The general election of 2008 intrudes on us each day. It will not be easy as the weeks go on, to find the truth about various issues confronting our beloved country. It is important also to reflect on the responsibility of the church.
Our pulpits are sacred places; they are for the word of God, and not for political partisanship. Both the priest and the parish must avoid such partisanship if we are to guard the nature of our mission.
Yet, neither can the church be unwilling to stand for and with those who are alone and have no constituency. We must never be found unwilling to stand with the unborn child, the homeless, those suffering from war, and yes, even for the person on death row.
The church must never shrink from her role to help form the consciences of our people, and must always seek to uphold the natural law, that law written in the heart of the human person.
Pope Benedict XVI, in his first encyclical "Deus Caritas Est," has outlined clearly the role of the church as we live through the intense weeks ahead.
The church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible. She cannot and must not replace the state. Yet at the same time she cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice. She has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper. A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the church. Yet the promotion of justice through efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common good is something which concerns the church deeply.
We have seen that the formation of just structures is not directly the duty of the church, but belong to the world of politics, the sphere of the autonomous use of reason. The church has an indirect duty here, in that she is called to contribute to the purification of reason and to the reawakening of those moral forces without which just structures are neither established nor prove effective in the long run.
The direct duty to work for a just ordering of society, on the other hand, is proper to the lay faithful. As citizens of the state, they are called to take part in public life in a personal capacity. So they cannot relinquish their participation "in the many different economic, social, legislative, administrative and cultural areas, which are intended to promote organically and institutionally the common good."
The responsibility of the church, therefore, is to help form consciences, to bring light to the national discussion, to purify reason, to help our people focus on the dignity of the human person and to encourage the parish participation of the laity in public life.
""¦ the church wishes to help form consciences in political life and to stimulate greater insight into the authentic requirements of justice as well as greater readiness to act accordingly, even when this might involve conflict with situations of personal interest." — Pope Benedict XVI, "Deus Caritas Est."
With this in mind, I am sending to each parish a copy of a document prepared by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops entitled, "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship." It is a reflection on the many issues which face our nation in these troubled times. I am also including a summary, one-page document that is suitable for parish-wide distribution. This summary can be duplicated as long as the USCCB is notified.
In this document, the bishops make clear the importance and complexity of forming one's conscience in order to serve the truth.
The document warns us that "two temptations in public life can distort the church's defense of human life and dignity. The first is a moral equivalence that makes no ethical distinction between different kinds of issues involving human life and dignity. The direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life from the moment of conception until natural death is always wrong and is not just one issue among many. It must always be opposed.
"The second is the misuse of these necessary moral distinctions as a way of dismissing or ignoring other serious threats to human life and dignity. Racism and other unjust discrimination, the use of the death penalty, resorting to unjust war, the use of torture, war crimes, the failure to respond to those who are suffering from hunger or a lack of health care, or an unjust immigration policy are all serious moral issues that challenge our consciences and require us to act. These are not optional concerns which can be dismissed. Catholics are urged to seriously consider church teaching on these issues."
You will be approached to give out voters guides. I urge the parish not to give out such guides. We may, in some cases, agree with them, but often they violate the principles found in "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship." That document makes clear the complexity of this situation, the need for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and the proper position of the Catholic Church. Other guides may be helpful to some people, but what they lack is the all-embracing guide to Catholic teaching and the proper formation of a Catholic conscience.
Each parish should feel free to copy this letter for your people, or if you prefer, to copy a portion of it. I certainly urge you also to foster prayer, simple and nonpartisan, at the appropriate time in the liturgy, such as the Prayer of the Faithful, asking God to send the Holy Spirit on our country in this important time.
