An election manifesto

The Church should not, and cannot, recommend partisan leanings. It does not have a party, nor is any leader or candidate its spokesperson. But it also does not fail to think about the world in which we live in the light of the Gospel. Separating Church from State, Religion from Politics, cannot serve to silence the legitimate freedom of expression of believers, whether individually or in groups. Although this text only commits me, I wanted to use it to reaffirm something that is so often neglected. In a plural, free and democratic world, Christianity has the right to citizenship. Because, as Pope Leo XIV said in his first homily, it is not a “practical atheism”. It may not be equipped with proposals, but it does have principles of discernment, which are not neutral in the face of reality.

The first is the defense of the dignity of human life. The idea that this is not an adjective or an add-on, but rather what we radically are. We cannot take it away or add to it. We can live it imperfectly. We can even express it insufficiently. But it is never at stake. We are, by nature, neither saints nor criminals. Hence the refusal of voluntary termination of pregnancy, medically assisted death, torture, the death penalty, but also the necessary condemnation of war and racism. Even so, the rejection of abortion and euthanasia would be incomplete if it were not accompanied by the care and support of the people who practice them (cf. Evangelium Vitae, n.º 99). As it is when we fail to recognize that the lives of immigrants, the poor and the homeless are also sacred. Furthermore, the Church cannot forget its essential work in the pastoral care of prisoners and refugees, of gypsies and hospitals, of the Vincentian Conferences and of Caritas, as a testimony to this appeal, which is not merely blindness. It is, above all, a denunciation of a utilitarian and throwaway culture, of the simple maximization of profit and efficiency, because when this happens we destroy the social harmony that sustains Creation. In fact, for Christianity, ecology is not simply an environmental problem. Climate change is, above all, a consequence of the “unsustainability of our relationships” (Pope Francis). It is true that, in Christian eyes, nature is not “a pile of rubbish scattered at random” (Pope Benedict XVI), but it is not, equally, a naturalistic product that animalizes humanity itself.

From this point on, Christianity recognizes another principle: politics exists to seek the common good. Not the sum of private goods, but the common good: indivisible, belonging to each and every one. Hence the Church looks with suspicion both at the incompleteness of those who see freedom as a merely private purpose, and at those who want to reduce happiness to a collectivist goal. However, the common good is not a utopia, nor an ideal that will arrive with a revolution, or with a skeptical immobility regarding the future. The common good, which is different from economic well-being, is that which, historically situated, “favors the integral development of the person in human beings” (Pope John XXIII). Unfortunately, this question has not been examined “in the light of the criteria of justice and morality, but rather on the basis of the electoral or financial strength of the groups that support them” (Pope John Paul II), which so often reduces it to a material understanding of reality, leaving aside a concrete cultural and educational policy.

On the other hand, the Social Doctrine of the Church understands that all human beings are simultaneously givers and receivers. That we all have a debt. That talents correspond to gifts and not to prestige, that work “has an ethical dignity that is prior to and superior to the value of the market and productivity” (Pope John Paul II) and that merit, like the market, although fair, when viewed in isolation, create “ever greater inequalities” (Pope Benedict XVI). Contrary to what certain readings of the world seem to suggest, we are not external to society, and therefore solidarity must be an ordering principle of institutions and relationships, insofar as they perpetuate inequalities and divisions, something that has a concrete dimension in the defense of the social dimension of private property and the demand for the universal destination of goods. As Pope Paul VI clearly wrote: “Private property does not constitute an unconditional and absolute right for anyone. (…) The right to property must never be exercised to the detriment of the common good” ( Populorum Progressio , no. 23)

However, although we are not outside of society, Christian social thought does not equate society with the State. Before either of these, there is the human being and, after him, there is the spontaneous life of humanity, expressed in groups, family, friendships and associations. This principle, which goes by the name of Subsidiarity, is in contrast to all forms of centralization, bureaucratization, welfare and the unjustified and excessive presence of the public apparatus in our lives. The Church believes that it is not the State that creates ethics, but that it is the State that translates them into law. That it is not the State that liberates, but that it is the State that must recognize and coordinate freedom. That it is not a religion, but that it must respect them and not manipulate or use them. That it is not a spiritual entity, but a historical complexity. Therefore, the State can only act legitimately when it promotes the economy and common life, when civil society cannot autonomously assume the initiative, or when only public intervention can create conditions of greater equality, justice and peace. In fact, the principle of subsidiarity corresponds to the need to denounce the “clericalism” of the State, but also the “clericalism” of citizens who say to the State “the priest is in charge”, “it’s done this way, because it’s always been done”.

Politics, in the light of the Gospel, is not a technique of power, but a higher form of charity. In this time of choices, Christians are not asked to vote in the name of the Church, but to vote with an informed conscience, with ethical sensitivity and with a memory of those who have no voice, even if we can all express our voice at the ballot box. Christianity does not present a political program, but it offers a perspective. Voting is a public act of personal responsibility. And the common good, however difficult, continues to be the noblest of democratic ambitions.