#352: For God and Country?

EXCERPT:

It’s a little too early to tell, but I will not be surprised if the elections of 2012 end up featuring more controversy over religion than in any time since John Kennedy fought to break the Catholic barrier in 1960 (witness the inflammatory remarks by former senator Santorum regarding JFK’s Houston speech on church and state).

If so, it will be for many converging reasons: the continuing national divide over Roe v Wade, the divide among Republicans between social conservatives and traditional business-oriented Republicans, the presence of a Mormon and two Catholics in the Republican race, the determination of the Obama Administration to push against legal exemptions for church-based institutions, and the equally determined resistance of evangelical leaders and the US Catholic bishops.

I have no quarrel with introducing religious beliefs and values into our public life, and even into our political campaigns. But I object when anyone exploits faith as a political tool.

Too often I find that people’s first allegiance is to their own party--and then they selectively invoke whatever religious beliefs and teachings reinforce their own politics. To my mind, politics should be the vehicle for promoting our religious values and beliefs--not the other way around.

Too often, I fear, even bishops and other Catholics have embraced the Republican Party (perhaps in the wake of Roe v. Wade) and then strained very hard to push the Republican camel (oops--I mean elephant) through the eye of the Catholic social values needle. It’s a very tight squeeze, and does violence to both the elephant and the needle.
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A personal disclaimer: I have never registered with a party. I’ve voted for Republicans, Democrats, independents, write-in candidates, and “none of the above.”

I begin by presuming that Catholic social values constitute a well-rounded vision that cannot be fit into the square left-or-right pigeonholes of American politics. In my view, it is impossible to side with Democrats or Republican all the time.
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I never expect to find candidates who reflect Catholic views on all these questions, even when the candidates are themselves Catholics! Instead, most candidates bring their personal political preconceptions to any discussion of public principles, and then invoke “Christian values” only when it is convenient. But it pains me when Catholic church officials do the same thing.

And it saddens me that too few Catholics are trained to employ their faith as a lens to spy whatever bits of wisdom might be imbedded within the vast silliness of today’s political rhetoric.