| Politics

"Laws that place unborn children outside the protection of law destroy both the children killed and the common good, which is the controlling principle of Catholic social teaching." Francis Cardinal George

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (Catholic Online) - As the General Election campaign for the U.S. Presidency begins, we face a strange new twist in the political lexicon. Everybody is talking about the Common Good. This election will come down to who defines the term.

For years I have called myself a “Whole Life/Pro-Life” Catholic Christian and citizen. I now notice that others like Senator Sam Brownback are starting to pick up on the term (though he is using Pro-Life/ Whole Life). I have tried to inform my social and political participation in reference to what I call the four pillars of participation, life, family, freedom and solidarity with the poor and the needy. I am Pro-Life, Pro-Marriage and family, Pro-Freedom (rightly understood), Pro-Poor and Pro-Peace. I have written regularly about the meaning of the phrase Common Good. I have proposed that Catholic Social teaching should form a framework within which faithful Catholics, other Christians, other people of faith and all people of good will work together to truly build a just society, a civilization of love.

My efforts have placed me, at times, outside of the realm of acceptability in both major political parties. They have elicited opposition from the so called “right”, the so called “left” and many others in between. For example, my opposition to capital punishment has not found an ear in the leadership of either major political party in the US. My opposition to the initial foray into Iraq as having been unjustified under any interpretation of the so called “just war theory”, placed me in opposition to the growing number of “neo-cons” on the “right” and their colleagues, the “neo-liberals” on the “left”. I have dared to express concerns that if a market economy places profits over people, families and the common good, it can devolve into economism or what the late Servant of God John Paul II rightly called “savage capitalism”. A just economic model based on the market must place that market at the service of the person, the family and the common good and expand participation. This position has evoked some of the most rancorous responses.

I have contended that there can be no real blending of what is called “libertarianism” in American politics and Catholic social thought because the two theories begin with two entirely different reference points in their “anthropology” (understanding of the nature of the person) and their vision of freedom. Libertarianism is individualist and atomistic in its definition of ‘freedom”, viewing government as some kind of necessary evil and basing social relationships on a kind of Hobbesian contract. Catholic social thought positions freedom within a vision of the human person as naturally (and supernaturally) created (and recreated in Christ) for communion. It asserts that governing is a part of our relational identity. Truly good governance begins with the smallest governance, the family and must follow a principle of subsidiarity. We were made for one another and we find our human fulfillment only in giving ourselves to the other. And another principle, a principle of social charity called solidarity, insists that we are “our brothers (and sisters) keeper".Family is the staring point, not the individual.

Concern for the articulating the meaning of the phrase “common good” runs throughout the Catechism of the Catholic Church (See in particular, Par 1905- 1917)and is wonderfully expounded upon in the “Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church”. Of course it is also not an exclusively “Catholic” notion but is a part of political patrimony and any just theory of government. It is not “left” or “right”, it is human. Years ago I wrote an article called “Requiem for the Religious Right” and urged my fellow Catholics, who first called themselves “conservatives” or “liberals” to remember that “Catholic” should be the “Noun” in our political participation. It is our identity and should root us and define us. I have regularly cautioned my fellow Catholics, whether on the “right” or on the “left”, to reject building their policy and political positions on partisan ground and then attempting to dress them up in Catholic language. I also formed two organizations years ago, Common Good Foundation and Common Good Alliance, in an effort to make Catholic social teaching accessible as a vehicle for what I also called a “New Catholic Action”. The organizations still exist and I still hope to utilize them. However, the thought espoused by both of them is not original. It is simply a restatement of Catholic Social teaching. The problem is that many Catholics do not know this teaching or have wrongly allowed “experts” on the “left” or the “right” to interpret what it is for them. Or, in some instances, when people like me started speaking or writing about ideas such as those I have just discussed above, we are disparaged. These same principles and ideas helped to launch other organization ...