#468: The NFL’s Loyalty Test

  The controversy swirling around the bended knees by NFL players raises issues about our national identity and our commitment to it. 

On Thursday, the Supreme Court Justice picked by Donald Trump spoke to a select audience about defending the First Amendment. Here is what Neil Gorsuch said:

To be worthy of the First Amendment freedoms, we have to all adopt certain civil habits that enable others to enjoy them as well. When it comes to the First Amendment, that means tolerating those who don’t agree with us or those whose ideas upset us, giving others the benefit of the doubt about their motives.

Also Thursday, Tennessee Titans tight end Delanie walker revealed that he and his family had been receiving death threats.  These were apparently how fans responded after he suggested that fans should not come to NFL games if they felt disrespected by player protests.  

These two events reveal the opposite extremes the controversy has surfaced.

It’s tempting to think that the upset over the NFL protests is a mere distraction from the more serious problems facing America.  Certainly, for Trump himself, it is convenient if the public and media fight among themselves over the NFL players rather than focusing their attention on his handling of affairs with North Korea, or his slow response to the crisis in Puerto Rico, or his tax plans.

But in 21^st century America, matters of race are never a “mere distraction.” And this case is above all about race.  But the real and unfortunate distraction has been to pretend that is about something else. So perhaps it is helpful to reflect and clarify on how the controversy about the NFL is a test of loyalty both for Americans and for Christians.

The clarification requires stating some basic facts to clear the air:

First: the NFL players did not introduce politics onto the playing field.  This was done in 2009 when the U.S. government began paying the NFL millions to stage “patriotic” events before each game: color guards, gun salutes, fly-overs—all designed to boost recruiting efforts by whipping up patriotic fervor.  In short, this is government-paid advertizing for the military, and it had the effect of bringing politics onto the NFL’s playing fields.

It’s just silly to complain if the players, understanding that politics is already at work here, decide to take advantage of the situation someone else has created.

Second: the players are not protesting the flag or the anthem.  Colin Kaepernick explicitly said that he meant no disrespect to either, but was in fact protesting the bad treatment of African Americans by police.  One may agree or disagree about the issue of police brutality, but it has nothing to do with either our flag or national anthem.

Third, this is not a protest about soldiers or veterans.  The original protest about police brutality has been transformed, in response to Trump’s “Sons of bitches” attack, into a protest about the First Amendment itself.  In neither instance are the players attacking, objecting to, or showing any disrespect for members of the military.  In fact many protesters are themselves veterans, and many other veterans support them. 

The players did not make the decision to have soldiers on the field, and they should not have to take any responsibility for it.  The players need to be on the field to play the game, but football could continue even if no soldier ever set foot on the gridiron.

Fourth: player salaries have nothing to do with the protests.  Yes, these players are millionaires - -but they are responding in protest to the attacks of someone who is even richer than they are. To allow a billionaire president to make such attacks, and then to claim that his target audience cannot protest because they are rich, is completely inconsistent. 

Some fans are even arguing that the players are “ungrateful” because they want to protest despite being well paid.  But First Amendment rights cannot be bought off; players do not lose those rights when they accept a paycheck, no matter how large.  And since most of them are African-Americans, calling them ungrateful sounds like a new way of calling Black Americans “uppity.”

Bill Russell takes a knee with his Medal of Freedom

Fifth:  Kneeling is not disrespectful.  The simple fact is, kneeling has been a gesture of respect, loyalty, even fealty, for centuries.  Many of us kneel when we pray, as a sign of respect.  And many players kept their hands over their hearts to reinforce that sign of respect.  This protest does not use kneeling as a sign of disrespect, but simply as a sign of protest--first, a protest against racialized police brutality, and second as a protest in favor of First Amendment rights.

Sixth:  Thus the real issues are (1) racialized police violence and (2) the right to protest itself--that is, free speech.

Once we accept the facts of the case, we can look at the underlying question of loyalty.

Loyalty here can mean many things.  It can mean loyalty to a flag, or to a song, or to a team, or to the Constitution, or even to a higher law.

Many Americans of course have strong emotional feelings about the flag, and we’re even in the habit of pledging our allegiance to it.  But while the actions that surround the flag often suggest that people regard it as something sacred, this cannot really be true. 

First, the U.S. Supreme Court has long determined that in the name of protest people may even burn the flag.  It also ruled that people have the right not to salute the flag. What this demonstrates, no matter how you feel about it, is that the right to protest is more important than this piece of cloth.  We cannot defend the flag by preventing protest.  Instead, we must protect protest even if it harms the flag.

