Carrying Our Crosses Into the Election Booth
By Therese Stahl
Discipleship comes with costs. In the Gospel of Luke (Lk. 14:25-33), Christ characterizes these costs harshly. They include the requirement to love God first, before family.
Secondly, we must walk in life with humility and self-sacrifice, carrying our crosses; we must accept suffering and persecution for our beliefs.
Finally, we must renounce our possessions or what keeps us from growing closer to Jesus and the Church He founded. The reward for these costs is relationship with Him while we are on Earth and the ultimate rest in Heaven.
In his homily on this Scripture a few Sundays ago, Father Twenty, pastor of Holy Cross Parish in Batavia, explained: “Jesus does not want fair-weather fans or people who aren’t all in because He is not a fair-weather fan of you. He has gone all in for you. He hates even His own life so that you might be His disciple.”
Taking this measure of “all-in” discipleship into the Nov. 8 elections means that as Catholics we must allow our faith to inform our political views. We must, as Jesus says in Luke, put God first, walk humbly, and accept persecution — even in the public square. By virtue of our baptism, the laity have an obligation to transform the world into a place of love and justice.
One must honestly admit that we have conflicting modern-day models of carrying our Catholic faith into the public square. The U.S. bishops have given us the document “Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility” to help us in our deliberations. They write in a summary of the document:
“Catholics who bring their moral convictions into public life do not threaten democracy or pluralism but enrich them and the nation. The separation of church and state does not require division between belief and public action, between moral principles and political choices, but protects the right of believers and religious groups to practice their faith and act on their values in public life.”
As Catholics we must form our consciences well, try to discern “true good” and how to achieve that good, ensure that our political choices do good and not evil, and use our well-formed judgment in making moral choices. Faithful Citizenship discusses each of these acts (available in English and Spanish at http://www.usccb.org/resources/forming-consciences-faithful-citizenship-pdf).
" target="blank">http://www.usccb.org/resources/forming-consciences-faithful-citizenship-pdf">http://www.usccb.org/resources/forming-consciences-faithful-citizenship-pdf).
Some of you may remain unconvinced. Why bother to learn what the Church teaches on public policy? Isn’t this all just about abortion in the end? Christ’s incarnation shows us the true meaning of being human, both in full dignity and in inherent weakness. Another great quote from Faithful Citizenship:
“What faith teaches about the dignity of the human person, about the sacredness of every human life, and about humanity’s strengths and weaknesses helps us see more clearly the same truths that also come to us through the gift of human reason. At the center of these truths is respect for the dignity of every person. This is the core of Catholic moral and social teaching. Because we are people of both faith and reason, it is appropriate and necessary for us to bring this essential truth about human life and dignity to the public square.”
Catholics have much to offer the world: the essential truth of human life and dignity. This truth informs not just our views on abortion but also on promotion of peace, of religious freedom, of marriage and family, of a preferential option for the poor, of combating unjust discrimination, of caring for our Earth, and more.
A vote informed by our faith is a vote for life!