With voters facing federal and Ontario elections, the Register presents the second in Matthew Marquardt’s series on how Christians should carry out their democratic duties.            

Any democracy, by its very nature, requires commitment on the part of the people it is intended to govern. Democracies exist because sooner or later all other forms of government known to humans have devolved into one form or another of “might makes right.” The abuses that have followed are precisely what led our political ancestors to experiment with democracy — in particular, democracy based on universal suffrage rather than property status or other privileged restrictions. These pioneers wanted every responsible citizen to have a voice in social conversation.  

As the creators of modern democracy warned us repeatedly, one of the greatest dangers to elective self-governance is complacency. Complacency is an open and inviting road to abuse, inviting too many aspirants to impose their own personal visions on others.  And today, the challenges — the dangers — that threaten democracy are more numerous, more powerful and more broad-ranging than ever.  

Every citizen ought to cherish his or her opportunity to participate, if for no other reason than self-protection.

We Catholics, however, have a unique and deeper duty. We are called to participate not just on our own behalf, in defense of our own interests, but on behalf of everyone, in defense of the interests of everyone in the name of charitable love. This duty arises from the two-dimensional nature of the Christian’s relationship with God. As explained in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, a lawyer seeking to test Jesus asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

When the lawyer asked how he could identify this neighbour that he was instructed to love as himself, Christ replied with the parable of the Good Samaritan. To summarize, our neighbour is anyone who needs help that we are able to give.

In seeking God, then, the Christian is meant to aim not only for a direct path from herself to the Creator above, but at the same time to look around from side to side and tend to anyone she finds in need there.

The civic aspect of this teaching is confirmed by the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Participation is the voluntary and generous engagement of a person in social interchange. It is necessary that all participate, each according to his position and role, in promoting the common good…  As far as possible citizens should take an active part in public life.”

“As far as possible,” the Catechism emphasizes. In promoting the common good, we Catholics are called to dig deep and give all the time and energy our lives permit.  

The parable of the talents in Matthew 25 suggests the gravity of that calling — and the weight of the consequences we can incur by burying our talents in order to hide from responsibility. Moreover, the judgment of the nations, which follows in that same chapter, suggests that societies will be called collectively to answer for the people they are meant to protect — that each of us will be judged both individually and as a member of our larger societies for the choices we make. 

It is one of God’s great gifts to us that by taking an active role in society, we can work to help others for the good of all as well as ourselves. At a bare minimum, we are called to vote, and to do so in accordance with our own well-formed individual consciences. To help us, the Church has provided a comprehensive yet remarkably flexible framework, designed to allow us to responsibly form our own opinions in weighing the merit of any social issue. Principles and values we should apply are explained in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, which draws on teachings of the Old and New Testaments, the Popes and Doctors of the Church, and many other sources.

(Matthew Marquardt is the executive director Catholic Conscience, a non-partisan, non-profit group based in Toronto.)