Letter to the Editor...

I wrote the following to our Archdiocese newspaper, The Tidings, in response to the reader comments in the most recent issue. Clearly, many people have not yet adjusted to the realities of the election being over.

To Whom It May Concern:

If the recent reader comments in The Tidings are any indication, tempers have not yet cooled in the aftermath of the recent election. I humbly submit that, as Catholics, we might all benefit from a quick review of two of the instructions in our Catechism. First, CCC 1790:

“A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.”

In heated political rhetoric, we are usually aware of our own certainty but often forget that our opponents are typically certain of their positions as well. The Church makes it clear that each of us must act on the moral certainty we feel, but we must also never forget that we, ourselves, may still be in error. This is a little reminiscent of marriage, though 25+ years have taught me that those situations are often best handled by not acting on my certainty and simply acknowledging, up front, that I am in error!

Second, CCC 2478, which begins “To avoid rash judgment, everyone should be careful to interpret insofar as possible his neighbor's thoughts, words, and deeds in a favorable way…” It then goes on to quote some wonderful advice from St. Ignatius of Loyola on how we should listen, discuss, and even correct each other only in love and charity.

The most “favorable way” that I can think of to interpret the differences between my voting and some of my fellow Catholics is to recognize that our teaching on life is enormous, and that I, personally, cannot love enough. Consider Pope John Paul II’s clear, simple statement on the “right to life” in CHRISTIFIDELES LAICI (#38). It is “every human being” in “every phase of development” and in “every condition”.

Mentally, I can accept this. It is a logical extension of loving my neighbor as myself. Emotionally, it is not so easy. God can, and does, love infinitely but my capacity is seemingly all too limited. When it was my own children still in the womb or my own father facing the end of his life, I felt love akin to what I hold for my own skin. But when it comes to, say, the 4,000 children who die every day for lack of two buckets of clean water, I feel sadness, but not the same burning emotions. Moving farther, to someone like a suicide bomber or a death row inmate, it becomes hard for me to even muster sympathy.

Since I cannot fit the entire teaching in my heart I cannot reasonably expect my fellow Catholics to do so either. As I see it, we each fit in as much as we can, as best we can. With a teaching so broad, and with each of us having unique life experiences, some differences seem inevitable. Instead of viewing these differences as disaster, I am trying to see them as strength. Perhaps the differences help make our collective heart larger. The USCCB makes a similar point in its document on FAITHFUL CITIZENSHIP (#29):

“Clearly not every Catholic can be actively involved on each of these concerns, but we need to support one another as our community of faith defends human life and dignity wherever it is threatened. We are not factions, but one family of faith fulfilling the mission of Jesus Christ.”

Each week at Mass, we collectively pray for unity and peace. To show our seriousness we even demonstrate by offering each other a sign of peace. I, for one, am not going to start making that gesture conditional on how the Catholics around me voted. And I sincerely hope that none of them will start putting any such precondition on me!