Many Americans also have strong emotional attachment to the national anthem.  And the singing of the anthem at sports events became popular and routine during the 20^th century, and especially during and after World War II.  But most people only know the first verse, and except for the final line “The land of the free and the home of the brave,” the rest of the song is simply a celebration, not of American values or institutions, but of a battle victory over the British in 1812. 

The song has been linked to sports, but we do not sing it in a theater before a movie, or a play, or in church before each ceremony.  We are perfectly capable of being Americans and celebrating American values and institutions whether we sing this song or not.

These things symbolize our nation and our people, but they are only that: symbols. If we treat them as though we must love them to love the country, we make them fetishes, as if they are the whole of us. It’s like loving someone’s big toe, instead of the whole person. This is not patriotism, it’s pathology.

And worse, to turn this song or this flag into something sacred—something, for example, higher than protest itself--is to fail the loyalty test that Americans, and especially American Christians, should be passing.

For Americans, the values enshrined in our Constitution are the highest standards we possess as a people.  The right to protest is the First Right among these, and nothing else in our social life is higher or more important.  Any attempt to prevent rightful protest as “disrespectful” to the flag or the anthem--or even to the military--is actually an act of profound disrespect for the Constitution itself, the very foundation of our nation, which those other things represent..

And for Christians, the lesson should be even more obvious.  Treating any object--a song, a flag, even a veteran or soldier--as something sacred fails the test of loyalty to the First Commandment: “Thou shall not have false gods.” Christians believe that only God is sacred, and that God’s will creates a higher law than any other law.

That law includes, especially for Catholics, the idea that we are one human family, all children of God, all brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, and that therefore any division among us is a scandal to our faith.

 The very notion that Blacks in our country have been mistreated for centuries must be a source of shame to all of us.  That shame reflects the fact that America has failed to do God’s will for centuries, that slavery really is our original sin, and that we have not finished our penance and amendment for that sin. Using the flag and the anthem as camouflage to hide that makes the sin worse. Using our soldiers as human shields to hide our sin is worst of all.

So while loyalty to team, to flag, to a song, to the military may all be good things, the real test of our loyalties this: is our first loyalty as Americans to the Constitution?  Is our first loyalty as people of faith to the will of God and God’s higher law?

Viewed this way, the controversy is hardly a “mere distraction.” As serious as the other problems facing us are, this challenge of loyalty to God and Constitution cannot be ignored, cannot be forgotten, cannot be avoided.  It is a test of loyalty that, sooner or later, this nation must pass—or the nation will fail.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2017

#444: To Defeat Terror, We Must Fight Islamophobia

 Fearing or blaming Islam for terrorism only cultivates more terror.

As the mass murders pile up, more people are tempted to blame and fear Islam. We hear Ted Cruz proposing we accept Christian refugees but not Muslims and Donald Trump calling to ban even Muslim tourists. And a poll shows New Hampshire voters' paranoia: 53% of Trump supporters favor a "Muslim database," and 49% want to shut down mosques.

Others, like Catholic columnist George Weigel, are more subtly paranoid. Weigel claims that attacks in Paris and elsewhere target “crusader nations” regarded as enemies of the true religion, Islam.  Terrorists killed those who embody “the West,” he thinks--even though many attacks have been in Africa and Asia and Russia. Weigel says terrorists attack due to “religiously-warranted convictions”--as if Islam justifies such attacks.  He says they kill innocents whom they considered “infidels”--even though many victims (even in Paris) have themselves been Muslims.  He asked for prayers for “the ultimate defeat of the evil that he is Jihadist terrorism” by every legitimate means.

Meanwhile, Brown University’s Stephen Kinzer argues that “terrorism and mass migration are bitter results of outside meddling” by colonial and neo-colonial powers--and he predicts they will intensify.  “Interventions multiply our enemies,” he writes, since every act “produces anti-western passion” that can be radicalized into the “thirst for bloody revenge.” Killing such militants backfires: “killing creates more, not fewer” of them.  So retaliation by European and American forces hands the terrorists what they want: to trap us in the quicksands of the Middle East.

So who’s right?  Is Islam to blame, and we must use “every legitimate means” to kill all the “jihadist murderers”? Or is colonial history behind this, and we must find another solution?

Faced with this urgent question, I find myself doing what, by now, has become a regular habit: I consult the global moral wisdom of Pope Francis.  In his view, the real blame for much of the world’s mass violence is fundamentalism, which has become “a disease of all religions.” "Fundamentalism,” he says, “is always a tragedy. It is not religious, it lacks God, it is idolatrous."

