WHY DOES THE CHURCH SPEAK OUT?

by

Thomas A. Horkan, Jr.

September 16, 1999   

   Questions are often asked, or objections made, to the Church’s advocacy for various life or social justice issues, such as abortion, the death penalty, poverty, agricultural workers, international peace, etc.
   The thought is expressed that these public policy issues, especially abortion or the death penalty, should be left for the personal judgment of Catholics; and further, the bishops or the Florida Catholic Conference should refrain from seeking to impose Catholic thought, ethics, morality or doctrine on people or on government.
   This is a provocative question.  For the most part, the objections are made to particular issues, as most people welcome the Church actively supporting causes they agree with.  Nonetheless, it is a serious question and one that should be addressed.
   When this question was recently posed to me, my thoughts were immediately directed toward the Irish.  They were driven out of their country, came to the United States and suffered extensive oppression and bigotry.  It was, in fact, the Catholic priests and bishops who came to their defense and rallied them in self-defense against what would now be readily acknowledged as vicious religious bigotry.
   I next thought of the German bishops, who recently expressed their sorrow and apology for their failure to speak out against the oppression of the Nazi regime against Jews and and members of other minority groups.  They now admit that their concern was protecting Catholics and the Church while their brothers and sisters were being persecuted.  They spoke in sorrow and shame for that conduct.
   Those prosaic and secular responses are hardly persuasive in the Church today.
   Fortunately, at about the same time, I was cleaning out some old files and ran across a copy of a 1982 talk given by Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati addressing this very subject.  He said there are two basic reasons for this advocacy by the Church.

   ". . . The first reason is that God has called us to love our neighbor, every neighbor.  And God calls us to love every neighbor simply because he loves them.  And he loves them all:  the corporation president, the AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) mother, the mentally handicapped, the ne’er do-well, the diligent, the attractive, and lonely, all."

   ". . . We are called to work for the oppressed, the persecuted, the poor, the unemployed, the sick, the suffering, whoever and wherever they are. Why?
   Because if God is our Father, then they are our sisters and brothers.   And that’s not politics, or economics or social theory.  It’s simply our response to God’s command to love our neighbor."

   ". . . The second reason why the church and her leadership and her membership are involved in matters of poverty and peace and justice is because we have learned that economic and social and political systems do not drop out of the sky fully formed and unchangeable.  No, people make the systems, and people are responsible for the systems they live with and people can change the systems.  And if the systems or the societies are oppressive, or unjust or unfair to our brothers and sisters in the Lord, then we have to do what we can to modify the systems in order to look after those we love."

   ". . . We are responsible for loving our neighbor and we are responsible for the way our society’s systems deal with our neighbor.   That’s why the church teaches and preaches and leads in these matters.   It’s not always easy, of course.  Sometimes the solutions to the problems are not clear."

   "Sometimes we ourselves feel confused or threatened just by having to begin to deal with the problems.  We cannot refuse to face the problems because they are difficult any more than we can refuse to love our neighbor because loving our neighbor sometimes proves difficult."

   Several years ago, the U. S. bishops issued a statement on political responsibility, saying:

   "The challenge for our Church is to be principled without being ideological, to be political without being partisan, to be civil without being soft, to be involved without being used.  Our moral framework does not easily fit the categories of right or left, Republican or Democrat.

   We are called to measure every party and movement by how its agenda touches human life and human dignity.  For example, we stand with various religious and other groups to protect the unborn and defend the family; we also insist that a test of public advocacy is how public policies touch the poor and the weak.

   "A key question is where are 'the least among us' in any national agenda?
   "This kind of political responsibility does not involve religious leaders telling people how to vote or religious tests for candidates.  These would be, in our view, pastorally inappropriate, theologically unsound, and politically unwise.
   "Rather, we seek to lift up the moral and human dimensions of public issues for our own community and for the broader society.  We encourage people to use their voices and votes to enrich the democratic life of our nation and to act on their values in the political arena."

   One who advocates the right to life of the unborn child may wish the bishops wouldn’t speak to issues of peace and justice.
   Others, whose interests are in peace or justice, may wish them to keep quiet about the unborn or the terminally ill.  But the Church is not here to be popular; nobody ever said being a Catholic is suppose to be easy.
   These Church leaders explain more eloquently than I ever could why we should be thankful and proud that the Church in Florida has so often spoken out for each and every of our least sisters and brothers.