Political Christianity

Politics, according to the Social Doctrine of the Church, is one of the highest forms of charity, because it serves the common good. I cannot wash my hands, eh? We all have to give something! . . . A good Catholic meddles in politics, offering the best of himself, so that those who govern can govern.

-Pope Francis

Nearly eight years ago, on an apostolic pilgrimage to Mexico, Pope Francis went to the border between Mexico and the United States to profess his faith in the grace of God that transcends all borders. On the high platform beneath a towering black cross decorated with an image of the Holy Family in their flight to Egypt, raised in memory of the many migrants who have died attempting to cross the border, he looked across the border fence at the people of El Paso, and waved to them in friendship. As usual, he was dressed in his threadbare white soutane and worn black shoes, and showed a strength that belied his days of travel. Then he placed a bouquet of flowers before the cross and raised his hand to his forehead to begin the prayer, “En el nombre del Padre, y del Hijo.” 

To behold Pope Francis standing at the monument for the lost, looking across the militarized American border at the small group of border guards and pilgrims, there could be no doubt that his visit was political. And as he turned around to join the vast group waiting for him in Ciudad Juarez, it was clear that he wished to proclaim with his body, and not just with his voice, the politics of the gospel: a politics of mercy and compassion; a politics that confronts power with weakness; a politics that stands at the foot of the cross, amid the blood and suffering of injustice, to embrace the poor and proclaim that the solidarity of love will overcome the sovereignty of fear. 

As he had done so many times before and has done so many times since, Francis declared to the people of Juarez and El Paso, to the people of Mexico and the United States, to the people living in privilege and those in poverty that the Body of Christ is not an artifact to be entombed in a tabernacle. He proclaimed by his presence that the Church which follows Jesus is not an ideology nor a doctrine, but a living People, a community of loved sinners, who suffer and hope in this world, who are filled with the Spirit that moves in all creation, and who are, by grace and by nature, unconquered by walls or razor-wire, by violence or savagery. Such a proclamation-by-presence was, beyond dispute, a political act—much like the Incarnation itself.

In choosing to enter the world fully, God chooses, as well, to become part of a political community. Indeed, to be human is to live within a polis, i.e., a political body, as real and necessary as a physical body. Thus, Jesus’ life and his teachings necessarily have political implications, and not just implications in some imaginary “spiritual” realm. For Jesus—and for the Church of which he is the source—spirituality and the life of the political community are inseparable. Thus, when he chooses to live celibately, he not only demonstrates the centrality of his mission, but also stands against political and social structures of family life in which women and children are possessions that give a man status. Likewise, when he teaches about the blessedness of the poor or the vindication of the oppressed, he is not speaking about some disembodied principles, but about the real poor and those actually oppressed by all kinds of social systems. Even the great teaching of the last judgment—in which the King welcomes those who feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, visit the sick and the imprisoned—is a political statement, saying that we have a personal and societal duty to care for those who are considered the least in this world, if we wish to find ourselves members of the kingdom of God. Thus, while we must never reduce Jesus to an ideology or a  political party, we must also never forget that his Incarnation declares, in an irreversible way, the presence of God in human—i.e., political, social, economic, as well as religious—history. The cross on which Jesus hung, and under which Francis prayed, is a summons to us to become political, and, likewise, to turn politics from a practice that seeks domination to a practice that enhances human redemption.

Today, in the wake of Ukraine and Gaza, of South Sudan and gun violence, we must recognize that the politics of the gospels often stands at odds with the politics of factionalism and fear practiced by leaders of all political persuasions around the world. Rather than seeking to divide the world into “us” and “them”—i.e., into “conservatives” and “liberals,” “terrorists” and “patriots,” “heathens” and “god-fearing folk,” etc.—the gospel seeks to break down such divisions, confronting the dichotomies that lead to genocidal war and immeasurable human suffering with a political vision that places Christ in the breach, on the border, among the victimized and the abandoned. While the politics of factionalism, as old as Cain and as current as Gaza, calls us to see ourselves alone—just me, just my tribe, just my nation—the Incarnation testifies that we are all simultaneously beloved and fallen, a single family of loved sinners for whom God has nothing but mercy. The politics of the gospel confronts the dichotomies that destroy with God’s self-emptying love that alone can bring peace and healing; a love summed up in that phrase—simple to enunciate, but damnably hard to enflesh: “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers or sisters of mine, you did for me” (Mt. 25:41).

Fr. John Whitney

Photo: Pope Francis, 2016. Flickr/Long Thiên (cc)