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Many Catholics voted for Barack Obama on the good-conscience basis of material found in the US Bishops statement, Faithful Citizenship (always linked on the sidebar here). Cornelius Murphy is one such Catholic and in this essay he reflects on his responsibility to the bishops' teaching as a faithful Catholic now that the election is over and Obama is president. Here are excerpts from Murphy's article:
A Catholic's Political DutyMurphy goes on to reflect on other critical issues: educational choice; capital punishment; war and peace; and the environment.
The mandates of 'Faithful Citizenship' do not end at the voting booth
By Cornelius F. Murphy, Jr.
in America: the national Catholic weekly
When the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops published Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship in the fall of 2007, their intention was to give moral guidance to Catholics who would be voting in the 2008 elections. The subject of abortion had a special claim upon the formation of a political conscience. While the document allowed Catholics to vote for a candidate who supported reproductive rights, it could be done only if the intention was not to support such rights and if there were truly grave moral reasons for doing so. Since a majority of the Catholics who participated in the presidential election did vote for a pro-choice candidate, some have expressed the opinion that Faithful Citizenship is no longer relevant to our public life. That view is mistaken.
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The hierarchy has long made it clear that church membership involves more than the cultivation of a private piety. The same point was made by the bishops in Faithful Citizenship. They insist that the human person is a social as well as a sacred being. His or her social interactions are not limited to family life or other forms of private association. If our democracy is to prosper, all citizens must take a continuing interest in issues of public policy. No matter what one’s party affiliation, everyone has an ongoing responsibility to promote the temporal common good within the various venues of democratic activity. For Catholics, that involvement must be governed by the social teaching of the church. And for the time being, Faithful Citizenship remains the primary source of such moral instruction.
As a Democrat, I voted for President Barack Obama and I was able to satisfy my own conscience that there were truly grave reasons for doing so. But I am already in the position of having to take a stand against the party leadership on some important issues. It would not be faithful of me to leave it to the bishops to oppose legislation such as the Freedom of Choice Act that will increase abortions, or be silent if executive action following the inauguration would allow embryonic stem cell research. As one bound by the continuing authority of the bishops I have some responsibility to try to defeat such proposals in every way possible.
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Read the complete article here.
-ConcordPastor
Great article CP, thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed what the part where the bishops stated unequivocally that care for the earth is a serious moral issue. They remind us that we have an obligation to be good stewards of our planet.
Catholics as conservationists! Now that's interesting!
When I was Roman Catholic, I was instructed in the primacy of the informed conscience. I am saddened to see more confirmation that this tenet, which to me is central to being a Christian adult and which was central to my being a Roman Catholic adult when I was one, is not known to more American Roman Catholics. The laity are not children but are capable of making their own moral decisions. As a matter of fact, from recent evidence I suspect some laity are more able to make good moral decisions than some members of the hierarchy! *sigh*
ReplyDeletePiskie: I'm a bit confused by your comment. Are you suggesting that Murphy's stance infringes on individual conscience?
ReplyDeleteI have to comment on the approaching 100,000 hits on your site meter! Way to blog. Thanks
ReplyDeleteI thought that was a great article - and as always I am reminded that we are the Body of Christ. We can't all be hands, or feet, or whatever, we are many though one.
ReplyDeleteThat's the gift and the hard part.
Not sure if you saw it, but in the current Commonweal, Cathleen Kaveny wrote an excellent piece on FOCA. She dissected it from a legal viewpoint, which was interesting.
And while we are discussing articles, I was very proud to see my bishop, Howard J. Hubbard's name on the cover of the 2/9/09 issue of America; he wrote beautifully about poverty and peace.
Fran
Just a point of information / clarification re. "Many Catholics voted for Barack Obama..."
ReplyDeleteThe Obama vote in fact correlated strongly with the Catholic population of each state.
In other words, most Catholics seem to have voted for Obama... more enthusiastically, it would appear, than did the non-Catholic population.
I'll leave it to others as to what this means (or doesn't) but on the surface it seems counter-intuitive.
Piskie and CP,
ReplyDeleteMy observation down through my years (which are many) has been that many Catholics were either never instructed about the primacy of conscience, or misunderstood their instruction and thought that the principle did not exist. That being said, I don't think Murphy was actually attacking the primary of conscience principle, but rather was encouraging Catholics to look at many critical issues and making sure they understood both them and what hierarchical leaders might have said about them. (And what leaders have said what!)
Sometimes it was probably just to easy not to think too deeply, but just to do what one thought the Church absolutely required. (Don't eat meat on Friday, go to Mass but pay no attention, just say the Rosary during it, emphasize customs that distinguish the Church from other faiths, like Purgatory and Limbo and indulgences, rather than develop an academic or historic understanding of the Church. Also -many thought Catholics should never read the Bible.)
I remember the fine woman who said, "Never question."
In my own experience, it has seemed, with some exceptions, that among my acquaintance more Democrats than Republicans were closely attuned to many of the Church's charitable, liturgical, and social issues, which may have had a relationship to some Catholic voting behavior.
Piskie and CP,
ReplyDeleteI have realized I have not practiced Charity when commenting on the "Never question", etc. Catholics. Mea culpa! There's a big mote in my eye!
CP, well, yeah. He considers himself "bound by the continuing authority of the bishops." I would like to suggest he consider himself a competent moral agent without binding himself to someone else's ideas.
ReplyDeleteLiving in the balance, I believe, is where one wants to be as a Catholic:
ReplyDelete1) gratefully bound by scripture and tradition
2) faithfully attentive to the church's teachers,
3) solemnly obligated to personal integration of 1 and 2
4) all before God, in the company of the faithful, guided by the Spirit.
Oh CP - I may just have to quote you on that one! Brilliant.
ReplyDeleteFran