The Devil in Politics

Though I often opine on large-scale conflict on the national and international stage, I realize most of the time we have only enough energy to address personal conflict. Nonetheless, many of us are becoming increasingly aware of how politics impinges on our personal fate. This awareness leads to increased debate in the public square. It can cause us to ponder our role in politics.

In this post, rather than offer my thoughts, I turn to the impressive voice of Archbishop Charles Chaput, a Capuchin Franciscan who I consider a much-needed prophetic figure in today’s world. For insights regarding our role in politics, I recommend his April 11^th, 2011 presentation Politics and the Devil. The article inspires careful consideration of our personal contributions to politics.

The following excerpts may recommend the complete article to Taming the Wolf readers:

Politics often works like a virus. The simpler a political slogan is, the faster people absorb it, the faster they transmit it, and the less likely they are to really think about it—which means they don’t develop an immunity to its content.”

”There is no such thing as morally neutral legislation or morally neutral public policy. Every law is the public expression of what somebody thinks we ‘ought’ to do.”

”A healthy democracy depends on people of conviction working hard to advance their ideas in the public square—respectfully and peacefully, but vigorously and without apologies. Politics always involves the exercise of power in the pursuit of somebody’s idea of the common good. And politics always and naturally involves the imposition of somebody’s values on the public at large. So if a citizen fails to bring his moral beliefs into our country’s political conversation, if he fails to work for them publicly and energetically, then the only thing he ensures is the defeat of his own beliefs.”

”For the Greeks, the ‘idiot’ was not a mentally deficient man. Rather, he was a man who did not possess a proper public philosophy, or as Murray says, ‘a man who is not master of the knowledge and skills that underlie the life of a civilized city. The idiot, to the Greek, was just one stage removed from the barbarian. He is the man who is ignorant of the meaning of the word ‘civility’.”

”The irony is this: the search for human perfection implied in modern science—or at least, the kind of science accountable to no moral authority outside of itself—leads all too easily to a hatred of imperfection in the real human persons who embody it with their disabilities. The simplest way to deal with imperfections is to eliminate the imperfect.”

”The devil is condemned to work within time. He works in the present to capture our hearts and steal our future. But he also attacks our memory, the narrative of our own identity. And he does it for a very good reason. The way we remember history conditions how we think and choose today, in our daily lives.”

“Politics is the exercise of power; and power—as Jesus himself saw when Satan tempted him in the desert—can very easily pervert itself by doing evil in the name of pursuing good ends. But this fact is never an excuse for cowardice or paralysis. Christ never absolved us from defending the weak, or resisting evil in the world, or from solidarity with people who suffer. Our fidelity as Christians is finally to God, but it implies a faithfulness to the needs of God’s creation.”

The Archbishop’s presentations often can be found on Facebook.

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