- Each month the team working on this catechism presents you with two
texts, and we hope that with your help and cooperation they will improve.
Any suggestions you may have would be most welcome, as would ideas on subject
matter.
- We look forward to hearing from you.
Rehabilitate politics
Politics is not in favour. Underhand methods of some politicians put off people from politics. Divisions inside parties are a source of confusion and mask the real issues. The amount of information does not help either . The feeling of helplessness in the face of the complexity of the decisions or their urgencies paralyze people. To give up is a great temptation, the high abstention rate at the European elections is a sign of lack of interest. But it is our fate which is at stake, it is the functioning of our democracy: do we prefer a totalitarian regime of which we have experienced in the past and today all the devastation's?
The Committee for Social Affairs of the Bishops of France felt concerned about rejection of politics and in order to improve its image, they published a letter on March 23, 1999 entitled:" Rehabilitate politics". Christians cannot avoid to take care of politics. They are citizens and their religious ideals encourage them to work for the common good. There is no separation between the sake of God and the sake of humans. This text wants to encourage every one of us to contribute to live together. They present politics as a collective work and a great human venture. They recall that human dignity is first and political power is a service not a way of domination.
They praise democracy as being the best humanized way of government. It is a pleasure to read that they recommend "to renew the democratic representation , for instance by giving to women greater access to public functions..."
They are very optimistic about the construction of a European Union and insist on an opening toward the world: "We should emphasize more the way of living than the standard of living, the quality of the inter-relationships between people than the accumulation of goods"
This text does not dissimulate the difficulties and takes into account that the governments are not able to solve the great problems that societies face today to develop a brighter future: "Men and women engaged in politics are too often unable to make the necessary and important reforms, to anticipate the future. Their decisions are for the short term, too often looking for re-election.." The bishops deplore the distance between the public and the centers of decisions: "The ruling class which stands away from the common needs of the people cannot hold their promise. The separation between the offer from the institutions and the request of the citizens goes wider...
The text ends by a call to more consistency: " we renew our call to build new possibilities to get together, to share more, and have more discussions between people of different political parties in order to find out a greater consistency between our personal action and the Gospel..." Beautiful and useful exhortation ! We are invited to become better citizen.
Such a call would have a greater impact if the Church was presenting an opening for more democracy in its government. The French bishops acknowledge this: " the Church has also to take for itself what it asks to the society. To announce the Gospel to the world, it has to accept it and to practice it as well in the way it is organized as the way it conducts its mission.."