Those are valuable principles to keep in mind each day. They are very helpful in the time before elections. Read below some of the cardinals statements to the Canadian bishops' plenary conference.
Code: ZE06102029
Date: 2006-10-20
Cardinal McCarrick Shares Political Wisdom
Addresses Plenary Assembly of Canadian Bishops
CORNWALL, Ontario, OCT. 20, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Bishops in their role as pastors and leaders are called to show courage, clarity and love, says the retired archbishop of Washington, D.C.Cardinal Theodore McCarrick said this Tuesday when commenting on "involvement in public life and the social teaching of the Church" to the Canadian bishops' conference, gathered for its plenary assembly in Cornwall. The assembly ends today.
The cardinal said that the involvement of the Church in politics is a formidable task, especially when religious points of view appear to be banned from the public sphere, and a "secular religion" imposed.
"This anti-religious construct makes no sense," stated the chairman of the U.S. bishops' Task Force on Catholics in Political Life. "Decisions that affect the national welfare of a nation cannot be arrived at without the use of ethical and moral principles and, at the very basis, these tend to come from religious values."
Catholic social doctrine helps to shed light on this, though it "has no intention of giving the Church power over the state," said Cardinal McCarrick, 76.
"Even less is it an attempt to impose on those who do not share the faith ways of thinking and modes of conduct proper to the faith," he continued. "Its aim is to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgment and attainment of what is just and what is in accord with the nature of every human being."
The Church's objective, he said, is the formation of the consciences of those involved in politics, and to stimulate action in response to the authentic requirements of justice.
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