This article is reprinted courtesy of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.
Yeats is on my mind, following last evening's election returns. Remember the line? "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold..."
The church's years of efforts in America to support public policies that reflect its moral vision were dealt a blow Tuesday evening. This is true for its traditional concerns for social issues like support for the poor, welcoming the immigrant, stewardship of the environment and so forth. It's no less true for the church's work for progress on the moral issues that have been its crusade in recent decades. Indeed, most importantly, last night was a setback for all of us who have been working for progress against abortion.
Other Catholic commentators will disagree with such analysis, of course. Every nook and cranny of American public life is now suffused with ideological division and Catholics are as divided by their cable news channels and partisanship as Americans generally. I'm enough of a social scientist to suspect that my thinking, too, is compromised by these numbing ideologies.
But, my argument that the church was a loser in this election is not based on worries that Democrats lost or that Republicans won. No, my argument is that the moderates lost and that, in particular, moderate pro-life and pro-Catholic social teaching candidates were defeated by currents in contemporary American political life that are pushing both the GOP and the Democrats toward their respective right and left wings. Not only do both of those wings stand in tension with the church's traditional teachings, but their polarization undercuts the possibility for any real advance on the issues that are priorities for the church.
What are the losses that I have in mind? Let me use two House races to illustrate the larger trend: Republican Joseph Cao in Louisiana's 2nd district and Democrat Kathy Dahlkemper in Pennsylvania's 3rd. Both of these Catholic incumbents are anti-abortion advocates. Both, too, evidence in their votes and public comments a sensitive appreciation of the larger parameters of the church's social teachings. Both, moreover, are the sorts of moderates within their respective parties who might be inclined to reach across party lines and work for policies that the majority of American Catholics want on moral and social issues. Both, however, were especially targeted by opposition parties and lost last evening because moderates are cannon fodder in the ideological war that is contemporary American politics. Dozens of moderates from both parties went down in this election cycle, with the losses of pro-life, moderate Democrats most evident.
For American governance this is bad news. Democracy theorists argue that legislatures depend on moderates for the coalition formation, the bi-partisan cooperation, and the compromising that are so necessary for governing. But, Catholic concerns are directly impacted, as the disappearance of moderates like Cao and Dahlkemper moves the two parties toward policy positions that are worrisome from the perspective of the church's teachings. Overnight the number of anti-abortion Democrats in Congress was decimated. What lesson will that party take from such losses? I worry that it will be the wrong one.
On the GOP side, what lesson will be learned when compassionate conservatives like Cao go down while libertarian and "gospel of wealth" Tea Partiers promising to axe government do-gooders are in the ascendant? It's pretty hard to see now how the bishops' hopes for immigration reform--given the new realities of the GOP--have any chance. Let's also not forget that libertarians are theoretically lukewarm (at best) on issues like abortion. Most importantly, though, the loss of pro-life moderates on the Democratic side makes it awfully hard to see how pro-life forces will be able to cobble together a coalition in Congress for any measurable progress on life issues.
So, what's to be done? The church's teachings stress that Catholics are obliged to promote a politics of the common good--that is, a politics not motivated by partisanship, or ideology, or private interests. The ideal of the common good holds out a response to the polarization that now sunders America's public life. Like any ideal, realization is hard to imagine given the crooked timber of humanity. But, the way forward for our policy concerns depends--it now seems--on changing the corrosive climate of current politics. As Catholics, it's past time to put aside the temptation to use the church's social and moral teachings as wedge issues to sharpen the kind of polarizations that made last evening's election such a loss for us. And (not to sound too grandiose about what to expect) to the extent that we can bring the ideal of common good into the discourse of American public life, we'd not only be helping prospects for our own policy concerns, we'd also probably be helping American governance.
How's this for a starter idea? Perhaps when the American bishops convene this month, they might address the worrisome implications of excessive partisanship and ideological polarization from a Catholic vantage point.
With regard to your point about the defeat of "moderate" Democrats and Republicans, you cite two examples. I would need to see more evidence than that to accept your theory that "pro-life" lost as a result of the election. How many pro-abortionist's lost compared to those in favor of the pro-life position?
Although you don't come out and say it directly, I suspect your call for Catholics not to use the church's "social and moral teachings as wedge issues" is really a call to accept and endorse candidates who are not pro-life when they accept most other Catholic social and/or moral standards. If you believe that abortion is the killing of another human being, such acceptance and compromise is difficult to justify.
