If the polls are correct, the presidential race looks very close, with much depending on whose base is more energized and a few swing voters in a handful of battleground states. Given this, it’s understandable why the campaigns portray the election as “the most important in history”—or language to that effect.
The media wants an audience, so it’s clear why they encourage urgency, as if everything depended on this November’s vote. Other outlets, including special interest groups, have a preferred candidate and hope to muster enthusiasm, momentum, and turn out—it’s clear why they also foster a sense of intensity, as if a loss is the end of the republic.
Obviously, elections matter. Tax policy, immigration policy, funding for education, judicial appointments, abortion regulation, war and peace, are, in fact, shaped by presidential elections or congressional majorities. The Church does not ask us to retreat into quietism and inaction. As John Paul II articulated in Centesimus Annus, “The Church is well aware that in the course of history conflicts of interest between different social groups inevitably arise, and that in the fact of such conflicts Christians must often take a position, honestly and decisively.” Catholic social teaching is not irrelevant to political life, after all, and for good reasons the American bishops, individually or collectively, have released guidelines on “Faithful Citizenship,” political responsibility, and duties of conscience when voting. It is entirely in keeping with the Gospel to care for the common good and to soberly and responsibly exercise our right and duty of informed political participation, including the vote. Elections matter.
While John Paul II was perfectly clear that some actions are intrinsically wrong and can never be morally licit, faithful Catholics are entirely free to engage in prudential reasoning about most aspects of policy and voting. Some things are intrinsically wrong, but it’s less often the case that a particular action is intrinsically and universally correct. We are obligated to care for widows and orphans, yes, but whether this is best accomplished through this or the other party’s platform is something about which reasonable people of good will—faithful Catholics among them—can disagree.
It is likely, and allowable, that different people will reach different prudential judgments.
In Centesimus Annus, John Paul II wisely reminds us that Christians claim no “right to impose on others their own concept of what is true and good. Christian truth is not of this kind.” Not only must genuine religion be freely accepted, but Christianity “is not an ideology” and “does not presume to imprison changing socio-political realities in a rigid schema” because “human life is realized in history in conditions that are diverse and imperfect.” That is, we don’t accept relativism or subjectivism, for moral and political truth can be known, but we also do not accept fundamentalism or ideological thinking that refuses to acknowledge that our actions are conditioned and limited and subject to change. Neither relativism nor fundamentalism.
So while there are better and worse political choices, and while we are decisively told not to support a pro-abortion candidate if an option exists, we ought not conclude that if other Christians judge differently than we do about tax or education policy that they are per se in violation of their obligations as reasonable people, let alone that they are per se in violation of the teachings of the faith. It is likely, and allowable, that different people will reach different prudential judgments.
Again, elections do matter; again, some policies are better than others; again, some actions are always and everywhere wrong—but not every political disagreement or difference is as grave and serious as others. Sometimes, it turns out, we just see things differently, and are allowed to do so. Even then, in the midst of our disagreements, we are required to love our neighbor—even our Christian or Catholic neighbor—with whom we strongly disagree.
In our turbulent and polarized time, it’s common enough to hear calls to turn down the temperature, overcome partisanship, and be kind. Fair enough; I do wish our politics were calm, better mannered, and civil, but, still, election results matter: abortion, war, capital punishment, immigration, religious freedom, life and death. Calls to be calm can seem like indifferentism, quietism, and a shirking of responsibility—a call for “‘peace, peace,’ when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14). It can seem as if we are being asked not to care, not to act, not to recognize disagreements or to pretend they don’t matter. But there are disagreements, and they do matter.
Instead of mere negation, virtue seeks fullness, substance, and the realization of actual goods. In the collect for the Twenty-First Week of Ordinary Time, we pray for just such a good, asking, “O God, who cause the minds of the faithful to unite in a single purpose, grant your people to love what you command and to desire what you promise, that, amid the uncertainties of this world, our hearts may be fixed on that place where true gladness is found.” We are to fix our hearts on a place of true gladness.
Now, if we reflect only quickly, the prayer could be interpreted as a kind of pious indifferentism, something like, “Well, let’s ignore this world and all think about heaven,” which isn’t going to satisfy either our natural or religious obligations to care for our neighbor. It cannot mean being so heavenly minded as to be of no earthly good; rather, we have to ponder how the “minds of the faithful” could “unite in a single purpose,” a real purpose, a real and substantive good.
