Priesthood and Politics – Part 1 – Conflict in the Church

Dear reader, in this article I would like to reflect a little on a subject that is still controversial and which I consider to be an important topic for public reflection. I want to address the Catholic priest’s participation in the world of politics and the official position of the Church hierarchy. In recent elections, more than a hundred priests took part in the electoral disputes in Minas Gerais state. Nine of them were elected mayors; some others were elected city councilors and one as state representative. Dozens of other priests throughout Brazil participated either directly or indirectly in the electoral process, including those not specifically running for elective office. This year there were so many priests that the Archdiocese of Natal, from Rio Grande do Norte, was asked to run for Mayor, after which the Archbishop Dom Jaime Vieira Rocha, released a statement prohibiting all of them from standing in the elections. But a series of documents drafted by several dioceses in Brazil demonstrate the restrictive position in the hierarchy of the Church.

Pope Benedict XVI has consistently advocated that the Fathers must stay away from a personal commitment in politics, a field he deems reserved to the lay faithful. The entry of Catholic priests in politics, he warns, could undermine the general unity and communion of all the faithful. According to what the Brazilian Bishops say, Benedict XVI recently stated that it is necessary to prevent the secularization of high priests and the clericalization of the laity.

The Brazilian Bishops, anxious to obey the Vatican Church, are having difficulty dealing with the initiative of the priests to participate in partisan-political activity. Some bishops have assumed hard attitudes, with scorn, humiliation and threats towards priests who boldly assume the commitment to assign their names to the service of the community on condition of a candidate for elective office. Many bishops have affirmed that any priest who candidates himself will be suspended from the priestly ministry during the campaign and, if elected, throughout the exercise of his mandate. Some claim that, in theory, the priest can return to church office, but that it will be necessary to analyze their behavior during the period that they are away. “It depends on how things will happen, there is a recycling program and we have to see if he (the suspended priest) still fits in,” said a bishop in an interview.

Within the Catholic Church, in the course of time, everyone, or almost everyone, clergy and laity, including part of the hierarchy, has agreed with the great French scholar, Father Lebret: “Politics is the science, art and virtue of the common good.”

The misuse of politics, however, creates embarrassment for everyone. The bad politicians may indorse in us all the temptation to downplay it and even eliminate it, which would be an inexcusable incongruity. But the true concept of politics comes from Greek word “polis” which means city. A city is a complex social agglomeration, a place of intensive economic, social and cultural coexistence, unlike the old rural societies where each family produced everything that was necessary for their survival.

Politics is the government of a city. From the ethical, or values, point of view, we could say that politics is the set of actions by which men and women seek a form of coexistence among individuals, groups, or nations, providing conditions for the realization of the common good.

Thus, from the point of view of the means or of the organization, politics is the exercise of power and the race to conquer it. That’s why, in recent years, once the people, tired of clientelistic and paternalistic politicians, have realized that a priest is doing a good job while at the forefront of the church; heating up the local communities, stimulating popular participation, comforting the afflicted, making favorable decisions for the good of the community, while also denouncing injustices, start to appeal to them to assume the city government. Thus, in a joint effort of citizenship, the people defy the economic powers and, with political awareness, elect priests who have already proved themselves good pastors of Christian communities. After being elected, some of these priests suffer persecution by leaders of their own Church institutions, by the Bishop, other superiors and their own priesthood colleagues that are unable to understand that it is possible to work in the partisan-political dimension as an instrument for building a decent, just and fraternal life.

Dear friends, it is clearly seen over time that within the Christian churches that the partisan-political theme has been treated in a very superficial way, often without any discerning relevance from an ethical point of view at the time of choosing their candidates. In the course of our history, although the Church has prepared several documents on the matter, the subject of partisan-politics is normally not discussed among Catholics, especially for some time now. Although everyone has their candidates, many do not bother to know if they are morally ethical – whether they have a “clean slate” or not. The Catholic Church has a Committee of Political Education, which generally works only in times of elections and which provides very little service to Christians.