We need to rededicate ourselves to the work of Christian charity and the Catholic soul of our instiÂtutions. Charity is a duty for the whole believing community. But it is also an obligation and privilege for every individual member of the Church, flowing from our personal encounter with the mercy of Jesus Christ.
Government cannot love. It has no soul and no heart. The greatest danger of the modern secularist state is this: In the name of humanity, under the banner of serving human needs and easing human suffering, it ultimately, ironically””and too often tragically”” lacks humanity. As Benedict foresees in his encyclical, Deus Caritas Est:
The state which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person””every person””needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a state that regulates and controls everything, but a state that, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need. The Church is one of those living forces: She is alive with the love enkindled by the Spirit of Christ. This love does not simply offer people material help, but refreshment and care for their souls, something that often is even more necessary than material support.
In the face of modern critics who would crowd out the Church’s ministry of love, American Catholics must reclaim the vision Benedict speaks of here. We need to insist on the guarantees promised by the founders at the beginning of the American proposition: autonomy and noninterference from civil authorities.
But a more important task also remains. Catholics must come to a new zeal for that proposition, a new faithfulness to their own Catholic identity as they live their citizenship, and a new dedication to renewing the great public philosophy implicit in America’s founding documents.
When we look closely at Church–state conflicts in America, we see that they now often center on a group of behaviors—homosexual activity, contraception, abortion, and the like—that the state in recent years has redefined as essential and nonnegotiable rights. Critics rarely dispute the Church’s work fighting injustice, helping community development, or serving persons in need. But that’s no longer enough. Now they demand that the Church must submit her identity and mission to the state’s promotion of these newly alleged rights—despite the constant Catholic teaching that these behaviors are personal moral tragedies that can lead to deep social injustices.
As a result, the original links between freedom and truth, and between individual rights and moral duties, are disappearing in the United States. In the name of advancing the rights of the individual, other basic rights—the rights of religious believers, communities, and institutions—and key truths about the human person, are denied.
A home run. This is brilliant stuff. Thanks for posting this, Kendall.
[blockquote]The Church is one of those living forces: She is alive with the love enkindled by the Spirit of Christ. This love does not simply offer people material help, but refreshment and care for their souls, something that often is even more necessary than material support.[/blockquote]
And [i]that[/i] is at the heart of why efforts to “eliminate poverty” through government (i.e., strictly non-religious) action inevitably fail. They are founded on the erroneous notion that persistent poverty exists only because people lack wealth. But spiritual poverty is very often the real problem, which, of course, affects more than just the materially poor among us. Changing hearts and transforming lives is not within the capacity of the state, but not only is it within the church’s capacity, it is its Commission.
Great comments – I would like to add that when I was working as a legal aid attorney, I could always count on Catholic Charity to give my clients so much of what they really needed – I loved working with those folks. There was also a great Baptist charity in the town where I was working. I understand the temptation those governing our society must feel in wanting to control these entities – but if they do, they will kill them.
As cited in the article and in the comment above …
“Government cannot love. It has no soul and no heart. The greatest danger of the modern secularist state is this: In the name of humanity, under the banner of serving human needs and easing human suffering, it ultimately, ironically—and too often tragically— lacks humanity.”
Based on his first-hand experience observing totalitarian regimes, Malcolm Muggeridge noted that any system devised by humans for setting up a heaven on earth invariably achieves [b]precisely[/b] the opposite.
Beware.