Let’s assume Francis is right--he usually is!  Then we must ask: what does this mean?  What is the connection between fundamentalism and terror?

Karen Armstrong’s landmark book The Battle For God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam supplies a clear and practical answer.  Based on her studies of fundamentalist movements in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Armstrong concludes that all fundamentalism follows a regular pattern that can lead to violence. Let me summarize:

Fear.  The pattern begins with discontent or fear.  Almost always it arises among people who live traditional lives and are confronted by “modernity.” This takes many forms: Christians who fears secular humanism, or the sexual revolution, or the theory of evolution; Jews alarmed by the growing Palestinian population in Israel--or even the growth of secular Jews; Muslims who fear the invasion of modern customs of dress, drinking, sexual openness, even feminism.  This fear creates a desire to escape or resist modernity.

Powerlessness.  Next comes a feeling of helplessness.  Such people want to avoid or resist modernity, but they feel its momentum is too powerful to stop.  Naturally, this feeling of powerlessness is strongest among the most desperate: people who are already poor, underprivileged, disadvantaged, or disenfranchised.  In other words, the initial fear of modernity is fueled by inequality.

“Tradition.”  Third, fundamentalism turns to “tradition” as a shield that can protect them from the overwhelming power of modernity.  Often, “tradition” means a specific religious tradition, although secular ideologies (white supremacy, neo-Nazism, etc.) are sometimes used. 

But using tradition as a shield faces an obstacle.  All "western"

religious traditions (including Islam) have a history of adapting to changing times--but fundamentalism needs a shield that is fixed, frozen in time.  This requires distorting the tradition, reshaping it into an immovable barrier against modernity.  Thus fundamentalist Christians insist on a literal interpretation of Genesis (a creation lasting seven 24-hour days) to reject the theory of evolution.  Fundamentalist Catholics pretend that priestly celibacy (and the lifelong virginity of Jesus) are absolute doctrines.  And fundamentalist Muslims twist “sharia” into an oppressive legal system and invoke “jihad” as a pretext for killing innocent people.

Violence. Left alone, fundamentalists may be content to survive sheltered behind the shield of their distorted tradition.  But   they may feel that modernity’s threat requires counterattack.  This can happen in two ways.  First, they may feel attacked from within their religion by those who reject the way they distort tradition.  Clearly, Jews, Christians, and Muslims all experience such internal conflicts.  Second, fundamentalists may feel attacked by outside forces representing modernity itself.  Thus the Russian invasion of Afghanistan brought “godless communism” to the fundamentalists’ doorstep.  And repeated intrusions by Western powers--especially the Western military presence in the sacred spaces of Saudi Arabia--threatened to pierce the shield across the Middle East.

Once they are thus cornered, fearful fundamentalists may then turn to violence.  It may be directed at Planned Parenthood (by Christians), at innocent concert-goers (by Muslims), or at Palestinian teens (by Jews).  And it finds a pretext for such violence by invoking “tradition”--even when those traditions do not, in reality, warrant such attacks.

Weaponizing religion.  The final stage comes when this newly violent version of the religious tradition is then wielded as propaganda to “inspire” other discontented people, who then become recruits to terrorism, even to suicidal violence.  Thus fundamentalism reveals itself as the “disease of all religions” whose cancerous expansion can finally metastasize into random outbreaks of terrorism whenever (1) people fear the culture around them and (2) can be converted to embracing the lie of “tradition as weapon.”

Since 9/11, we have learned that anything—a plane, shoes, underwear, a kitchen pot—can be weaponized. But perhaps the most powerful weapon comes when one mutilates faith into a form of hate.

Karen Armstrong’s convincing portrait of fundamentalism leads me to conclude that people like George Weigel have it backwards.  Terrorists are not actually motivated by their religious faith.  What moves them is their fear of the world around them, which breeds a desire for “revenge” so fierce that they hijack their own religion.  Islam does not justify terrorism, nor does it inspire terrorism.  Rather, some hate-and-fear-filled people exploit Islam as a handy “tool” they can use to rationalize the evil they do.  And this rationalization is not a “religious warrant” for terror—it is (like ANY rationalization) just an excuse. In short, Islam does not provoke terror; rather, those already committed to terror invoke Islam since it suits their purpose.

Thus the terrorists are not dangerous because they are Muslim.  They are dangerous because, since they’re so filled with hate, they reject Islam’s peaceful message and will use anything, even their own religion, as a weapon against those they hate. 

