The Unborn and the Immigrant, Catholics and Politics: Let us Work for a Better Way

A Catholic Christian looks to live her life in a faithful manner, seeking by a kind of connatural presentiment a way to put into practice the order of loyalties that Christ the Lord has placed in her heart. For a Catholic, and for countless men and women of  other Christian communities, it is allegiance to the Lord first, and to his saying "Whatsoever you do to the least, you do to me," that provides the light by which we seek to live our daily commitment to Christ the Lord and to our brothers and sisters in the world.

A Catholic aims for the common goods in civil society: life and food, health, education and just employment, a safe community to live and raise her children. And she wants this, sacrifices for this and fights for this not for herself alone, out of some exaggerated individualism, but rather as goods for all to have. For God wills these goods for all. She knows many do not have even a slight hope to attain them. And since He said "love your neighbor as yourself," she can do no other than to look to do what lies in her power as a member of society to make things better not just for the few, but for the many. 

It is a shame, then, that when a Catholic enters the political realm, it too often presents itself as perilous. She finds that the options open to her in the world of political party and discourse leave little room for her to speak her full voice. One party welcomes an immigrant, but promotes that the unborn daughters of citizen and immigrant alike have no right to be born. The other party thinks it is good for a society to welcome life, but not here, if the country you come from lies somewhere south of Brownsville, Texas.

Yes, I speak in generalities, and there are noble and heroic exceptions to what I say here about the two major parties. But the exceptions tend to render more striking the rule. And yes, there are other goods to be taken into consideration when choosing how to participate in the political process: justice in the workplace, the economy, education and healthcare. We must fight on all fronts for a more compassionate way, but there is a real sense within which we instinctively know that if we as a people do not get it right on what to do for the unborn child and the immigrant, then we are failing as a people to live up to the most basic call of a good conscience, and our concerns about the other issues turn into disfigured caricatures of themselves. 

Children are dying on the way from a womb in Honduras to air in the United States. Children are dying in the womb here in the United States, never allowed to breathe the air of this country. Why is it so difficult for our political leaders to coalesce around a reasoned sense that the first order of business in life is to protect the vulnerable from harm? Why is it that one party extends the principle in one direction and not the other, while the other party extends it in the opposite direction but without daring to touch the borders of the other party's thought? The compassion of each party cuts in opposite arcs, including and excluding as they go. 

Both the unborn child and the immigrant are denied a chance because they are not recognized. They both lack a document that has scribbled words saying: I have a right to stay alive. But documents are written by governments that too often presume that by writing them, they grant the status there written. Not so. Governments cannot grant what God has already given, they can only acknowledge the dignity there, and then work to uphold it. The problem lies in the selective acknowledgment of the dignity people already possess.

The reign of sin and death goes by many names and more than many disguises. It is the game the world has played since Cain despised his brother Abel. It is the game that says some lives are more important than others, and that some people are more worthy of being set aside. It is the game that says power belongs to those who know how to take it, and use it to control-- by levers behind curtains-- who may be allowed to live and who may be allowed to disappear. This is the game that decided the Prince of Peace had to be disposed of on a cross, and it is the game He defeated by rising from the dead.

Yes we have to make decisions about how to vote and how to participate in the political process. For absenting ourselves from the public discourse and process hurts only the ones we are bound to care the most about. But we do not have to accept the well-packaged choices the parties determine are in the best interest of those that matter more.  We kid ourselves with cruel self-delusion if we quickly join ourselves to political sides and march to political bands without first challenging the premises that govern the way the parties deal out the hand that determines our options.

There is an important place for political participation and even loyalty in a Catholic soul. Such loyalties, though, fall well below the allegiance we owe to Christ our King and Savior. These lesser loyalties serve only insofar as they promote the mission to remake creation according to that grace tinged with glory that the Savior-- by his dying and rising-- came to bring.

Let Catholics first tell the friends and power-brokers that we may know in both parties that the space they leave us is too narrow and the choices too cruel. Let Catholics in the Democratic Party make it known that in their tent there must be room to defend the unborn child, and that the arc protecting the vulnerable cannot cut them off from those we must work to protect. And let Catholics in the Republican Party make it known that in their tent there must be room to defend the immigrant, and that the arc defending the vulnerable cannot cut them off from those we must work to defend.

Maybe we tilt at windmills thinking the parties will hear and make space for a wider discourse, but we owe it to the Lord to put all of our energy into calling for a better way, a way that puts human dignity first, and then proceeds to tackle the tough practicalities such a dignity implies. But if we do not challenge the arcs of exclusion both parties currently employ, we become complicit in the attitude that says in the end politics is just a game, and we may only join our voices to a predetermined song. It may take time to change this lamentable state of affairs, but let us not despair; let us fight the good fight with faith in the Lord whose grace will sustain us so long as we do not neglect to defend and protect all of his little ones.

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