Dr Kania prompted us to bring this commentary forward a few days ago in the wake of the escalating political tensions between Georgia and Russia but it probably has wider significance than that. His essay is an examination of the imperative, relationship and tension that should exist between our religious outlook and our political outlook. He argues, contrary to the popularly accepted maxim, that it is "impossible to keep religion out of politics". Now that certainly opens up much scope for discussion — and we hope it does. While his arguments are chiefly directed at our civic responsibility to involve ourselves in secular politics it could be equally argued given all the "politics" involved in religion these days that we might also have a greater responsibility to be involved in the governance of our Church as well. Dr Kania calls on some pretty weighty intellects to support his arguments.

Augustine and the battle between good and evil…

One of the great pillars of the Catholic Church, the Latin Father, St. Augustine, wrote the encyclopaedic work, The City of God at a time when Vandal hordes prepared to surge across his North African homeland. In this tract, Augustine painted a thesis that there exists in the world, two spiritual lineages, one deriving from Abel, of the Godly, and one arising from Cain, of the evil. Although Augustine was not speaking of evil transferring physically from family to family, the great Saint proposed that operating within the world coincidentally, are two forces, battling for either the salvation or damnation of souls. This battle according to Augustine, transcends all races, centuries and nations. The task required by the Godly, is to build up the City of God and defeat the schemes of evil.

Aquinas on the societal responsibilities of each person…

Centuries later, another Latin, St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in his Summa Theologica of the duty of the individual to be active in the world. For Aquinas, each person is a spiritual being, yet all the while they must be cognizant, as the philosopher Aristotle mentioned, that he or she is "by nature social or political animals" and has societal responsibilities. (Aquinas, ST, Book II, Vol. 22, 61) In another work, On the Governance of Rulers, Aquinas even provided a treatise as to the rights of citizens and the responsibilities of rulers over their citizens.

Chrysostom on expressing our beliefs in action…

The duty of the Christian to be active in the world, seeking justice and working toward combating all that is not love and life giving is an all too forgotten precept. Many Christians perceive that they fulfil their obligation to God by attending the Divine Liturgy on the Sabbath, yet after this is done, they forget to consider the second part of Christ's commandment that we not only love God with all our being, but love our neighbour as ourselves. The Eastern Catholic patriarch, Chrysostom, teaches of this imbalance when he speaks in his homily: "But on your way to services, you passed by beggars who pleaded for food and drink. It is no good putting gold chalices on the Lord's table unless you give food and drink to the poor from your own tables. The service which we celebrate in church is a sham unless we put its symbolic meaning into practice outside its walls". (Chrysostom, 1996, p. 55)

Three imperatives…

The Christian has therefore three imperatives. The first and foremost is that of the obligation he or she owes their Creator; the second, is the respect for the dignity of their own selves made in the Image of God; the third, is the service and love of neighbour, through whom they give honour to God and themselves by showing charity. This third imperative is the political or social imperative; a reaching out beyond oneself to recreate society into the City of God.

It was while he was imprisoned, striving to bring down the racist laws in the South of the United States, that Martin Luther King Jr., revisited the writings of both Augustine and Aquinas, and their teachings on politics and social action. In what has become one of the critical moments of United States civil rights history, King Jr. wrote a letter from his cell in Birmingham Gaol in 1963, wherein he revealed his musings on the imperative of the Christian to be actively involved in the political framework of society. King Jr. wrote: "A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law".

King Jr. mobilised his followers into an effective organization of non-violent resistance so as to force the necessary legislative changes to eventually bring about the Civil Rights Bill. Without this spiritual revolution, the rights of minority groups in the United States may still have remained but a lyrical promise in Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Although King Jr. was never an elected member of a parliament, he had used political pressure to 'massage' the consciousness of the United States Congress.

Martin Luther King Jr on the worth of a religion…

Martin Luther King Jr

According to King Jr. the worth of a religion should not be gauged by the length or poetry of the prayers, nor the quality of hymns, nor the richness of vestments, nor the number of people who attend the church. Rather as King Jr. wrote in his short essay, The Measure of a Man: "any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the economic conditions that damn the soul, the social conditions that corrupt men, and the city governments that cripple them, is a dry, dead, do-nothing religion in need of new blood".

The Catholic Church has always embraced social action, however, within the even warmer embrace of prayer and contemplation. Centuries ago, the Eastern Catholic mystic, St. Maximus the Confessor stressed that without action, contemplation becomes mere fantasy; and action, without contemplation, is but a mere façade, a statue of what was originally intended by God in the doing of good. Pray, but do not let your neighbour starve and go unclothed; serve, but know that you serve not only the individual whose wound you tend, but He that is each person's Creator. The contemplative in action, is inspired to serve; but serves with purpose. The contemplative in action, is the supreme altruist, for he or she serves the Divine.

That the vocation of politics is a Christian duty is not a novel concept. The very word 'minister' that is used by so many in political office, derives, (some would say ironically), from the Latin word meaning 'servant'.

Throughout its history the Catholic Church has revealed itself as a community both of contemplation and societal action. From his Patriarchal pulpit in Constantinople, St. John Chrysostom spoke to his listeners on matters with direct relevance to governments not only of the fourth century, but of every century after him:

"The rich usually imagine that, if they do not physically rob the poor, they are committing no sin. But the sin of the rich consists in not sharing their wealth with the poor. In fact the rich man who keeps all his wealth for himself is committing a form of robbery. The reason is that in truth all wealth comes from God, and so belongs to everyone equally…".

