Priests/Nuns/Ministers in Politics
Castelli, Jim
i i PRIESTS/NUNS/MINISTER S IN POLITICS JIM CASTET.T .I Updating a politico-religious phenomenon The 1970 mid-term elections now seem ages away: Richard Nixon standing on top of a car, waving...
...One reason seems to be .that priests and nuns are still considered hot copy simply because they are celibate...
...The most obvious is Holy Cross Father Theodore Hesburgh, president of the University of Notre Dame...
...Sister Dunn told a Network seminar last June, "I can say, without exaggeration, that the poor are despised in the (Arizona) legislature...
...Young was first elected in 1972...
...anything they do which is suPlx, sedly out of the ordinary is reported...
...The two clergymen in the Senate were elected this year and both are Republicans-.--John Danforth of Missouri, an Episcopalian priest, and Orrin Hatch of Utah, a Mormon bishop...
...The most obvious conclusion is that involvement in politics, though not a common option for the clergy, is no longer an unusual one...
...When he resigned from .the California Agriculture Relations Board, Mahony reflected that his tenure had been "good for the Church and good for" California...
...Other clergy and religious have run and lost in primaries and general elections: --Father Francis X. Lawlor, a controversial conservative from Chicago, was defeated in a 1974 Democratic primary...
...As a child I loved comic books, especially those published by William Gaines under the "EC" imprint, which in the copyright notice was variously described as Entertaining Comics or Educational Comics, Inc...
...It was the comic books I loved, kept and reread long after the titles died in the early 1950s...
...now, he and Cornell must really do something newsworthy to get coverage...
...Fresno Auxiliary Bishop Roger Mahony headed the California Agricultural ReIadons Board before resigning in December...
...But no one in the hierarchy tells them how to vote...
...One was Father Donald Shea, a political scientist from St...
...Buchanan: Network, 5 of 10...
...BFW, 6 of 6; FNCL, 12 of 13...
...Candon, on leave as president of Trinity College in Burlington, is a Democratic party leader in Vermont and was seriously considered by party leaders as a candidate for governor herself in 1972...
...Drinan and Cornell are not the only religious in politics not acting on order from the hierarchy...
...Mongiardo, Shea, McLaughlin, Lally, Hesburgh, even Mahony, have all acted as individuals...
...This is exactly the situation Carter himself faced in many areas in his campaign...
...We have even seen a Catholic bishop serve in a g,'vernment job...
...He was named Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural affairs by Carter...
...Ed Muskie's Lincolnesque Election Eve TV talk...
...ambassador to the United Nations) and two in the Senate...
...The Rev...
...The best example is the way Drinan and Cornell have irked the hierarchy by refusing to accept the bishops' number one priority--a constitutional amendment to restrict abortion...
...Carter hired Sister Victoria Mongiardo, a staff worker at Geno Baroni's Na.tional Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, as co-chairman of his "ethnic" desk...
...Drinan's situation was not all that unique...
...Spiro Agnew's gloating over the defeats of Charles GoodeU, Jog Tydings and Albert Gore...
...BFW, 5 of 6; FCNL, 4 of 13...
...My Mother didn't like them...
...Mongiardo also worked on recruiting people to serve in the Carter Administration during the transition...
...Religious also played a role in the 1976 presidential elections...
...At the local level, Vermont Governor Richard Snelling, a moderate Republican elected in November, named Sister Elizabeth Candon to head the Human Services Agency, the state's largest department...
...Another generalization is that Catholic religious in politics seem to be more introspective about their involvement, more inclined to develop rationales for their work, than Protestants...
...The artists' names are with me stillmHarvey Kurtzman, John Severin, Wally Wood, Jack Davis, the brilliant B. Kriegstein whose drawings had the bleak intensity of Goya or Kathe Kolwitz...
...her administrative assistant, Judith Lovchik, is also a nun...
...Sister Claire Dunn was elected to the Arizona State Senate as a Democrat in 1974 and was re-elected in 1976...
...Drinan was the only priest who won in 1970...
...William Grey, Baptist, lost a close primary race in a heavily black House district in Philadelphia...
...There have been a surprisingly large number of religious involved in elective and appointive office at both the national and local government level...
...Shea was a regional coordinator who paid particular attention to Catholics, wicah a special emphasis on problems of Catholic schools...
...The fact that some people would disagree with that message does not make it unimportant...
...Duffey, Mahony, Lally, Dunn, Candon, Mongiardo, Field, Gray and Guthrie are all regarded as liberals...
...Drinan, McLaughlin and Cornell were clearly not "freaks...
