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With Election 2008 in the history books, we asked a diverse group of faithful Catholics to respond to the following question:

 

With the results of the 2008 election, it appears that old coalitions are breaking down while new ones are being created. This presents Catholic voters with a challenge and an opportunity: What should the new movement of faithful voters look like? Where will it differ from the strategies and politics of the past? And how can faithful Catholics best live their full faith in the political realm?

 

We were not asking about approaches to specific legislation (e.g., no FOCA). Rather, we hoped for a broader, more bird's-eye-view of the direction, make-up, and future of the Catholic vote.

 

The responses follow.

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As Christians and Catholics, we are guided by the words of Jesus who teaches us "render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." But in doing so, we understand that Caesar does not stand apart from God but is also subject to God. Indeed, those who heard Jesus ask them, "Whose image is on the coin?" could not have not made the inference to the Book of Genesis and Creation: "God created man in his own image; in the divine image he created them." Jesus is saying that if God's image is in us, then "Give to God what is God's."

 

The tendency to moral relativism in our culture is the greatest threat to authentic democracy today. As Pope John Paul II said at the UN in 1995:

 

Detached from the truth about the human person, freedom deteriorates into license in the lives of individuals, and in political life it becomes the caprice of the most powerful and the arrogance of power. Far from being a limitation on freedom or a threat to it, reference to the truth about the human person -- a truth universally knowable through the moral law written on the hearts of all -- is, in fact, the guarantor of freedom's future.

 

Today, confusion about the truth of the human person is at the heart of the crisis of human values -- a crisis that is being played out in politics as it is also being played out in the field of medicine.

 

While we must not shrink from living our faith fully in the political realm, we must avoid the temptation of the liberation theologians in overestimating the possibilities of politics (after all, for 20 of the last 28 years we have had "pro-life" presidents). They say that John Paul II, when he received bishops for the quinquennial ad limina visits, did not ask them what they were doing to change the politics in their countries, but rather what they were doing to change the culture.

 

As we read in 1 Peter 3:15, we must be ready to "give reason for that hope that is in you." The articulation of this hope is prior to politics, for it is what makes faith a culture. We will not effect lasting political changes unless we can build a culture of life. This is the task and the challenge of the "new evangelization": to recover an anthropology that reflects the truth about man -- a truth that is not constructed but received and thus must reflect the reality of things. As a society we need to recover an anthropology that acknowledges that we are not self-creators but creatures, albeit creatures wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God.

 

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Economic security and national security will always trump cultural issues at the ballot box, and that certainly happened in 2008. But this doesn't mean that moral issues don't matter -- it simply means that social conservatives must regroup.

 

To be sure, there is some tension between neo-conservatives and social conservatives. Unfortunately, there are some in both camps who seek to disenfranchise the other. Since the election, the former have been the most vocal about checking the influence of the latter. They must be turned back, and with vigor.

 

The Catholic Church's teaching on public-policy matters is most specific with regard to moral issues; on economic and foreign-policy issues, there is more room for disagreement on what constitutes the appropriate means. What this suggests is that Catholics can never yield on the life issues. The recent statement on bioethics is one more reminder how central these matters are.

 

The involvement of Mormons in the Proposition 8 controversy, and the willingness of some Muslims to support traditional marriage, should be welcomed by traditional Catholics, evangelical Protestants, and Orthodox Jews. And let us not forget about the role played by Latinos and African Americans, especially the black clergy. There are a lot of opportunities here. What is needed is some kind of Social Congress wherein leaders from all these groups come together, pledging cooperation on specific issues. It could prove to be formidable, and it sure would send shivers down the spine of the secular left.

 

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Right after the election I wrote an op-ed titled "What Next?" for the National Catholic Register, which argued that

 

the "one-party" pro-life political strategy of the past 30 years that has identified the pro-life cause with the Republican Party and its pro-capital, pro-war political ideology must be abandoned. What's needed is a new pro-life politics for the future that would explicitly open up a "second front" in the abortion battle within the Democratic Party.

 

I based my argument on the success of Proposition 8 in California, which was made possible, ironically, by strong support from Latinos and African Americans -- both traditionally Democratic, pro-Obama groups. Socially conservative constituencies in the Democratic Party, I said, have for years been ignored by party leaders, and represent an opportunity for Catholic pro-life organizers.

Conversely, Evangelical presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's unique blend of social conservatism and "social democratic" economic policies got a cold reception from the Republican establishment in that party's primaries. Yet he clearly had a strong following among religious Republicans.

These examples show that there are constituencies in each party that would align with the Church on most issues. We don't have to endure the same dreary political sideshow every four years, with partisan Catholics in the Republican and Democratic parties haranguing each other over which is the best path: pro-life and family vs. pro-social justice and peace.

But to get the consistently Catholic candidates we want, we'll have to organize and commit to an explicitly Christian political program that would be promoted by political action groups and think tanks -- the more the better. These would work within both the Democratic and Republican parties to advocate for the common good in the true sense, based upon the four pillars of Christian social morality: life, family, social justice, and peace.

