The heavy burden of ‘faithful citizenship’
By Rayanne Damiano
This is a political confession.
There have been times during the past decade or so when the responsibility of “faithful citizenship” has been so complicated and difficult that it has kept me from voting.
Yes, even as I was writing editorials and columns encouraging my fellow Catholics to exercise their right and duty to vote, I found myself unable to cast my own ballot when Election Day arrived.
It was a failure, to be sure, but one that I felt helpless to change. With the utmost respect for the USCCB’s document Faithful Citizenship, A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility, I am also acutely aware that it presents Catholics with a nearly impossible task – to find a candidate that endorses all of the positions our Church embraces in support of the common good and the Gospel message.
As we know, such a candidate does not exist. We pray for the day when this individual will emerge from the political ranks, but until that day happens, we are left in the position of assessing which positions we can live with in our elected officials, and which we cannot.
The debate within the Catholic community over the past few months has underscored the position that the abortion question is paramount in our consideration of who should be the next president. One candidate seeks to restrict abortion while the other upholds the right of women to choose to abort their unborn children. There are clear indications in both Faithful Citizenship, Evangelium Vitae and a host of other pastoral documents and encyclicals that point to the fact that there is no more critical issue than the sanctity of human life – particularly that of the unborn. Without the essence of life, the other values we seek in our society are meaningless. The fact that this column even raises questions will likely outrage some individuals, for whom the case should clearly be closed.
But if we are to truly embrace“faithful citizenship,” the matter should never be closed. Clearly, when it comes to “faithful citizenship,” if it doesn’t hurt, we’re not doing it right.
We cannot have everything we want, and nothing is settled. Even as we carefully consider the issues and come up with the only answer we can accept, we should be doing so mindful of our compromise. We must never forget those who will suffer as a result of our elected candidate’s shortcomings, and we must become resolute that more must be done to effect change.
There was a time, before Roe vs. Wade, when Catholics by vast majority voted in support of what has now been castigated as the “liberal agenda.” We would have been deeply troubled by the failing grade this administration has on poverty, as evidenced by its own recent consensus; we would have not stood by while poverty received almost no mention in either parties’ campaigns. The most prominent numbers in our consideration would not have been the 1.3 million lives lost to abortion each year, and the exponential numbers that could be sacrificed to embryonic stem cell research, but the body count updated daily out of Iraq, where more than 1,000 military personnel have died, along with an estimated 20,000 Iraqi civilians.
But the political waters are now so muddy that few politicians even recognize such an entity as a Catholic vote. So inconsequential would a Catholic vote be to the campaigns that both candidates chose not to respond to a position survey requested by USCCB for release to the Catholic community.
They know they have us in a quandary, for how can this choice be absolute for any Catholic who seeks to be politically responsible? The man who has a “pro-life” platform limits his scope to abortion and stem cell research and excludes the question of the death penalty, which he has stridently supported in his political career. His execution of a pre-emptive war has been condemned by the Holy Father, and his view that diplomatic efforts are seemingly synonymous with compromising national security fly in the face of our Church’s view of global solidarity.
There are those who recognize the sanctity of human life as the quintessential concern, but do not agree that a vote for a “pro-life” president will safeguard the nation against abortion and embryonic stem cell research. Even as we consider that the next president could be instrumental in establishing the legacy of the future Supreme Court with new nominees, some might question the assurances we have that this will ever be enough to reverse Roe vs. Wade as the law of the land. There are those who might consider, instead, other ways to attack the problem of abortion; opting instead for social services and conversion of hearts.
But this is no true resolution. A nation’s laws are among the surest barometers of its moral character. We cannot let laws that violate the sanctity of human life . . . all human life . . . stand on the books. We must take steps to bring about laws that protect human life in all its forms. And we run a real risk of advancing the assault against life if we support a candidate who fails to recognize the inherent dignity and personhood of even the earliest spark of humanity. We need only regard the foothold given the biogenetic industry here in New Jersey by our proembryonic stem cell governor James McGreevey to recognize the damage that could be done by a candidate with similar tendencies.
Catholics are called to be counter-cultural in many aspects of our culture; but nowhere is the difference between us and the rest of the nation as clear as with our call to “faithful citizenship.”
I am determined to exercise my
duty this time. But I do so with a
heavy heart. And I am more determined
than ever in the challenge
that “faithful citizenship” does not
end when we close the voting booth
curtain. It is inherent in how we
live our lives, the things that we
claim as important to us and how we
dedicate our efforts.
*The attached/referenced article was originally published in The Catholic Spirit, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Metuchen, and is protected under U.S. and international copyright law