Once again, we in the Catholic community are observing October as Respect Life month. It is a time to reflect upon the sacredness of human life and to recall the words of our Holy Father Pope John Paul II in his magnificent encyclical "Evangelium Vitae:"
"The Gospel of Life is at the heart of Jesus' message. Lovingly received day after day by the Church, it is to be preached with dauntless fidelity as 'good news' to the people of every age and culture."
Certainly, our age and our culture need desperately to hear this message. The stories and images contained in the morning papers and nightly newscasts are replete with evidence that increasingly, we as a society are rejecting the culture of life and embracing the culture of death.
Deadly headlines
Just recall some of the headlines of the past few weeks:
* "The FDA [the federal Food and Drug Administration] gives go ahead to drug-induced abortions."Those and so many other headlines that could be cited underscore the devastating reality of a society that has become more violence-prone and more insensitive to the sacredness of human life.* "Doctor Kevorkian's summer spree leads to call for the regulation of assisted suicide as a legitimate medical practice."
* "Welfare reform legislation bans medical assistance to legal immigrants."
* "Drug use among U.S. teens doubles within the past four years."
* "Senate fails to override partial birth abortion veto."
* "Study reveals that violence occurs in 28 percent of U.S. marriages."
* "Handgun regulation stalled in committee."
Political side
This frightening trend takes place against the backdrop of our quadrennial presidential election campaign wherein we as a society have the chance to debate the major issues confronting our nation and to elect a president, Congress and other governmental leaders.
For us as Catholics, a presidential election campaign becomes an occasion to reflect carefully on how we, as both believers and citizens, can use the resource of our faith and the privileged opportunities of our democracy to help shape a society more respectful of the life, dignity and rights of all Americans, especially the poor and vulnerable among us.
With that in mind, we bishops have issued a statement in which we offer our reflections on religion and politics in 1996. The title of the statement summarizes its message: "Political Responsibility: Proclaiming the Gospel of Life, Protecting the Least Among Us and Pursuing the Common Good."
Church teaching
Our statement echoes the themes of Pope John Paul II's visit to our nation last October, praising our tradition of freedom and democracy, and calling upon Americans to defend life, stand up for the poor and reach out to the weak and newcomers.
The statement draws its principles from Catholic teaching and tradition, not partisan platforms or ideological agendas: "We stand with the unborn and the undocumented when many politicians seem to be abandoning them. We defend children in the womb and on welfare. We oppose the violence of abortion and the vengeance of capital punishment. We oppose assault weapons on our streets and condoms in our schools."
While those issues do not have equal moral weight, they demonstrate a consistent concern for life.
Time for debate
While the current polls indicate that this year's presidential campaign could result in an electoral landslide and thus discourage voter interest in the political process or voting, our statement stresses that "elections are a time for debate and decisions on the leaders, policies and values that will guide our nation."
We seek to encourage broad participation in the electoral process, outlining the role of the Church in public life, and raising the moral and human dimensions of key issues for discussion in this and forthcoming campaigns.
In encouraging our Catholic people to accept their political responsibilities as citizens in a pluralistic democracy and to bring their faith to bear upon their decision-making, we bishops point out that in the public debate "the challenge for our Church is to be principled without being ideological, to be political without being partisan, to be civil without being soft, to be involved without being used. Our moral framework does not easily fit the categories of right or left, Republican or Democrat. We are called to measure every party and movement by how their agenda touches human life and human dignity."
Questions to ponder
The centerpiece of our political responsibility statement is a series of questions that we urge be addressed during the campaign and that Catholics reflect upon as they prepare to cast their ballot. Among these questions are:
* "How can our nation best respond to the haunting needs of vulnerable children in our midst? We live in a society where 1.5 million unborn children die each year through legalized abortion. We live in a rich nation where more than a fourth of our pre-schoolers grow up poor. We live in a world where almost 35,000 children die every day from hunger and the disease that is associated with malnutrition. The lives and dignity of vulnerable children -- born and unborn -- remain central questions for 1996.
* "How can our nation bring together the strength of a powerful market economy and just public policies to confront continuing poverty and dependency, joblessness and declining real income for many families, and growing hostility toward immigrants and refugees?"
* "How can our nation respond creatively to dramatic international changes and pursue the values of justice and peace in a world often marked by too much violence and not enough development, too many violations of human rights and not enough respect for human life?"
* "And perhaps more fundamentally, how can we resist what Pope John Paul II calls a growing 'culture of violence'? Why does it seem our nation is turning to violence to solve some of our most difficult problems -- to abortion to deal with unplanned pregnancies, to the death penalty to combat crime, to euthanasia and assisted suicide to deal with the burdens of age and illness?"
Church and state
In posing those and other critical questions, we bishops are not suggesting that Catholics become a religious interest group or voting block but "a community of conscience within the larger society."
We do not in any way want to tell people how to vote or to establish religious tests for candidates. Quite frankly, such an approach would be "pastorally inappropriate, theologically unsound and politically unwise." Furthermore, our Catholic moral and social vision doesn't fit the political categories of our time -- right or left, liberal or conservative, Democratic or Republican.
Rather, what we seek is to encourage our Catholic people "to use their voices and votes to enrich the democratic life of our nation and to act on their values in the political arena."
Imperative role
In a time of widespread public cynicism and alienation from the political process, and in an age when many people are preoccupied by narrow self-interest and indifference to public life, it is imperative that we in the Catholic community draw upon the rich heritage of our social teaching, which demands that we participate in the public debate in a way that respects the sacredness of the human person, enhances human dignity and human right, and advances the common good.
Consequently, during this Respect Life month and on the threshold of our national elections, I encourage all the members of our Diocese to take seriously our religious political responsibility to reflect seriously upon the issues that face us in the context of our Catholic Christian heritage and to participate actively in addressing these issues by raising our voices in the public debate and, above all, by voting.
Pope's encouragement
Last fall in Giants Stadium, Pope John Paul II raised this poignant question, "Is present-day America becoming less sensitive, less caring toward the poor, the weak, the stranger, the needy? It must not!"
As he left our nation, our Holy Father declared: "Democracy serves what is true and right when it safeguards the dignity of every human person, when it respects inviolable and inalienable human rights, when it makes the common good the end and the criteria regulating all public and social life....Cherish life, love life, protect life from conception to natural death."
In the coming election, we will have a chance -- as believers and citizens -- to respond to our Holy Father's challenge.