Traveling Light: Pilgrim Law and the Nexus between Law, Politics and Catholic Social Teaching

Abstract

Coming out of a church whose marks of identity include unity, holiness, and universality, it is ironic—and painful—that the “Catholic vote” has become a “metaphor” for polarization in United States culture and politics. As one reporter described the scene in the weeks before the 2004 presidential election: Some rail against their own bishops, while others cheer what they see as a long-awaited stand of conscience. The tension seemed to reach a peak yesterday, when the Vatican felt compelled to publicly dismiss the claims of a Catholic lawyer who said he had Vatican support to seek [Senator] Kerry's excommunication.Tensions have also manifested themselves in the variety of Catholic “voter's guides.” Some list a limited number of “non-negotiable” issues—particular actions that are identified in Catholic moral theology as “intrinsic evil” and suggest that candidates be evaluated according to their stand on these particular issues. For example, the Catholic Answers Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics, first distributed prior to the 2004 election, named “five non-negotiables”: abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, human cloning and homosexual marriage. As these moral principles “do not admit of exception or compromise,” the Guide reasoned that political consequences should be clear: “You should avoid to the greatest extent possible voting for candidates who endorse or promote intrinsically evil policies.”In the interim between the 2004 and 2006 elections, a few organizations congealed to formulate competing guides. Others rallied around Faithful Citizenship, the United States Bishop's long-standing official commentary on the nexus between the principles of Catholic social teaching and political participation. Others directly challenged the Catholic Answers guide as a distortion of Catholic social teaching and argued that its partisan activities were a potential threat to the Roman Catholic Church's tax-exempt status.