Catholic Involvement in Politics: Some Theological and Anthropological Considerations

Abstract

There is a widespread belief today, primarily among the agnostics and atheists, and even among the not so active believers, that all forms of religious belief, including Christian Catholicism, should remain outside the political realm, limited to private spirituality. This paper thematises, in the context of “positive laicity”, the way the Catholic Church changed its understanding of politics after the Second Vatican Council, regarding the involvement of believers, as serving the common good in a plural society. Using conciliar and post-conciliar documents as sources for reflection and argumentation, this paper outlines eight theological and anthropological assumptions regarding Catholic involvement in politics within the context of the 21st century, adapting the (post-)conciliar thought to the conditions of today’s globalised world. For Christians to do well in this responsible assignment, the starting point is Jesus Christ, both in the historical and in the cosmic project of God’s world in the making, expressed in the Old Testament as the arrival of God’s Kingdom. This article is methodologically limited, as the title states, to recognise and briefly sketch the content of a few basic theological–anthropological assumptions of Christian participation in politics, without going into the history of the issue, as well as to the authors who dealt with it in various aspects. In conclusion, we notice that the manner of religious action in politics described in this way presupposes that the believer has already left the state of infancy within his ecclesial community and is ready to make decisions within the political community based on his faith, competences and conscience, without clerical tutelage and obstruction.

1. Introduction

Is it reasonable and acceptable, from a religious standpoint, to associate Christian identity with intense political involvement? We are overwhelmed with media descriptions and gory details of what happens when religious beliefs or religious communities leave the realms of spirituality and mysticism and try to shape the political destiny of a society instead. We are witnessing that the massive and systematic politicisation of religion often leads to the radical destabilisation of society, making it impossible to coexist and often impeding progress. However, such examples of destructive consequences caused by embedding religion in politics today come mostly from the religious frameworks of Islam, Hinduism and, to a lesser extent, Buddhism. This fact apparently still fails to unsettle the convictions of a whole range of agnostic, atheist and partly Christian circles in our society, according to which any religious commitment, even that of Christian Catholic, should imply restraint from active participation in the political arena (Baloban et al. 2019). Many thus perceive the mere mention of the ideologeme “politics and religion” or “politics and the Catholic Church” in a positive context as something dubious, almost politically incorrect. It is often claimed that the Christian community should refrain from any participation in politics. We heard such claims during the communist era in former Yugoslavia, and we often hear it today even though we are now part of the Free World. Some voices demand that Christian believers should not bring their religious ideas and attitudes into the political arena. In doing so, they invoke the secularity of the state. It is argued that such a state cannot function if believers, as party members or simply as voters, introduce their inherently particular ideas and values into the political decision-making process. In particular, due to the nature of their religious origins and their religious specificity, it would not have been possible to mediate at the level of political rationality understandable to all. Religion and politics would have to be separated by a logic of strict neutrality, without which political structures could not function in a democratic manner, because in a plural society, everyone should feel included regardless of any differences, including religious, ideological and sexual. Everyone, without any ideological or religious marginalisation, should contribute to shaping a common, functioning democracy.

This type of attitude is most often promoted by ideological frameworks, including the media and political power centres, dominated by non-Catholics or former Catholics. But there are also many Christians and Catholics who, when faced with a deluge of wrongdoings caused by bad politics or bad politicians, have come to believe that politics is indeed a “dirty business” in which committed Christians should not be professionally involved, else they might jeopardise their religious and moral integrity. A conditioned reflex inherited from the communist era is still present among many elderly Christians in Croatia. This reflex, lacking any convincing rational basis, makes them rather reluctant to accept public statements by the official Church on topics related to politics, including legal and ethical considerations. It seems that new generations of Christians, particularly well-educated residents of urban centres, tend to share their reluctancy.

Clearly, there are other ways of dealing with the topic of the relationship between the Church and politics, or more precisely, of Christian involvement in politics, which might demonstrate more openness and a sense of distinction between the religious and the political spheres. These are just some of the reactions of the European social environment to the traditional narrative of the Catholic community regarding the political involvement of Christians as a given evangelical imperative. However, this and similar approaches certainly demonstrate the absence of knowledge of the current standards of Catholic understanding of the meaning of political activity and the manner of Christian involvement in politics.

