In a democracy, we all get to play our part in government. True, individually we each have a small part, but collectively it's a very important one. In voting, we get to place our hands, however briefly, on the levers of power. We have our say in how Australia will be governed.

Government is an important responsibility. Even if your role and mine, as voters, is a limited one, we should still take it seriously. So how are we called to exercise the little bit of governmental power that we have? How should a Catholic vote?

The Catholic view…

It's never been the Catholic view that governments must give effect to Catholic views about what is morally right and morally wrong or, it follows, that voters should elect governments which will do that. It is not the duty of the State to forbid acts simply because they are wrong, or to compel people to engage in right behaviour.

St Thomas Aquinas

In fact, it's easy to find counter-examples. Take prostitution, for instance:

• St Augustine was clear that prostitution was gravely wrong, but he argued against banning it.
• St Thomas Aquinas agreed. He wrote at length on the inherent evil and harmful consequences of prostitution before asserting that, nevertheless, it should not be illegal.

For Aquinas, the primary purpose of civil law is not to reform people or to lead them to behave morally; that is a matter for the grace of God. The primary purpose of civil law is to preserve social order and the common good. Prostitution should be prohibited only if the common good requires it.

St Augustine of Hippo

Aquinas did consider that prostitution was very damaging to the community. But he shared the prevailing opinion of his time that prostitution provided a necessary outlet for the sexual energy of men who lacked the social or financial standing to become betrothed, and the moral fibre to practice chastity. There was a large class of young or poor men who, if they could not visit prostitutes, would tend to engage in more disruptive and harmful wrongs — rapes, seductions, debauches, threats to family, property and social relationships. So the common good required the state to accommodate prostitution.

Augustine's reasoning was slightly different. Laws, he felt, will not be respected or enforced unless they enjoy at least the assent, if not the active support, of a critical mass of the community (which, he considered, a ban on prostitution would not). It is damaging to society and to the rule of law to make laws which are not going to be respected or enforced. Therefore they should not be made.

The Protestant view…

John Calvin

The Protestant tradition offers a different view. Luther and Calvin both argued that the state has a duty to criminalise immoral behaviours like prostitution and adultery. The state should be actively Christian, they felt.

The end result of Calvin's position is a kind of moral totalitarianism, which holds that secular rulers should use the power of the state to protect and reward virtue, and to punish vice. There is no room in this scheme of things for freedom and, as might be expected, Geneva under Calvin was not a fun place to be.

Luther's position was slightly different. He accepted that, if prostitution and adultery were criminalised, they would still go on. But, he felt, at least the State would not be complicit. This was better than the State appearing to condone immorality.

Martin Luther

For Luther, in other words, unworkability or unenforceability was not an objection to any law. It was important that the law should say the right, Christian thing, even if that did not result in the right, Christian thing being done.

Individual rights versus the common good…

As well as being different from the Protestant view, the Catholic understanding of the role of the government can also be distinguished from the dominant secular/humanistic perspective, or at least one dominant secular perspective, which is that the role of the State is to protect and defend the rights of the individual.

Catholic moral discourse has never really revolved around 'rights' and acts which infringe them. Rather, it revolves around relationships, and acts which damage them — relationships within the community, and relationships between the individual and God.

As an extension of that, Catholic teaching on the role of government also doesn't talk much in terms of defending human rights. So far as the proper role of government is concerned, Catholic teaching focuses not on the rights of the individual but on the "common good".

The idea of the common good goes back to Aquinas, Augustine and beyond, but it is still very much at the centre of Catholic teaching on the role of the State. The Vatican Council emphasised more than once that the duty of government is to pursue the common good. In a democracy, citizens should "use their free vote to further the common good", and political parties "must promote those things which in their judgment are required for the common good" (Gaudium et Spes 75).

"Common" refers primarily to the community, not the individual, which means that the protection of the human rights of the individual is not the primary goal of the state.

(That is not to say, of course, that the rights of the individual are unimportant or irrelevant. The State is concerned to protect the rights of the individual where this serves the common good; i.e. where it benefits the community. And, of course, the common good and the protection of the human rights of the individual are not opposed; in fact they are closely linked. Everyone would accept that, in general, the common good is served if human rights are acknowledged, respected and enforced, and that it suffers if this is not the case. The point is, though, that the common good is the standard against which government actions are ultimately judged.)

A broad concept…

"The common good" is an extremely broad concept. And, in practice, it runs up against countless tensions, exemptions and qualifications.