The truth is that almost all of us find that “modernity” is difficult at times.  The modern world is full of rapid change, diversity, even conflicts.  Few of us embrace these easily and naturally.  But most of us cope with the challenges of modern life and carry on.  For others, the challenges prove too much.  And whether the result is emotional disorder that leads to violent behavior, or even blind hatred that twists faith into lethal form, we must remember that they’re reacting against something that makes them afraid, helpless, and irrational.  Until we develop the means to eliminate that fear, that helplessness, and that irrationality, modernity will continue to inspire dangerous reactions. 

If we attack or blame their religion, we merely make modernity (which now “rejects” their faith) even more threatening to others who may be vulnerable to the terrorists’ propaganda. THEY may claim the battle is about “Islam vs. the West"—but we must not accept their version of events. We must not help them do their job. To defeat them, we must fight against their demonization of Islam.

The cancer of terror has reached the point where it seems out of control.  It is too late to undo the history that unleashed terror, but it is not too late to help terrorism’s potential recruits—the disenfranchised, disillusioned youth of the Middle East, Europe, and America--learn constructive ways to cope with the challenges of modern life. 

Of course, this would require, not military force, but a solution to the vast inequalities that leave millions afraid, powerless, and desperate.  And so far, we have been much better at producing guns than good will. Can we change?

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2015

#248: Does Christmas Have a Future?

This reflection on Christmas in our culture comes from 2008:

The “Second Battle of Lexington” rages on in 2008.

More than two decades ago the ACLU launched a campaign to remove nativity scenes from public property, and in 1998 that movement reached the very town green in Lexington, Massachusetts where the "shot heard round the world" opened the American Revolution.

For nearly 30 years, the local Knights of Columbus had placed in nativity scene on Lexington Green, but now some town officials were threatening to revoke the K of C’s permit. The K of C countered with a threat to sue, and a diverse group of religious leaders invited me to help them build a consensus proposal to resolve the dispute.

Early on, this group--including a Mason, a Catholic priest, three Protestant ministers, and a K of C member--agreed to stand firm on the K of C’s First Amendment right to display Christmas symbols on public land. Their logic: to restrict religious observances and activities to private land would exclude even religious processions--including funeral corteges traveling public roads from church to cemetery!

Their final plan offered the compromise of restricting the nativity display to a shorter period, while acknowledging that other displays (Menorahs, Kwanzaa symbols, even Santa and snowmen) might claim equal rights.

The Lexington Selectman ignored the offer and dodged the First Amendment issue by claiming a security problem with the permit, and requiring the K of C to post guards 24/7 throughout the display period. The K of C, unable to manage this, settled for a "Nativity Pageant" held on a single day.

At stake in this “Second Battle of Lexington,” of course, was the erosion of Christmas as a public event--erosion that has continued since 1998 as similar battles have erupted around the country, reaching a new intensity and range in 2008. As USA today reported just last week:

Christians and traditionalists across the nation, fed up with what they view as the de-emphasizing of Christmas as a religious holiday, are filing lawsuits, promoting boycotts and launching campaigns aimed at restoring references to Christ in seasonal celebrations.

From New Jersey to California, Christians are moving to counter years of lawsuits that have made governments wary about putting Nativity scenes on public property, and that occasionally have led schools to drop Christmas carols from holiday programs.

Examples abound. A Federal judge ordered Bay Harbor Islands (Florida) to allow a nativity scene next to a menorah following a discrimination lawsuit. In Denver, church members picketed the holiday parade after their Christmas-themed float was rejected. A California group boycotted Macy's stores, claiming their parent organization had forbidden clerks from saying "Merry Christmas." The Maplewood (New Jersey) school board face protests for dropping even instrumental Christmas music from school programs. Parents in Mustang (Oklahoma) defeated a school bond referendum after nativity scenes were dropped from school holiday programs. Members of a church in Kansas City (Kansas) protested the secularization of Christmas by dressing like Jesus at their jobs, malls and restaurants.

What's going on here?

This battle is hardly new. In fact, disputes over Christmas predate the First Battle of Lexington. In puritan Massachusetts, the General Court banned Christmas observances in 1659 lest they compete with the Sunday Sabbath. Even taking the day off work was punishable:

Whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting or any other way . . . shall pay for every such offense five shillings, as a fine to the county.

Of course, while this ban was anti-Christmas, it was not anti-Christian; ironically, Lexington's first parish church was, in fact, originally built on the very Town Green where a crèche is now banned.

But over the centuries much has changed, and in recent years Christmas has become a lightning rod for the Americans who differ about the place of Christianity in American life.

Moreover this history of US conflicts over Christmas fits into a larger, longer history: the long-term evolution of Christmas in Christian tradition itself.