In the modern era, Pope Leo XIII in his Rerum Novarum of 1891, clearly announced to the political bodies of the world the need to act with charity and justice with those under their care:

"Labor which is too long and too hard and the belief that the pay is inadequate not infrequently give workers cause to strike and become voluntarily idle. This evil, which is frequent and serious, ought to be remedied by public authority, because such interruption of work inflicts damage not only upon employers and upon the workers themselves, but also injures trade and commerce and the general interests of the State …" (Leo XIII, 1891, par. 56)

Forty years afterward, a different Pontiff, Pius XI at the height of the Great Depression, in his Quadragesimo Anno, exhorted the governments of his time:

"The function of the rulers of the State is to watch over the community and its parts; but in protecting private individuals in their rights, chief consideration ought to be given to the weak and the poor". (Pius XI, 1931, par. 25)

In more recent times, Pope John Paul II in an encyclical, Christifideles Laici (1988) stated that we have a responsibility to live and act justly in this world. Politics, John Paul II wrote, is a noble and necessary vocation. Despite the negative image presented of the political life through the media, it is a Christian duty to resist evil and promote good on earth. The most effective way in which this can be achieved is through the political infrastructure established by society.

As John Paul II continued:

"Charges of careerism, idolatry of power, egoism and corruption that are often times directed at persons in government, parliaments, the ruling classes, or political parties, as well as the common opinion that participating in politics is an absolute moral danger, does not in the least justify either scepticism or an absence on the part of Christians in public life."

The moral imperative to participate in the political process…

Dag Hammarskjöld

It has often been said that in a democracy we receive the government that our votes have purchased. Yet our choices remain limited to those who have put themselves forward as a candidate. Without good candidates we form even in the best case scenario, poor governments. Therefore, the political imperative, speaks loudest to those who can speak, but refuse to sacrifice their talents to do so. Dag Hammarskjöld, second Secretary-General of the United Nations, and a man of deep prayer, noted regarding Politics:

"Politics and diplomacy are no play of will and skill where results are independent of the character of those engaging in the game. Results are determined not by superficial ability, but by the consistency of actors in their efforts and by the validity of their ideals. Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, there is no intellectual activity which more ruthlessly tests the solidity of a man than politics". (Public Papers of the Secretaries-General of the United Nations, 1972, p. 507)

Every Christian is obligated to become part of the political processes of the society in which they live. Every political issue can be traced back to a moral tenet upon which the issue rests; therefore it is impossible to keep, (as many atheists would wish to see), religion out of politics. Abortion, Racism, Sexism, unfair dismissal, graft, unfair wages, nepotism, prostitution, all take their tap-root from a desire within the human person to make self-interest override not only the common good, but to mask the Divine plan of justice, dignity, love, honesty, self-control and mercy.

If the human person is indeed a political animal, then this nature has been given to them by God, for a purpose. That Christians share their vocation with peoples of other faiths and those who search whole-heartedly for the Absolute Truth, is unquestionable. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (842) teaches us: "All nations form but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth, and also because all share a common destiny, namely God. His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city". For this reason Christians should listen to other servants of God who have striven, and to this day, still strive to build a just world. One such example in the 20th Century, was Mohandas K. Gandhi. In his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Gandhi alerted his readers to the inescapable connection between Religion and Politics:

"To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means". (Gandhi, 1957, p. 504)

Oscar Romero on the political imperative…

Oscar Romero

The martyred Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, a year before he was slain, addressed a gathering of catechists, speaking to them of the political vocation, of the necessity to speak up for justice, and in words paraphrasing those of St. Augustine, the need to evolve a new society through our labours. As Romero taught:

"If God gives a political vocation, one should live it, but as a Christian. That way we'll have the sort of people needed nowadays, people who will become mature in a Christian community, will mature in the gospel, in their faith, in their commitment to Christ, in their following of the Lord, who will not let them betray him in the laws or customs of the land, that is, in political life. And they will then become the leaders of the transformations that the nation needs today more than ever, Christians thoroughly committed to Christ, in a community that is God's people and, as the Bible says, is like a light on a mountaintop". (Romero, 1988, p. 208)

Over the centuries, brick by brick the City of God is slowly being built. Good is still conquering evil, no matter how virulently evil strikes, nor how aggressively the battle ensues, nor how emaciated the Body of Christ may become. Vandal hordes may arrive, torment our Saints, and conquer our nations for a time. Churches may return to the catacombs, the culture of death may be proclaimed louder from the media pulpits than the Gospel of life is preached. Yet eventually all things pass, but God remains. We have even witnessed Soviet Communism defeated by revolutions tinged with the textures and colours of velvet and orange. Evil invariably dies when good people are prepared to do something rather than nothing.

It is up to each one of us, to recognise the part which we play in building the City of God; taking first from fervent prayers the spiritual mortar by which to form a better society. Let St. Teresa of Avila be our mentor, serving to guide our political goals, ambitions and ideals:

"Christ has no body now but yours, No hands, no feet, on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which He looks Compassion on this world, Yours are the feet With which He walks to do good. Yours are the hands With which He blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet. Yours are the eyes, you are His body. Christ has no body now but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes, through which He Looks compassion on the world. Christ has no body now on earth but yours."

No Hands but Ours: Amanda McKenna's new album "Gather As One" features one track based on the words of St Teresa of Avila. The new album with be released through Willow Publishing in the next two weeks.

Image Credits:
The background images used in the headline and footquote are from a beautiful set of illustrations based on Augustine's "The City of God" by Den Haag 1475-1480 available on the web at this LINK. Clicking on the images in the body of the article will take you to the original source.

©2008 Dr Andrew Thomas Kania

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