...Today, McLaughlin is no longer a priest...
...BFW, 5 of 6; FCNL, 12 of 13...
...Young was one of Carter's most important early political backers, giving him needed credibility with blacks and liberals...
...Generally, though, the "token" charge is never even raised seriously about m06t of the other religious in politics...
...McLaughlin served to baptize the Nixon presidency the same way Billy Graham and Rabbi Korff did...
...CorneU: Network, 12 of 13...
...The above list is by no means exhaustive, but it is comprehensive enough to be the basis for some generalizations...
...Young: Network, 11 of 11...
...At the local level, Lawlor has served on the Chicago City Council and Father Louis Gigante was elected to the New York City Council from his neighborhood in the poverty-stricken Southeast Bronx in 1973...
...A number of other religious have served on school boards and other local posts...
...And, to their credit, this is the way they want it...
...A third conclusion to be drawn is that, with a few exceptions, religious involved in politics have not been "tokens...
...But the 1970 elections are also memorable because they marked the emergence of a phenomenon--the campaigning priest...
...Bread for the World (BFW), which focuses on domestic and world hunger issues, and the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), which focuses on foreign affairs, defense and human rights areas...
...he was re-elected in JIM CAS'I-ELLI i,~ the Capitol Hill reporter and columnist [or NC .News Service...
...There are now five ministers in the House (not counting Andrew Young, named by President Carter to be U.S...
...Gaines later made himself rich if not immortal by creating Mad, nuttily brilliant as a comic book but an ugly, brutish piece of work after it became a magazine, or so it seemed to me...
...A fourth conclusion, less easy to document, is that it is considered more unusual for a Catholic priest or nun to enter politics than a Protestant minister...
...When we make the Gospel present in the wilderness of politics," she said, "we bring hope to the poor, the weak, the powerless, the voiceless---to those without political clout and professional lobbies...
...Some of the most influential religious in polities have served in appointive office...
...Comell lost another close election in 1972, but he became a "Watergate freshman" in 1974 and solidified his position with another win in 1976...
...i i PRIESTS/NUNS/MINISTER S IN POLITICS JIM CASTET.T .I Updating a politico-religious phenomenon The 1970 mid-term elections now seem ages away: Richard Nixon standing on top of a car, waving his arms and baiting his hecklers...
...Talking of his work on the board, he said, "The important lesson for me, and maybe for the Church, has been, in this particular case, that when the Church not only says that workers have rights, but is willing to get in and help do the work of implementing and protecting the guarantees of those rights---I think that is a tremendous witness to the world...
...Gigante, for example, supported a City Council gay rights bill that had archdiocesan officials apoplectic...
...A related conclusion is that the involvement of religious in politics is now fairly widely accepted...
...Baroni has since been named Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for consumer affairs and regulatory functions, where he is working on strategies to revitalize urban neighborhoods...
...We can see this in the way ministers in Congress vote on issues considered important by three church lobbies--Network, an organization of nuns and others lobbying on social justice issues...
...The other was Dr...
...Looking at this concern leads to a fifth conclusion...
...Of the religious outside of Congress, Hesburgh is a major figure in the liberal establishment...
...Another religious on Carter's staff was Joe Duffey, former president of Americans for Democratic Action and an unsuccessful candidate for the Senate in 1970...
...there were more than a dozen key congressmen who were attacked by the anti-abortion lobby, but who were highly rated by other church groups because of good voting records on issues such as hunger and civil rights...
...Duffey ran on the Democratic ticket but lost to Lowell Weicker in a close race when Tom Dodd, the state's Democratic senator, siphoned off votes by running as an Independent...
...For a start, it's worth remembering that another colorful minister, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., served in the House long before Drinan...
...Hesburgh served on President Ford's Clemency Board along with another priest, Msgr...
...The most conservative major religious figure in politics is likely to be Hatch, who is a Reagan Republican...
...Richard Brannon, a Baptist minister on the staff of the White House Communications Office...
...Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Indiana...
...He is best known for his term as chairman of the U.S...
...I can remember her picking one up from time to time, glancing at a story about an ax murder, say, or a "Ghastly" Graham Ingalls drawing of a withered old crone rising from the grave with lips hanging in shreds around long-rooted teeth, or Wally Wood's version of a spaceship crew's destruction by extra-terrestial BEMs, an acronym standing for bug-eyed monsters...
...Some people thought Mongiardo, Shea or both, played only token roles in the last campaign, but both had clearly non-token functions...
