Commenting about the Durbin controversy, Cardinal Cupich bemoans that our polarized political system prevents anyone from being a truly "Catholic politician." This very concept is incoherent; it is a category error; it reflects the confusion of progressive thought.
It is like saying a Catholic mechanic. Doesn't make sense: his faith doesn't meaningfully effect his work. Or a Catholic ballerina. Or a hypertense ballerina. Or an anorexic polar bear. Or a progressive peanut butter. We don't give awards to our most Catholic mechanics, or ballerinas, or surgeons. They are distinct categories.
By definition, the progressive confounds politics and religion: politicizing the faith, and sanctifying the politics. So the religion becomes a political agenda: against racism, capitalism, etc. And the particular ideology...anti-racism, global warming, gun control...becomes itself a religion. It is astonishing that a Prince of the Church is so fundamentally confused.
The Catholic social conscience does have some absolutes, that are not prudential policy affairs about which we can differ: pedophilia, abortion, torture, sexual abuse, contraception, slavery, military targeting of civilians. These are clear and simple, absolute, always wrong.
A second category would be issues that protect our way of life, the practice of our faith: freedom of speech and worship, ability to educate our children including in our schools, ability to place children for adoption without coercion to place them with "gay couples," liberty to run nursing homes without providing contraceptives to our employees, etc.
However, 95% or more political questions are pragmatic, prudential, policy calculations involving complex weighing of anticipated consequences; taxes, borders, tariffs, health policy, and so much more. There is no Catholic position on these. We gather at the Eucharist in a union that goes far deeper and farther than our policy arguments.
Cupich suggested that we sit down in synodal meetings and talk about things like the award for Durbin. I would rather have a tooth pulled! This is silly and stupid to the extreme. We have been living together, since Roe, for over 50 years, two different worlds, prochoice and prolife: talking, arguing, voting. The divide is worst than ever. I do not bring up the subject. I do not want to talk about it. We do not convince each other; we do not have a "meeting of the minds." We live in two different worlds. And we will continue to battle politically over it. And we are obliged to do so respectfully. And there is a Catholic position on legal abortion: opposed! There is no Catholic position on immigration: not pro-Biden. Not anti-Trump. We can, as Catholics, be pro-Biden or pro-Trump, as good Catholics. But...please...no lifetime achievement awards!
Pope Leo, to my disappointment, made a similar category error in commenting on the Durban thing: "...if I say I am in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States I don't know if that's prolife." So the immigration situation is complex, multifaceted and open to many interpretations. About half of the nation, and slightly more than half Catholics, voted for Trump and his immigration policy. They are not in defiance of Catholic doctrine. Catholic teaching is that we treat all people, and especially refugees charitably and justly, even as we protect our borders. How that is implemented is open to dispute. The Pope has no charism regarding border policy.
"Inhuman treatment?" If I illegally sneak into Mexico or Bermuda, or a movie theatre, or the Academy Awards, or somebody's backyard pool and I am arrested and sent home for trespassing...Is that inhuman? Am I being demonized? Not inherently. Personally, I am in agreement with the majority of Americans as I do not want us to arrest and return illegals who have not broken the law here (other than the entry.) But: No, that is not necessarily demonizing or inhuman. Nor does it require a Pope to give it a status of moral equivalence with abortion of the unborn.
It is a sadness, a sadness that we can only accept: that our Church leaders, in the person of Leo and Cupich and many more, are confused as they use their charism of teaching authority, from Holy Orders, to advocate a particular progressive ideology.
Lord, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change.
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