Religion & politics
Cochran, Clarke E.
REPORT FROM THE PEW RELIGION & POLITICS HOW NOT TO MIX THEM or most of my professional and ministerial life I have argued that religion and politics are not separate, sharply divided spheres....
...I had attended a meeting in Washington on Saturday and spent that night with my son...
...They sugCommonweal gest that real religion is the "normal" liturgy...
...The manner in which the parish dealt with the abortion referendum communicated a radical disconnection between religion and politics...
...many did not want to make a contribution to the effort...
...What caused me to pause, and then to become angry, was what happened (and what didn't happen) during Mass itself...
...Both letters urged Maryland Catholics to inform themselves 10: 20 November 1992 on the legislation, to contribute to the "Vote kNOw'' coalition, and to vote prolife...
...But, instead of a homily, the deacon informed the congregation that Cardinal Hickey had directed that his letter be read at all Masses in the archdiocese...
...Abortion represents estrangement in our society, as well as in our church...
...Perhaps my judgments about this particular Sunday have been too harsh...
...He is also a permanent deacon...
...Why particular Catholics are in the pew on a given Sunday may not have much to do with why we think they should be there...
...Indeed, I have claimed that there ought to be an intimate connection between one's faith and one's political commitments...
...Too often church leaders forget that associations that seem natural and obvious to them are not so for all Catholics...
...The Mass is, the procedure told us, religion...
...Important enough to interrupt Mass for, but not part of our worship...
...So much could have been done to demonstrate the linkage...
...Therefore, bishops and pastors who take political stands must labor to unite them to the concerns of the larger church, as experienced in the eucharistic celebration, which ought to manifest and create the world's deepest connectedness...
...The story of the prodigal son presented the opportunity to acknowledge these divisions and pains and to present Christ's reconciliation and healing, especially for those who have experienced the personal tragedy of abortion...
...Instead of political commitment flowing from worship, political ideology may capture liturgy...
...almost certainly there were some in attendance who had had abortions themselves or had loved ones who had...
...The approach I advocate is not without danger...
...We attended Mass on Sunday in his new parish...
...But sometimes I wonder...
...Even so, with barely 50 percent of Catholics at Mass on a given weekend, the connection between religion and politics may never be taken for granted, even (indeed especially) with abortion...
...The church teaches the sacred value of life and has long been active in prolife politics...
...The Gospel reading for that Sunday was the parable of the prodigal son...
...The message, in effect, was, "We'll gel the politics done as quickly and dispassionately as possible, so we can get on with the real reason for our Sunday gathering...
...Taking this political stance is not, from my perspective, objectionable...
...We may come to celebrate a Christ generated from political faith, rather than the other way round...
...everything else a (regrettably necessary) distraction...
...The liturgy proceeded as normal up to and through the Gospel reading...
...Especially in the Catholic church, which holds fast the notion that humans are social beings and which places that conviction at the center of its life in the Eucharist, the Body of Christ...
...The bulletin carried letters from the pastor and from Cardinal James Hickey about the Maryland abortion referendum on the November ballot...
...The cardinal's letter and the referendum donations were inserted into the Mass as though from another planet...
...This was done in a way that could only be compared to reading instructions for bicycle assembly...
...The referendum, Question 6, involved ratification of the prochoice legislation passed by the Maryland legislature earlier this year...
...In short, the parish fumbled a splendid opportunity to witness how political commitments are legitimate and necessary when they grow organically from the church's worship and belief...
...She read a prepared text that drily instructed the congregation on filling out donation cards for the "Vote kNOw" coalition...
...The manner of treating the abortion referendum insinuated that the brokenness reflected in political and social conflict is not enfleshed in the bread broken at the eucharistic table...
...CLARKE E. COCHRAN Clarke E. Cochran is professor and director of graduate studies in political science at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas...
...There surely were many in the congregation that Sunday who disagreed with the cardinal's action against the referendum...
...It divides mothers and fathers from their children...
...divides prolife from prochoice Americans...
...No reference whatsoever was made to the abortion referendum apart from the letter and the donations, and the letter and the donation appeal made no reference to what had happened in the Scripture readings and what would happen at the altar...
...He then read the letter without comment and introduced us to the woman who chaired the parish's prolife committee...
...The abortion referendum is something else...
...One such time occurred on a weekend in mid-September in the Maryland suburbs of Washington...
...This manner of treating religion and politics communicates precisely the wrong message to Catholics...
...When they are dropped in from outside (even if that outside is the chancery office), they jar and disconcert...
...We forget to communicate the relatedness of things...
...The preaching and the liturgy could have spoken of the reasons why the church takes political stands on serious moral questions, despite disagreement and division, just as the father in Luke's Gospel rejoiced at the return of his lost son, despite risking the alienation of the older brother...
...Finally, the donations were collected, and Mass resumed...
...Such risk, however, must be accepted as elemental to the tension of the Kingdom of God among us, not yet fully realized...
...The deacon or pastor could have preached briefly on that story, relating it to the referendum...
...divides the church...
...We forget the tension and ambiguity with which the ordinary Catholic lives...
...His book Religion in Public and Private Life was published by Routledge in 1990...
...What is wrong with this picture...
...Perhaps the ground for this appeal had been laid properly on other Sundays...
Vol. 119 • November 1992 • No. 20
