The Judgement of the Nations (Mt 25: 31-46) is not a judgement of individuals. It is a collective judgement of various groups of people. “…all the nations will be assembled before him.”
As Catholics, we are responsible for shaping our nation according to the principles of our faith. That includes creating a government that takes a active role in promoting social and economic justice for all. We are far from achieving that, but that does not mean we are correct in abdicating our collective responsibility and embracing individualism or free market capitalism as a solution.
I believe this is what Cardinal Timothy Dolan meant when he said:
O’REILLY: Does the Catholic Church want to be a player in the American politics?
DOLAN: Yes. Well, the Catholic Church wants its people to be a player in the American politics, all right. 28 percent of the population of the United States are Catholics, ok and the Catholic Church through them, you bet, wants to have – want to have a say in the direction of our beloved country.
To think that there is a Berlin Wall between one’s religious convictions and one’s political activity is crazy, it’s ludicrous. It’s not only non-Catholic, non-Christian, non-biblical, it is also un-American. Because – you’re a better historian than I am Bill, you know that every great movement in – in American history has been driven by people of religious conviction.
And if we duct tape the churches – I’m just not talking about the Catholic Church – if we duct tape the role of religion and the churches and morally convince people in the marketplace that’s going to lead to a huge deficit a huge void. And there are many people who want to fill it up, namely a new religion called secularism, ok, which – which would be as doctrinaire and would consider itself as infallible as they caricature the other religions doing.
So to – to see – to see that morally-driven religiously-convinced people want to exercise their political responsibility, I think that is not only at the heart of biblical religion, it is at the heart of American enterprise.
Read more:
foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/2012/03/29/timothy-cardinal-dolan-enters-no-spin-zone#ixzz1qu4SPSO3
Dolan is saying that the “morally convincing people in the marketplace” will create a void that will be filled with a new religion called secularism. This is a critique of those who would argue that unfettered free market capitalism is the solution to all of our nations problems. The Church does not agree with this and supports the idea of taxation and income redistribution in order to provide for the general welfare of all members of society.