The most real and substantive good, of course, is God himself, and the central—and shocking—claim of Catholicism is that the very life of God—the Good—is given to us, even now, through the redemptive work of our Lord, who is God. Consider the remarkable and wonderful words from Preface VII of the Sundays in Ordinary Time, reading, “For you so loved the world that in your mercy you sent us the Redeemer, to live like us in all things but sin, so that you might love in us what you loved in your Son, by whose obedience we have been restored to those gifts of yours that, by sinning, we had lost in disobedience.”
The preface reiterates a unique claim of Catholicism, a claim quite different from other Christian groups—namely, that the merits and righteousness of Christ are infused in us, really given to us, really made ours, such that the Father can love in us what he loved in the Son, for he is loving the very righteousness and goodness of the Son now made ours. Christ’s life—God’s life—becomes our life.
The Latin of the preface is worth noting: “Ut amares in nobis quod diligebas in Filio.” “So that you might love in us what you loved in your Son”—but diligebas could be construed not only as “loved” or “esteemed,” but also “to have particular regard for,” “to cherish,” “to find dear,” or “to take delight in.” That is, the way a father takes delight in a dear and beloved son. God the Father is delighted by the Son, and in the prayer we ask the Father to cherish and delight in Christ’s righteousness infused in us—to delight in us just as he delights in the Son.
This is the doctrine of filial adoption, explained well by Mauro Gagliardi in Truth is a Synthesis. The gift of grace redeems and justifies the sinner, of course, but additionally “the grace of divine likeness is given to us in the form of filial adoption, through which we truly become sons (or daughters) in the Son.” We are not only saved from sin, but we truly and objectively become like God, with Christ’s goodness really given to us, to such an extent that our likeness to Christ really and truly turns us into adopted children of God, “brothers and sisters of Christ.”
Asking, “Why can’t we all just get along?” results in nothing more than ignoring each other or pretending that we do not disagree about gravely serious things.
When children are adopted into natural families, they become full members of the family. Legally they are now part of the family, and they participate in the warmth and love of familial relations just like biological children. Still, adoption doesn’t change their genomes, and they are not blood relations (which in no way diminishes their status). In the filial adoption of grace, on the other hand, we are really and objectively transformed. God does not treat us as if we were saved but rather we become infused with the divine likeness of the Son. This adoption does not change only our legal status, nor does it grant us a share in the family life; it is more like a change of genomes, a fundamental change of the source of our life.
Consequently, when in Mass the priest says “brethren” or “my brothers and sisters,” he is not speaking loosely, metaphorically, or in a saccharine mood of warm feeling for fellow members of a club, not even in a tone of friendship. It is a profound theological truth. We are siblings because we are adopted brothers and sisters of Christ and are sons and daughters of God. Really and truly so.
To ask for political unity or regard for the dignity of other citizens is a plea for civic friendship rooted in a shared project of self-governance—and this is fine and good in itself. But when Catholics pray, as we do in the collect, for the faithful to “unite,” we mean something far more robust than civic friendship; we pray that sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters of Christ, each infused with divine likeness, who have become little Christs in the world, would think, love, and act as they really are, and that they would see each other as they really are.
The tone of American politics is nasty and brutish just now, and it can feel as if things are falling apart. The language of friend and enemy or war and victory are common, all too common. In all likelihood, this tone will intensify in the months prior to the election, and perhaps after as well. Many people are anxious, impassioned, and even feverish about politics, which is worrisome, so it’s unsurprising to see some people try to find common ground, a middle path, and to call for civility, patience, and civic friendship. Those are fine and decent things to seek. Admittedly, though, calls for such things are often a bit feeble, even corny, and certainly not up to the hard task of loving our neighbor, let alone loving a (perceived) enemy. Often, asking, “Why can’t we all just get along?” results in nothing more than ignoring each other or pretending that we do not disagree about gravely serious things. This won’t work.
Catholics are asked to do more than merely not shout angry abuse; we are asked to actively love our neighbor, not ignore him or her. We are asked to see everyone as created in the image of God, with all the dignity this entails. But even more, we are asked to see the baptized as what they really and truly and objectively are—fellow sons and daughters who participate in the divine likeness. To see them as other Christs. The baptized are other Christs, and we should love them as we love Christ.
This is true, even when we think them wrong in their political judgments.