While each party is working hard to persuade the electorate to vote for its electoral programme it is time to sit down and reflect on some important aspects of political life. The question I wish to address is: What is the mission of the Catholic politician in political life?
The Church is duty-bound ‘to instruct and illuminate the consciences of the faithful, particularly those involved in political life’
Some may oppose the fact that the Church has much to say about politics. The 2002 doctrinal note issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, entitled The Participation of Catholics in Political Life, openly states that the Church is duty-bound “to instruct and illuminate the consciences of the faithful, particularly those involved in political life, so that their actions may always serve the integral promotion of the human person and the common good”.
Hence, Catholics who are actively involved in political life should take on board three main principles in their way of doing politics: First, they have to believe that the human person they intend to serve is made in the image and likeness of God.
Second, this image and likeness is present in every human being without exception, starting from conception till natural death.
Third, the most effective means of securing this is through an active participation of the Christian faith in the public square.
For Catholic politicians, politics is the quest for justice and common good in the society they is serving. This means Catholic politicians should view politics as an integral part and parcel of salvation history that every citizen is responsible to carry out.
The idea that politics is alien, contrary or irrelevant to the Christian faith is farcical. Indeed, politics is a theological issue. The Son of God became man in a precise historical-political setting, namely when Caesar Augustus was the Roman Emperor and Quirinius was governor of Syria (Luke 2:1-2).
So when Catholic politicians talk about the person, family, relations, community, common good, nature, soul, life, and so forth, they understand these concepts within a metaphysical perspective. If politicians remove the metaphysical spirit from such notions their understanding of them is reduced to merely functional and subjectivist.
Integrity of life is the essence of every Catholic politician’s vocation. As Blessed John Paul II taught in his post-synodal apostolic exhortation concerning the vocation and mission of the lay faithful in the Church and in the World, Christifideles Laici: “There cannot be two parallel lives in their existence: on the one hand, the so-called ‘spiritual life’, with its values and demands; and on the other, the so-called ‘secular life’, that is, life in a family, at work, in social responsibilities, in the responsibilities of public life and in culture…
“Every activity, every situation, every precise responsibility – as, for example, skill and solidarity in work, love and dedication in the family and the education of children, service to society and public life and the promotion of truth in the area of culture – are the occasions ordained by providence for a ‘continuous exercise of faith, hope and charity’”.
Faced with the enduring temptation of excluding their personal faith from the public domain in which they fulfill their political ministry it would be wise if Catholic politicians reflect on the advice Archbishop Giampaolo Crepaldi gives in his book Catholics in Politics, A Handbook for the Recovery:
“When a Catholic in politics strives to clarify the problem of laicity for himself I think he should ask himself two questions: the first is if Christ is just useful for the building up of social togetherness in harmony with human dignity, or if he is indispensable.
“The second is if eternal life after material death has any relationship with the community organisation of this life in society”.
May politicians embrace the Church’s teachings, pray daily for the Holy Spirit’s guidance, and receive the Sacraments, and may their political actions be blessed by charity in truth.
frmarioa@gmail.com
Fr Mario Attard is a member of the Order of Franciscan Capuchins.