Early Christians did not have a feast day for Jesus’ birthday, until the need to compete with the Roman winter solstice festival "Sol Invictus" ("Unconquered Sun") required a distinctively Christian symbol for winter’s shifting from darkness to light. Designating December 25 as Jesus’ birthday fit the bill perfectly.

Subsequent centuries saw a modest feastday gradually expanded by the medieval period’s devotion to Mary, by Saint Francis of Assisi’s introduction of crèche and animals to the Christian imagination, by the focus on Saint Nicholas (later Santa Claus) and the custom of gift-giving that opened the door to today’s “Christmas Capitalism.” German, English, and French customs all melted into the Christmas we know now, replete with trees, wreaths, stockings, and carols. And the dominance of Europe in this evolution led to Christmas as a winter festival, though most Christians today live--as the first Christians did—in lands where Christmas falls amid mild weather or even during summer .

So unlike Easter, which has anchored Christian faith from the beginning, Christmas has not been a constant or essential fixture in Christian history. Generations of Christians managed quite well without any Christmas at all.

Yet for many American Christians, Christmas has come to overshadow Easter.

Children clearly anticipate Christmas stockings and presents more than Easter clothes and candies. Grownups spend weeks or even months in shopping and decorating. "Baby Jesus meek and mild" has more popular sentimental appeal then Jesus the itinerant preacher, Jesus the suffering victim, or even Jesus the Risen Lord. Many Christians confuse the birth of Jesus with the Incarnation of God into human form (more properly linked with Jesus’ conception, and officially observed on March 25). Santa has become such an object of faith that speaking the truth--that Jesus is the real part of Christmas, and Santa is the fun make-believe part--is a public taboo, to the point that many people link the loss of Santa with a loss of innocence or even a loss of faith.

And the marketplace's frenzy over Christmas has made Christmas more about “giving” than about embracing the Peace Jesus promised. Thus Christmas season has become so exhausting that, since many Americans are so tired of celebrating by Christmas Day, we often see trashed Christmas trees on the curb as early as December 26th.

In other words, we have largely lost the wise psychic rhythm of the Christmas liturgical tradition, which used Advent for quiet preparation and then celebrated Christmas beginning December 24th. For most, Christmas Day now ends the Christmas season rather than beginning it, and most Americans hear “The Twelve Days of Christmas” without knowing when they are.

Is this kind of Christmas really worth saving for the future? And is that even possible? For me, a few things seem evident.

One: “Christmas” in America will become increasingly detached from the cultural customs the protestors are trying to protect. Millions of Americans will celebrate Christmas with little or no reference to the birth of Jesus, and even the number of “Christmas Catholics” will dwindle.

Two: Ironically enough, Christmas Day will remain a legal holiday, simply because our economy cannot survive without it. Even during boom times, this season brings 40% of retail sales and nearly 80% of toys and entertainment sales. Without Christmas, American capitalism collapses.

Three: The “holiday season” will continue to evolve toward a generic celebration of winter’s shift from darkness to light, embracing symbols from Christmas to Chanukah to Kwanzaa to other symbolic traditions.

Four: Christians who maintain “the reason for the season” will find themselves increasingly a minority whose observance of Jesus’ birthday is the exception to the cultural rule—but Christians will also find that asserting their right to celebrate Christmas publicly will gain respect as a key proof that America is evolving a new identity as a nation simultaneously religious and pluralized.
In that sense, we will have won the battle for the future of Christmas.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2008

#373: Which Catholic Candidate?

It would be tempting—but wrong—to assume that one VP candidate represents our faith, while the other does not.

Last week’s Catholic media has been full of politics.  Everyone seems to be trying to prove that their Vice-presidential candidate is a better representative of Catholic teaching. We even have some bishops proclaiming that Joe Biden cannot receive communion in their dioceses.

We have known since summer that the presidential race featured two Catholic Vice-presidential candidates.  But only on October 10 did we get to compare and contrast Joe Biden and Paul Ryan face to face on the subject of their Catholic faith.

The Vice-presidential debate was nearly over when moderate Martha Radditz posed this question:

This debate is, indeed, historic. We have two Catholic candidates, first time, on a stage such as this. And I would like to ask you both to tell me what role your religion has played in your own personal views on abortion.

Please talk about how you came to that decision. Talk about how your religion played a part in that. And, please, this is such an emotional issue for so many people in this country...

Although the question focused somewhat narrowly on abortion--almost as though abortion is the only “Catholic” issue--it also offered a useful opening for two broader questions: 1. What difference does Catholic Social Teaching make in their respective political positions?  2.  Which candidate is more consistent and reflecting Catholic social teaching?