For almost two thousand years, the Church has been contemplating, at various levels, the interaction between ecclesiastic communities and their members on the one side and state authorities and political action on the other.1 Living in various social systems, Christians have always sought an answer to the question of how to articulate their faith and political involvement in a manner that is appropriate to the context. And at the end of that long historical process, we observe a fairly recognisable understanding of the relationship between Christian commitment and the political involvement of members of the ecclesiastic community. It is actually the result of a deepening, permanent theological reflection, but also of a significant self-correction of the understanding and the way of practicing, starting from the documents and a general attitude that has been adopted by the Church since the Second Vatican Council. Therefore, in a way, this paper updates and expands the “revolution” brought about by the Council Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes (GS, 1965), which is the basis of our reflection. Given the fact that the GS was adopted back in 1965, our goal here is to upgrade it with a personal contribution2 and other documents of the later Magisterium and popes3.

2. Political Involvement as an Important Dimension of the Christian Mission Aimed Ultimately at Building the Kingdom of God

It would be very interesting to reconstruct the theological stages of growth in the understanding of the relationship between faith and political involvement. For our topic, it will suffice to say that throughout most of history, politics in theology and the statements of the Magisterium were predominantly concerned with the question how to establish authority in politics. Until the mid-20th century, Catholic doctrines were more focused on defining the source of ecclesiastical authority than with issues such as community and the common good as the goal of political action (Grbac 2005, pp. 12–13). This is not surprising if we recall the monarchical system and the more or less monolithic confessional nature of the states of the pre-modern era during the ancien regime.4

However, this discourse changed significantly in the second half of the 20th century. In the last 50–60 years, the Catholic ecclesiastic community has become well aware that its calling includes living the Gospel in this modern, everyday, globalised world and not in the past. A turning point in bringing this change about was the Second Vatican Council. Following in the footsteps of the Council, the Church today mostly recognises that it lives in a world characterised by democracy, focused on human rights and marked by a pluralism of religions, ideologies that lean towards individualism, market economy and the globalisation of capital, communication, culture and transport. By reading the seminal document of the Second Vatican Council, the aforementioned Joy and Hope (GS), but also a whole series of post-conciliar official documents authored by popes and officials at various levels of Church institutions, we may notice an important change in the self-awareness of the Catholic Church. From the centuries-long focus on the ecclesiastically centred motivation of Christian activity in the world (preferably “making everything a Church”), we have entered into an epoch in which Catholic believers are invited to participate, together with all people of good will, in constructing, to paraphrase Aurelius Augustine, the “Earthly City” or civitas terrena.

Inasmuch as the man is a social and thus a political being (zoon politikon), many of his interests and activities affect the quality of life of the society and community in which he lives. Therefore, in a broader sense, one can talk about politics in the way John Paul II did when he described politics as “multi-faceted and diverse economic, cultural, social, administrative and cultural promotion of the common good” (CFL 1998, p. 42) which is defined by the Church as “the sum total of social conditions which allow people to reach their fulfilment more fully and easily” (GS p. 26).

We are here primarily interested in political action in the narrower sense of that term, which can be understood as that of synthesis and unification, with the help of mechanisms of legitimate authority and the authority of all supporting parts of society (culture, science, economy, etc.) whose aim is to attain and promote a righteously structured social coexistence, i.e., the achievement of the common good. Catholics are invited to make an active contribution to the political shaping of coexistence in nation states, but also at the level of international and global relations. For the Catholic community, political engagement is not an unethical, shady, semi-demonic activity, but, quite to the contrary, it is one of the concrete ways in which a Christian believer can and should change this world for the better. To change for the better means to contribute to the gradual realisation of the final goal of this world as a whole, to what the dynamics of the Christian faith aspires. In more specific terms, changing the world for the better means, primarily, to feel, think, know and act in such a way that people as individuals and as a community creatively realise their spiritual and material potential. Through that process they become more mature, which prepares them for an authentic co-existence with others and ultimately for an eternal communion with God. For Christians, Jesus Christ manifested and by His grace enabled the historical and cosmic project of God’s world in the making, described in the Bible as the Kingdom of God drawing near. The Kingdom of God of the New Testament takes place wherever the fundamental values of that Kingdom are manifested. Those are primarily faith, hope, love, justice, solidarity, forgiveness, peace-making, compassion, gentleness and joy, but also beauty and numerous forms of approach to the truth about humanity and the unity of the created world. Where these values occur, and where they are manifested at the level of our personal or collective experiences and identities, they communicate in a mysterious way with God’s will and multiply moments of anticipatory experience of the final fullness of the coming Kingdom of God. Such achievements in history will be incorporated, following the final transformation, into the “heavenly city of Jerusalem” and become a part of our common eternal existence. Motivated by the New Testament, theology then transformed the effort of dealing with the value of the Kingdom into a demand for such a Christian practice that strives for complete development, both material and spiritual, of every person in the community of humanity. However, the concept of Christian practice encompasses not only the everyday interpersonal level within a family, workplace, ecclesiastic community, or in pre-political involvement, but also the area of politics at all levels that are available to a particular Christian, according to their competences.

