Father Rodriguez, Bishop Ochoa, and Priests in Politics

Father Ernesto Cardenal, the poet-

priest of Nicaragua who defied the

order of Pope John Paul to resign his

post as Minister of Culture in 1983.

So what about this Father Rodriguez and his bishop, Armando Ochoa?  I see that it has Michael Voris and his "real" Catholic T.V. in another tizzy.  Should Father be encouraged to be politically active or to withdraw from politics and devote his energy to the spiritual and moral formation of the laity so that they can be politically active? There is an interesting context for this given the history of political activism of the clergy in the United States and other countries since the 1980 demand of the late Pope John Paul II that clergy and religious not be directly involved in politics. 
     Sister Agnes Mary Mansour, RSM, was appointed the director of the Michigan Department of Social Services in 1982. As her job entailed administering funds for abortions, the Holy See determined, not unreasonably, that it was not appropriate for a religious to hold this post and she was given an ultimatum to either secularize or give up her post.  Sister Mansour reluctantly asked for a dispensation from her vows. She was able to remain an affiliate of the Sisters of Mercy and continued to live with the Sisters and for all practical purposes to live as a Sister for the remainder of her life.  She died in the Mercy Sisters’ infirmary and was buried in their plot at Holy Sepulcher Cemetery, Southfield MI.
     Father Robert Drinan, SJ, was elected to Congress as a Democrat on an anti-Vietnam War platform in 1970.  Drinan had been admitted to the Bar in Massachusetts in 1956 and had served as Dean of the Law School of Boston College from that time until his election to Congress.  In Congress he earned a reputation for espousing liberal causes, most of which were soundly rooted in the Magisterial teaching of the Catholic Church as found in papal encyclicals and the Documents of the Second Vatican Council.  An unfortunate exception was his support of abortion “rights” where he tried to separate personal opposition (he called it ‘virtual infanticide’) from public policy.  It was and remains a dubious distinction.  In 1980 when Pope John Paul demanded that all clergy and religious withdraw from public office, Drinan obediently complied though he remained a powerful commentator on American political and public life to the annoyance of not a few bishops and many conservative Catholics.  Contrary to what many think, Father Drinan was not the only priest toserve in Congress.  Father Robert Cornell, a Norbertine Canon from Saint Norbert’s Abbey in DePere had served from 1975-1979 representing his district in Wisconsin.  In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Father Gabriel Richard, a French immigrant,  had served as a non-voting delegate from the Michigan Territory.
     While Fathers Cornell, Drinan, and Richard had all done credible service in their political careers—short though they were—not all priests have been witnesses to the compassion of Christ in their political involvement.  Monsignor Josef Tiso (1887-1947) was the President of Slovakia from 1939-1945) during which time he was a collaborator with Slovakia’s Nazi overlords.  Far from using his admittedly limited power to shield Jews, Gypsies and other peoples marked for destruction, Tiso embraced the anti-Semitic policies of the Reich.  He was hanged as a war criminal in 1947.
     A far more morally credible example of a priest in politics is the noted Nicaraguan poet, Ernesto Cardenal.  Cardenal comes from a wealthy Central American family and he studied in the United States.  He had spent time in the Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemane in Kentucky where Thomas Merton had been his Novice Master.  Cardenal did not profess final vows but instead went to Cuernavaca in Mexico where he studied for the priesthood. At Solentiname in Nicaragua Cardenal established a semi-monastic community of peasants from which developed a famous artist colony.  A supporter of the peasants in their struggles with the plutocratic families that had long dominated Nicaragua (with American assistance) politically and economically, Cardenal was appointed Minister of Culture when the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza regime.  He ignored Pope John Paul’s demands to resign from the Government and was rebuked by the Pope during the papal visit to Nicaragua in 1983.  That visit was a public relations disaster for the papacy as it was made to appear that the Church favored the wealthy families who had long ruled Nicaragua and opposed the popular Sandinista regime.  At several points the crowds booed the pope when he spoke against the government.  John Paul’s personal experiences with Socialism in Poland left him with a very unnuanced appreciation of the situation in Central America.  On the other hand, Ortega and others were initially blind to the authoritarian and undemocratic aspects of the Ortega regime.  Cardenal eventually broke with Ortega claiming that Ortega’s party was a “false revolution” that had betrayed the people of Nicaragua.  Five years ago Cardenal was nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature in recognition of his status as one of the great poets of our time.     
     I think priests and religious often have much to bring to the political arena.  They are often highly perceptive of human nature; they are usually more compassionate for the needs of the poor.  At least in the past the clergy and the women religious have been not only better educated than the average Catholic, they have often been of notably above average intellect.  I think they usually have a moral anchor and the skills to articulate that.  With the socio-economic advances of the Catholic population over the last half century I think today the laity are often better educated though not necessarily more intelligent. (I am reluctant to trust my impressions on a matter than needs objectification.)  It does seem however that clergy and religious have a proper role in the moral education of the faithful but that the direct political action belongs not to the clergy but to the laity.  So I think Father Rodriguez is fine in the pulpit and even in the newspapers, but not at the city council meeting.  I also think  he is wrong about Catholics having to oppose partner “benefits”  regardless of marital status and indeed even about the legalization of same-sex marriages.  But we can save that for another day. 