These four pillars are not something I made up. Rev. James Tunstead Burtchaell has written in Philemon's Problem that they can be traced back to the early Christians, who fundamentally changed community life by protecting the unborn and infants (life), elevating women in marriage (family), recognizing the dignity of slaves (social justice), and reconciling with enemies (peace).

The Church enforced this social morality -- however imperfectly -- throughout the centuries. Then, in 1891, in response to the crisis of industrial societies, Pope Leo XII issued the first social encyclical, Rerum Novarum. Since then, the popes have continued to develop the Church's social teaching, what has been called its "best-kept secret."

With the world in a global economic crisis, and the pope set to publish his new social encyclical, reportedly titled Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), early next year, now is the opportune time to make this "secret" the basis for a new Catholic politics.

In voting for Obama, Americans were voting for change. They're likely to be disappointed, if only because Obama's vision has little substance. The Church's social doctrine is the only political philosophy left in the world with the substance and the credibility to be the basis for real change -- an alternative to the failures of socialism and hedonistic capitalism.

If the early reports on his encyclical are correct, Pope Benedict appears to agree with Obama that real change is needed to restore the social fabric of the world. In his message for the upcoming World Day of Peace on January 1, 2009, the pope quoted from John Paul II's social encyclical, Centesimus Annus, calling for "a change of lifestyles, of models of production and consumption, and of the established structures of power which today govern societies."

Until we Catholics develop the courage to organize for this sort of radical change based on the Church's authentic teaching on social concerns, we will continue to be a weak presence in the public square.

 

Angelo Matera is the editor of GodSpy.

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I am ecumenical by bloodline. My grandparents were Methodist, Quaker, Presbyterian, and Catholic, respectively. My mother was a convert to Catholicism, and my wife and I were not married in the Catholic Church. Our children married non-Catholics. My Catholic-convert wife and her born-and-raised-Catholic husband enjoy dinner table religious sparring as an accepted course in a four-course meal.

 

I co-chaired Catholics for McCain and unapologetically supported the senator's support for life and traditional marriage. My Catholic convert co-chair, Sen. Sam Brownback, was no less enthusiastic.

 

We knew that Catholics would be critical of John's candidacy. We knew that we would lose if we didn't "win" the Catholic vote. We didn't win the Catholic vote, and we lost.

 

So what do orthodox Catholics do about it? Acknowledge first that we are a secular nation that goes to church. That seems contradictory, but it's true. We go to Mass, do our Catholic thing, and leave everybody else alone. It avoids religious wars and other unpleasantries.

 

But that doesn't mean we should be mute. If we think that life must be protected, we should shout it from the rooftops. If marriage is between a man and a woman, we should bellow it out. If we don't think that courts should order the taxing of religious schools or prohibit physicians in Catholic hospitals from performing abortions, we must make some noise about it.

 

The squeaky wheel gets the grease. If Catholics don't bellow between Masses, we lose. And much of what we believe in will be jeopardized. It is a secular country, after all. If the political class doesn't hear us, our reward will be defeat.

 

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Catholics who are intelligent about politics and serious about religion already try to bring faith to bear on politics. Those who are Democrats labor at the thankless task of turning their party around on social issues. Republicans work to keep the GOP pro-life. A handful with third-party dreams may even be contemplating that arguably self-defeating option. More Catholics in all three groups should accept the risks and pains of running for office or seeking party leadership.

 

Trouble is, there aren't nearly enough politically intelligent, religiously serious Catholics to go around. As it stands, many Catholics, probably most, have consciences demonstrably malformed about politics and much else besides.

 

The solution, of course, is conscience formation.

 

Catholic voting last November highlighted the need. But it's also reflected in the letters I've learned to expect when I write about politics. They say things like this: I'm a good Catholic, and I voted for Obama, so it must be right. If the bishops were really pro-life, they'd talk less about abortion and more about global warming and AIDS. Where does the Church get off telling people how to vote when it won't ordain women/let gays marry each other?

 

The people who spout this stuff need conscience formation -- lots of it.

 

Ideally, the bishops would get together to provide it, using their national conference as a vehicle. But the hierarchy collectively is too divided on key aspects of conscience and politics to do more than crank out unsatisfactory consensus documents like this year's "Faithful Citizenship." Next election season we'll probably get again what we got in 2008 -- a flurry of individual bishops' statements presenting a scattered, conflicted response.

 

If most bishops can't be counted on to help much, what then? The only approach with a ghost of a chance is for a well-heeled organization like the Knights of Columbus to fund a serious program on conscience formation involving professional research, planning, publications, and training. It should be situated on the campus of one of our few solid Catholic universities -- and I don't mean Boston College, either.

 

Failing that, there's little to do except ponder the second epistle to Timothy (4:3-4): "The time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth." That's American Catholicism today.