If political practice ultimately strives for the common good, i.e., for the creation of conditions that enable the most harmonious material, cultural and spiritual growth of individuals and groups in their relationship with other individuals and social groups (GS, 1964, p. 265), then it can really become and be experienced as Die Praxis des Reiches Gottes6. However, for this to be true, a Christian involved in politics cannot lose sight of the fact that the ultimate goal of political action described by the phrase “common good” is not just a mechanical sum of the particular interests of a given society. Political action for the realisation of the common good in a specific situation always includes an ethical and competent evaluation of these interests, striving to mutually articulate them according to a balanced hierarchy of values, at the top of which must be a complete understanding of human rights and dignity (CA, 1991, p. 47).

Considering all this, it is not difficult to agree with all those statements of Catholic social teachings that speak of political activity as “a very noble but also difficult skill” (GS, 1964, p. 75), that is, as a challenging way of practicing Christian active involvement in the service of others (Bello 1987). John Paul II thus concluded that laymen believers cannot waive participation in politics (CFL, 1988, p. 42). Similarly, Benedict XVI said that Christians must not waive the task of evangelising all segments of life, including the world of politics7. Political action is a Christian duty, Pope Benedict repeats. In their effort to construct a just social order, which is the goal of all authentic politics, the Christian laity do not separate justice from love. Therefore, their political action can be described as an active caritas socialis8. Pope Francis regards politics as one of the most precious forms of love, because it strives for the common good. In fact, he sees in the Christian political engagement an effort to realise the evangelical commandment of love that encompasses all dimensions of existence, all people and all areas of common life (EG, 2013, p. 181).

3. Some of the Basic Theological and Anthropological Principles of Christian Involvement in Politics

By striving to clarify the structure and methodology of this demanding activity, which we have called Christian Catholic involvement in politics, we must necessarily refer to several theological and anthropological categories that form the premise and, in good part, the inner source of Christian political involvement. In this way, in 1978, Cardinal Karol Wojtyła defended the foundations of the classical methodology of social teaching, in which a central role was given to the evaluation of social phenomena in light of objective principles, primarily anthropological truths about humankind, thus aiming to circumvent the temptation to adapt theology to the needs of sociology (Gierycz 2022). We shall limit ourselves here to outlining the categories mentioned, which every politically active Christian will necessarily have to deepen through their own study and reflection.

(A) First of all, let us remember the fact that Christian involvement in politics is interwoven with the integral image of humankind. This image in many ways depends on how we comprehend the identity and functioning of Homo sapiens as a creature in the created world. By reading the Bible in dialogue with the current scientific paradigm, the ecclesiastic community and its theology see the world in a dynamic way. At the Second Vatican Council, the static vision of the world was abandoned (GS, 1964, p. 5). On a cosmic and historical level, there is constant interaction between God and the world, between God and human history. The world is not perfect. It is engulfed in creative processes and moves toward completion, toward its ultimate form. In these processes, God counts on humans as participants in various ways and on various levels. In co-operation with God’s action, we are in a sense co-creators of this world, the common world of God and man. It is evident that, among other forms of involvement, political engagement in the construction of the polis, the city on Earth, is part of this creative work to which humankind is called upon by God.

