Apologia pro vita mia: Why and How I dabble in politics

A LETTER TO A FACEBOOK FRIEND

In the past few weeks, a Facebook friend and I have been in conversation regarding some of my Facebook posts and the patterns of my Facebook postings.

I wrote this letter to her to explain why I do what I do.  I was happy to receive a nice thank you from her for taking the time to write to her.

I am sharing this letter in case others may have the same concerns that she had.  For the sake of her privacy, I have changed her name.

So here goes . . .

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Notre Dame Seminary, New Orleans 

March 17, 2018 

Dear Ms. Sheila Charybdis, 

Thank you for your message. I appreciate your prayerful support for me and all the priests. 

I have also given serious thought to the points you raised in your messages and I hope you don't mind me writing a little more to clarify some things both regarding me and what I do, as well as regarding my understanding of the Catholic faith and the priesthood.  Please pardon the length of my reply, but I would like to be as comprehensive as I can. 

Your first concern seems to be that I am not living up to my station in life as a priest by dabbling in politics.  In a comment you said: "No Disrespect Father but you really need to stay out of Politics. You are a Roman Catholic Priest. The HIGHEST OFFICE one can POSSESS on this Earth. This is unbecoming to your High Office."  And in another place you said: "This is the reason for Separation of Church & State," suggesting that in some way I was acting against that principle. 

I am wondering if you might be operating under a different understanding from mine, of the role of the Church, priests and indeed all the faithful in the world.   As I noted in my essay on involvement of the Church in politics, all Catholics are called to engage in politics in a manner consistent with their vocation; after all politics is essentially the management of society (polis), something that should be of concern to everybody, even people of faith.  You as a lay person have the widest latitude and can be involved even in party-politics, choosing a party and a candidate and supporting them and their platform, while opposing other parties, candidates and issues.  I, as a priest, however, must limit my involvement to the issues on which Catholic moral teaching has a bearing.  That is why the Catholic Church in the USA never supports parties or candidates, but does support or oppose ballot propositions that involve moral issues.  That is what I think I am doing, bringing my knowledge of the Catholic Faith to bear upon the issues that concern the management of society, i.e. politics.  I believe that not only the law of the land allows me to do that, but more importantly the Church enjoins me to do so. 

Perhaps your understanding of the priesthood and indeed of the role of the Church is coming from a position that sees a stark divide between the spiritual and material.  That is why you see the priesthood as something that should deal solely with spiritual realm and must keep out of politics which you see as being purely a temporal affair.  But the Catholic view of reality is not dualistic in nature.  In fact we see ourselves as beings composed of body and soul and concerned about this world and the next.  We do not shut ourselves in our own "spiritual" world and forget about what is happening around us.  I as a priest, and especially as  a secular priest, must bring my faith to bear in the world.  That is why I use Facebook not solely for the spiritual life proper but also for engaging with the world by bringing that spiritual life to bear on it.  Our work of building up the Kingdom of God is to be done in this world, not apart from this world; this world is the world that we should work to transform into the Kingdom, doing so by engaging it appropriately.  I believe I am doing so, but I welcome your advice on how to do that better. 

That leads us to your second concern, which is: "I am often times overwhelmed by your posts which lean to be very liberal and even Democratic at times. . . .  it behooves me how a Roman Catholic Priest can line up under a party who supports Abortion, Planned Parenthood and Same Sex Marriage." 

With this concern the issue is no longer that I am involved in politics, but what kind of politics I am involved in.  Although you did not indicate the offending posts that overwhelm and distress you, I am going to assume that you are referring to my posts about issues of immigration, death penalty, refugees, healthcare, the poor, the environment, racism, treatment of Muslims, Jews and women, as those tend to be the kind of things I am passionate about, besides the occasional light-hearted post as well posts that provide a general education about the world.  Also, according to the secular mindset these issues tend to be labelled liberal and in the political arena are often promoted the parties of the Left like the Democratic Party in the USA. 

For me, however, these are simply issues of Catholic Social Teaching.  Pope Francis and his predecessors and the bishops teach about these things, especially because they are enjoined to do so in the Scriptures.  And so, I do not think that posting about these issues makes me any less Catholic; in fact, I think they actually make me Catholic and are issues that all Catholics, regardless of their ideological leanings should support.  That the Democrats and liberal movement support the same things does not make the issues any less Catholic.  I am wondering again if perhaps you see these things as being “very liberal and even Democratic” because see reality as sharply divided between complete good on one side and complete evil on the other, or saints on one side and sinners to be avoided at all costs on the other.  As the saying goes, even the broken clock is correct twice a day.  So, even Democrats and liberal side, just as Republicans and conservative side, have embodied something of the Catholic vision of reality. 

Now I will concede that I probably post more of the "so-called liberal" Catholic issues than I do the "so-called conservative" issues like abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, freedom of religion.  Actually that is intentional on my part.  In my judgement, these are the issues about which I feel there is an urgency to speak at this time, and about which I have some experience, knowledge and passion.  I submit that for far too long Catholicism, particularly in the USA, has been too closely identified with conservatism rather than with the fullness of what it means to believe and act like a Catholic; and yet Catholicism spans the whole spectrum of social issues, from the left to the right.  I am simply trying to restore some balance, at least for those who read my posts.  I would like those who lean conservative to realize that there is more to Catholicism than their treasured conservative values that also happen to be Catholic, while for those who lean liberal, I would like them to realize that the issues dear to them that happen to coincide with Catholic Social Teaching are truly Catholic and worth fighting for in the name of Jesus.   

