St. John Paul II on the error of making politics a "secular religion"

"Moreover, man, who was created for freedom, bears within himself the wound of original sin, which constantly draws him towards evil and puts him in need of redemption. Not only is this doctrine an integral part of Christian revelation; it also has great hermeneutical value insofar as it helps one to understand human reality. Man tends towards good, but he is also capable of evil. He can transcend his immediate interest and still remain bound to it. The social order will be all the more stable, the more it takes this fact into account and does not place in opposition personal interest and the interests of society as a whole, but rather seeks ways to bring them into fruitful harmony. In fact, where self-interest is violently suppressed, it is replaced by a burdensome system of bureaucratic control which dries up the wellsprings of initiative and creativity. When people think they possess the secret of a perfect social organization which makes evil impossible, they also think that they can use any means, including violence and deceit, in order to bring that organization into being. Politics then becomes a "secular religion" which operates under the illusion of creating paradise in this world. But no political society — which possesses its own autonomy and laws55 — can ever be confused with the Kingdom of God. The Gospel parable of the weeds among the wheat (cf. Mt 13:24-30; 36-43) teaches that it is for God alone to separate the subjects of the Kingdom from the subjects of the Evil One, and that this judgment will take place at the end of time. By presuming to anticipate judgment here and now, man puts himself in the place of God and sets himself against the patience of God."

-- Centesimus Annus (May 1, 1991).

Remembering Corizon Aquino

[Picture: Corazon Aquino in 1986 during the People Power movement that lead to the downfall of the regime of dictator Ferdinand Marcos.]

I was thinking recently about politicians of faith who stand up to restore ordered liberty to their societies, and former Philippine president Corizon Aquino came to mind. Here's a news story about her passing in 2009: Sad news today on the death of former Philippine president Corazon Aquino. The widow of slain democracy activist Benigno Aquino, Cory (as she was known) led the People Power uprising that ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos from power in 1986, bringing democracy and the promise of human rights to the people of the Philippines.

A woman of faith, she was motivated by her strong Catholic convictions into standing up for the rights of the people. A woman who loved her family, she worked to carry on her murdered husband's legacy. A proud patriot who believed in a Republic with the rule of law and respect for each human person, she was a symbol of hope for the millions of people who took to the streets during the People Power movement, ushering in the first of many revolutions for freedom in the late 1980's.

Like Lech Walensa in Poland, she was convinced that her mission to stand for human liberty was part of her vocation as a Christian. After she became president, there were constant coup attempts against her -- questioned as to how she could hold on to preserve the rule of law in the country in the face of such relentless lawlessness, she responded simply, "If the country needs me, God will spare me." She was an example not only to the people of the Philippines, but to freedom-loving people the world over. I remember as a high school student here in the States watching the news reports of the People Power revolution in the Philippines, and seeing her pride and dignity and determination to vindicate the legitimate rights of the Filipino people.

Like the other great leaders of the 1980's -- Ronald Reagan, St. John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher -- she understood the call of freedom, and the yearning of the human heart to be free. Aquino was not a perfect president, and her regime had its fair share of problems. The corruption within Philippine politics was more than any single politician could remove. But she served the people as best she could, and she always kept in the forefront the interests of her country. She was an example of all who live in challenging times, to all who face choosing to give in to tyranny or to fight -- peacefully, non-violently and in the power of the Gospel -- for liberty and human rights. Maraming salamat po sa inyo, Corazon Aquino.

The public value of religious faith

In the midst of the "new atheist" attack on the value of religion as a public good, British philosopher Roger Scruton took part in a discussion regarding that topic over at the UK Independent online: Scruton defended religion as a force for good in society. As Scruton stated:

The rituals of religion are shared and those who participate in them are drawn into another kind of relationship with their neighbours than those that prevail in the world of "getting and spending". People hunger for this kind of membership and the power of religion resides in its ability to provide it. In the rituals of a religion all worldly differences are overcome: the Sultan bows in submission beside his subjects and the good-natured fool takes communion beside the crook who cheated him. The ritual shines on both of them from a place beyond their ordinary experience and includes them in a community whose home is in some way not of this world. And in the Christian case the ritual records a primeval sacrifice, born of love.