Church teaching recognises the complex decisions, the balancing of competing rights and interests and the diversity of honest opinions that are involved in directing civil law to serve the common good:

"Christians must … give an example by their sense of responsibility and their service of the common good. In this way they are to demonstrate concretely how authority can be compatible with freedom, personal initiative with the solidarity of the whole social organism, and the advantages of unity with fruitful diversity. They must recognize the legitimacy of different opinions with regard to temporal solutions, and respect citizens, who, even as a group, defend their points of view by honest methods." (Gaudium et Spes 75)

Different opinions exist on political questions not only within society at large, but also between Catholics. A Catholic should be slow to claim that his view on some question is the only view that a faithful Catholic may hold:

"It happens rather frequently, and legitimately so, that with equal sincerity some of the faithful will disagree with others on a given matter. Even against the intentions of their proponents, however, solutions proposed on one side or another may be easily confused by many people with the Gospel message. Hence it is necessary for people to remember that no one is allowed in the aforementioned situations to appropriate the Church's authority for his opinion." (Gaudium et Spes 43)

The church also recognises that it is not primarily the vocation of a bishop to engage in the political process, or to tell those who do engage in that process how they should discharge their role of seeking the common good:

"Secular duties and activities belong properly although not exclusively to laymen . . . It is very important . . . that there be a correct notion of the relationship between the political community and the Church, and a clear distinction between the tasks which Christians undertake, individually or as a group, on their own responsibility as citizens guided by the dictates of a Christian conscience, and the activities which, in union with their pastors, they carry out in the name of the Church. . . . The Church and the political community in their own fields are autonomous and independent from each other." (Gaudium et Spes 43 and 76)

Where does all this get us? I think we can summarise the relevant principles as follows:

• The principle that the duty of government is to serve and advance the common good is well established.
• The practice, however, is a complex and nuanced affair, frequently involving conflicts between competing rights and interests, competing groups, competing priorities and competing views as to what will, and what will not, serve the common good.
• It is the duty of the government, as best it can, to reconcile those conflicts.
• The right reconciliation is the one which best serves the common good.
• That is a judgment which those in government have to make. In a democracy, this extends to citizens, when they vote.

Role of the Church…

In so far as the church is made up of citizens, its members of course have a duty to exercise their political power for the common good. For most of us, this largely relates to our voting decisions.

The institutional church — priests, bishops and so forth — has traditionally been wary of too close and public an involvement with political power. The Vatican Council recognises that the exercise of political power is not part of the vocation of a bishop; this is a matter primarily for lay people. That is the reasons, for example, why canon law forbids clerics from engaging in secular politics, regardless of the particular policies which they want to pursue. For the same reason, the church is wary of endorsing particular parties, or of directing people for whom they should vote.

And yet Christianity does offer a very clear account of the human condition, and of human society, which is obviously relevant to any appreciation of the common good, or of how particular policies may impact on the common good. There are few, if any, areas of government activity on which Christianity has no light to cast. A church called to build the kingdom of God can hardly ignore such a vast area of social and communal life as government.

The result is that, while the institutional church does not generally attempt to proclaim which policies will, and which will not, advance the common good, it does:

• draw attention to the duty of voters and politicians to work for the common good, and
• offer (hopefully) illuminating perspectives which should aid people in deciding how they should use their vote to serve the common good.

One recently-developed aspect of this activity is the "Voters' Guide".

Voters' guides…

Click image to access Archdiocese of Sydney Life Office Voters' Guide

Catholic voters' guides originated in the United States, and I think came originally from lay movements and apostolates rather than from the bishops. Briefly, they comment either on specific candidates or parties, or on specific issues, and attempt to offer a Catholic perspective, with a view to assisting or influencing voters.

The voters' guide has now reached Australia, with this offering from the Archdiocese of Sydney (Click image at right to view the document). A brief and punchy two-page document, it summarises the policy positions and/or voting records of all the political parties currently represented in the Federal parliament on:

• Abortion
• RU 486 - the "abortion pill"
• Euthanasia
• Human cloning and embryo research
• Prohibition of same-sex marriage
• Pornography (especially on the Internet)
• Drugs
• Religious expression and values in schools

The guide is at pains to be impartial. More or less equal space is allotted to each party, regardless of size, and where party positions on a particular issue are illustrated by quotes, this is done consistently for all parties.

First problem: accuracy…

But no effort is ever perfect, and this one has its flaws. For instance, on abortion and euthanasia the guide indicates that the three major parties - ALP, Liberals and Nationals — allow a conscience vote, while implying through silence that the minor parties — Australian Democrats, Family First and the Greens — apply party discipline to secure a particular result. In fact the Greens do allow a conscience vote on these issues (as they do on all issues; the Greens do not apply a party voting discipline in the way that the major parties do). And it may be that Family First follows the same practice as the Greens — the point is perhaps unimportant as the party has only one Federal parliamentary representative.

