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Bishop: Faith, public life inseparable
Second edition of 'Catholics in the Public Square' set to be released
By Andrew Junker, ajunker@catholicsun.org
Sept. 16, 2008
Next month, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted will release a second edition of his booklet, “Catholics in the Public Square,” just in time for the November elections.
The booklet, originally published in 2006 by Basilica Press, takes a broad look at religion and politics, and encourages Catholics to live their faith in all that they do.
“Of course, if one’s faith does not impact on one’s whole life, including one’s political and social responsibilities, then it is not authentic faith; it is a sham, a counterfeit,” the bishop writes in the booklet.
“Catholics in the Public Square” is organized as a series of 33 questions and answers. This revised edition includes some expanded answers and brand new questions on topics, including the importance of Catholic identity in Catholic institutions, immigration, treating employees justly and working with people of different faiths on common goals.
It will be released on Oct. 4 at a legislative seminar focusing on issues like marriage and conscience protection for medical workers.
“You could probably have an infinite list of questions and answers if we’re talking about Catholics in the public square, because there are Catholics in every walk of life,” said Ron Johnson, executive director of the Arizona Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the state’s three dioceses.
He said the new edition was an opportunity to address a few more items that are important today.
“We need to be engaged. We need to be Catholic in all we do, not just at Mass, but in living our lives,” Johnson said. “We need to live our faith at all times and everywhere. That’s why Bishop Olmsted wrote it and that’s what it’s about.”
This means that Catholics have a responsibility to advance the common good in society by engaging in temporal affairs, the bishop writes.
“There are multitudes of different ways in which Catholics may serve the Church through their contributions in public life,” he writes. “In each circumstance, however, Catholics are especially called to contribute to the common good, to defend the dignity of every human person, and to live as faithful citizens.”
Though the specific contributions to the common good will differ depending on one’s station in life — a police officer will have different duties than a small business owner — the booklet calls for a common quality to pervade every Catholic’s actions.
“In the end, it’s a matter of integrity,” said Mike Phelan, diocesan director for the Office of Marriage and Respect Life Issues. “It’s saying I’m a Catholic no matter who I’m speaking to and no matter what I’m speaking about.”
To this end, it’s important that Catholics are educated and have a properly formed conscience, said Johnson, who noted that informing people of the Church’s stance on certain issues is a constant challenge.
“There’s a lot of misinformation about the faith,” he said. “The goal is to have this book be a teaching tool, a mini-catechesis that groups or parishes can have any time of the year.”
Non-negotiable issues
While “Catholics in the Public Square” covers a host of issues ranging from the immigration debate to queries about the separation of church and state, Bishop Olmsted makes clear that there are some issues that no Catholic in good conscience can dissent from.
“There are several issues that are ‘not negotiable’ for Catholics in political life, because they involve matters that are intrinsically evil,” he writes.
Bishop Olmsted then quotes a speech Pope Benedict XVI gave to European politicians that mentions three non-negotiable principles.
They include the protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death; the recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family — as being a union between one man and one woman based on marriage; and the protection of the rights of parents to educate their children.
The marriage issue has even greater local significance this year as Arizonans will vote to amend the state constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
The Arizona bishops recently released a joint statement urging Catholics to support the measure and Bishop Olmsted made a video appeal to all Mass-goers last weekend.
“The non-negotiable issues are prior to the consideration of any party or platform,” Phelan said. “It’s our hope as Catholics that these non-negotiable issues are things that all parties would agree upon as fundamentals of how you provide for the common good as a society.”
He said that the Church, when dealing with the political sphere, is always about principles and never about endorsing a particular party or candidate.
“How that gets worked out in the real world is that people have to look at individual candidates, consider what they stand for, form their consciences according to Church teaching about what’s necessary for the common good, and make a decision,” Phelan said.
Resources like “Catholics in the Public Square” and the upcoming legislative conference can help Catholics make those informed decisions.
“It gives us a clear teaching message from our shepherd about what our responsibilities are when we participate in making our nation a better place,” he said.
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