THE immediate answer is to humanize and Christianize it. Politics all
over the world has been at the mercy of man’s baser passions for so
long that it now screams to high heavens for its humanization and
Christianization.
And this can only mean that it is in dire need of charity. It has to
be guided by the requirements of charity, which should not be
considered as some kind of drag or hindrance but rather as the
perfection and fulfillment of politics. It just cannot be left alone,
fully under the power of our passions, brute force and worldly forces.
In fact, it can and should be a massive way of sanctification of the
people.
Politics ought to be pursued always in charity. It cannot be any other
way, since charity is the mother of all virtues and good values. If we
want justice, truth and fairness, charity has them all. If we want
competence, order, discipline, etc., again charity has them. If we
want objectivity, charity has it. And that’s because charity covers
all our needs.
Politics, as a human necessity and as a free act of man, is definitely
subject to the moral law, and as such, should also have a proper
spirituality to animate it. This is a truth of our faith that should
never be lost in our mind, and much less, in our culture. The autonomy
we enjoy in our politics is never to be taken to mean that God has
nothing to do with it.
Politics just cannot be left to the raw forces of our human nature,
which has the capability of detaching itself from its creator and his
law. It just cannot be subject to the law of the jungle. Without God,
politics would be left to our own ideologies, historico-cultural
conditions, our own personal hunches of how things ought to be, etc.
The way politics is practiced today, we need nothing less than a
revolution, a drastic, radical conversion of heart among our political
leaders and the citizenry in general.
We need to redeem politics from being a devil’s game and to recover
its true lofty nature and character based on our innate dignity as
human persons created in the image and likeness of God, and made
children of his.
In many Church teachings, we are reminded that while the technical
formation of politicians does not enter into the mission of the
Church, the Church has the mission of giving “moral judgment also on
things that pertain to the political order, when this is required by
the fundament rights of the person and the salvation of souls…using
only those means that conform to the Gospel and the good of all,
according to the diversity of the times and situations” (Gaudium et
Spes 76)
Commenting on this part of the above-cited Church document, Pope
Emeritus Benedict XVI once said:
“The Church concentrates particularly on educating the disciples of
Christ, so that, increasingly they will be witnesses of his presence
everywhere. It is up to the laity to show concretely in personal and
family life, in social, cultural and political life, that the faith
enables one to read reality in a new and profound way and to transform
it”
He batted for a unity of life, a consistency in peoples’ behavior
based on faith that would go together with hope and charity. In fact,
he added that “Christian hope extends the limited horizon of man and
points him to the true of loftiness of his being, to God, and that
charity in truth is the most effective force to change the world.”
He also said that the “Gospel is the guarantee of liberty and message
of liberation; that the fundamental principles of the Social Doctrine
of the Church, such as the dignity of the human person, subsidiarity
and solidarity, are very timely and of value for the promotion of new
ways of development at the service of every man and of all men.”
To translate all this wonderful doctrine about politics into reality,
we should realize that all of us who are in different ways involved in
politics should not avoid the cross, but rather look for it and
embrace it. We need to realize that the cross would comprise the
fullness of any political work, and indicate the authenticity of one’s
motives in politics.
Just as the cross is the summit of Christ’s redemptive work, and also
the life of every Christian believer, the cross has to be the crown of
this human affair we call politics. It cannot be any other way.
over the world has been at the mercy of man’s baser passions for so
long that it now screams to high heavens for its humanization and
Christianization.
And this can only mean that it is in dire need of charity. It has to
be guided by the requirements of charity, which should not be
considered as some kind of drag or hindrance but rather as the
perfection and fulfillment of politics. It just cannot be left alone,
fully under the power of our passions, brute force and worldly forces.
In fact, it can and should be a massive way of sanctification of the
people.
Politics ought to be pursued always in charity. It cannot be any other
way, since charity is the mother of all virtues and good values. If we
want justice, truth and fairness, charity has them all. If we want
competence, order, discipline, etc., again charity has them. If we
want objectivity, charity has it. And that’s because charity covers
all our needs.
Politics, as a human necessity and as a free act of man, is definitely
subject to the moral law, and as such, should also have a proper
spirituality to animate it. This is a truth of our faith that should
never be lost in our mind, and much less, in our culture. The autonomy
we enjoy in our politics is never to be taken to mean that God has
nothing to do with it.
Politics just cannot be left to the raw forces of our human nature,
which has the capability of detaching itself from its creator and his
law. It just cannot be subject to the law of the jungle. Without God,
politics would be left to our own ideologies, historico-cultural
conditions, our own personal hunches of how things ought to be, etc.
The way politics is practiced today, we need nothing less than a
revolution, a drastic, radical conversion of heart among our political
leaders and the citizenry in general.
We need to redeem politics from being a devil’s game and to recover
its true lofty nature and character based on our innate dignity as
human persons created in the image and likeness of God, and made
children of his.
In many Church teachings, we are reminded that while the technical
formation of politicians does not enter into the mission of the
Church, the Church has the mission of giving “moral judgment also on
things that pertain to the political order, when this is required by
the fundament rights of the person and the salvation of souls…using
only those means that conform to the Gospel and the good of all,
according to the diversity of the times and situations” (Gaudium et
Spes 76)
Commenting on this part of the above-cited Church document, Pope
Emeritus Benedict XVI once said:
“The Church concentrates particularly on educating the disciples of
Christ, so that, increasingly they will be witnesses of his presence
everywhere. It is up to the laity to show concretely in personal and
family life, in social, cultural and political life, that the faith
enables one to read reality in a new and profound way and to transform
it”
He batted for a unity of life, a consistency in peoples’ behavior
based on faith that would go together with hope and charity. In fact,
he added that “Christian hope extends the limited horizon of man and
points him to the true of loftiness of his being, to God, and that
charity in truth is the most effective force to change the world.”
He also said that the “Gospel is the guarantee of liberty and message
of liberation; that the fundamental principles of the Social Doctrine
of the Church, such as the dignity of the human person, subsidiarity
and solidarity, are very timely and of value for the promotion of new
ways of development at the service of every man and of all men.”
To translate all this wonderful doctrine about politics into reality,
we should realize that all of us who are in different ways involved in
politics should not avoid the cross, but rather look for it and
embrace it. We need to realize that the cross would comprise the
fullness of any political work, and indicate the authenticity of one’s
motives in politics.
Just as the cross is the summit of Christ’s redemptive work, and also
the life of every Christian believer, the cross has to be the crown of
this human affair we call politics. It cannot be any other way.
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