In November 2002, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a “Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life.” The document has been cited many times in an attempt to define the proper role of a politician, particularly a Catholic politician.

In a critical passage, the doctrinal note states that “those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a ‘grave and clear obligation to oppose’ any law that attacks human life. For them, as for every Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them” (4).

While most people know that the Catholic Church opposes abortion, what the doctrinal note highlighted is the need to teach clearly and forcefully that for a politician to support pro-abortion legislation is also morally wrong. No one can defend legislation that attacks human life and the “very inviolability of human life” (4).

Teaching politicians

Here, we are presented a two-fold challenge: to teach that support of pro-abortion legislation is wrong; and to help politicians understand that their support of such legislation is wrong. These two challenges are interrelated. We need to help the politician form his or her conscience in conformity with the Catholic teaching on faith and morals that he or she professes to accept. In establishing a correct order of rights, the basic right to life has to be first.

The primacy of the right to life is highlighted in the doctrinal note: “When political activity comes up against moral principles that do not admit of exception, compromise or derogation, the Catholic commitment becomes more evident and laden with responsibility. … This is the case with laws concerning abortion and euthanasia (not to be confused with the decision to forego extraordinary treatments, which is morally legitimate). Such laws must defend the basic right to life from conception to natural death” (4).

In the U.S. bishops’ statement, “Catholics in Political Life,” we find the same endorsement of the primacy of the right to life: “We speak as bishops, as teachers of the Catholic faith and of the moral law. We have the duty to teach about human life and dignity, marriage and family, war and peace, the needs of the poor and the demands of justice. Today, we continue our effort to teach on a uniquely important matter that has recently been a source of concern for Catholics and others. The killing of an unborn child is always intrinsically evil and can never be justified.”

Decisions based on moral principles

What the Holy See and the bishops of the United States are clearly saying is that we recognize a whole range of issues that have moral overtones and content to them. Many of these are significant, such as questions about a just war or economic injustices. Nonetheless, the right to life is the first and foremost of all human rights.

The politician today has to face many constituencies. He or she has to be attractive to a certain number of voters. One of the issues the Catholic politician must face is that of “personal integrity.” While politics may be, as it has been described, “the art of the possible,” there have to be some inalienable, unchangeable values that the person in public office must stand for and be identified with.

When a person decides to move to the arena of public life and thus become dependent on the votes of others, he or she has to make a great personal decision: either to stand for and support principles that are identified with one’s vision of life — and, therefore, with one’s self — or not.

The doctrinal note holds up St. Thomas More as an example of a politician standing by this principle. Thomas More, chancellor of England and the king’s good friend, chose to lose his public office, and later his life, rather than compromise his conscientious conviction that there was a clear separation of church and state and that the king was not head of both. More chose to die rather than accept the principle that he could hold one conviction privately and another publicly.

Thomas Jefferson once wrote in an Aug. 28, 1789, letter to James Madison: “I know but one code of morality for all, whether acting singly or collectively.” One cannot have one set of moral principles for private life and another set for public activity.

Faith should guide political decisions

What the doctrinal note calls the Catholic politician to face today is personal accountability in the forum of conscience. To claim membership in the Catholic Church, to assert that one is part of this living, spiritual body defined by teachings in faith and morals and enlivened by the Holy Spirit, carries with it a way of life — a manner of responding to life.

Membership in the church is not the same as being part of a social or cultural club. It is the recognition of a life-changing, transforming, participation in the life of Christ present today in the visible manifestation of his church. We recognize the church as the body of Christ. We are the members. He is the head. It is the Holy Spirit that enlivens us and guides our actions, particularly as we form our conscience in conformity with Jesus’ message passed on in his church.

As church, we come together “in spirit and in truth.” It is God’s Holy Spirit that invests us through “our share in the sacraments.” We are identified by our faith, our acceptance of the truth given us in Jesus.

Such a life-giving membership makes demands on us. Jesus did not gather his disciples, and us, into his new body so we could determine for him what is the truth about life. It is the other way around. He calls us, he chooses us. It is our privilege and challenge to walk through life with him.

When we make life and death decisions, and that is what abortion legislation is all about, we must do so — if we are Catholic — fully aware of the Christian obligation to support life. This may not be a choice that some constituents want to hear. But the decision must reflect who we are and our most cherished values that come out of our faith. It is our faith that must define and give meaning not only to our lives but our actions.