Are you serving God or a political goal?
you can’t serve both. One will suffer.
bluelake
I’m not so sure about that. Think of great political leaders who were also saintly Catholics: Thomas More, Elizabeth of Hungary, Louis King of France, just to name a few. They exercised their public office in accord with the teachings of the Church. Many of their constituents were unhapppy. More lost his head over this. Elizabeth was thrown into the street. Louis did die in power.
What they all managed to do was to protect their people from at least one or several moral and spiritual falls. They were unable to protect them from every moral fall, but at least a few. I look at it this way. If you can save me a few bumps, even if you can’t save me from all of them, five bumps are not as bad as 12.
Did their constituency like their choices, not always. Did they care whether their constituency like it? Not a all. The important thing was to do what was best for their consituency. These individuals understood that their role in government was to protect their people from moral evils, over and above all things, and from social and economic evils second. They understood that the power of government comes from God and has to comply with what God has revealed, not what man wants. Like these most famous political leaders and saints,there have been many others.
We also have other public servants who have become great saints, among them is St. Giuseppi Moscati. As Dr. Moscati, he was a public health official. He is also guilty of violating half of the medical laws in Italy in order to comply with the moral teachings of the Church and the spiritual teachings of Francis of Assisi to whom he had great devotion. In the end, he did a lot of spiritual good for his medical students and colleagues. He helped them convert to become better and truer Catholics. He also helped save thousands of lives. His methods were later adopted by the health department in his region… These were the same people who were angry at him for not complying with the duties of his office as the law required.
I’ll finally throw in my own experience. I’m not a political figure. I did work for a state university as a professor of medicine. I absolutely refused to teach certain medical procedures that are immoral. My worse critics were Catholic. They argued that I was being paid with state funds and therefore should follow the state mandated curriculum. I argued that the state knew I was Catholic, end of story.
It was interesting, my greatest supporters were Jews and Muslims, not Catholics. They shared my conviction. The state is never above the truth, not matter how much it pays. Citizens know what they want, but not always what is good for them. What is good for them is written in the Truth revealed through faith.
While my Jewish and Muslim friends disagreed with me on the truths revealed by faith, they supported me in placing faith above state funds. When the Board of Trustees challenge me, it was the Jews and the Muslims who argued in my favor saying that the Bodard nor the State had the right to obscure the truth or demand that any professor teach sin. One very intelligent Muslim phyisican argued that the students had the right to be taught according to moral truth, not according to the whims of the people whose only concern was “democracy”. He proceeded to quote Pope John Paul II. “Democracy is a system that is meant to protect the rights of man. It may never be confused. To violate morality in order to preserve democracy is a grave moral evil.” (Evangelium Vitae). I was thrilled to see a Muslim well-versed on the Gospel of Life.
My point is that one can be a good public servant and a good and faithful Catholic. However, we who are religious have been asked to leave that to lay Catholics. But lay Catholics have the moral duty to exercise public life like other lay saints in similar situations. Never let anyone preach to you the great lie that democracy is a higher good than revealed Truth. Democracy must open the door so that truth can be taught and it must protect its citizens from falsehoods. Otherwise, democracy is worthless.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
