passively against me. The extent of corruption is likely almost universal.
While I don’t unreservedly support it (And I haven’t read it all yet.), a possible step in the right direction is likely to be found in the newly published book: “Parental Rights in Peril.”
But the problem is that the only way to get around such issues is via a political movement and such a thing isn’t simple and probably isn’t easy. The immoral control of the mass media stands in the way of swift action in this matter.
As such, politics can be best conceived as a proxy war between the City of God and the City of Man. With regards to representative government, every vote and decision to initiate – or not initiate – a new bill is a battle. And there isn’t any such thing as “legislative discretion.”
“In principle, politics has to do with cooperation for the common good, but in practice Lenin’s “who/whom”—do unto others before they do unto you—is often a better description.”
I didn’t know where this evil principle came from. The conclusion is that evil will win if the – allegedly good – do nothing effective. Those who oppose evil can expect very strong opposition up to and including murder (e.g. St. John the Baptist). One contemporary example of this is political protest such as with regards to unborn-child-murder.
“And rational discussion of equally basic but less physical aspects of the common good, like stable and functional family life, are wholly out of reach.”
Rational discussion is possible, but public discussion is likely purposefully sabotaged by immoral actors. And this is why publication needs to be seen as a privilege and not a right. The manipulation, confusion, and discouragement made possible by a public discussion “war of all against all” is one of the biggest problems.
The biggest issue is that truth is unjustly censored, while lies and errors are almost certainly purposefully given “megaphones.” Satan (and his witting or unwitting followers) knows what he is doing.
“What do we do under such circumstances? How do we combine the good and the effective in politics when conditions are so unfavorable? And what do we do about the corrupting effect of much political participation?”
What is important is to be “ruthless” with regards to the very helpful problem/solution dichotomy. With regards to morality, the Catholic faith is the solution. If one combines spreading the Catholic faith with ideas along the lines of George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language,” then truth – given just censorship – will prevail.
Political participation isn’t necessarily corrupting. This is like saying that gladiators and soldiers fighting for a just cause are the same.
“But there’s no common ground on basic issues today, and that makes broad systems of cooperation ever more difficult.”
If one looks at those with a media presence, then common ground will SEEM to be nonexistent, but that assumes that those in the media are good, honest, and worth following.
“A humane system of law and government, or of health, education, and welfare, is impossible without a humane concept of human nature and the common good.”
The word “humane” in this quote needs to be changed to “true.”
“So, what to do? If people are promoting bad things, we can help to some extent by providing good things, but above all by showing why they are good.”
“Showing why” is rational. But if reason always won, then there would be no need for a justice system. Reason is important, but it isn’t as strong as just force. The most obvious place where this truth is in evidence is in Muslim dominated countries.
There are some people (perhaps most) who have faith in their leaders. Such people don’t demand evidence or reason(s). That is an unwarranted risk that they take. Only God can be unconditionally trusted.
“The growing insistence on policing discussion, displayed for example in the fear and outrage regarding Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, suggests that such an effort has its difficulties. But it also shows it can have important practical effects—otherwise, why the insistence?”
In the past, the death of heretics was believed to be the best solution to the problem that they posed. This is because heresy had/has a tendency to “infect” other humans. To stop the evil, it was seen as necessary to permanently silence the corruption.
To a lesser extent, the same effect is essentially achieved through unjust censorship of truth in public discussions. Evil “wins” by default. There isn’t any fair fight, because truth will likely prevail on a level playing field.
“Catholics can contribute in particularly effective ways regarding issues where realities are hard to obfuscate because they touch us closely—for example, with regard to abortion, transgenderism, or what goes on in the schools. Truth really does have power regarding such issues, because control depends so much on silencing it.”
The issues that most concern humans are related to income, family, and housing.
And central to problems and solutions regarding this issue is what happens in courts. But any actual and effective reporting about what happens in court is probably (AFAIK) almost completely absent from media. Perhaps investigative reporters know that they will be “taken care of” – or at least severely beaten by corrupt police – if they venture into the exposure and criticism of corrupt judges.
