Consistency of Catholic tradition:
A key asset in policy debates

		Eye on the  Capitol  John Huebscher

Elections provide "teachable moments" to think about government and policy. But citizenship is about more than voting.

That is why Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility, authored by the Administrative Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, offers a rich resource whenever Catholics want to reflect on the link between their faith and their role in the community.

One section of Faithful Citizenship addresses "Catholic Assets in the Public Square." The first of these is the asset of a "consistent moral framework."

Archbishop Pilarczyk of Cincinnati has compared our Catholic faith to a ball of yarn. Wherever you first touch the yarn, following it in either direction connects you to everything else. Thus our beliefs are connected to how we pray, how we worship, and how we live in society. 

Moral obligation

At the core of our beliefs about people and God is the conviction that life is sacred and social. Because each of us is created in the image and likeness of God, each of us is sacred.

Because we are created in the image of a Triune God of three persons who co-exist in an eternal relationship of love, we are social beings who must also love and care for each other.

Faithful Citizenship teaches us that this social aspect of our nature leads us directly to concern for the community and public affairs. That is why the document states, "In the Catholic tradition, responsible citizenship is a virtue; participation in the political process is a moral obligation . . ."

Our Catholic tradition is also consistent in that the major themes of our social teaching reinforce each other. The theme of the life and dignity of the person calls us to evaluate every policy question, not merely in light of its impact on our own lives, but also on those of others.

And, since we are called to live socially, our lives reach fulfillment in relationship. This in turn connects to the theme of family and participation.

Solidarity with all

The fact that we bring both gifts and needs into any relationship provides the connection to the theme of rights and responsibilities. For the responsibility to give of our gifts can only be met if the community recognizes and fosters our ability to develop and share our talents.

This is also reflected in Catholic teaching on the dignity of work and the rights of workers. For it is through work that we both earn our daily bread and express our innate gifts and talents.

Now, just as the community loses when we don't participate, so we are lessened when others are excluded. This takes us to the option for the poor, which reflects our conviction that the deprivation and powerlessness of the poor wounds all of us. And the fact we live in a "global village" invites us to a sense of solidarity with those who live in other communities and cultures.

Stewardship of creation

But our social nature is not limited to relationships with people. It binds us as well to all the earth's goods. From the first couple in Eden, we inherit our duty of stewardship of creation. As we inherited this stewardship from those whose lives preceded ours, so must we nurture the goods of the earth in a way that leaves them better than we found them for those who will come after us.

In a society where politics is so taken with special interests, a moral framework that is as consistent as it is all embracing is truly a vital asset.

John Huebscher is executive director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference.

Learning to pray: Practicing the presence of God

		The Catholic  Difference  George Weigel

The readings from Acts that we hear between Easter and Pentecost remind us that the early church was a school of prayer.

Jesus is taken up into heaven; the disciples, Mary, and the other holy women go back to the Cenacle to pray. A successor to Judas must be chosen; the first Christians pray. Peter and John are constantly in the Temple, praying.

Looking through the well-stocked "spirituality" section in your local bookstore, you may think that Americans are doing the same; in today's jargon, there seem to be a lot of "searchers" out there.

Catholic faith, exemplified in this season's readings from Acts, teaches us something different about searching, however. Catholic faith teaches us that the spiritual life is not our search for God, but God's search for us - and our learning to take the same path through history that God does. Our prayer must somehow reflect that truth.

God's gift to us

The Catechism teaches that prayer is God's gift to us. As Paul wrote to the Romans, "We do not know how to pray as we ought;" rather, the Holy Spirit prays within us (Romans 8:26). The Catechism then illustrates this truth through the story of Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well in John 4. The woman is surprised that Jesus, a Jew, would ask a Samaritan (whom Jews considered heretics) for a drink.

Jesus's request shows us the surprising nature of prayer. As the Catechism puts it, "The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water; there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks for a drink. He thirsts; his thirst arises from the depths of God's desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him."

Contemplative prayer

The 17th century Carmelite mystic and author, Brother Lawrence, proposed another useful way to think about prayer: prayer, he taught, is "practicing the presence of God."

In our prayer, we respond to God's thirst for us by opening our minds and hearts to God, thereby entering God's sanctifying presence. In the Catholic tradition, active prayer - "saying our prayers," as we often call it - is just the beginning of prayer. The highest form of personal prayer is contemplative prayer, prayer in silence, prayer as a way of "practicing the presence." This form of prayer is not for gifted mystics only; it's a way of praying that's open to all Christians, if we take the time to clear out space for God in our daily lives.

Most Catholics don't imagine themselves as contemplatives, I suspect. But those Catholics who have discovered or rediscovered Eucharistic adoration in recent years are in fact practicing a venerable form of contemplative prayer.

Its beauty and simplicity are captured in a story about St. John Vianney. The famous Curé of Ars noticed that an elderly peasant in his parish spent hours before the Blessed Sacrament. One day, unable to restrain his curiosity, John Vianney came up to the old man as he was leaving church after a lengthy spell in front of the tabernacle. "What are you doing?" he asked his parishioner. "I look at Him, and He looks at me," came the reply.

And that, I think, is the essence of contemplative prayer. It's available to us all.

Room of prayer

"Practicing the presence" isn't limited to perpetual adoration chapels, of course. As a young priest visiting Paris for the first time, Fr. Karol Wojtyla surprised his traveling companion, a seminarian, by saying that the Metro, the Paris subway, was "a superb place for contemplation."

Fifteen centuries earlier, the great theologian-bishop, Ambrose of Milan, reflected on Jesus's command to "go to your room and pray" [Matthew 6:6] in these words: " . . . by 'room,' you must understand, not a room enclosed by walls that imprison your body, but the room that is within you, the room where you hide your thoughts, where you keep your affections. This room of prayer is always with you, wherever you are, and it is always a secret room, where only God can see you."

God thirsts for us always. We can meet God in prayer anywhere.

George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.