And this illustrates the first problem with a voters' guide of this kind. Because it is so short, it necessarily sacrifices detail, context and even accuracy in the interests of a punchy impact. That is par for the course in political campaigning, as anyone who watches the parties' 30-second television ads will know, but it does limit the usefulness, and of course the credibility and authority, of these voters' guides.

Second problem: selectivity…

The second problem is a related one; the guide is highly selective in the issues that it addresses. Anyone who treated the guide as a comprehensive statement of Catholic perspectives on the public policy would think that the Catholic tradition has nothing to say about war, nothing to say about justice, nothing to say about poverty, nothing to say about community, that might influence how a voter would cast their vote. And that, of course, would be completely wrong.

Now, it should be pointed out that the Sydney guide does not claim to be an exhaustive survey of all relevant policy issues. The issues covered have been selected, not because they are the only ones that ought to interest voters, but because the guide has been issued jointly by the Marriage and Family Office, and the Life Office, of the Archdiocese of Sydney, and these are the issues that interest them.

Click image to access document produced by Sisters of Charity Advocacy Network

Others are free to issue voters guides or similar documents on issues that interest them; see HERE, for instance, for a substantial document — not explicitly a voters' guide, but very much directed to influencing the election — on social justice issues issued by the Sisters of Charity Advocacy Network.

But the ability of others to issue other guides doesn't really solve the problem. The Sisters of Charity document is addressed to activists rather than voters, it will reach many fewer people, and it is much, much longer, with all the advantages and disadvantages that that will bring. A lot of people will be exposed to the Sydney document but not to the Sisters of Charity document, and they are at risk of ending up with a distorted view of what Catholicism has to say about public policy in Australia, and about the duty of the voter.

Third problem: usefulness…

And the third problem is a consequence of the second. A brief and narrowly-focussed voters' guide may not actually be much help to the voter in making up his mind.

Suppose you are a voter who really does think that abortion is the key issue. It's an issue of fundamental importance, relating to basic human rights — the most basic right of all, in fact — in which the moral principles and moral issues are absolutely clear-cut. This, for you, is the overriding issue, and you want to cast a pro-life vote. The Sydney guide seems to be directed at precisely the issues that are going to decide your vote.

What you would like is a party which:

• would ban abortion, or
• failing that, would impose greater legal restrictions on access to abortion, or
• while not restricting abortion as such, would put in place policies designed to result in fewer abortions (e.g. by not funding abortions, or not providing them through the public health services), or
• would put in place policies designed to reduce the number of crisis pregnancies in the first place, and/or to encourage and support women facing crisis pregnancies who choose to continue the pregnancy

And what do you find? Of the parties covered in the Sydney guide, none propose to ban abortion, or to place any legal restrictions on access to abortion. None proposes policies which will reduce access to abortion. Only one — Family First — favours policies which might support women facing crisis pregnancies, and then only in qualified terms.

On the basis of that, you might decide to give Family First your first preference, as the best of a bad lot — assuming that is, that there is a Family first candidate in your electorate. But, even in that case, in nearly every electorate in Australia there is no prospect that your first preference for Family First will actually be your effective vote. Your effective vote will be the lower preference for either the ALP or a Coalition candidate, and the guide is no help at all to you there.

And yet, in terms of your political objective — to protect the unborn, and reduce or eliminate abortions — it may well make a difference which of these two is returned to power. There is (perhaps surprising) evidence from the United States that:

• Republican politicians are more likely to adopt a pro-life policy platform than Democratic politicians, but
• abortion rates rise under Republican administrations, and fall under Democratic administration, even explicitly pro-choice administrations.

The reason for this is not entirely clear, but it is suggested that Democratic social and economic policies tend to make it easier for a woman who wishes to continue her pregnancy to do so; they are more supportive. Republican policies have the opposite effect.

Now, this effect would not necessarily be replicated in Australia, where both sides of politics are committed to a more comprehensive system of social solidarity than prevails in the US. But it does underline the point that the party that makes the most pro-life noise is not necessarily the party with the most pro-life policies, and a vote for that party is not necessarily the most effective pro-life vote. And, in Australia, where none of the major parties make especially pro-life noises, the pro-life voter needs a lot more information, and a lot better analysis, than can be provided on two sides of an A4 page.

What are your thoughts on this commentary? You can contribute to the discussion in our forum.

Peregrinus can be contacted at: Peregrinus <peregrinus@catholica.com.au>

©2007 Peregrinus

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