“But more broadly we need to present a full-fledged alternative to the system of belief now official. It’s important to oppose particular evils, but opposition to evil can’t be effective without illumination by a vision of how life can be better.”
This is true, but again reason can only go so far. And the only reason that belief is “official” is because it has been carefully crafted by TPTB for its unwary dupes.
“However important it is to deal with disease, crime, and trash collection, we should place our greatest emphasis on health, virtue, and beauty. If we don’t like the present state of education, pop culture, public discussion, ideals of life, the world of work, or relations between the sexes, we need to search out ways to make them better.”
Those who promote immorality – in the widest sense – need to be excluded from the discussion and spreading their ideas. Currently, they “win” through an unjust laissez faire approach to censorship. It is likely that this wasn’t always the case. There was a movement in the early 20th century for what is best now called “free speechism” – i.e. license to spread error. The earliest Catholic protest that I am aware of against what was likely the start of the error occurred during The French Revolution.
“Dissatisfied Catholics tempted simply to complain need to support them any way they can. But whatever our situation and calling, we are all able to live better ourselves, and to display concretely what that involves to our neighbors. And that is normally the best thing we can do politically.”
Certainly, one’s personal morality is very important (Especially, with regards to one’s salvation.), but those who can should likely do more. And this can involve politics and propagating truth.
James Kalb here basically failed to distinguish politics from partisanship. The Church teaches all faithful voters to be politically engaged by exerting the effort to be formed and informed by Catholic teaching, values and beliefs and to encourage elected officials to work for the common good. But the Church forbids its clergy to use the pulpit to be partisan by endorsing specific parties or politicians in their preaching and teaching ministries. That is the province of the lay faithful. We see this breached by a few celebrity priests because of this blurring and misunderstanding of the distinction between the political and partisan. While the priests can be political by taking a big picture at the issues through the lens of the Church’s teaching through the formation of the faithful’s conscience by way of moral discernment, it is forbidden to be partisan. Sadly this boundary is crossed by this few loud clerics because our bishops have not taken this role of teaching seriously. The supposed voters guide entitled “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” is simply not easily digestible for majority of Catholics. It is 40 pages of text plus 10 more of footnotes. Who would read this? The Bishops are either lazy or just divided along partisan lines to update this in this age of social media saturation when one basically communicates or consumes media by bits of bytes. The bishops of England have their guide in 2 pages, and the Canadian bishops in a page. In the place of this American episcopal failure to properly guide Catholic voters come the partisan voter guides in easily digestible pamphlets – on top of the same deluge in social media – that get distributed in parishes during election campaign periods. Because of this vacuum in proper Church guidance on politics many – not all! – Catholics wrongly think that to vote as Catholic is to vote only on one particular issue and by default are partisan for a particular party that deceitfully pegs this single issue to be the only one for consideration by Catholics.
For comparison, here is the latest edition of the U.S. Bishops teaching:
https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/faithful-citizenship/upload/forming-consciences-for-faithful-citizenship.pdf
And here is the similar 2017 teaching of the Bishops of England and Wales:
https://familyofsites.bishopsconference.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2019/07/gen-elec-bsh-msg-2017-110517-WEB.pdf
And here is the Canadian Bishops’ teaching:
https://www.cccb.ca/letter/statement-from-the-executive-committee-of-the-cccb-on-the-upcoming-federal-elections-voting-a-duty-a-gift-an-opportunity/
“James Kalb here basically failed to distinguish politics from partisanship.”
Seriously? How? Your comment is the epitome of partisanship and condescension.
“It is 40 pages of text plus 10 more of footnotes. Who would read this?”
Catholics who know how think and read? Good grief. You’re embarrassing yourself.
