Interesting Letter from North of the Border

Last updated on: January 1, 2015 at 3:04 pm by Mark Shea

Interesting Letter from North of the Border 2015-01-01T15:04:48-07:00 Mark Shea

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A reader writes:

What prompted me to write this e-mail was your recent post entitled ‘The Traditions of Men‘.

While generally of a conservative bent, I have to say that as I’ve discovered my Catholicism in a more fulsome way, it has actually moderated my previously more libertarian/right wing politics. It is now apparent to me that our goal is not some secular ideology (which on the conventional right is usually oriented towards financial well-being) but rather, the common good in accordance with the teachings of Christ.

I therefore find it a little disturbing when I see people equating the American prosperity gospel to some sort of Catholic doctrine that any true Catholic should be able to ‘get’ by reading between the lines. As a Canadian, while I seem to disagree with most of what goes on in my own country with regards to government policy, it puts me off when certain hard-right Catholics in the US elevate the Constitution to a third testament of scripture. The ferocity of ‘talk-radio’ rhetoric among certain Catholic personalities is starting to become something of an embarrassment. It frightens me to think that a generation of left-leaning young Catholics may feel as I did about the about the ‘justice and peace’ zealots in our Catholic high school, who used the supposed Catholicity of the school as an excuse to push socialist pseudo-liberation theology rhetoric down our throats as part of our ‘religious education’. At the time, this was confusing and I know it repelled a lot of my peers from the Church. Consequently, I often find myself wishing that Obama had been ardently pro-life, that he set up a shrine to the Virgin Mary in the White House, and that he attended the extraordinary form on a daily basis, not just for the sake of his own salvation, but just to show that diversity and debate on political matters is possible within the Church so long as one does not tend to the extremes of the political spectrum.

Ultimately, I think that detaching popular politics is necessary for the Church so long as we stick to our non-negotiable principles (and our principles must remain non-negotiable). Not only will this serve to reduce confusion among the faithful, but it also provides a better witness to people of a liberal persuasion who may, in associating Catholicism with right-wing politics, find themselves alienated from the faith. I think this is important, because I’d rather have more Catholic Christians, even if I find myself in completely disagreeing with their views on medicare or firearms. Of course, Catholicism tends to foster a conservative outlook, but a Conservative perspective is not an article of faith. Sadly, as abortion has become so politicised in recent decades, I think that left-leaning faithful Catholics are coming under a lot of pressure and therefore it is our duty as Christians not to make things any worse for them so that they may set an example to their fellow political compatriots.

Yeah. That’s fairly close to my attitude. Catholicism is Catholic. There’s a lot of room for different politics. I’m sort of a political minimalist, actually, in that I don’t have strong views about which economic or political setup homo sapiens chooses to order his common life, just so long as a few basic things are attended to by Caesar. We can even manage that much without placing, as core values at the heart of our various parties, some practice or idea that is directly repugnant to natural law and revelation. With the Dems, it’s the sacrament of abortion. With the Rubber Hose Right, it has become the sacrament of torture.

C.S. Lewis remarks that opposite evils, so far from balancing, aggravate one another. As the Left becomes more committed to its besetting sins (and grows in pride over its virtues), it attempts to demonize everything about the Right. As the Right becomes more committed to its besetting sins (and grows in pride over its virtues), it attempts to demonize everything about the Left. Result: both sides elevate their favorite traditions of men to articles of Faith and both sides blind themselves to real goods, since they are championed by Those People Over There.

The only way out of that cycle is to listen to the Faith, which preserves the virtues of both Right and Left while guiding us away from their cherished sins. That’s why I think it is becoming imperative for Catholics to really start to learn the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church instead of living as though their real teachers are the pundits of whichever political flavor they belong to. It’s seems to be ever so hard to stop parroting the Talking Points when you’ve been raised to trust that your preferred pundits are basically a sort of supplemental magisterial corrective to bishops who are good on abstract theology stuff, but basically ignorable on practical real world issues best handled by practical real world politicians who aren’t afraid to dirty their hands.

Keep up the struggle, dude!

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