I delivered a speech to the Lansing Guild of Catholic Lawyers two weeks ago, on the topic Deus Caritas Est and the Practice of Law. In preparation, I had to read the encyclical, which I hadn’t done yet. Yes, there are people who feel compelled to actually read these things before offering commentary on them.
I’d read large swaths of it previously, but hadn’t sat down and read it front to back. Perhaps you have not yet gotten around to doing that either. If so, I recommend that you make time for it. It’s very good.
I especially liked these words from section 28: “[I]t is not the Church’s responsibility to make [its social] teaching prevail in political life.” “The Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible.” The Church has only an “indirect duty” in political areas.
Such passages speak volumes to the “theocracy” laments we hear from secularists these days whenever an issue with religious implications comes up. If, for instance, an issue of morality manages to get raised, the secularists cry “theocracy,” which is their way of crying “foul.” To them, religious opinion = theocracy = foul.
I agree with the last equation. Theocracy does equal foul. But the first equation is bogus.
In a theocracy, God speaks and society follows. It’s a stark-naked form of ruling. God’s word sits on society like a fat man on a little chair. The fat man doesn’t yield, he doesn’t compromise. He just sits and, if need be, crushes.
By contrast, religious opinion merely informs. It’s one player. It sits on a big couch with others.
Now don’t get me wrong. The Church’s role on that couch is crucial. In Benedict’s words: The Church “wishes to help form consciences in political life and to stimulate greater insight into the authentic requirements of justice…. [The Church] has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice…cannot prevail and prosper.”
The Church’s role in forming consciences and offering spiritual energy is important. Yet the difference between informing the public square and dominating it is immense. It is, to be candid, the difference between a Christian polity and an Islamic one.
Take, for instance, homosexual activity. The Prophet said it’s wrong. Therefore, it must be outlawed in Muslim societies. That’s not necessarily the case in a Catholic society. A Catholic can believe it’s wrong, but still disagree with laws that outlaw it, based on prudential grounds, possibly applying Aquinas’s observation that government shouldn’t require every good and prohibit every wrong.
Secularists seem alternately amused or livid that people use religion to form their opinions about matters that can have public policy implications. If a person wants to use religion to determine whether to go to church on Sunday, fine. But use it to determine that abortion is murder? That’s an outrage because it causes religion to seep into the public square, which (to the secularists) is absolutely prohibited.
Where do the secularists get this? Certainly not from the First Amendment. The American political tradition has always included religion, and many of its statesmen have brought their Christian beliefs with them into public office to guide them in their decision-making. Religion is one of many influences on a person’s opinion, and if he can bring it — along with whatever else he can bring — into the public square to sway the debate, then he’s entitled to do so, and he’s not being “un-American.”
Quite frankly, I’m amused that secularists want to exclude any opinion that is arrived at through religious means. It’s almost as if they want to impose a purity test: “If any aspect of your opinion about X has been touched by religion, then it’s bad. The opinion must be washed clean of all religious taint before it can be properly recognized.” That’s absurd.
Now don’t get me wrong. I think religious thinkers need to be able to argue with secularists on their own terms. That, after all, was one of the driving forces behind Aquinas’s philosophy. In the words of G.K. Chesterton, “After the great example of St. Thomas, the principle stands, or ought always to have stood established; that we must either not argue with a man at all, or we must argue on his grounds and not ours.”
We must be ready to argue with the opposition in their language and from their premises. But that doesn’t mean only their language and premises should occupy the public sphere.
In fact, if they’re doing their homework, they oughtta be prepared to argue with us in our language and from our premises. It works both ways.
And the mere fact that such a concept is totally alien to a large segment of the population is just further evidence of how secularized our culture has become.
© Copyright 2006 Catholic Exchange
Eric Scheske is an attorney, the Editor of The Daily Eudemon, a Contributing Editor of Godspy, and the former editor of Gilbert Magazine.