(B) We are all witnesses of what John Paul II and Benedict XVI often referred to as a crisis, the collapse of an integral image of humanity or even anthropological devastation (Toso 2011). These two popes saw this as one of the fundamental causes of the multiple crises of politics both at national and at global level. Therefore, it is of vital importance to remember the identity and dignity of humankind as God’s creation. At the centre of Christian anthropology stands the claim that humankind was created “in the image and likeness of God”. Without going into detail on this key aspect of theological anthropology, suffice it to say that theology recognised in this statement a discourse about the dialogical structure of human societies. God created humans as creatures of dialogue: dialogue with God, with fellow humans and with nature. Humans are created as beings of dialogue who in our relational being most likely represent an analogous reflection of the relational character of God’s life itself, as well as God, towards creation. Human resemblance to God grows radically due to these three forms of dialogue, which ultimately, as was stated, is directed toward the building and realisation of the ultimate union of God and humanity in a perfected and transformed world. On the path to the ultimate form of humankind and the world, all aspects of human activity, including political action, are mere instruments in the growth of resemblance of humans and God on a personal as well as collective level. So, we can talk about the realisation of a collective image of God.

(C) The Christian community has been thinking about the relationship between the Christian identity and political activity for a long while. At least since Pope Gelasius at the end of the fifth century, Christians have known that faith, the moral norms of the Church and other traditions cannot simply be transfused into the practice of political acumen and activity. In fact, it was soon realised, at least in principle, that Caesar’s things should be given to Caesar, and God’s things to God (Mk 12, pp. 13–17). From then until now, the theological consciousness of the church matured through various historical twists and turns, ups and downs, until the Second Vatican Council finally recognised the autonomy of the created earthly reality. In creating the world, God endowed humankind with rational freedom and the material world with natural laws that communicate with the world of human intellect. God continuously creates and perfects this world by respecting the inherent rationality of the world and thus the specific autonomy of certain parts of earthly reality. The Council speaks of the created autonomy of “all things”, which, although being ontologically (on the level of essence) dependent on God, possess their own “consistency, truth, goodness, laws and organisation”, and therefore, the sciences and arts dealing with certain aspects of reality should be recognised for their own methods (GS, 964, p. 36). Thus, the sphere of secular society and politics has its own autonomy, its own internal logic and its own specific laws, which differ from those of religion in that they are not directly structured by revelation. This autonomy was often invoked by John Paul II, who was critical of the possible uniformization and mixing of religious and political spheres, as happens when, for example, a particular religious or Christian (ecclesiastical) norm becomes a law of the state. It was noted that such a uniformization of the laws of the state with those of the Church can result in violation of the human rights of others and even in the infringement of religious freedoms. But the autonomy of the Church with respect to the political community and its activities does not mean that these two institutions stand in opposition to each other, nor that it leads to radical parallelism and mutual exclusion. Since both exist in the service of the same people and operate in large part due to the same people, the Catholic Church and the political community are directed to mutual co-operation and dialogue in the promotion of integral well-being of all.

(D) It is precisely for the autonomy of worldly realities and, consequently, of the political sphere, that Catholic social teaching in theory and the majority of Catholics in practice have accepted the secular character of the state. They have accepted that the political community and its political institutions are not aligned with religious beliefs or general worldviews of the public. For the Church, accepting this facet of the political community was a long process full of ideological and disciplinary vacillations and breakthroughs, conflicts, doubts and dramatic fates. We believe it would be really very interesting to depict the fundamental stages of that journey. Ecclesiastic declarations about the character of the state in recent decades use the phrase “healthy laicity”, while Pope Benedict XVI began to use the term “positive laicity”9 after his visit to Lourdes (2008). These phrases, however, based on the autonomy of worldly realities in their relation with institutionalised Christianity (clearly, not on the moral autonomy of humankind), reveal the church’s acceptance of the secular character of the state and its relationship with religions and various worldviews. This is one of the essential conditions for the functioning of a pluralist, democratic society. But it also advocates and supports the kind of state that does not want to confine religion to the sphere of private emotion and interpretations of reality as demanded and practiced, sometimes successfully, by the ideologised secularism of many Western countries. Benedict XVI emphasised that “positive laicity” implies the explicit involvement of the state in creating and maintaining conditions that enable every citizen, in the context of constructive coexistence of different cultural and religious traditions and respect for the requirements of the common good, “the right to live their own religious belief truly freely, in the public sphere as well as elsewhere” (Franceschi 2011, p. 22). The specificity of such a secular state is that it does not look away from a permanent dialogue between the state and religious communities (the Church included) and recognises the legitimacy of the Church’s cultural, charitable and moral engagement with the public. In a state of “positive laicity”, the ecclesial community should be guaranteed the right and duty to contribute, together with other religious and secular traditions, in permanent mutual dialogue, the possibility to establish an ethical consensus on the fundamental values of society, without which there can be neither harmonious coexistence nor humane development of society.10

