THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT

THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT

31^st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. Deut. 6:2-6; Mark 12:28b-34.

AIM: To help the hearers vote with properly informed consciences

 

Are you tired of politics?  Are you fed up with political ads and electioneering?  Which one of us would not say a hearty AYes@ to those questions?  Which of us will not be happy Tuesday evening, when the votes have finally been cast and we can turn on our TVs and radios knowing that we won=t have to see or hear any more candidates or groups trying to persuade us to give them them money and to vote their way? 

In this country we Catholic priests do not tell people who to vote for.  We do not welcome political candidates to our pulpits C even when we agree with their positions.  Other church bodies do, as you know.  What would happen if even one Catholic Church permitted a political candidate to speak from its pulpit? We all know what would happen. There would be an immediate outcry, in the media and in the halls of Congress and state legislatures, claiming that the Catholic Church had violated the sacred separation of church and state.  Some of the leading legal scholars in the country would volunteer their services to prosecute a suit in federal court depriving us of our charitable tax exemption.   

If we do not welcome candidates to our pulpits, or endorse individual candidates or parties, this is not because we fear the consequences.  The reason is quite different.  Realizing that political decisions are often complex, we treat people as adults, encouraging them to form their consciences in the light of Catholic teaching, and then to make their own choices.  That teaching begins by telling us: we have a duty to participate.  Here is what the archbishop of just one diocese has told his people:  

AAmerican Catholics should be concerned about a whole range of issues that impact the dignity of the human person.  We embrace what has been termed the consistent ethic of life that seeks not only to protect human life in the womb, but [also] promotes human dignity throughout the whole continuum of life.  Yet, there are certain public policy positions that disqualify a candidate from consideration for our vote.  A Catholic in good conscience could not support an avowed racist or anti-Semite no matter what other good policies this individual might support or even champion.  Similarly, supporting a candidate who favors public policies that permit the killing of over a million unborn children [annually] is inconsistent with Catholic values.  The right to life is the most fundamental of all human rights.  Without the right to life, all other rights are meaningless.@   

As Catholic Christians we are called to love God, and to love our neighbor.  We heard this command in our first reading, and in the gospel.  Love of God and neighbor forbids us to base our vote simply on what serves our self-interest.  Defense of life, from conception to natural death, has priority over any personal benefit.   

Make no mistake about it: the attack on life in our country has become truly grave.  The number of babies killed before birth in our country since 1973 now exceeds 40 million.  The United States today has the most extreme abortion laws of any western democracy.  With the Supreme Court decision 12 years ago permitting the killing of a baby during the actual birth process (so-called Apartial birth abortion@) we have reached a new and horrifying stage in what the last three popes have called C and rightly C today=s Aculture of death.@  The President appoints Supreme Court justices whenever there is a vacancy. The Senators we elect must confirm those appointments, or reject them.  The decisions those justices make will have far-reaching consequences for decades to come.  Can anyone say it makes no difference whom we choose on Tuesday?   

There are now influential and powerful people in our country who advocate that we delay determinating a baby=s humanity until several days after birth, thus allowing the child to be starved or dehydrated if he or she is severely handicapped.  Princeton University, my father=s alma mater, has, to its shame, given tenure to a professor who openly espouses this view.  

Euthanasia and assisted suicide enjoy growing support C under the guise of Adeath with dignity.@  The State of Oregon has already legalized assisted suicide. TV programs tell us what a blessing euthanasia has been in the Netherlands. They fail to tell us that in that small country, tiny by our standards, doctors now kill a thousand people annually without their consent. Given the cost of health care today, does anyone think that the safeguards written into euthanasia laws will hold up once this new threat to life becomes widely accepted and legal?   

AYou shall love your neighbor as yourself,@ Jesus says in our gospel reading today.  The neighbor we are to love C not just with a warm fuzzy feeling inside, but with costing care, concern, and sacrifice C includes the weakest and most defenseless among us: the unborn, the newborn, the aged and infirm, patients in nursing homes whose minds have gone ahead of them; prisoners on death row and the victims whose lives their horrifying crimes have wrecked and devastated.   

In an imperfect world no one candidate or party cares perfectly for all these people.  To quote our bishops a final time:  

AOur moral framework does not easily fit the categories of right or left, Democrat or Republican.  Our responsibility is to measure every party and platform by how its agenda touches human life and dignity.   Calls to advance human rights are illusions if the right to life itself is subject to attack.@ 

As we go into the voting booth on Tuesday we shall be deciding who, on balance, will come closest to promoting policies and laws which enable our society to fulfill Jesus’ command to love our neighbor.  Sometimes that decision is difficult; in other cases it is not difficult at all.  

On this final Sunday before Tuesday=s election, we pray for our country.  We pray that we and all our citizens may choose wisely C that we may choose life!