Would Political Freedom Would Make Our Parishes Stupider?

Here in the United States, President Trump just announced a new executive action that is supposed to loosen the restrictions on religious organizations from engaging in political activity. How exactly this action will change things is uncertain at the moment, as Trump's action only gives directives to the IRS and Treasury to interpret existing legal norms with maximal leniency when dealing with possible violations. To actually change the law itself would require an act of Congress.

At any rate, this turn of events led me to consider whether it would be a good or bad thing for the Church in the United States if all restrictions on political activity by religious organizations were lifted. After reflecting on this for a few days, I think my answer is yes it would be good in theory, but in practice it would be harmful.

Why would such a thing be good?

The Church historically was extremely engaged in politics. Obviously the whole history of Christendom is replete with examples of the Church engaging political matters vigorously. One only need think of the struggles of the Investiture Controversy and similar Church-State conflicts to see that political activity has often been a necessary prerequisite for the Church to maintain her autonomy.

In fact, the traditional understanding of the Church's relationship to the state as exemplified by the famous teaching of Pope St. Gelasius (c. 494) presumes that the Church is able to make her opinion known on political matters, insomuch as political acts sometimes overlap matters of faith. The State concerns itself with the temporal ends of man, the Church with the supernatural, but sometimes the former touches on the latter, and in such cases the Church may engage in activity in order to advocate for political activity that does not contravene divine law; indeed, in some cases, the clergy actually have an obligation to speak truth to power, as Pope St. Gelasius says, "there is no slight danger in the case of the priests if they refrain from speaking when the service of the divinity requires."

The Church has often used political speech in the past with great benefit to the public good. For example, in 1948 Massachusetts put Referendum No. 4 to voters, which would have relaxed the state's ban on artificial contraception. Boston's Archbishop Richard Cushing led a vigorous opposition to the measure, plainly telling Catholics not to vote for it. The Referendum was defeated by a 57% margin. Such plain political engagement by the Church was subsequently banned with the 1954 Johnson Amendment - which may partially explain why Cushing later changed his tone on contraception.

At any rate, I don't think I need to belabor this point. Most readers of this blog, who tend to be more historically and theologically literate, understand why, in theory, returning more autonomy to the Church in this regard should be a good thing, and certainly more in keeping with Catholic tradition.

If I admit this in theory, why would I deny it in its application here in the USA?

In application, I feel that loosening restrictions on political activity would be harmful for the Church in practice for one simple reason - the two party stupidity of the American mainstream has infected the Church.

Greater freedom to engage in politics would be wonderful for the Catholic Church - if American Catholics had a well-grounded Catholic identity and some semblance of a Catholic political vision grounded in the Church's social tradition. But, since American Catholics are so pathetically lacking in any independent Catholic political ethos, in practice we would witness each parish devolve into a satellite of the Republican or Democratic Party. It would not engender an independent Catholic political spirit; rather, it would inject further secular partisanship into parish life and fasten the chains of Catholic thought more securely to the agendas of Hudge and Gudge.

It would also be horribly divisive for Catholic parishioners. Even now parishes tend to lean liberal or conservative politically, but the lack of overt political activity provides a kind of breathing space for Catholics who might not agree with their pastors on every issue. As it stands now, a Catholic might, for example, realize his pastor is softer on illegal immigration than he would like. But since there are limits on what sorts of political advocacy a pastor can engage in, he is somewhat prevented from shoving his opinions down his parishioner's throats. And this allows pastors and congregants to kind of co-exist socially in the same parish, because their obnoxious political opinions are buffered and they don't have to engage each other directly.

Now suppose, however, you walk into your parish one day and your pastor is vocally pushing a petition drive to turn your town into a Sanctuary City. He is lambasting political candidates by name and campaigning for others. He has ushers ready with the ballot petition at the back of the Church and is hovering around encouraging people to sign it. Even if the pastor and parishioner would have had the same differing opinions before, now the buffer is removed. The parish has become a locus of political confrontation. The man who disagrees with his pastor's political agenda will no longer feel "safe". This would be the case whether the pastor was pushing liberal-Democratic garbage, or whether he was stumping for the local GOP hack.

The result would be the politicization of parishes in the image of our stupid two party system. We would see a massive population realignment as parishioners who no longer felt welcome at their parishes would migrate to others more reflective of their views.

I understand this already happens to some degree, but if the Church in the United States were to have complete freedom of political action, watch parish life be entirely politicized immediately. GOP and Democratic operatives would swoop in and organize the parishioners politically. The two party stupidity we all hate would take over our parishes. It would be omnipresent and inescapable. There would be no breathing space.

In conclusion, it would be excellent if Catholics in this country had an independent political vision grounded in the perennial truths of the Gospel. If that were the case, political freedom for the Church would mean the creation of a robust "Third Way" that could challenge the prevailing political dichotomy and bring true reform to the nation. But, in the absence of such a coherent mindset, in practice we would see each parish become a tool of the Democratic or Republican parties, and the politicization of parish life in the basest manner. Catholic social life, already anemic, would become that much stupider.