(E) In a state of “positive laicity”, the ecclesial community is engaged with its explicitly religiously motivated content, ethical preconceptions and organisational structures in the field of co-operation and the search for dialogue with others who precede the political sphere of action. In certain situations, however, “when the fundamental rights of the human person or the salvation of souls require it”, as the Second Vatican Council once rightly stated, the Church, through its shepherds and animators, will express its moral judgment, together with reflection on matters relating to the political order (GS, 1964, p. 76). However, regular, concrete political action is a space for political involvement of individual lay believers as citizens, in their own name, guided by their personal “Christian conscience”11. A properly formed religious conscience represents, from the days of the Council to the present, the load-bearing horizon of the autonomy of the laity engaged in political action (Grassi 2012, p. 52). By entering the world of politics, Christians consciously enter into a relationship of systematic co-operation with people of the most diverse worldviews and religious affiliations in order to promote and ensure common good for the whole society, because the common good is the ultimate goal of all political action. For Christians, however, political practice is always a “moral practice” as well, although not every moral practice is necessarily a “political practice”. Whether the others, be they of different denominations or agnostic, know it or not, Christians are aware that political action is in some way a useful tool in promoting, building or dismantling historical and eschatological identities alike, both individual and those of the wider community. In promoting the goods necessary for a particular community to live well, such as public order, peace, freedom, justice, equality, respect for the dignity of every human person, protection of the environment, sustainable development, solidarity, etc., a Christian will always strive to ensure that political action is shaped together with others and that it never becomes deprived of ethics or reduced to the pragmatism of power for the sake of power. In doing so, a Christian will convey the moral principles explicitly inspired by the Gospel and the Gospel interpretation of human-created identity with the help of universal rational, ethical and anthropological categories, making them understandable and acceptable to others. Only in this way can a Christian act politically and co-operate with people who, though they may be members of the same party, think about and consider certain values more or less differently. After all, Catholic moral values are in themselves the result of the encounter between the light of God’s Word (logos) and the rational foundations of human life. Thus, most Christian moral views and interpretations can be reduced to ethical and anthropological categories that are understandable to non-Christians. Integralism, understood as a position that claims that in the space of secular democracy, one must and can act politically without any cultural and party mediation, deriving all the concrete contents and methods of this action directly from revelation, obviously leads to sectarian isolation on the margins of society.

In their political activity, Christians will certainly take into account the hierarchy of values, the democratic rules for achieving consensus, the psychological rules of gradation and the unquestionable possibility of compromise, without which any democratic political co-operation is hard to imagine. However, it is clear that in a plural society and in a world of political pluralism, such mediation will not always be possible. There will be occasions when a dialogical effort to rationalise some of the fundamental moral contents of the faith will prove unsuccessful or unacceptable to non-Christian counterparts. It is in this moment that the Christian/politician will most likely have to confine themselves to the prophetic gesture of witnessing the gospel and its values even against the opinion of the intra-party or inter-party majority, appealing to “reasons of conscience” but also, sometimes, letting love speak for itself (DCE, 2006, p. 31). Such behaviour, however, is not in itself as defeatist as it might seem at first glance. It can also contribute to the ethical maturation of a social and even political environment through its characteristic of “kenotic witness”. Even with this type of political agenda, the Christian can be the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world” (Mt 5, pp. 13–16).

(F) Furthermore, political involvement often brings with it a certain political pluralism of Christians. Until the Second Vatican Council, the prevailing belief in the Catholic Church, supported at all levels (with rare exceptions), was that steadfast adherence to the fundamental values of the Christian view of reality, which determine the personal and collective practice of the faithful, necessarily had to find institutionalised expression in the organisational unity of Catholics engaged in political life. At the Council, however, a discourse arose on the possibility of Catholic pluralism in politics. It is, in fact, the outcome of the gradual maturation of the idea of Catholic pluralism in politics, and it is closely linked to the process of accepting “democracy” within the Catholic mainstream of thought. Thus, the Second Vatican Council, even without using the term “democracy”12, speaks of the democratic system and method as a mode of government that is entirely appropriate to the Christian view of human society.13 Cleary, there was space here for a plurality of political options.

