IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring
By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis had been lecturing about
politics lately, reminding people that it is a noble calling, but one that may
require a politician to compromise or set aside some of his or her goals for
the good of their whole community, entire nation or even the world.
The pope’s recent remarks about the role of politics in
overcoming fear, in gathering people together and in serving the common good come
at a time when “an often myopic particularism is multiplying,” wrote Giovanni Maria Vian, editor
of the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano.
Vian’s editorial was published Oct. 2 after a weekend of
speeches by Pope Francis explaining “healthy politics” and what the
church means when it says being a politician can be a “noble”
profession.
For Vian, and for many other observers, it was a reaction to
the spreading “political particularism,” or a politics focused on a
small group of people and on defending not only their rights, but their
privileges.
Meeting with Italian mayors Sept. 30 at the Vatican and with
the citizens of Cesena, Italy,
in their main square the next day, the pope spoke instead of politics as a
concerted effort to ensure that as the rights and opportunities of one’s
constituents are protected and promoted, so are the rights and opportunities of
all people and even future generations.
“In recent times, politics seems to have withdrawn in
the face of the aggression and pervasiveness of other forms of power, such as
financial or media power,” the pope said in Cesena. “We must reaffirm
the rights of healthy politics, its independence, its specific suitability for
serving the public good, acting to diminish inequality and promote with
concrete measures the good of the family and to form a solid framework of
rights and obligations — both — to make it effective for all.”
Giuseppe
Casale, who teaches contemporary political thought at Rome’s Pontifical
University of St. Thomas Aquinas, said he believes Pope Francis and other
church leaders see a “lethargy” in politics today with politicians
“abdicating the faculty of making choices that are both courageous and
responsible.” Instead, they “ratify the approaches” dictated by
the global economy and transnational finance.
John White,
a professor of politics at The
Catholic University of America, said that just as individuals choose sides in
politics, so do “interests with a stake in a political outcome that favors
them. Those who lack power or are demonized, or both, become victims of this
new, zero-sum politics.”
Pope Francis’ recent remarks about politics, he said, can be
read as a response to “a coarsening of public dialogue in many countries,
including the United States. American politics has become completely polarized
in recent years, and that polarization has been deliberately exploited by
Donald Trump.”
Both with the Italian mayors and during his visit to Cesena
and Bologna, Pope Francis highlighted treatment of migrants as a test of local
governments’ commitment
to the true common good of the people in their cities and towns, urging civic
leaders to open spaces where citizens and newcomers can meet, overcoming fear
and working together for a better world for their children.
“The Catholic Church has long emphasized the importance
of social justice and solidarity, an emphasis that was lost during the culture
wars that dominated the latter part of the 20th century,” White said in a
written interview with Catholic News Service. “Pope Francis has rightly
called attention to the importance of social justice, solidarity and mercy in
an age where immigrants are scapegoated, and politics has become all about the
‘other’ — i.e., demonizing one’s political opponents, including immigrants
from various countries, among others.”
The
church has consistently focused on serving the common good as the central
responsibility of politics. Although politicians must answer to their
supporters, attention paid to people outside that group, especially people in
vulnerable situations, is what makes the difference between service and
selfishness.
While
winning an election may mean “all politics is local,” the church’s
definition of the common good definitely is not.
“The church has always taught the fundamental equality
of human beings and this transcends borders,” V. Bradley Lewis, who teaches political
philosophy at The Catholic University of America, told CNS. “Since the
time of St. John XXIII the church has talked not just about the common good of
nations, but about the universal common good. This too is the business of statesmanship.”
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