Applying principles of faith to political responsibility

Dec. 13, 2007

My sisters and brothers in Christ,

We have entered the second week of Advent. I pray that the journey we are making to prepare for the coming of the Lord in our lives is going well. One of the best ways to prepare is to celebrate the Sacrament of Penance. Our Advent confessions give us a chance to smooth out the valleys of our lives and to live and to remove the rough edges of our hearts to make room for the coming of Christ into our hearts. God loves us and is always ready to forgive, to lift up and to carry us close to him if we will invite him into our hearts.

I encourage parents especially to bring the children to their local parish for confession. Your example as parents is one that can never be underestimated. If you have not been to confession in a while, please do not be afraid. Our priests will be gentle and helpful as they have the privilege to share God's forgiveness with you. I continue to pray for each one in our diocese that we grow in love and prepare the way for the Lord.

OUR LADY OF GUADELUPE

We are blessed in the Diocese of Sioux City to be enriched by people who come from various cultural backgrounds. Two in particular are our Vietnamese and Hispanic communities. What a richness these cultures add to the Church.

In recognition, especially of these two cultures, two patrons were chosen years ago to watch over and protect all in our diocese: Our Lady of Guadalupe and Saint Joseph.

The Church throughout the world, but especially here in the Americas, celebrates the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the 12th of December. Since the feast falls during the week, many communities celebrate in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the Sunday prior to the feast. This was the case here in Sioux City and in other parts of our diocese.

I had the privilege of joining Fathers Matt Hewitt, LeRoy Seuntjens and Paul Louis-Arts at an early morning Mass celebrated this last Sunday at our Cathedral. The cold snowy weather did not deter many hundreds of people to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe beginning at 5:00 a.m. Songs of praise and the celebration of the Eucharist were followed by a play reenacting the events of Saint Juan Deigo's encounter with Our Lady in December of 1551. It was beautiful and very moving. What a wonderful teaching moment especially for the young.

The presence of our Hispanic brothers and sisters among us is a blessing. Jesus Christ challenges us to have the courage and hospitality always to recognize how great a blessing He offers us in everyone we meet. He demands our love for the stranger who is also His beloved child. He demands our prudent stewardship of resources, both public and private - partly so that we will always have the means, individually and collectively, to offer that love. Charity and prudence are not contrary virtues, but work together for the good of all, regardless of their origins or state in life.

ORDINATION OF JEREMY WIND

As you read in last week's issue of the Catholic Globe, I will have the honor of ordaining Jeremy Wind to the order of deacon. Jeremy is the son of Tom and Sue Wind and is a member of Saint Joseph Parish in Jefferson, Iowa. I want to thank his present pastor, Father Don Ries, for the priestly example and encouragement he has given Jeremy. I also want to thank the other priests and teachers who have helped Jeremy to answer God's call to service. I would especially like to thank Jeremy's family for the gift of their son and brother. We all know that vocations come from families and I pray that many more parents will encourage their sons to think about the priesthood and their daughters to think about the consecrated life. He is presently a fourth year student at St. Meinrad Seminary in Indiana. God willing, both he and Shane Deman (ordained a deacon last October in Rome) will be ordained priests for the Diocese of Sioux City on June 28, 2008 at our Cathedral of the Epiphany.

All of us who know Jeremy, know of his many talents and gifts. Please join me in thanking God for the gift of his vocation and pray "the Lord of the harvest to send more laborers for his vineyard."

FAITHFUL CITIZENSHIP

As the presidential candidates continue to criss-cross our diocese and our state, it remains essential that we form right consciences. As American bishops, we have sought to help all the faithful in conscience formation. Last week, I offered a brief summary of what we as Catholics expect from political participation in our national, state, and local government. I'd like to continue this week with more comments on the document, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility.

The end of politics is justice, but political means can achieve only a limited kind of justice because of the reality of sin. When we as Catholics participate, we need to apply all the principles of our faith in our lord Jesus Christ, in order to aim for the best worldly justice we can.

The principle that is the absolute bedrock of our faith is this: Jesus Christ is Lord! (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #422-451) we mean by this that Jesus Christ, who was born in Bethlehem to the Virgin Mary, lived and died in the Roman province of Palestine some 2000 years ago, and was raised from the dead, is God, the Son of God. Jesus is the Messiah, expected and foretold to Israel by the prophets of God for generations; he is true God and true man, "consubstantial with the father in his divinity, consubstantial with us in his humanity" (council of Chalcedon). Jesus Christ is the unique and universal Savior. Only in and through Him and His grace, poured out into the world from the cross and through the church founded by Him, can any person come to love God fully, freed from the rebellion of prideful self-love, such that they can be with God eternally.

There are two corollaries to this unique and universal sovereignty of Jesus Christ. First, because Christ is the unique Messiah, there can be only one fundamental Truth about everything (CCC, #279-314). We can understand people and things on many levels (identity, function, purpose, history, relationships, etc.), but all of these levels rest on the foundation of creation. Everything that is, except only God Himself, is made by God. Everything depends for its mere existence on being loved into being by the infinite love of God. We know from revelation and experience that this love is not static: it calls us to love in response. In other words, the creating love of God is a purposeful love: all created things have intrinsic meaning as creatures. Nothing is random, nothing is meaningless, and nothing is beyond the providence of God.

Because nothing can be random or meaningless, every action has inherent moral value. All Christian morality boils down to this: to love as God loves means to use each creature (person, animal, or object) according to its nature, purpose, and end in God. Politics, too, is created by God for the end of worldly justice (Rom 9:1). Politics, too, has an inherent moral value; it is judged according to how well it achieves the worldly justice that is its purpose. "Unjust" laws and governments are recognized "by their fruits:" who lives and who dies, who gains and who loses, who is protected and who is exploited. We who live the life of Christ by baptism have an inescapable moral duty to oppose by every moral means whatever injustice afflicts our time and place. The most obvious example, of course, is laws permitting abortion.

The second corollary of Christ's sovereignty is this: because Jesus is the universal Messiah, every single person created by God is destined for eternal life in the salvation offered by Jesus. "God wills all men to be saved" (I Tim 2:4). Every human being is capable of being saved in Jesus Christ. This is before any action or achievements or "value-added" worthiness on our part. Simply by being creatures of God, we are worthy in principle of the perfect humanity of Jesus Christ, God-with-us. It does not matter what our state of life is; simply because we are, it is therefore certain that God created us, and that He wills us to love him perfectly and eternally. Every human life, therefore, from the moment of conception, is infinitely valuable to God.

America was founded on the "rule of law." This means that the law treats every person equally and fairly. Even if a particular law is unjust and should be changed, it still treats all people equally and fairly. As Catholics, we know that the "rule of law" fundamentally rests on the infinite value which God imbues into each creature by his creating love. We insist that the law must treat all people equally and fairly: this includes the unborn, the comatose, the terminally ill, the elderly, the immigrant, everyone. The "rule of law" presumes that the law correctly recognizes and respects the inherent dignity of every human person. This means working to establish the legal principle of the "right to life." As Pope John Paul II taught very clearly in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae,"Upon the recognition of this right [to life], every human community and the political community itself are founded" (#2). To the extent that human dignity is not recognized and respected, human society is building on a foundation of sand. Thank you for taking time to read my letter. I will continue to unfold this document in future articles.

May Advent peace and joy be a part of all your lives. Don't give up on the Broncos. They continue to amaze me!

Your brother in Christ,

Most Reverend R. Walker Nickless
Bishop of Sioux City