Same-Sex Marriage and The Bully Pulpit of El Paso




Saint Pedro de Jesús Maldonado was

a priest ordained in the Cathedral of

El Paso in 1918 and martyred for the

faith during the Mexican Persecutions

in 1937

Well, another tempest in the ecclesiastical teapot.  Father Michael Rodriguez has been reassigned to a parish outside the city of El Paso Texas by his Diocesan bishop, Armando Xavier Ochoa because Father Rodriguez had become somewhat of a political activist in city politics in regard to the issue of same-sex marriage.  Critics of the bishop claim that the reassignment is to protect the Church from losing its tax-exempt status—not for profits being required by federal law not to be directly involved in political action.  From what I have read, this seems to be an accurate surmise on why the bishop transferred Father Rodriguez from a parish within the city where the debate is raging to a parish outside the city where he can devote himself to the spiritual concerns of the people entrusted to his care.  To Father Rodriguez’s credit, he explicitly recognized in his statement to the press that trying to be a good priest he would obey his bishop and he departed to take up his new assignment.  It does raise the question of what is the role of the clergy in political debate. 
     The next several Sundays parking lots in many Catholic churches will be leafleted with partisan literature advocating one candidate or another because this candidate is pro-life and anti-same-sex marriage or because this candidate’s opponent is pro-abortion or pro-same-sex marriage.  Some pastors will try to stop the leafleting  squads, others will invite them into the rectory for coffee and rolls.  Many people don’t see the issue with the Church endorsing a particular political candidate.  Unfortunately the United States tax code does.   What is the role of the Church when it comes to politics? 
      There are serious moral issues and the Church must struggle to maintain its right to speak on moral issues even when those moral issues have political repercussions.  There is much debate about the role of Pope Pius XII and the Nazi Holocaust.  Some claim that the Pope “did what he could.”  Others claim that he did nothing.  From the viewpoint of history, even if Pius did “all he could” he did not do enough.  I am not a foe of Pius; in fact I would rank him as one of the greatest popes of the 20^th century, perhaps even the greatest.  He was not indifferent to the suffering of the victims of the Nazi regime.  He took particular interest in saving the Jews of Rome and was proactive in that cause.  The Italian Jews in general and the Roman Jews in particular suffered fewer deportations and subsequent murders than Jews in the rest of Axis and occupied Europe.  This was due to a number of factors but not least of these factors was the role of the Catholic Church and of the Pope.  Nevertheless, Pope Pius XII  still failed to meet the moral challenge. He was very unwise not to speak more clearly both in condemning the racial policies of National Socialism and in warning the peoples of Europe of the exact nature of the Nazi Holocaust. 
      There were courageous churchmen who did speak out against the Nazis.  Konrad von Preysing was the Bishop of Berlin from 1935 until his death in 1950.  He was an outspoken opponent of the Nazi Regime and both its policy of eugenics and extermination of the Jews.  Bernhard Lichtenberg, provost of von Preysing’s Cathedral in Berlin, was arrested and sent to Dachau for his public prayers for the Jews. He died on his way to the camp.  Clemens Augustus Graf (Count) von Galen, bishop of Münster was another vehement oppose of the Nazi Regime.  He had openly supported the Protestant candidate, Paul von Hindenburg, for the Reichs presidency  in 1925 in the hopes of preserving the Weimar Republic and he actively opposed the Nazi party in the 1933 elections.  During the Nazi regime he regularly preached against its policies.  There are times when regardless of the restrictions of civil law, those entrusted with preaching the gospel must speak up and speak out.
     Nevertheless, I am not sure that Father Rodriguez falls into the same league as the Cardinals von Preysing and von Galen or even Canon Lichtenberg.  No one can legitimately  complain about a sermon upholding the traditional view of the sacred nature of marriage between one man and one woman any more than we could fault a sermon on the sanctity of human life.  In the same way priests and deacons need to speak up not only against abortion but against the death penalty, against wars that the Catholic Church has declared acts of unjust aggression, against funding the training of assassins in our military installations,  against torture, and other attacks on human life and dignity.  I defend priests and religious demonstrating at the gates of Fort Benning where the notorious Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly known as “The School of the Americas”) and so I need to defend priests and religious marching or praying in front of abortion mills.  I think Catholics were far too slow to get into the Civil Rights movement and the anti-war movement of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s and so I need to applaud those Catholics who come out in defense of life every January.  Churchmen—and Churchwomen—don’t lose their rights to voice their political views as individuals even if the tax-exempt organization to which they belong must abstain from overt political activity.  It is a fine line.  But I do not think that the clergy or religious should go to public gatherings and give political opinions.  I don’t believe that a priest or religious belongs addressing a city council meeting or other governmental body unless they are called as an expert witness to give testimony—in which case they are not there as a member of the clergy but as a sociologist, psychologist, lawyer, or whatever their field of expertise is.  Catholic doctrine qua Catholic doctrine does not belong in the political forum any more than does the doctrinal teachings of any other religion.  If the clergy are doing their job of informing their laity, educating their laity in the teachings of the Church, it is the role of the laity not the clergy to participate in political life.  I believe—and I am speaking only as an individual—but I believe that it is the work of the clergy to change hearts and it is the apostolate of those changed hearts to change the laws.  So I think Bishop Ochoa is right.  Keep Father Rodriguez in a pulpit, but get him out of City Council Meetings.  Oh, and by the way, remind him that according to the norms of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, the cassock is proper to church property, not to public appearances whether of duty or recreation.