26 June: Get involved in this election.

From the Catholic Union regarding the United Kingdom General Election.

Dear friends,

The Catholic Union has published an election guide with some information and suggested questions for candidates and voters ahead of the General Election. Catholics are the largest – and one of the most politically- and socially-minded – religious minorities in the country. For the 4.5 million Catholics in Britain, the election is an opportunity to elect people who recognise the importance of faith to society and will work towards the common good.

You can read more here and can download our handy election guide, which we hope will be useful for conversations with your candidates. Please share with your parish.

You may remember that we surveyed you earlier this year, and you said that the top five priorities were: 1. Care for the vulnerable 2. Religious freedom 3. Family life 4. Education 5. Dignity of life.

Our survey also found that over 90 percent of our members and supporters were planning to vote in the upcoming General Election – significantly higher than the national average. It also revealed a strong link between politics and religion, with 92 percent of people saying that their faith and the teachings of the Catholic Church “help to influence” how they vote. Please remember that the deadline for registering to vote is midnight on Tuesday 18 June. More information on how to register to vote, and the new rules on voter ID, can be found here.

Thank you for your continued support. 
The Catholic Union team 

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24 June: Life can be lived well; Common Good III.

“Believe me, you never know the best about men till you know the worst about them. It does not dispose of their strange human souls to know that they were exhibited to the world as impossibly impeccable wax works, who never looked after a woman or knew the meaning of a bribe.

”Even in a palace, life can be lived well; and even in a Parliament, life can be lived with occasional efforts to live it well. I tell you it is as true of these rich fools and rascals as it is true of every poor footpad and pickpocket; that only God knows how good they have tried to be. God alone knows what the conscience can survive, or how a man who has lost his honor will still try to save his soul.”

From “The Man Who Knew Too Much” by G. K. Chesterton

 Here Chesterton is not thinking of ‘looking after’ in the modern sense of caring for a woman, but referring to Matthew 5:28 in the King James Bible: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

This passage comes near the climax of the story of The Man Who Knew Too Much, when some of the most powerful men in Britain had been revealed to be traitors, and subject to an unnamed invader. ‘Even in a Parliament, life can be lived with occasional efforts to live it well.’

None of our politicians are perfect, but as the election beckons for our country and our constituency, let us pray that we may base our personal choices on the common good, and that our new Parliament may be a gathering of loyal and ‘right honourable members’, true servants of the people.

8 April: Individual good or the common good, II.

If the Catholic Union did not exist, we’d have to invent it. Its deputy director,  James Somerville-Meikle, writes about politics again, this time with a Transatlantic perspective:

I’ve had the great joy of being in the United States, meeting Catholic groups and individuals involved in advocacy and public affairs. Sat outside Union Station in Washington DC, the spring cherry blossom is in full bloom along Delaware Avenue up to the Capitol Building. But minds here are already focused on autumn and the upcoming Presidential election. President Biden fired the starting gun on the race for the White House last week with his State of the Union Address.

In the UK, the timing for our General Election remains uncertain. What has been striking from my visit are the similarities between the shifting political sands here and back home. Increasingly Catholics find themselves politically homeless, with notions of the common good being drowned out in a public discourse dominated by loud voices on the extremes. Catholics have rarely had a perfect choice when it comes to voting, but the options facing voters in the US this November are likely to be particularly unappealing. Yet millions of American Catholics will vote, just as they will in the UK, motivated by that deep rooted duty to participate in public life. Politics, unlike the blossom, isn’t always pretty.

Indeed, James. There has never been a political party whose every policy I could agree with, and in fifty years or more I’ve only twice voted for the winning candidate at national level.

What are the issues that matter to me as a concerned Christian; which party comes nearest to these aspirations? Are they likely to bring them about if they get in? And what policies of theirs do I disagree with, and what harm might be done if they implemented them?

And as James reminds us, what about the common good?

Hiroshima a few minutes after the atomic bomb dropped, 6 August 1945.

6 March, Jeremiah XVIII: the scroll 3.

So the king sent Jehudi to fetch the roll: and he took it out of Elishama the scribe’s chamber. And Jehudi read it in the ears of the king, and in the ears of all the princes which stood beside the king. Now the king sat in the winterhouse in the ninth month: and there was a fire on the hearth burning before him. And it came to pass, that when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth. Yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither the king, nor any of his servants that heard all these words.

Nevertheless Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah had made intercession to the king that he would not burn the roll: but he would not hear them. But the king commanded Jerahmeel the son of Hammelech, and Seraiah the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah the son of Abdeel, to take Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet: but the Lord hid them.

Director of the Catholic Union, Nigel Parker, writes:

I was watching the announcement of the results of the recent by-elections and reflecting that, for at least those few moments, there is a valuable element of courtesy in the proceedings. The candidates thank the Returning Officer and unsuccessful candidates shake hands with the winner.

The contrast between democracies and autocratic regimes in the way that those in power deal with political opponents was highlighted in the dreary sense of inevitability surrounding the death in a Siberian prison camp of Alexei Navalny. The elements of civility in our democracy cannot be taken for granting and need nurturing.

If any proof of that were needed after the murder of Jo Cox, it was provided in the most brutal way by the murder of Catholic MP Sir David Amess. We are also told of MPs regularly reporting threats of death or sexual violence and that 88% of local councillors surveyed in 2022 had experienced abuse and intimidation. That is why the Catholic Union has endorsed the helpful and practical recommendations of the Jo Cox Civility Commission in its recently published Call to Action.

The Catholic Union also has its part to play in the way that we act and report on politics, arguing strongly but keeping to the facts and presenting information fairly. Thanks to all those who support us in this work.

Catholic Union 17.2.24

30 January: Hanging Day

“Last Tuesday was (what is here called) hanging-day.  There was also a parliamentary election. 

I could only see one of the two sights, and therefore naturally preferred the latter, while I only heard tolling at a distance the death-bell of the sacrifice to justice. 

From “Travels in England in 1782” by Karl Philipp Moritz.

Karl Philipp Moritz was a young Lutheran pastor from Germany who travelled around England, mostly on foot in 1782. He spent a significant part of his time in London, where one day he had a choice of entertainment. There was no secret ballot, so the election was lively. There was no universal suffrage but that did not stop the disenfranchised enjoying themselves. However there would have been a large and noisy crowd at the execution as well.

A ‘sacrifice to justice’? What, or who, is this justice that sacrifice may be offered to her?