More on Spe Salvi and Engaging the Public Square

Pope Benedict said, “On the strength of his hope, Augustine dedicated himself completely to the ordinary people and to his city–renouncing his spiritual nobility, he preached and acted in a simple way for simple people.”  If this does not point out some of the most central points of this blog then I don’t know what does.  Part of the challenge for me is to take so much of the wisdom of our tradition and distill it for folks who are educated and full of information in so many ways, yet are still simple on the level of faith and on the level of life.  Are the people in the congregation fired up about tackling the major cultural problems of this secular-progressivist society?  Probably not.  Do they need to be?  I don’t think so.  This is why there is the academic side of this question, and then on the other side (the more important side for us pastors) there is the pedagogical.

For example, I have encountered many instances where people identify a strong and spirited congregation by looking at how much of a percentage do church stuff.  Is that really what we are about when we say that the people of God must live out their faith?  A large part of our mission as priests, with Augustine as our model, is to remind the people of God of their dignity in the simplicity of their lives.  They need not start a television show, or lead a large church group, or start a new ministry.  Where they are is where God is sending them.  Are they looking for where God is sending them in their life now?  Or are they regretting that they cannot dedicate as much time being a lector, or attending church functions, or helping out at the pantry.  I cannot overemphasize that I do not mean to discourage by any means participation in the ecclesial life of the Church.  But, obviously, not everyone is supposed to help out on the Church grounds beyond what is their duty (tithing, participation in some community functions).  If this were so, the Church should be crowded with thousands of people all the time, and the world would be vacuous of Christians.  Rather, it is supposed to be the opposite.  The people of God ARE the leaven that God places in the dough that is the world to make it rise.  Brothers, let us preach this tirelessly.

The American Catholic Voter

Is there such a thing as an American Catholic voter?  Do Catholics allow their faith to shape ALL that they do, including their politics?  This question is ultimately multi-faceted.  First, there arises the question of the nature of American politics in general.  Second, there arises the question of the nature of American Catholicism in general.

As to the first question, I think that much of one’s political persuasion comes from one’s family background.  One is conservative if one’s parents are conservative, and vis versa if one’s parent’s were liberal.  Or, if one is rebellious than one would be the opposite.  In any case, many people adopt their political perspective from a super-ego construct that stems heavily from up-bringing.  Less of an influence comes from doing actual homework, research, and trying to answer the tough questions.  There are exceptions to this.  Those exceptions have nothing to do with how intelligent one is.  A person can be quite intelligent and yet still be ruled by their super-ego, especially when it comes to something so opinion-based like one’s political point of view.  The exceptions about which I speak are those who KNOW their super-ego construct…those who are self-aware.  Then they are little more capable of distinguishing themselves from outside reality.  They are little more driven to truly become informed of facts and to weigh opinions (those who are the swing-voters are not necessarily these people.  I suspect that many of these merely come from a background where the parents have no solidified persuasion but I would not know the statistics on this).  In conclusion to this first paragraph, I suppose that most of the work of self-formation towards true political opinion invovles managing one’s super-ego so that one’s political decisions are not merely emotion-driven and so that one’s discussion in politics are less shrill and loud (ala Hannity and Colmes).  More tomorrow…