In addition, when Catholicism is closely or only identified just with legitimate and reasonable conservatism (like the one you probably subscribe to), that only creates an imbalance and a lack of completeness.  But when Catholicism is identified with that extreme element in conservatism that promotes serious evils such as xenophobia, Islamophobia, racism, then I feel it is my duty to the Catholic faith from such a distortion. 

Perhaps you take the discrepancy in my posting patterns to be an indication that I do not support the authentically Catholic issues also supported by the conservative/Republican movement.  Actually I do so in this and even more so in other avenues – you just have read my homilies to figure that out – it is just that that field is already crowded; there is no shortage of light on those issues among Catholic circles.  Just because John's gospel account of the Last Supper does not narrate anything about the institution of the Eucharist but rather speaks about the washing of the feet should not lead us to conclude that he did not believe in the Eucharist.  Neither should you draw from my posts the conclusion that I am lining up under "under a party who supports Abortion, Planned Parenthood and Same Sex Marriage."  Your conclusion would be legitimate if I was posting things in support of the liberal of the movement, regardless of their consistency with Catholic teaching.  I will gladly remove any posts that go against Catholic teaching.  Some of my friends have chosen to highlight the more "conservative" issues and that is fine too!  I would hope that you and I would similarly not ask them to stay out of politics, simply because they put the spotlight on some aspects of Catholic teaching. 

And that leads us to your third concern when you say: "The Republicans and not faultless but we are called to Vote The Lesser evil. I often feel you are not My Priest because I voted for President Trump and I am personally offended."   

I am sorry that you think of my posts that criticize certain policies and decisions of the current president and government as an attack on people like you who voted for Mr. Trump.  Again I think you are labouring under a misunderstanding.  At election time, Catholics were faced with a difficult choice; and I hope that following the teaching of the Bishops and the Pope, they studied the issues, prayed over them and voted in conscience.  That is why I respect the election choice of every Catholic, whether they voted for Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Trump or neither.  That is a choice that each person will answer for before the Almighty.  As someone once said, priests must form the consciences of their faithful, not replace them. 

But your statement that as Catholics "we are called to Vote The Lesser evil" is also not consistent with Catholic doctrine, as I learnt from a colleague a few years ago.  Although that phrase “lesser evil” is popularly used in a manner of speaking, as Catholics we can never choose evil, even the lesser evil, even the least evil.  Rather, we must choose the greatest good, however small it might be.  If you voted for Trump because of his lesser evil, you would be complicit in promoting evil and that is a sin.  Similarly any Catholic who voted for Mrs. Clinton because of her support for what are evil actions would also be committing sin.  The US Catholic Bishops in their document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship ##31-39 make this distinction, albeit a subtle one, quite clear.  I am assuming that in choosing to vote for Mr. Trump, you chose to vote for the good you saw in him, as did those Catholics who in conscience chose to vote for the good they saw in Mrs. Clinton. 

That said, now we are done with the election, we no longer have that binary choice and we have a president who is running the country.  His policies and actions are the ones we must scrutinize and evaluate through the lens of Catholic Social Teaching.  Where they pass muster such as his early decisions on abortion funds and religious freedom, he is to be supported – and I post those things as well when they occur, however rarely.  But when his policies do not pass Catholic muster, such as policies on immigration, Islam, refugees, death penalty, which happens a lot more frequently, then it is my duty as a Catholic, and especially as a priest, to appropriately speak out against them, and I think do so.  When Mr. Obama was president (and probably if Mrs. Clinton had been elected), the issues that Catholics including myself criticized were different: freedom of religion, abortion, and homosexuality.  At that time, one similarly should not have drawn the conclusion that taking Mr. Obama to task was an attack on those who voted for him, but simply an exercise of the prophetic office of speaking out against what was not consistent with Natural Law.

Besides, I would counsel that continuing to support the President's positions that are not consistent with the Christian faith only because they are "the lesser evil" is simply wrong.  One can rightly and legitimately have voted for the President, one can even continue to support the good they see in the President; but one cannot continue to support evil simply because there are other greater evils and this is the lesser one.  That is why members of his own party who initially supported him have on occasion called him to task when he has departed from what they see as the right way.  While they do that perhaps from a purely political perspective without being accused of attacking his voters, I too I am doing a similar thing from the moral perspective and should not be accused of attacking those who put the president in power.  Moreover, the president should not get a pass when he does bad things, because he does some good things, similarly neither should his supporters get a pass on supporting bad things, simply because they support good things.

In conclusion, granted that I am not infallible, I hope that my explanation will help you understand where I am coming from.  For the last twenty years of my priesthood I have made it a point never to belong to any ideological camp, whether liberal or conservative, left or right, but to simply be Catholic.  I have tried not to be a hero to some, but a father and teacher to all.  Sometimes my Catholic faith will coincide with liberal positions and sometimes with conservative ones; that is because the Catholic faith is far superior to any of them – for they are inherently deficient being only partial imitations of the whole truth.  I look forward to the day when the thoughts, words and actions of Catholics will be inspired first by their Catholic faith in its fullness, rather than by their conservative or liberal ideological tribe.  I look forward to the day when they will be converted to Catholicism. 

I hope that my presence on Facebook can make a small contribution to that noble goal, lending not only my knowledge and insights, but also whatever personal capital and credit I have to the cause.  I hope to do this primarily by informing people and also by entering into civil and respectful dialogue and conversation with them about various issues. 

But if my some of my Facebook activity does not help you and on the contrary makes you feel that I am not your priest, I hope you can find other priests who can be better spiritual guides to you, particularly in your Pastor and Bishop, who after all, have primary responsibility for guiding your soul. 

May the intercession of St. Patrick, the great missionary to the Irish peoples help us to know God’s will for us and to bring it to others. 

In Jesus, Mary and Joseph, 

Fr. Deogratias Ekisa