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On the last Sunday of the liturgical year the Catholic Church
celebrates the Solemnity of Christ the King. When Pope Pius XI
introduced it in 1925, with a strong sense of symbolic power, he chose
the last Sunday of October for this feast. This had great importance in
terms of the prevailing political situation: the Russian Communists came
to power with their Revolution of 17 October 1917, and the Italian
Fascists, in October 1922, with their March on Rome. To counter these
revolutions, the Pope established a feast which clearly focuses on the
fact that there is no true King and Lord of the universe except Christ.
Participation of laity in the kingly office of Christ
Not by chance was the recently issued "Doctrinal
Note on some questions regarding the participation of Catholics in
political life" dated 24 November 2002—the
feast of Christ, "Lord of lords and King of kings" (Apoc
17,14; 19,16). In fact, ultimately it concerns the kingship of Christ,
or more exactly, the participation in it by lay Christians whose
"secular character is proper and specific" to them. "By
reason of their special vocation it belongs to the laity to seek the
kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them
according to God's will" (Vatican II, Lumen gentium, n.
31). The laity realize this participation in the kingship of the Lord in
their personal life of faith, and beyond this, the life of faith calls
for the Christian commitment in politics. Pope John Paul II exhorts all
Catholics: "A new state of affairs today both in the Church and in
social, economic, political and cultural life, calls with a particular
urgency for the action of the lay faithful. If lack of commitment is
always unacceptable, the present time renders it even more so. It is not
permissible for anyone to remain idle" (Christifideles laici,
n. 3).
Postmodern problems
At a first superficial glance, the guidelines offered in the Note for
this service of the laity in the world seem superfluous, or at least,
late in arriving. The Church has opened herself to the world with zeal—perhaps,
sometimes, even with excessive zeal. For this reason, that Christians
should carry on a political mission can easily seem to be an obvious
truth. But in fact, the document appears timely and up to date, since it
explicitly goes into problems, questions and relationships which we
usually describe today as "postmodern".
The text affirms that it does not at all consider the many forms of
exercise of power that are in opposition to God, that the Apocalypse
characterised as "the beast rising from the sea" (Apoc
13,1ff). The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith does not speak
of dictatorships or of anti-Christian anarchies—although
some still exist today. It speaks of today's democratic societies. In
them it sees such a positive value because "in a climate of true
freedom, everyone is made a participant in directing the body
politic" (I.1). In such forms of society one finds the ideal
terrain for a legitimate construction of the world as inspired by
Christianity; in the first place, there can be no doubt that the
multicultural and multireligious atmosphere of democratic forms of
society offer the ideal environment for Christian political commitment.
Anyone who has ever lived in an anti-Christian state and experienced its
perfidious methods can doubly appreciate democratic tolerance!
Danger for democracy, lack of definitive, ultimate values
This is also a vigilant and realistic view which also sees dangers
inherent in democracy (cf. II. 2). Indeed, while cultural and
ideological plurality is legitimate in itself and for its own sake, it
often includes an ethical pluralism that favours "laws which ignore
the principles of natural ethics and yield to ephemeral cultural and
moral trends, as if every possible outlook on life were of equal
value" (II. 2). Although the Enlightenment may have brought us
salutary progress—here it shows its
Achilles' heel. Instead of "absolute" moral values, it has
substituted a generic morality that is humanly presented, but in the
absence of any firm boundaries, has rapidly melted away. The
"Parable of the Ring" by Lessing—an
exponent of the Enlightenment—expresses the
loss of the religious dimension in these words: "Your rings are not
authentic, not one of the three. The true ring has presumably been
lost" (Nathan the Wise, II, 7). Lessing's fundamental attitude
which is agnostic regarding concrete religious convictions, generally
characterizes our public life: to each his own truth, to each his own
values!
Properly understood autonomy of earthly realities
The Vatican Note does not at all relate to the
pre-enlightenment situation, an accusation that is frequently levelled
at the Church. Indeed, the basis of her explanations and instructions is
rather the conviction that there is a "legitimate freedom of
Catholic citizens to choose among the various political opinions that
are compatible with faith and the natural moral law, and to select,
according to their own criteria, what best corresponds to the needs of
the common good" (II. 3). In the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium
et spes, the Second Vatican Council already recalled: "very
often their Christian vision will suggest a certain solution in some
given situation. Yet it happens rather frequently, and legitimately so,
that some of the faithful, with no less sincerity will see the problem
quite differently. Now if one or other of the proposed solutions is too
easily associated with the message of the Gospel, they ought to remember
that in those cases no one is permitted to identify the authority of the
Church exclusively with his own opinion" (Gaudium et spes,
n. 43).