It is instructive, but also surprising, to start with the answers the candidates gave Radditz. In fact, both candidates answered “Yes, but…”

Paul Ryan said:

I don't see how a person can separate their public life from their private life or from their faith. Our faith informs us in everything we do. My faith informs me about how to take care of the vulnerable, of how to make sure that people have a chance in life.

Now, you want to ask basically why I'm pro-life? It's not simply because of my Catholic faith. That's a factor, of course. But it's also because of reason and science…Now I believe that life begins at conception.

That's why -- those are the reasons why I'm pro-life.

Joe Biden said:

My religion defines who I am, and I've been a practicing Catholic my whole life. And has particularly informed my social doctrine. The Catholic social doctrine talks about taking care of those who -- who can't take care of themselves, people who need help. With regard to -- with regard to abortion, I accept my church's position on abortion as a--what we call a de fide doctrine. Life begins at conception in the church's judgment. I accept it in my personal life. 

But I refuse to impose it on equally devout Christians and Muslims and Jews, and I just refuse to impose that on others…I do not believe that we have a right to tell other people that -- women they can't control their body. It's a decision between them and their doctor…I'm not going to interfere with that.

In other words, both candidates were saying, in effect, that Catholic Social Teaching makes no difference in their position on abortion.  Ryan would be pro-life on scientific and medical grounds, even if he were not Catholic.  And Biden chooses not to apply Catholic teaching on abortion to public policy.  So in both cases, their political positions are not different because of their Catholic faith.

Biden did mention Catholic Social Doctrine more broadly, implying that his overall politics better reflect Catholic Social Teaching than Ryan’s politics do.  But the debate ended there. This, of course, begs the question: what if we dig deeper?

CrossCurrents readers know my general take on the relation between Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and our major political parties: CST does not fit into conventional political categories of “liberal” or “conservative.” We cannot expect CST to favor either the Democratic or the Republican platforms.

Consider some major 2012 issues.

“Big Government” or “Small Government”?  The general dividing line between these parties, for example, concerns the size of government: Democrats favor a larger, more “progressive” government, while Republicans favor a smaller, less “intrusive” government.  But CST has no preference in principle.  That’s because CST has no doctrine on the best size for government. 

Rather, the chief principle here is “the common good.” All government must serve the common good as much as possible--and how it does that is a matter of prudential judgment.  Because government is just a means to achieve the end of the common good, it must leave room for other institutions (from families and local communities on up)--but it must also be powerful enough to address social needs that other institutions cannot meet.  In CST, there is no magic formula for this.

Taxes: Up or Down?  Another debated issue in 2012 is taxes. On this, as on government itself, CST does not lay down any grand principle.  It regards taxes as the main source for the funding that government needs to do its job.  If that job is promoting the common good (in collaboration with other institutions), then taxes are good insofar as they enable the common good, and paying taxes is one way that we, as citizens, support the common good. 

Whether any citizen should pay more or less depends on whether such change would enhance or hinder progress toward the common good of all.  This means that raising and lowering taxes is never good or better in principle, but depends on the specific case.

We may debate, then, whether a specific tax hike or tax cut better serves the common good.  But politicians who pledged never to raise taxes (as Ryan has)  are demonizing taxes, contrary to CST, rather than seeing them as a potential instrument for good.

Wealth and Poverty.  We hear a lot in 2012 about the “middle class” and “job creators.” But neither side says much less about the “working class” or the poor.  Yet CST favors attention to the poor as a top priority.  Moreover, CST decries extreme income inequality between classes.  US inequality has grown steadily since 1970, and ranks worst among advanced industrial nations. Yet any attempt to close that gap by redistributing wealth, something CST favors, generally gets labeled “socialism.” In this respect, CST falls to the left even of the Democratic Party.  As Benedict XVI wrote: “we cannot remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice.”

Human Rights. The same is true for human rights: As a general rule, the Church’s list of human rights is considerably longer than either US political party, for while Americans tend to think only of civil rights (voting, public access, freedom from discrimination, due process, First Amendment rights), Catholicism also embraces many economic and social rights: education, health care, just wages, labor rights, immigration.  On many such rights, our popes since 1960 have staked out positions well to the left of the Democratic Party. And these positions are not merely nice goals; they are matters of principle.

