The clergy and politics

SINCE many people have asked me how the clergy should behave in relation to political issues, I thought of simply transmitting, without commentaries,
what I consider to be relevant Church indications.

I offer them for the consideration especially of bishops and priests, public officials and politicians, media practitioners and civil society groups, and the ordinary citizens, so they can act according to the spirit of these indications.

The aim is simply to dispel the darkness created by the thickening confusion regarding the matter. Some people feel, rightly or wrongly, that some clergy members are going out of line, or that some people are shrewdly using them.

From the Directory on the Ministry and Life of Priests:

“The priest…cannot tie himself to any historical contingency, and therefore must be above any political party.

“He cannot take an active role in political parties or labor unions, unless, according to the judgment of the ecclesiastical authority, the rights of the Church and the defense of common good require it.

“In fact, even if these are good things in themselves, they are nevertheless foreign to the clerical state since they can constitute a grave danger of division in the ecclesial communion.

“Like Jesus, the priest ‘ought to refrain from actively engaging himself in
politics, as it often happens, in order to be a central point of spiritual fraternity.’ All the faithful, therefore, must always be able to approach the priest without feeling inhibited for any reason.

“The priest will remember that ‘it does not fall on the shoulders of the Pastors of the Church to intervene directly in political activities and in social organizations.

“This task, in fact, forms part of the lay faithful’s vocation, in which they work by their own initiative together with their fellow citizens. Nevertheless, he will not be absent ‘in the effort to form in them an upright conscience.

“The reduction of his mission to temporal tasks, of a purely social or political nature, is foreign to his ministry, and does not constitute a triumph but rather a grave loss to the Church’s evangelical fruitfulness.” (33)

From the speech entitled, “Avoid Partisan Politics and Highlight the Pastoral Character of the Church’s Action,” given on June 2, 2001 to CBCP members by now Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, then Secretary of the Section for Relations of the Secretariat of State of the Holy See:

“To preserve the credibility and strength of the Church’s authority, allow me to mention at least two basic guidelines, namely: first, unity among the bishops is fundamental.

“Experiences everywhere, be they from First or Third Word countries, invariably show that the civil society or political community loses trust in divided bishops or a fractious Episcopal Conference to conduct acts of mediation or to make appeals.

“When bishops make contrasting public declarations, even the most humble observers know that those called to be the ‘guardians of unity’ are compromising unity itself and their very own moral and religious authority.

“Second, impartiality must be maintained. It is only right hat at all times and in all places the Church should have true freedom to teach her doctrine and to pass moral judgment in those matters with regard the common good and fundamental rights and freedoms.

“In doing so, however, it is essential both to avoid partisan politics and to highlight the pastoral character of the Church’s action.

“Just as the Church is not identified in any way with the political community nor bound to any political system, the action of her Pastors cannot and must not be identified with any political party or interest.

“The people expect something else from their Pastors, that they be real witnesses to Christ, giving force to the Lord’s teachings by being the ‘conscience of the nation,’ by being prophets in the biblical sense of the word, whose charism is to denounce evil wherever it is found and to call all men and women back to God in true conversion.”