In addition to its ability to provide consolation and to help people deal with "metaphysical loneliness," Scruton contends that religion can incubate fundamental virtues like humility & justice as well as reinforce the principle of human equality:

[Religion] contains idiocy, prejudice, ignorance and stupidity in all the proportions that these are displayed by mankind as a whole. But that is its great virtue: it can draw people, whatever their talents and intellectual powers, into a shared apprehension of their condition. It can teach humility and justice, and remind the one with power, knowledge, wealth or artistic talent, that he is the equal of the one beside him in the moment of worship, however ignorant, weak or sinful that person might be. And to both of them it offers hope.

I would add one point to Scruton's argument -- that religion can serve as a counterweight to both radical individualism and overwhelming state power.  Religion at its best calls human beings beyond themselves to care for others and to be concerned not with their own wants and desires, but with transcendent moral truth.  For the same reason, religion can serve as a balance against the power of the state -- when the state demands immoral action, religion can provide the intellectual framework and moral tradition to thwart tyranny.  Martin Luther King, Jr., Oscar Romero, Franz Jäggerstatter, Lech Walesa, and others too numerous to mention testify to this fact.  

This point is so strong that even Christopher Hitchens acknowledged it. As the dying writer said during a public discussion with his younger brother Peter: 

When Lech Walesa was starting his work in the Polish shipyards and the Polish Militia and the outer ring of the Polish Army were closing in on Gdansk, he was interviewed with his then fairly small group, and he was asked: “Aren't you frightened, aren't you afraid? You've taken on a whole powerful state and army - aren't you scared?” And he said: “I'm not frightened of anything but God or anyone but God.”

Christopher Hitchens then went on to acknowledge that he wouldn't have been able to say anything like that and that it was a "noble" idea; he was spot on with that observation. Almost to a man, the American Founders understood that it was faith in God, a God who stood above and beyond the State, that makes the idea of limited government possible, that makes the idea of human rights possible, that makes the idea of common, ordinary people rising up to resist tyranny possible. It is this concept that underpins some of the most soaring language in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

This concept of transcendent authority in support of liberty was part and parcel of republican principle at the time of the American Founding. As Benjamin Rush put it:

I have always considered Christianity as the strong ground of republicanism.  The spirit is opposed, not only to the splendor, but even to the very forms of monarchy, and many of its precepts have for their objects republican liberty and equality as well as simplicity, integrity, and economy in government.  It is only necessary for republicanism to ally itself to the Christian religion to overturn all the corrupted political and religious institutions in the world.

-- Letter from Benjamin Rush to Thomas Jefferson, August 22, 1800, quoted in The Founders on Religion:  A Book of Quotations, edited by James H. Hutson (Princeton:  2005), pg. 195.

The American abolitionists during the 19th century understood this.  The civil rights movement was built on this idea.  As Hitchens points out, one of the great leaders in modern Europe's struggle for liberty, Lech Walesa, lived this principle. Without religious faith, without the belief that God stands above all merely human institutions and will hold all of us accountable for the good and evil that we do, the tapestry of human rights, the rule of law and the freedom of the human person is difficult if not impossible to maintain over time.

As a consequence, religious faith, particularly Christianity, has a critical public role in the preservation of liberty & the idea of the limited state. Human beings will look for an ultimate authority -- as St. Augustine observed in his Confessions, "our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O Lord" -- and if people seek it not from heaven, they will look for it here on earth. And for examples of where an earthly ultimate authority leads, one needs only look at the slaughterhouses of the 20th century.

The only enduring freedom is embodied freedom

"The only freedom which can last is a freedom embodied somewhere, rooted in a history, located in space, sanctioned by a genealogy, and blessed by a religious establishment.  The only equality which abstract rights, insisted upon outside the context of politics, are likely to provide is the equality of universal slavery. It is a lesson which Western man is only now beginning to learn. And at great cost."

- M.E. Bradford, A Better Guide Than Reason:  Federalists & Anti-Federalists (Transaction Publishers:  1994), pg. xviii.