The message of the Gospel and the source of basic human identity which rests on the “natural moral law” are generally compatible. Suffice it to recall the fact that the basic principles of Catholic social teaching such as the dignity of a person, the common good, solidarity and subsidiarity are not questioned by anyone in the Church or, for the most part, anyone outside the Church either. Political differences occur between Catholics when it is necessary to descend from this level of principle to the operational level and transmute Christian ideals, principles and values (social justice, protection of life, dignity of a person, solidarity in the protection of nature, avoidance of the greater evil, etc.) into operational party programmes or into concrete legal regulation. For, as Paul VI said long ago in his encyclical Populorum Progressio, the Church as such has no technical solutions to offer, any more than any concrete technical solution to the problem of justice will be fully adequate to the requirements of the Kingdom (SRS 1987, pp. 41, 48). Therefore, the faithful are invited to find these technical solutions in dialogue with others, trying to achieve the essential content of Christian values as much as possible. And here, in the search for a way to clarify certain values among the faithful, differences will surely occur. By taking personal responsibility, the Council states, “many times the Christian notion itself will nudge them to a particular solution, while ‘the other’ believers, guided by no lesser level of sincerity, will, as is more often and justifiably the case, judge differently on the same matter” (GS, 1964, p. 43).

And we do witness that the faithful tend to think differently from one another when it comes to the concrete way in which, in the given historical, economic, cultural, security, religious, etc., context of a given society, they can most effectively contribute to the overall development of people and their communities and thereby bring about as many valuable fragments of the Kingdom as possible. Thus, by choosing various morally acceptable strategies, the lay faithful, since priests are “forbidden to assume public offices that carry with them participation in the exercise of power” (CIC, 1983, pp. 2, 287), can and do arrive at different political parties. Therefore, Catholics may be found among those who advocate for a much greater welfare state, as well as among those who hold that the more convenient solution is to act in the direction of liberal–capitalist “deregulation” (with diminished legal obstacles to capital) and the promotion of the logic of an unrestrained global market. The latter ones may view that Pope Francis, with his speech about the Church of the poor, seems too close to liberation theology.14

(G) The Council and post-Council documents regularly refer to the freedom of the lay faithful engaged in the political affairs of the worldly city (polis) in relation to the authority of the shepherd. The Council and the theologians also speak with conviction about the legitimate pluralism of the lay faithful engaged in political action (Franceschi 2011, p. 31). However, as much as the “legitimate pluralism” of Catholics in politics is not without limits and can also refer to the pluralism of specific forms and ways of applying evangelical values in the political practice of the polis, it is not without problems. We are very well aware that the political engagement that strongly polarises ideological, career-related and other, similar material interests is often accompanied by a very strong emotional charge. Party affiliations create strong feelings of sympathy or antipathy in people, as well as hatred and personal and group intolerance of political opponents. When it comes to members of our ecclesiastic communities, such well-known mechanisms often lead to tension and even alienation.

Such conditions, however, should not exist among Christians, members of the People of God constantly in motion, a People walking in the path of Jesus whose basic purpose and law is to “bear witness to God’s love”. When such negative and even destructive emotions are triggered by political action, it is obvious that there is a misunderstanding of politics at play. For a Christian, political activity is just one of the many ways in which one strives to contribute to the shaping of social life in harmony with the values of the Kingdom. We know that the Christian is also called to act in the spiritual, charitable and cultural spheres, supported by values inspired by the light of faith. They are also called upon to spread the culture of solidarity across the spectrum of economy and all other social institutions in general. Politics is never the goal on its own. It is always a transitory and changeable vessel that is only as good as its contribution to the growth of the entire humanity in a society and which, when it comes to a Christian involved in politics, does not impoverish one’s spiritual character but enriches it. It is therefore not difficult to agree with the statement in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church that “a Christian cannot find a single party that fully corresponds to the ethical requirements arising from his faith and belonging to the Church” and that therefore, “his political classification will never be ideological, but always critical” (DSC, 2004, p. 573). We might add that, for a Christian, political party affiliation or commitment should never be a substitute religion, one of the so-called small transcendencies that nevertheless significantly jeopardise the radicalism of our adherence to the path set out by Jesus and contribute to distancing ourselves from the ecclesiastic community, because it abates our feelings towards faith.

If this is so, then in the name of the transcendence of every human person, in the name of our Christian, explicit and permanent openness to God, who is always overarching all our expectations and all our historical achievements, we Christians must always strive to overcome all our conflicts, antipathies and divisions caused by political differences. Otherwise, the Church as God’s means of spiritual transformation of humankind loses its power and effectiveness, because it loses its credibility.