With all this in mind, I’m not terribly surprised that the debate revealed that, despite their rhetoric, the personal faith of our two Catholic candidates does not make much difference in their politics.  Like most American Catholics, they appear to get their politics from their parties and other secular sources, not from their Church (for example, see http://www.onourshoulders.org/ for Ayn Rand’s influence on Paul Ryan,). And like most Catholics, they reinterpret Catholic Social Teaching to fit their personal politics--or, on inconvenient issues, they ignore it all together.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2012

#371 Manipulating the Catholic Vote

Now that Catholics represent a critical swing-voting group, some Catholics cannot resist exploiting faith to push their political agenda.

We hear a lot of complaints about “cafeteria Catholics.” But every election cycle brings another kind of Catholic into public view: the kind ready to exploit our faith for political gain.  I call them “Self-serve Catholics”.

In our time, this has mainly happened on the conservative side of the political spectrum.  The original Self-serve Catholics were Goldwater Republicans, chronically irked by the steadfast support of Catholics (80%) for John F. Kennedy.  Such Catholics were delighted when Lyndon Johnson’s civil rights leadership (1964, 1965) undermined the “Dixiecrats” (conservative southern Democrats) and turned the south over to the Republicans.  They were equally delighted when Roe v. Wade (1973) polarized the Catholic vote.  Catholics had been block Democratic voters since the days of Al Smith (1928), but by 1980 many were “Reagan Democrats” and over the last 30 years Catholics have become the largest swing vote in the nation.

The results delighted Self-servers: from 1968 to 2004, every President elected came from the south or California, far from the traditional Catholic liberal bedrocks of northeast urban centers.  And in 2004, even Catholic candidate John Kerry managed to get only 47% of the Catholic vote, largely because a caucus of conservative American bishops labeled him a bad Catholic.

But then, in 2008, Barack Obama regained the Catholic majority, and became the first northern liberal elected since John Kennedy.  This has left Self-servers doubling their efforts to regain conservative control of the Catholic vote.

I have repeatedly demonstrated that neither major party platform conforms to Catholic Social Teaching (CST), so neither party can lay claim to the Catholic vote as a right.  But Self-serve Catholics, undaunted by facts, continue trying to manipulate the Catholic vote using two main tactics.  First, they argue that only one issue should determine Catholic votes.  Second, they demonize one party (the Democrats) as immoral, anti-Catholic, even godless.

1. Single Issue Crusades.  In the 1960s, Self-serve Catholics struggled to find a Catholic litmus test for Democrats to fail: prayer in schools, sex education, birth control.  But after Roe v. Wade, the struggle shifted to attacking anyone who did not agree that legal prohibition of abortion was the best way to stop abortions.  In the last 10 years, gay rights and especially same-sex marriage have become new “single issue” options, but this year Self-serve Catholics have gone back to birth control, like this argument by columnist George Weigel:

Over the past four years, the Federal government has made unprecedented efforts to erode religious freedom.  The gravest assault was the “contraceptive mandate” issued earlier this year by the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services: an offense to conscientious Catholic employers who believe what the church believes about the morality of human love and the ethics of the right to life, and a frontal attack on the institutional integrity of the Church.  For with the HHS mandate, the Federal government seeks nothing less than to turn the Catholic Church’s charitable and medical facilities into state agencies that facilitate practices the Catholic Church believes are gravely evil.

I have already explained why “offense to conscience” is a bogus argument against the HHS mandate (see CrossCurrents #350).  In America, the issue of religious freedom is already guaranteed by the First Amendment—and enforcing it is the responsibility of our courts, not our elected officials.  In fact, the matter is already in court.  If the courts decide this mandate does infringe on the Church’s religious freedom, then the mandate will go.  If not, the mandate will remain and Self-serve Catholics will continue to fight it, but they will lose any legitimate claim that it violates our rights.  Either way, the outcome has nothing to do with elections.

But facts are no deterrent to Self-serve Catholics.

2. Demonizing Democrats. George Weigel leads the crusade with relatively moderate rhetoric that nonetheless crosses the line.  He says “The Catholic Church is under assault of the United States today.” He argues that this assault violates the principle that “the state respect the sanctuary of conscience, so that the Church’s people are not required by law to do things the Church teaches are immoral.”

I confessed this dangerous-sounding language baffles me.  I picture federal police force-feeding birth control pills to Catholics citizens.  I wonder: precisely what immoral action will the government require people to do?  Will it require anyone to use contraceptives?  No.  Will it require anyone to buy them?  No.  Will it require Catholics to prescribe them?  No.  Will it require Catholics to pay for them?  Possibly, indirectly, by subsidizing the coverage of contraceptives by insurance companies--but then, we Catholics already subsidize the pharmaceutical companies that sell contraceptives all the time.  I have already explained why participating in the marketing of contraceptives cannot reasonably be called immoral (see CrossCurrents #350).  Yet Self-servers like Weigel persist in charging their political adversaries with immoral assault.