...In fact, Drinan was targeted for defent in November by fight-to-life groups, including some with Church support...
...Father Clark Field lost a Democratic primary in Indiana last spring...
...Duffey is an ordained Church of Christ minister...
...even Danforth is regarded as a liberal Republican...
...His win was considered a major defeat for the antiabortion lobby...
...Brannon looked after the conservative evangelical vote...
...The political landscape in both the Catholic Church and the country has changed considerably since 1970, and the time .seems ripe, particularly after the election of a "born-again" president, to assess the "priest in politics" phenomenon...
...Edgar: Network, 13 of 13...
...Washington, .D.C.'s Walter Fauntroy, a non-voting representative, is a Baptist minister, as is John Buchanan of Alabama, the only Republican minister in the House...
...Three priests ran for election that year, including two Jesuits who came to symbolize opposite poles during the Nixon years--Bob Drinan, a leading Vietnam dove who introduced the first impeachment resolution in the House, and John McLaughlin, who used Jesuitical distinctions to defend the Nixon theology of power...
...Among other things, they introduced me to the darker side of the human imagination...
...For 1976: --Drinan voted with Network on 13 of 13 issues...
...MeLaughlin lost his Republican Senate bid against John Pastore of Rhode Island and Norbertine Father Robert Cornell lost a close race in Green Bay, Wise...
...The Ford camp had its own clergymen...
...We sh~w that there are those who care about the powerless where decisions are made that affect the quality of their lives, who believe they are not expendable and their rights barterable...
...with Bread for the World on five of six and with FCNL, 12 of 13...
...Two examples will help give a feeling for the way these people see themeslves...
...Hesburgh estimates he has spent 20 percent of his time working in federal posts over the past 20 years...
...Sister Marianne Guthrie of Memphis was defeated in a 1974 Democratic House primary in Memphis...
...But another reason why Catholic religious attract more attention in politics is that many people fear they will be dominated by their hierarchy in a way ministers from less hierarchical churches are not...
...he is married and politically discredited, one of those who held on to Nixon until it was too late to bail out...
...In doing that, they also send out the message that the political process is not without hope and dignity...
...Virtually all Catholic religious in politics cite the Church's social teachings as a basis for their work and keep abreast of the positions of the official Church--the USCC or the National Conference of Catholic Charities, for example...
...the split between two active Catholic lobbies---the proAifers and r social justice groups---is likely to be the big "Catholics in politics" story over the next few years...
...Catholic priests and nuns in politics, then, see their work largely as a "witness" that the Church will work actively in this world to achieve justice and to protect the fights of the poor...
...Catholic religious have not been at all dominated or manipulated by the hierarchy...
...Commission for Civil Rights before he was fired by Nixon in 1972...
...Actually, it is a "priest, nun and minister in politics" phenomenon...
...Hesburgh became a key adviser to Carter after the election, helping him choose Cabinet and other highranking officers...
...Buchanan was first elected in 1964...
...He urged the Church to "get involved in the hard, rough work" of implementing social change...
...Catholic Conference...
...Cornell was not the only Watergate freshman who was a minister...
...Bob Edgar, 34, a United Methodist minister, left a post as a college chaplain to run in a Philadelphia suburb...
...BFW 6-6...
...The novelty has even worn off in the Catholic press: Drinan's every word used to be considered newsworthy becauso of his unique status...
...That makes them sound harmless and silly, but a BEM genius like Wood knew something 24 June 1977:400...
...Francis Lally, former 24 Jun~ 1977:398 editor of the Boston Pilot and now Secretary for Social Development and World Peace for the U.S...
...FCNL, 12 of 13...
...Secretary of State Cyrus Vance has reportedly sought to name Hesburgh to several State Department slots, but at this writing Hesburgh has not accepted any...
...I've still got them...
...The Vault o] Horror, Frontline Combat, Weird Science Fantasy, Shock Suspenstories and half a dozen others---they were well-written and beautifully illustrated...
...But most of the religious in politics seem to share the Commonweal: 399 generally liberal orientation of the "professional" church community...
...Drinan won his fourth consecutive close election in November and seems about to become a fixture in the House...
...They were both, although the experts all warned that what they taught was better never learned...
...1974 and 1976...
...Though I may not be able to use Gospel language when I denounce sinful and oppressive structures on the House floor or in my committee meetings when I suggest that the State can and must intervene in the economic order to protect those living a marginal existence," she said, "I am nonetheless making the Church's teaching present and striving for the reconciliation it seeks to promote by reordering relationships and structures...
Vol. 104 • June 1977 • No. 13
