Zeal and Politics

Archbishop Roger M. Mahony’s recent policy statement on “Catholic public officials andthe new abortion debate” is an unwise and unwelcome clerical intrusion into the political process.

The archbishop began his statement by noting that it was issued in anticipation of a Supreme Court ruling in Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services that would “intensify” the debate over abortion and throw it back into the legislatures of the 50 states. In that debate, Mahony wrote, all Catholic officeholders have a “positive moral obligation” to seek the repeal of laws permitting abortion. “All our Catholic people, and I,” he wrote, “expect our Catholic public officials (for whom it is no more possible to divide their consciences on this matter than on any other matter where grave moral issues touch public policy) to back their convictions in the arena of the legislature--both state and national . . . We expect them to support legislation which guarantees . . . the right to life.”

No one imagines that lawmakers can or should ignore the voice of their own convictions. But our nonsectarian democracy presumes that the voice will come from their own conscience and not from the pulpit. Are Catholic legislators similarly obliged to oppose capital punishment as their bishops, including Mahony, do? Must they oppose nuclear deterrence and military aid to Central American, as their bishops have? More to the point, are the church’s solemn teachings on the indissolubility of marriage and the intrinsic immorality of all artificial contraception also binding on Catholic officeholders? If not, Mahony’s statement looks less like moral instruction and more like a little political arm-twisting.

In a lecture on the church and censorship the great Jesuit theologian and exponent of religious liberty, John Courtney Murray, once argued that “The law, mindful of its nature, is required to be tolerant of many evils that morality condemns.”

In our pluralistic society, as Father Murray’s discerning remark suggests, the boundary between church and state is not always a clear line one can walk with sure-footed confidence. More often, it is a kind of social precipice approached across treacherous, shifting soil that may give way at any moment. Prudent people stay well back from such an edge.