The art of compromise:

...Hitler was praised as a leader who gave good example because ' 'he neither uses intoxicants nor smokes," and had forbidden the sale of salacious literature...

...We know something about the teenage pregnancy pattern: Where young people are given an extra lift educationally, teenage pregnancy rates go down.'' And where there is a high unemployment rate there is a high teenage pregnancy rate...

...It is worth noting that these men changed and grew as they participated in the political process...

...Simon gives the example, both horrifying and ludicrous, of the report of the Baptist World Alliance after its meeting in Germany in 1934...

...He mentions abolitionist editor Elijah Lovejoy who literally gave his life to fight slavery but who at one time had advertised slaves for sale as a matter of course...

...And yet Senator Simon makes a point seldom made and one very important to remember in 1988...

...And the evangelicals...

...The desire to be part of a small group holding truth and fighting for it against the forces of evil has appeal," says Simon...

...How silent we were, Catholics and Lutherans alike, during the butchery of the Jews...

...As long as the ultimate candidacy of Governor Cuomo remains a lingering hope of many interested in a Democratic victory this year, his speech at Notre Dame on the subject should be a basic reference...

...As today's "new people" with religious concerns move into the political process, it is up to the rest of us to help them into the mainstream and to learn the art of healthy compromise necessary to a pluralistic society...

...At the time, Governor Cuomo defended the right of the officeholder to come to his decision in terms of his own responsibility as a public official...

...The guiding principle was what was "plausibly possible," what would work...

...Whatever our religious moorings, few of us in political life claim any certainty that we know God's will on a given issue...

...OF SEVERAL MINDS Abigail McCarthy THE ART OF COMPROMISE RELIGION & POLITICS '88 As we turn away thankfully from the excruciatingly long pre-primary events of this year's presidential campaigns and the process is taken over by actual voters, it is well to remind ourselves that the connection between belief and politics is a question for all of us, and cannot be pushed aside as a concern peculiar to the self-anointed righteous who follow Pat Robertson...

...Northern Ireland and Lebanon are examples today...

...He cites Jerry Falwell, once a leader in "the cause of segregation" who has grown beyond that...

...To be part of a religious elite that has a monopoly on the ultimate truth is emotionally satisfying...

...Of one million teenage pregnancies in 1986, according to a report of the National Academy of Sciences, four hundred thousand ended in abortion...

...Perhaps because there had been little media attention to his candidacy at that time, his statements went relatively unnoticed...

...Address the causes...

...They had been shut out of, or had eschewed, the conventional paths to power...

...In this election season we have had the problem of religion and politics addressed by one of the avowed presidential candidates, Senator Paul Simon of Illinois...

...He mentions Senator Strom Thurmond, "a vastly different Strom Thurmond than the man who headed the Dixiecrat efforts in 1948...

...However, although Senator Simon is not a Catholic but a devout Lutheran, his basic position is strikingly similar to Governor Cuomo's: Those of us in politics recognize that practical compromises have to take place...

...Even worse, preoccupation with narrow moral issues may induce a kind of myopia toward gross evil...

...When the inflexibility of religious dogma is applied to political life, then practical compromises that are necessary for progress sometimes cannot follow...

...He gave the annual lecture on religion and public life sponsored by the Cushwa Center of Notre Dame on February 16, 1987...

...In political life, compromise, that is not a compromise of principle, is not a dirty word and is essential to the process...

...In 1984 we had the conflict between Governor Cuomo on the one hand and Cardinal O'Connor and the New England bishops on the other, over whether Catholics in good conscience could vote for any candidate who differed with the bishops - not on abortion - but on the political solution to the problem of abortion in our society...

...He understands even as he cites some of the drastic historical consequences...

...The substance of faith has given way to cultural tradition and division, and zealots on each side, applying their faith to political life in an unthinking way, kill in the name of religion...

...Senator Simon addresses the topic soberly and sensibly, sometimes in phrases that seem somewhat worn, and his solution to the sticky problem of abortion is very like the governor's...

...Let us keep in mind that people can, and sometimes do, grow...

...The religious leader generally believes his or her dogmas come from God, and that makes compromise difficult...

...As I wrote at the time (Commonweal, October 19,1984) it was obviously the governor's strong belief that the translation of morality into effective and sound law was the province of the politician and not of the clergy...

...You cannot compromise what God has told you to do or to believe...

...Senator Simon, however, broadens the discussion by his understanding of why those who are too zealous in applying strict religious tenets to political problems are the way they are...

...Baptists were advised not to be hasty in their judgment of a leader ' 'who has stopped German women from smoking cigarettes and wearing red lipstick in public...

...In the last few national elections and in many state elections it is not only the evangelicals who have agonized over the tension between the absolutes which form their consciences and the realities of practical and effective government...

...It is Cuomo's argument without the fire...

...They are not going away.re not going away...

...It becomes dangerous when these emotionally-charged certainties are applied to political life...

...Tackling issues like education and unemployment is much more complicated and less emotionally satisfying than carrying a sign in a parade, but if the concern is genuine - and it is - then real answers should be sought, not simplistic ones...

...He remembers his own indoctrination as a Missouri Synod Lutheran and the instructor who taught him that 95 percent of those in heaven would be Lutherans...

...Where were religious leaders, Simon asks, when Japanese-Americans were mistreated during World War II...