A Protestant American View of Obedient Catholics in Public Office

One of the dumbest things Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden did, in the 2008 election cycle, was to debate in public whether the Roman Catholic hierarchy has correctly pinpointed when human life begins. It is true that the “doctors of the Church” have come up with many and varied answers to that question over the centuries. Thomas Aquinas, for example, DID estimate that the soul attached to the male fetus about forty days after conception, and to the female after eighty days – a fact the present day Curia would prefer to overlook or deny. But the foundation of the Roman Catholic church is that the priest knows better than the parishioner, the bishop knows better than the priest, the archbishop knows better than the bishop, and the Bishop of Rome (aka The Pope) because his diocese includes what used to be the center of political power in the Mediterranean world 16 centuries ago, knows better than anybody. So why argue?

I personally don’t buy that. I have many friends who are or have been Roman priests, and others who are faithful lay Catholics. They are cheerful companions I enjoy talking to, I respect their knowledge and commitment, I have enjoyed their masses, which are a perfectly inspiring worship service. But I can read the Bible for myself, and I can come up with as good a sense of what it means as any of them can. In my seldom-humble opinion, my reading is often better than theirs. There is a word for people who think like me: Protestant.

If Biden and Pelosi want to be Roman Catholics, which they have been all their lives, they will be more credible if they simply affirm their obedient acceptance of church doctrine (whatever that may be this year, this decade, this century, this millennium, as distinct from what it has been in the past). Then they have to affirm something else. They have to affirm that when elected to a position of public trust, under the Constitution of the United States of America, they are NOT “the Catholic representative.”

Biden represents the state of Delaware, not the Roman church. Pelosi represents a district in San Francisco, California, not the archdiocese in which she resides. This is the United States of America, not the Holy Roman Empire. The voters who elected them include Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, many varieties of Protestants, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, and Unitarians, among others. Ditto for those who voted against them. They are responsible to ALL of the above.

One cannot be Roman Catholic and support abortion. To the best of my knowledge, Nancy Pelosi has never had an abortion. Biden certainly hasn’t, and to the best of my knowledge, has never been the cause of pregnancy in a woman who did. However, one can be Roman Catholic and consider the legislative program advocated by the bishops in North America to be a sadly misguided, unproductive, even counter-productive, means of reducing the number of abortions performed each year. One can be a Roman Catholic and recognize that Roe v. Wade is an accurate and conservative application of fundamental principles contained in the United States Constitution. The Roman church may not approve of that constitution, probably would not have written it the same way if it were up to them, but it IS the Constitution of the United States of America. One can be Roman Catholic and still be a responsible citizen of a pluralistic democracy.

As John F. Kennedy observed, a Roman Catholic who puts his hand on the Bible, and takes an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, against all enemies, foreign and domestic, would, if they lied, be committing a sin against God. An elected official who took direction from the church hierarchy, as to their conduct in office, would have lied in taking such an oath. The bishops surely would not ask one of their flock to commit such a sin?

As an American citizen, I certainly hope that a Roman Catholic can serve in responsible government posts without becoming a mole, a spy, an agent, an infiltrator, for a foreign prince or a subversive hierarchical organization. Neither respect for the church nor respect for the constitution of our nation is well served by injecting debate over church doctrine into political discourse. Just as the government of a sovereign people does not have to conform to any church doctrine, by the same token, church doctrine does not have to conform to the dictates of any governmental authority.