Elections require conscience

	Bishop Robert J. Banks

The elections are over, so now it is safe to say a word about them or about politics.

First, my congratulations, prayers and best wishes to all who were elected to office. Not so much because you won, but because you have taken on serious responsibilities that will affect the lives of our communities and so many members of our communities.

Congratulations, prayers and best wishes also go to those who were willing to run for public office but did not get all the votes they needed. The congratulations are because you had the courage and generosity to offer yourselves for service. That is something in which you and your families can take pride. The prayers and best wishes are for you as you absorb the inevitable disappointment, and move on to continue to do good things and serve the community in other ways.

The health and welfare of a community have been on my mind lately for a couple of reasons besides the elections.

The first reason was a local report that came across my desk several weeks ago. Unfortunately, I passed it on to someone else in our diocesan offices, so I am unable to cite the exact title or the group that authored it.

Social capital

As I remember, it picked up on a concept made popular by the sociologist, Robert Putnam, the author of Bowling Alone. He is very concerned about "social capital," which is the capital we create for a community by working together and participating in the life of the community. Putnam makes a distinction between "bonding social capital" and "bridging social capital."

"Bonding social capital" is what happens when people come together in a group to share and build up their common interests. A good example would be the Knights of Columbus.

"Bridging social capital" is what happens when people come together across the boundaries that make them groups -- whether those boundaries are religion, race or economic status. Paul's Pantry in Green Bay might be an example of a common effort that brings people together, despite difference of religion or class, to help the poor.

The report that came to me was accompanied by a note from a friend who holds a significant position in our local area. He asked me to pay attention to the report. I took his advice and found the report to be very interesting as it indicated how the Green Bay area was doing in the task of building social capital, both the bonding and the bridging kinds.

My reaction was one of both disappointment and discovery. I was somewhat disappointed that little, if anything, was said about the role of religion. But that disappointment turned to discovery as I began to think in a new way of the contribution the Church makes to every local community.

Religious family

When it comes to "bonding social capital," probably marriage and family are the only social realities that bond people together more than religion. When I have made my parish visitations and held Town Hall meeting for the congregation, the first comment I usually heard was, "This parish is a family." I am sure that Lutheran Bishop James Justman hears similar comments when he meets with his local congregations.

As for "bridging social capital," I think of all that the Diocese and parishes, like St. Willebrord's in Green Bay, have done to reach out to welcome Hispanic people to our area. And while religious differences in the past have tended to divide people in this area, the ecumenical movement has dramatically changed attitudes in all the mainline churches. And the Church's social service agencies and institutions from Catholic Charities to our Catholic hospitals are all dedicated to the service of people regardless of their religion or any other distinguishing characteristics.

While we are patting ourselves on the back, we also have to acknowledge that we can always do better. I see us doing that as we necessarily overcome a certain parochialism by linking and merging parishes. We also have to make sure that we are supportive of non-church sponsored efforts to improve our communities.

The second document that attracted my attention came from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and was entitled, Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Concerning the Participation of Catholics in Political Life.

How to vote?

From the newspaper headlines, it seemed that the whole purpose of this document was to tell Catholics for whom we should vote, and to tell Catholic politicians what laws they should approve.

I think it would be more accurate to say that the Note was intended to help all of us act as faith-filled, good citizens in a very challenging time. It did not intend to give detailed advice on specific issues or candidates. Instead, it acknowledged "the legitimate freedom of Catholic citizens to choose among the various political opinions that are compatible with faith and the natural law, and to select, according to their own criteria, what best corresponds to the needs of the common good."

However, it pointed out the danger of a false relativism that would deny there is a basic moral law rooted in the nature of the human person. There are fundamental and inalienable ethical demands rooted in the dignity of the human being. A Catholic cannot act in such a way that would contradict these fundamental demands, but the Pope has acknowledged that a Catholic politician can licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by a law regarding abortion which it is not possible to overturn or repeal.

The Church supports these fundamental demands as arising from basic respect for the dignity of the human person and human life, not as a religious teaching. In fact, our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, has warned of the dangers which can arise when a specifically religious norm becomes the law of a state: "In practice, the identification of religious law with civil law can stifle religious freedom, even going so far as to restrict or deny other inalienable human rights."

The Note warns that to require citizens and politicians to act without regard to their faith-formed consciences would leave the social and political field open to a radical kind of secularism. In my mind, that would in turn lead to a moral individualism that would undermine the social capital mentioned in the earlier document.