August 22, 2008

A Shepherd's Message

By Daniel Cardinal DiNardo

This is the second article on the document, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” published last November by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.  As I mentioned in the first article, the bishops have published a similar pamphlet before national elections for the past thirty years.  The current document spends more time on the meaning of conscience.  It also highlights the crucial role that moral principles play in forming conscience properly so that a person may render good judgments about political and social life.  Voting is a very important dimension of the exercise of moral judgment in the public square.

In this column I want to begin a treatment of seven key themes the document proposes about Catholic Social Teaching.  The themes are (1) The Right to Life and the Dignity of the Human Person; (2) Call to Family, Community, and Participation; (3) Rights and responsibilities; (4) Option for the Poor and Vulnerable; (5) Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers; (6) Solidarity; and (7) Caring for God’s Creation. 

The first key theme proposed by “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” is the right to life and the dignity of the human person.  Not only is this theme the first one treated; it is the thread that ties the other themes together.  Each human person is indeed a singularity and not just an “individual” in a larger class of creatures.  Each human person is made in the image and likeness of God.  The life and dignity of the human person are the foundations for a moral and ethical society.  From his or her conception until natural death, the human person is sacred; any direct attack on the human person, at whatever stage of development, is never morally acceptable.  There are some actions that are so morally flawed that they are never acceptable.  In our moral tradition such acts are called “intrinsically evil.”  The act of abortion is one such intrinsically evil action; likewise euthanasia is an action that directly assaults a human person.  Because these actions directly attack the human person at the most critical stages, the beginning and end of human life, they are of particular concern to our faith and the tradition of our Church’s moral teaching, itself based on both faith and reason.  Also included in these actions of direct attack on the human person , actions always to be opposed, are attempts at human cloning, the destruction of human embryos for research, genocide, torture, racism, and the direct and intentional targeting of noncombatants in war or terrorist attacks.  All of these are preeminent threats to human life since they attack the very principle of human life and the good of the human person.  It is incumbent upon all of us in our own moral agency to act in the public square to protect human life to the maximum degree when dealing with these issues.  This includes, but is not limited to, the working for laws and policies that protect and defend persons at all stages of their development.

Catholic Social teaching also calls us to respect the dignity of the human person, even the guilty human person, by working for the eradication of the death penalty, since there are other ways now to protect society from those who have done great harm without recourse to this action.  Catholic Social Teaching also asks us to work for peace and avoid war by finding effective ways to prevent conflicts and solve them by diplomatic means.  There is a long and sophisticated tradition of just war teaching in the Catholic Faith and it must be applied carefully in situations of conflict.  Nations do have a right to defend life and the common good against acts of terrorism and similar aggression.  That duty is also bound by restraint on the means used for the defense and ethical limits on the use of force, a force that should not be indiscriminate or disproportionate to the threat.  I would particularly mention here the need for all of us to work for the elimination of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons; these involve mass destruction.

In examining the respect owed to the dignity of the human person, all the issues are important, but not all carry the exact moral weight.  Part of our formation of conscience is to learn to make distinctions of importance while still respecting the large grid of issues that are placed under this theme.  The notion of “direct attack” on the human person is a distinguishing feature in forming our consciences in a proper manner.

The second key theme is the Call to Family, Community and Participation.  This theme helps us to understand not only the sacredness of the human person, but also the fact that the human person is social by nature.  The full development of the human person presumes and requires his or her relationship with others.  This dimension begins with the family and then moves outward in ever widening circles of relationships and friendships with others, in church, schools, community associations, life in work and society, and in the important political associations that are such a mark of freedom in our country.  The family, based on marriage between a man and a woman, is the first and most fundamental unit or building block of society.  It allows for the important space of the procreation and nurturing of children.  The current situation of marriage and family life in our society is not very healthy; the proposals of some members of our culture to redefine marriage is very unsettling and represents not a defense but a further undermining of the institution of marriage and the protection of the family.  Marriage has a genuine end or “finality,” one that operates outside of our sheer human purposes or desires.  The blurring of this distinction can result in distortions of the genuine understanding of marriage and family life.  A particular distortion at this time is the movement towards same-sex unions which would make our understanding of marriage even vaguer while also changing laws that would protect children and cause great harm to them while seemingly only considering the desires of adults.  Protection of marriage and family life is a significant theme in building a genuine common good for society and enters constitutively in our actions in public life, including voting.

In my next article I will treat the remaining themes of our Catholic Social Teaching and in a further article I will treat of difficulties faced by all of us in our judgments on political matters.