The Sunday Eucharist, defined by the Second Vatican Council as the “source and pinnacle” of the life of the faithful (LG, 1964, p. 11) and the unity of the faithful (LG, 1964, p. 3), is certainly one of the privileged opportunities given by God to experience over and over again a sense of profound unity in religion beyond all our divisions and even political differences and conflicts. For the Eucharistic overcoming of division to happen, it is necessary to put one’s choices to question, to relativise them. Eucharistic participation at the table of the Word and the Bread is also directed, among other things, toward the purification of all our substitutionary transcendencies, of all absolutes and, above all, of those of a political nature. During each Eucharist, the participants are invited to examine their lives, to honestly evaluate and purify their plans, their actions and emotions and to align them even more consistently with the ideals and values of the Gospel. A believer is aware that whatever makes them and others, all others, acceptable to God and to those who are near to God is good.

At the same time, it can be expected that a believer will be able to recognise in other Eucharistic co-celebrants, brothers and sisters who are also Christians Catholics, although often differing politically, companions on the same path of Jesus. The Eucharist is thus manifested as a place of relativisation of politics. It is seen as a gift of the possibility to purify our political notions of all ideas and attitudes contrary to the integral growth of humanity. It can motivate the faithful to adopt a Eucharistic culture of life in which the whole of human practice, all our activities in the construction of the worldly city, political action included, are understood and lived pro-existentially, as service to others. For the liturgical–eucharistic to achieve its full meaning and significance, it has to determine, structure and inspire the whole style of living and thought. And this is what we call the regular social meaning of the Eucharist. And in this context, one might add the “political significance of the Eucharist”.

(H) And finally, just two methodological remarks. It is self-evident that a Christian in politics who wants to be a sought-after and valued interlocutor, a willingly listened-to adviser or a creative collaborator must indeed be competent in the matters that they and others politically thematise in democratic political interplay (Erdő 1992).15 From the Second Vatican Council onwards, everyone in the Church has stressed the need for “professionalism” of the laity involved in political action. Believers are not more intelligent than their non-Christian contemporaries. They must approach the autonomy of the secular sphere through education and be willing and humble enough to listen. However, it is very often only theoretical wishful thinking of the clerical part of the Church, which should really be interested in such an important segment of social life, where some of its members may witness and professionally contribute to the connection of ethics and politics and thus to the increasing humanisation of social life. At the end, only competent Christians will be able not only to contribute to the solution of individual problems, but also to work together with others to shape a much broader outline of a society that will be much more just and united. But unfortunately, in the Catholic Church, the logic of investing in material logistics is still largely prevalent, with incomparably lower investments in people, the laity. It is highly unlikely that this will have the impetus to last much longer.

Another important methodological point is the fact that a Christian who intends to remain a witness to the values of the Gospel in a secular democratic political environment must be able to make moral decisions independently, in accordance with their own conscience. It presupposes the existence of mature faith, without clerical tutorship. Such a faith respects the church’s magisterial interpretations of the Gospel. But a spiritually mature Christian also practices their own reflection on God’s Word, engages in a dialogue with other Christians involved in politics and, by recognising and interpreting the signs of the times, is able to judge responsibly the ethical and professional quality of a particular political project or agenda.

4. Conclusions

This manner of believers’ political actions presupposes that they have already left the state of infancy within their ecclesiastic community and that, within it, they have learnt to contribute to its life by the following:

(1)

Their own reflection on God’s Word and its application in everyday life;

(2)

Actively assuming responsibility for the different parts of life in the ecclesiastic community;

(3)

Adopting and practicing a culture of critical but constructive dialogue with the Church’s leaders, with all other believers and with people outside the Church;

(4)

Embracing all that is good and true that has come to pass in human history.

In a nutshell, for the involvement of the faithful in politics to really come to life, it would be necessary for the conciliar theology of the People of God and the theology of the laity associated with it to really begin to be practiced without reservations, without clerical fears and blockages, without constant attempts to obstruct various interpretations of what has been said about the lay faithful. For what we have today are only modest anticipatory fragments of the Church of tomorrow, in which the lay faithful, especially women, will be increasingly entrusted with the institution’s future. Perhaps the institution of the Church today is not quite ready for such changes. However, we believe that the Second Vatican Council is the beginning of a path of involvement of the lay faithful in the Church and society and that it is a process that has no alternative in this increasingly complex world.