TORONTO — Opting out of politics is not an option for Catholics, despite the messy, partisan fray, said a U.S. bishops’ official.

Participation in the political process is a moral obligation and faithful citizenship is a virtue, said Joan Rosenhauer, associate director of the Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

CNS PHOTO

Joan Rosenhauer

Even though the church itself is never partisan, individual Catholics can and should register with political parties and stay involved — not only during elections, she said during a May 30 panel at the Catholic Media Convention, an international gathering of journalists and communications professionals.

She stressed the importance of a conscience well-formed by Catholic social teaching, referring to the U.S. bishops’ 2007 document, "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility."

"We should never be in a position where the party shapes us and we abandon fundamental positions of Catholicism," Rosenhauer said.

Rosenhauer joined Canadian constitutional lawyer Peter Lauwers in a wide-ranging reflection on the role of Catholics in democracy, the relationship of church and state and what a well-formed conscience involves.

"Faithful Citizenship" says a Catholic cannot vote to support a candidate’s position on abortion or racism, but he or she cannot use a candidate’s opposition to abortion, for example, "to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity," Rosenhauer said.

In other words, a Catholic may still vote for a pro-abortion candidate if he or she rejects that position, but has "other morally grave reasons" to support that candidate, Rosenhauer said. She stressed, however, that the requirement of "morally grave reasons" is a "high bar."

Making these choices is a struggle in which every Catholic has to engage, she said.

While Lauwers said he agreed with Rosenhauer’s presentation, he contrasted Canada’s political situation with that of the United States, focusing on the so-called Quiet Revolution in Quebec.

In the 1960s, Quebec residents rejected the previous alliance between the Catholic Church and political elites, he said. The most-Catholic province in Canada became the most nonreligious, as people abandoned the church in droves.

"The church’s meltdown in Quebec has had a profound impact on Canadian politics and the ability of the church to speak truth to power in any area outside of the traditional bounds of social justice," Lauwers said.

Even though Canada has had five Catholic prime ministers to America’s one Catholic president, "it has simply not been acceptable for a Catholic politician in Canada to be seen to obey the church," he said.

"Instead the custom is to take a distance from the church in some rite of ‘political correctness,’" Lauwers said.

He also lamented the lack of real debate on policy issues.

"Policy here is not so much debated as it is alternately announced and denounced," he said.

He said the U.S. bishops’ document "understands the need for authentic pluralism," the need for debate on issues and the importance of persuasion. It also recognizes, he said, that Catholic politicians are on "the spectrum from nominal to authentic."

"Like all Catholics, they are in need of ongoing conversion," he said.

Lauwers also pointed out the difference between the church’s moral stand on issues such as marriage and the need for effective strategy, one that looked at the courts as well as legislatures.

"It was quite plain, for example, from the evolution of the litigation in Canada, that eventually marriage laws would be successfully challenged by same-sex couples," he said.

He suggested a strategy of having the state opt out of defining marriage might have been preferable to the state "taking sides" and redefining marriage to include same-sex couples.

Lauwers said it might be wiser for the church not to propose political strategy at all, but to stick to providing moral arguments and conscience formation. Strategy is for politicians, "exercising prudent political judgment," he said.

The church must commit itself to a support of "accommodation pluralism" that encourages dialogue among disparate points of view and tolerates real diversity. It is only through a defense of this kind of pluralism that religion is safe, he said. — CNS