Oct

19

“Render Unto Caesar”

October 19, 2008 |

I’m struck by three juxtapositions today. 

The first is that Cincinnati’s new Archbishop was named on Friday.  We are getting Bishop Dennis Schnurr from the Diocese of Duluth, MN.  The Cincinnati Enquirer has run a couple of articles on him.  But it was today’s that caught my attention.  It was in the form of a Q&A and one of the questions was, “what are his politics?”

The second is that today’s gospel is from Matthew 22 and tells the story of Christ instructing all to “repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”

The third is a recent address given by Archbishop Chaput of Denver (author of “Render Unto Caesar”) at the ENDOW dinner.  Some of his stuff is just classic (h/t to Cathoilc Report).

You need to read the address yourself, but here are a few excerpts.

“As adults, each of us needs to form a strong Catholic conscience. Then we need to follow that conscience when we vote. And then we need to take responsibility for the consequences of the vote we cast. Nobody can do that for us. That’s why really knowing and living our Catholic faith is so important. It’s the only reliable guide we have for acting in the public square as disciples of Jesus Christ.”

“We need to remember that tolerance is not a Christian virtue, and it’s never an end in itself. In fact, tolerating grave evil within a society is itself a form of evil. Likewise, democratic pluralism does not mean that Catholics should be quiet in public about serious moral issues because of some misguided sense of good manners. A healthy democracy requires vigorous moral debate to survive. Real pluralism demands that people of strong beliefs will advance their convictions in the public square - peacefully, legally and respectfully, but energetically and without embarrassment. Anything less is bad citizenship and a form of theft from the public conversation.”

“The ’separation of Church and state’ does not mean - and it can never mean - separating our Catholic faith from our public witness, our political choices and our political actions. That kind of separation would require Christians to deny who we are; to repudiate Jesus when he commands us to be ‘leaven in the world’ and to ‘make disciples of all nations.’ That kind of separation steals the moral content of a society. It’s the equivalent of telling a married man that he can’t act married in public. Of course, he can certainly do that, but he won’t stay married for long.”

“The truth is that for some Catholics, the abortion issue has never been a comfortable cause. It’s embarrassing. It’s not the kind of social justice they like to talk about. It interferes with their natural political alliances. And because the homicides involved in abortion are ‘little murders’ - the kind of private, legally protected murders that kill conveniently unseen lives - it’s easy to look the other way.”

“It’s curious that nobody seems to worry about the ’separation of Church and state,’ or religious interference in the public square, when the religious voices that speak up support a certain kind of candidate.”

“As I suggest throughout Render Unto Caesar, it’s important for Catholics to be people of faith who pursue politics to achieve justice; not people of politics who use and misuse faith to achieve power.”

“So I think that people who claim that the abortion struggle is ‘lost’ as a matter of law, or that supporting an outspoken defender of legal abortion is somehow ‘prolife,’ are not just wrong; they’re betraying the witness of every person who continues the work of defending the unborn child. And I hope they know how to explain that, because someday they’ll be required to.”

I do not pretend to be a political blog, nor do I want to be.  But this is an election with real consequences; and it is up to each of us to realize that we have to be a Catholic 24/7.  Yes, we must render unto Caesar what is his, but we must also answer to God for the choices we make.


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