Consequently, if the document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith says that it is favourable to the plurality of concrete
political strategies, nonetheless, it strongly emphasizes the need for
ethical principles: "Democracy must be based on the true and solid
foundation of non-negotiable ethical principles, which are the
underpinning of life in society" (II.3). Here the Church requires
from the democratic state not the acceptance of a special
"Catholic" or even only "Christian heritage", but
simply the acceptance of human beings as creatures. Thus the individual
person, like human society as a whole, is based on goods, values and
norms. These are anchored in their nature and ultimately in the absolute
character of God their Creator, so that they cannot be eliminated or
relativized by man. In this regard too, the Second Vatican Council was
in advance, since it declared itself unequivocally for the autonomy of
earthly realities, and yet added unambiguously: "If, by the term
'the autonomy of earthly affairs' is meant that material being does not
depend on God and that man can use it as if it had no relation to its
creator, then the falsity of such a claim will be obvious to anyone who
believes in God. Without the creator the creature disappears" (Gaudium
et spes, n. 36). The example par excellence of this human
condition is "the inviolability of human life" (II.4).
Dilemma: ideologically neutral, not neutral in terms of basic values
The Note of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
calls to mind this difficult, often volatile, relationship between
earthly autonomy and the reference to God. Thus it does not call
democratic structures into question, but recalls their foundation which
consists in the fact that, by its nature, on the one hand democracy must
always be ideologically neutral, and on the other, from the viewpoint of
values, it can never be neutral. In fact, democratic freedom is a
good in itself; it is based on conditions and values and implies them.
So an indifferentism about values taken to the limit is not the ideal
condition of democracy, but its death.
The text recalls permanent values and thus anthropological constants,
that as such are not linked to any particular time, even if in the
circumstances of the moment they take a certain concrete form. This is
evident in the case of the examples of "fundamental and inalienable
ethical demands", that the document identifies: abortion,
euthanasia, such modern forms of slavery as drug abuse and prostitution
are to be radically rejected, while such values as family, religious
freedom, social justice and peace must be protected by the democratic
state (II.4).
Constant need for transcendent values
With the Note on the political commitment of Catholics,
the Church continues that line of the perennial philosophy that
began with the classical Greek philosophers. Those first "theorists
of society" developed a reflection on the best possible way to
express the divine on earth. "The ideal state", Plato's
Socrates claimed, "is not found on earth, but perhaps in heaven
there is a model for those who want to see it and base their own
personality on this vision" (Plato, The Republic, IX, 592).
The transcendence of the values and fundamental meanings removes the
state—even the democratic state—from
the arbitrariness of its citizens who in time could kill it as their
victim. The line taken in this document, after getting beyond centuries
and millenniums, not only arrives at the heart of the present time but
even goes beyond it. Therefore, desiring to pose the question about the
importance and current validity of the document, it would simply be
described as of vital, indeed necessary, importance, for the survival of
democracies to whom it offers guidelines for their future.
Church, ecclesial associations, have to give witness to the
perennial, absolute values
"What is the truth?", Pilate once asked. Our society has
made this question its own—and one has the
clear impression that it does not want an answer. But the Church was
convoked and sent into the world to bear witness to the truth, which
ultimately is not a thing but a person: Jesus Christ. The prophetic
mission involves all the faithful as it once involved Ezechiel, in being
sentinels for their contemporaries. If the Church were no longer to
alert people to danger, she and society would be ruined. The
denunciation of the failings of many Catholic associations and
organizations by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is more
than understandable. Indeed, Catholic associations are located at the
junctures between the Church and the State. They are very important for
the missionary task of the Church in modern society. However, this
requires their Christian witness to be all the more genuine and
dependable. For this reason, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith is not limited here to exhortations, but encourages and urges
Catholics not to harbour any inferiority complex. Christians have
something to say because God has entrusted his world to them.
Coherence between faith and life
This Note wants to encourage "the unity of Christian
life: coherence between faith and life, Gospel and culture" (v. 9).
A Sunday Christianity, that retreats into a narrow ecclesial context,
fails in its mission and therefore loses its reason for being. In
speaking to democratic societies, the Church has no intention of
calling their "secular" character into question. On the
contrary, she asks for a democratic right for herself, in an equal
dialogue. The aim and ideal of the Church is not theocracy in the
current, "fundamentalist" sense. By her nature and her mission
she is the seed of the Kingdom of God in which humanity, until now so
fragmented, is united; not with external or coercive means but out of
inner conviction. It has already been said and must be expressly
repeated as a conclusion: the guidelines in the Note for the
political activity of Catholics have a strongly prophetic resonance.
Their observance is crucial for the growth or decadence of democratic
societies, in the long run just for their mere survival. Indeed,
democracies are bound to follow the scale of values of their citizens.
But if everything has the same value, everything becomes more
indifferent. For this reason the document of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith has the importance and current validity that
belong only to "out of date reflections".
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