I often reread his pages on the nature of pluralistic societies and make that the raison d'être for political compromise. The Catholic Church finds its mission in the mysteries of the Incarnation, the kingship of Jesus, and eternal life more than in moral reprehensibilities, mortal sins if you like, such as abortion. "Father, forgive them." transcends both politics and the stoning of adulterers.
Our moral lives are our personal immediate concern. The consciences of the pregnant woman, of the physician, of the drug addict, of the alcoholic, of the homosexual, of the morally compromised politician, and (let’s say it) of the lecherous cleric are to be reformed by example before law. “We have a law and, according to that law, he must die because…”
Thomas More, now a saint, sought a perfect society and in that quest bloodied the executioner’s axe. We will find the “Common Good” when with the homeless Francis Thompson we see shining “the traffic of Jacob’s ladder/ Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross” and “Christ walking on the water, /not of Genesareth but Thames,” the Hudson, and the San Jacinto.
"The only sad ones are the pro-abortion, government knows best Catholycs."
"Catholic activists push a liberal Democratic agenda."
"We have a chance to repeal the monster of health care."
"I find it difficult to see how this can be construed as a Catholic loss unless one opposes very clear and emphatic church teachigs on these issues."
"Is it just to those who provide tax dollars to care for the thousands who enter our country each week?"
"My reaction to many of Americas positions is that it is just one side of an argument."
Can both sides just get off their soapboxes and be quiet for awhile?
Well, at least there is some comfort that the TV commercials have stopped. This fall must have been the greatest "lie fest" in history - and did I hear that nationally candidates spent over $2 billion during this campaign? How many poor in great need would that have fed? And how much of that is dirty money coming from those who have exploited those whom Christ loved most?
With respect, Father, on abortion, the many Catholic politicians who won are those who have taken Evangelium vitae seriously; whereas, those Catholics who lost are those who have ignored it, especially the crucial paragraphs on material cooperation with evil. I believe that it is precisely the firmly prolife politicians who will also take social teaching seriously in matters of intrinsic good and evil. There will always be prudential differences based on political philosophy, even among orthodox Catholics.
However, many of those who pay lip service to Catholic social teaching, while ignoring her more fundamental moral doctrines, are gone. I can only say Deo gratias!
The center thinks that Yemen should be on notice that its terrorist training camps will soon go the way of Afghanistan's. And, the center thinks that any country that hosts terrorist training camps should be alerted that the same fate awaits the camps in their countries.
The center thinks that repeated disruption is more effective against terrorists than is building up cultures that will be less inclined to harbor them.
Absolutely no ambiguity here, it's not about creating a society which would make it conducive for a woman to give birth to her child. It's the "Legal" right to life.
Any comments ???
So long as a candidate says he or she is against legal abortion, he or she gets the vote. This is true even if he or she believes in putting the Catholic Church under the control of the government and forcing it to preside over gay weddings. ;}
The article, like so many of the opinion pieces and editorials in America magazine,
assumes that illegal immigration is a human right, favored by the bishops and by all right-thinking Catholics. Like most Americans, and certainly most of the people who contribute to America's blogs, I consider it no such thing.
I hope, but without much optimism, that the Republican House, the Democratic Senate, and Obama can help the US get out of the financial mess created by Democratic legislation, Republican lack of regulation, and millions of feckless, dishonest borrowers, crooked mortgage brokers, and robber baron bankers.
I sympathize with your feelings. You may be right.
But you should remember that on the issue of state terrorism only about one tenth of all the 535 members voted the right away. One must assume that 90% of the Catholics went along with this dreadful resolution promoted by Israel.
I am with you on abortion, but I assume that you will recognize the right of life of the 410 children who were shelled or bombed to their death....with alarming silence on all sides of the Church.
Before we can change the idealogical polarization in the house of Washington, we need to change the polarization in our Church's house. We have a Church characterized by criticism, division and intransigence on both social and sexual ethics. We have no sense of compromise despite compelling reasons on various isssues ranging from contraception to abortion under specific circumstances to marriage/divorce. The most recent survey in 2007 shows that the majority of the laity have beliefs about these issues that are far from the Church's official teachings. We also have many priests and bishops that dissent to many doctrines. Such contradiction helps polarize our Catholic house further. With respect to politics and the Catholic citizen, the Kaveny article and the follow up articles by several prominent theologians and clergy is a case in point.
One can argue that the inability to find harmony and solidarity within our own Church on many issues are causing more losses than Tuesday's election results.
Yes, moderates were turned out in large numbers, but justifiably so based on their performance in the Congress that is just now ending.