It shows. Majority of Catholics including clergy and hierarchs have no patience, energy or drive to read, understand, and much more apply this 50 page document, and as a result many are single issue voters. For those Catholics who read and think almost half are not getting their formation according to the Social Teachings of the Church, which includes “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” to guide their political participation engagement but instead are getting their formation according to the teachings of the Acton Institute or the Ethics and Public Policy Center, among many others.
So, in light of Catholic educational mission, St. Paul’s demand to think of and live the highest ideals of our humanity to become holy, why should the Bishops “dumb” down the guide? So because humans tend towards sound bites, we shouldn’t call them to do more reading, reflecting, and investigating? Are we wanting Catholics to avoid digging deeper into Church doctrines, dogmas, and the political positions that derive therefrom? I surely hope this is not what you suggest.
If the goal is to get poorly informed voters, a simplistic guide is expedient and characteristic. And indeed, we suffer presently from a plethora of poorly informed voters who routinely select a plethora of candidates with serious moral shortcomings. If the goal is to build up educated, thoughtful, and reflective Christians, then short-changing them with half-baked reasons is not the most virtuous or just approach.
Again, “what to do with politics? Five ideas:
FIRST, from the high ground, directly uphold the moral absolutes which are not political, but which have become politicized;
SECOND, as a duty and sometimes as a vocation, be shrewdly involved in the rest of politics, not because the Church as such has an agenda, but recalling rather as clarified by the Second Vatican Council, e.g., “[e]arthly progress must be carefully distinguished from the growth of God’s kingdom. Nevertheless, to the extent that the former can contribute to the better ordering of human society, it is of vital concern to the kingdom of God” (Gaudium et spes, n. 39).
THIRD, “For one’s own profit and that of others, the interior life must be cultivated above all. THE MORE ONE HAS TO DO [italics], the more one has need of this life” (Dom J.B. Chautard, “The Soul of the Apostolate,” Mission Press for Gethsemani Trappists, 1941).
FOURTH, seminary training could well include a gutsy course on bureaucratic infighting, as a corrective for moles nested within chancery offices; to protect against the abdication of much of so-called Catholic higher education; and to rise above excessive deferral to “fraternal collegiality” (sometimes like a college frat-house code of silence?);
FIFTH, regarding real fraternity, precision matters…always ensure that friendship is not morphed into or misinterpreted as concurrence/complicity; in the cited instance of Jacques Maritain, he actually broke ranks and rebuked friend Saul Alinksy for his “Rules for Radicals”: https://www.pdcnet.org/cssr/content/cssr_2011_0016_0229_0240
Alas the Maritain essay won’t download. Will try again. Thanks for the reference.
The issue to be clear isn’t M’s saintliness, but his political judgment. It appears from the description that the rebuke, after Maritain had publicly promoted the guy, was in a private letter. But the essay no doubt has more to say.
This should work. Try cssronline.org. Search for vol. 16, year 2011.
You and many others are surely qualified to apply for membership. Check “Society of Catholic Social Scientists.” Membership.
I agree I should have said “promotion” rather than “friendship.”
How can we ask “what can we do with politics”? When we fail to name the perpetrators. Politicians are no longer representing the people, but rather the power, greed and fear of not being reelected. The US Congress is voiceless when driven by powerful lobbies and when political parties willingly accept “dark money” in the billions of dollars. When one leader has the power to reject bipartisan essential legislation. When one politician can lie and defy the constitutional will of the people. When three radical politicians propose statehood sedition based on attempted political power. When a political leader can defy the right to religious freedom of expression. When a single autocrat-leaning leader promotes overthrowing our constitution.
If we pray to almighty God and unite in a bipartisan majority we might “overthrow” these politicians at the ballot box and save the Union.
“no place for lying anywhere in – or outside of – politics”.
Is lying a mortal sin when it causes harm to someone or the public at large? Compare it to a “little white lie” Some visible political leaders, and we know who they are, with the “Bully pulpit” lying incessantly and in broad daylight. That form of lying and misdirection is a form of autocracy that threatens our democracy!