Such talk inspires others Self-servers to more inflammatory rhetoric.  Consider these examples, taken from the “Letters to the Editor” section of the very same issue of the Catholic newspaper in which Weigel’s column appeared.

One reader wrote:

We are already witnessing an attack on our freedom of religion by government edict…As Catholics it is our responsibility to fight against this evil…We should gather…in our churches for prayers to end the assault on our morality by the present administration in Washington and replace it with people with values like our own.

The writer is perfectly justified, of course, in wanting leaders with values like his own.  But he is not justified in invoking his Catholic faith to demonize political opponents as “evil.” Once again, there was no recognition that freedom of religion is already a constitutional right, to be protected by the courts, not politicians.

Another self serving reader made his demonizing even more personal:

The Obama administration’s war on religious freedom launched another attack with help from inside the Church.  Aided by every Catholic heretic in the Massachusetts congressional delegation, the Democrats are attempting to force religious institutions, especially the Catholic Church, to provide immoral medical procedures in violation of God’s law… They’re trying to limit our practice of our faith and to exclude us from the public arena. Our love for Jesus Christ tells us that we cannot allow this. We must resist and disobey these immoral laws and regulations.

Notice two things here.  First, the reference to “Catholic heretics” is an explicit claim that Catholics with contrary opinions on policy somehow violate their faith.  Second, these heretics are “attempting to force” the Church to participate in immorality.  In other words, these are not only bad Catholics, but they commit deliberate, premeditated evil on others.  And finally, in that writer’s view, not only do they “support immoral actions” but they even “refuse to recant publicly”!

There is no attempt by any of these writers to debate the issues at stake.  To them, the moral questions are black and white, the policy implications are self evident and beyond dispute, and the deliberate malice of their opponents renders all dialogue futile.  These assumptions trump both the facts and our faith.

And there is more.  Amid these demonizing attacks there is no corresponding description of “people with values like our own.” Since the context of these attacks is the election, we can presume the writers mean Republicans.  In other words, these electoral appeals presume that Republican policies are Catholic-friendly.  This begs the question: do Republicans have “values like our own“?

To me, this means asking whether Republican values conform to Catholic Social Teaching (CST).  Posing this question exposes the hypocrisy of Self-serve Catholics. The truth is that CST teaching clashes with Republican values and policies on many issues.  Let me cite two examples: “big government” and “human rights.”

Big Government.  Clearly a major policy priority for Republicans is the promotion of smaller government, less regulation, less taxation, less public spending.  This is built on the classic belief “that which governs least governs best,” and is rooted in a narrow concept of “freedom” as personal economy.  That is, we are free to the extent the government does not intrude in our lives.

I have already explained (CrossCurrents #83) that freedom means much more in our Catholic tradition, but the simpler objection is this: CST teaching places no value on the size of government.  It focuses instead on the role government plays in promoting “the common good” - - which is the prime value of CST.  If the common good is served by a larger government, CST supports that. CST even recommends using taxation to fight inequality by redistributing wealth. Do Republicans?

Human Rights.  Politics aside, most Americans agree that securing human rights for the citizenry is the job of government.  But many Americans, even American Catholics--and especially Self-servers--embrace a list of human rights that is much shorter than the human rights recognized by CST.  This allows them to assume--wrongly--that the Republican Party is Catholic-friendly.

How often do Republicans acknowledge that “illegals” are actually exercising the human right to migrate, as Catholicism does?

How often do Republicans acknowledge that healthcare is a human right, to be guaranteed by government, as Catholicism does?

How often do Republicans call housing, education, and employment human rights, as Catholicism does?

In my view, both parties, Democratic and Republican, fail to consistently support CST.  Yet I feel no need to demonize either party, or to claim they’re attacking me or my faith.  For me, it is enough to say that CST sets a standard they both fail to reach.

But that is not enough for Self-serve Catholics.  They insist on demonizing Democrats as deliberately imposing evil, while blithely giving Republicans a pass on their own failures.  What else can I think but this: these Self-serve Catholics begin with a particular political bias, filter their Catholic faith through that bias, and then invoke that distorted version of Catholicism to attack their political opponents and advance their own political agenda?  And how can I not think that such an exploitation of our faith is self-serving?

I am open to dialogue with those who want to explain how demonizing Democrats, while absolving Republicans, is a reasonable application of our faith.  But until that happens, I will stand by this: these Catholics offend me with their Self-serving political exploitation of our faith.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2012