Conservatives talk about fiscal responsibility and ending excessive spending. Yet, these same folks don't want to even discuss not renewing the Bush tax cuts for the rich, not even in the name of fiscal responsibility. As in the last thirty years, such candidates want the rich and the working poor to be dealt with, taxwise, as a single entity. Guess whose advantage that goes to.
And what "excessive" spending will be cut? We cannot cut the debt we are in, already, for the unjust invasion, occupation and, then, rebuilding of Iraq. Conservatives mention a few things that must be cut, like the recently-passed health care bill. Conservatives talk about that bill as if it were so extremely liberal that it, in fact, constitutes a major inroad of socialism into our society. Yet, many of them voted for it, after gaining a tremendous amount of compromise on the part of the moderates in Congress.
I could go on. But all of these kinds of issues get glossed over when the only question is whether you are an anti-abortion politician or not. All these issues are about life, too. Not opposing social evil is just as wrong as not opposing procreative evil, with all due respect to the New York Bishops.
We should try and eliminate poverty through training, access to education , not through handouts that make no one proud and to bandaids that don't last.
I see these issues as far reaching and very important and much in line with Catholic teaching. For us to have more social justice in society, we need to do a few things and restructure our society away from one of consumption to one of production and education.
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Anarchism and libertarianism are surely cousins, no?
"Based on my faith, I oppose abortion. Based on the Constitution, I also firmly believe that abortion should not be criminalized, and I support a strong reading of our Constitution that does not limit people to exercise their rights only in ways I personally approve of." (The comment continues: search-engine his name for the rest.)
As this is what one founder of CACG boldly thinks and says, a founder who wrongly and deceptively advanced the false notion that Catholics could licitly support the most pro-abortion president in American history and still have favor in the eyes of Christ, readers might now see the author's (again, misplaced) despair at the recent election results. I take special note of Mr Perriello, however, because his positions betray an all too common and very un-Catholic lack of respect for logic: simply, he contradicts himself. The Catholic Faith is not needed to see the horror of abortion, and its violation of human diginity and natural law, and NO one can claim the Faith while supporting abortion in any form. Still, one can conclude these same facts even from the same Constitution Mr Perriello claims to adhere to so "firmly:" either humans have unalienable human rights (life) that cannot be overwhelmed by government-given civil rights ("privacy"), or they do not. Interestingly, Mr Perriello is (commendably) working hard against genocide in Darfur, but strangely he doesn't seem to realize that through is own "logic," all the government of Darfur need do is pass a "law" or "constitution" stating that genocide is a-okay, and he'd have no authority-again, by his very own logic-to protest against it! Would he "firmly" hold to that constitution?
Thus, if these un-Catholic and illogical thoughts are the seeds of CACG, can we be surprised as to the fruit it yields?
I believe the appropriate expression for Mr. Schneck's purpose here would be "prosperity gospel" Which is a distinctly contrary to Catholic teaching.
I wonder what the supporters of abortion say when the Catholics argue about terminating a baby. That is the subject matter. Those who support abortion will not use the word baby. What is being aborted is a baby. This is not a choice of what we are having for dinner. It is whether a baby lives or dies.
I also wonder where these supporters would be on slavery. I am sure they all would be against slavery, yet it was the same Supreme Court said slavery was legal. The public was then and now either you are for or against slavery. The situation is the same for abortion of babies.
I still vote for a probaby candidate which in my state is almost always a republican. The democratic party here in New York is antibaby and pro gay. I believe that gay marriage will be one of the first bills that our new governor will be supporting and he is catholic. What do you think his position is on aborting babies? He supports aborting babies. I vote porbaby and profamily. I hope that we start talking about babies.
I’m humbled by these many gracious comments.
The consensus concern seems to be where I stand relative to the hot-button issues of American politics. To be sure, we should probably not be too quick to label one another as enemies or allies. In particular, some commentators presume that I’m soft on abortion because I lament the losses of moderate Democrats and Republicans in this election cycle.
In fact, I am militantly pro-life - in the narrow sense that sees opposing abortion as the foremost duty of present politics and also in the fulsome sense that demands everything encompassed by the Church's moral and social teachings. On this basis, I believe we are called as a nation to step up and do more for life and the common good than we are currently doing. Not less; more. Now is not the time for meanness and self-serving, but rather for caritas and self-sacrifice, recognizing both the role for government and the private resources of civil society. And, more than anything else, what defeats our generation in this task is the ever-sharpening polarization of our public life.
Thanks again to all who responded!