The Church and impeachment

It would have been much neater if Pope Benedict’s encyclical letter Deus Caritas Est ("God is Love") clearly and unambiguously laid down the role of the Catholic Church in the impeachment process. It turns out that it doesn’t.

But the precise context in which we pose the question is not the broad area of the Church’s role in politics, but the role of the clergy in the impeachment process. This is a much narrower question and the encyclical doesn’t, in my view, give all the answers.

It is, to begin with, difficult to convince anyone that the Church really renders to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s, in the sense that the Church never gets involved in political or temporal affairs.

Since the year 800, when Pope Leo III began the tradition of "investiture" whereby the Church blessed the Holy Roman Emperor and thus gave his reign legitimacy, many Popes (not all, of course) have involved themselves in political affairs. That point is driven home in the legend of Henry IV standing barefoot in the snow in Canossa in 1077 to beg Pope Gregory VII’s forgiveness for having challenged the Holy Father’s expansion of the power of investiture.

Down through the centuries, wherever Catholicism has established itself as a dominant religion, it gets involved in politics and is occasionally accused of working actively to become a political force. The justification for this, not without basis but not always the real reason, is that the Church was needed to serve as moral compass, to act as counter-weight to repressive regimes even when this activism often led to martyrdom.

During the Marcos regime, when in many minds the government accumulated excessive power, the Church in the Philippines filled a vacuum and moved from "critical collaboration" to open confrontation. Since then, the Church has been a major, even critical, factor in any political upheaval. The position of the Church has, in more than one instance, dictated the fate of an incumbent President.

I don’t know if success in influencing political events has given the Philippine Church, specifically that organization of prelates called the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, an overblown view of their own earthly, political power.

There has been a bit of a backlash. Unsurprisingly, incumbents tend to see the clergy as a self-appointed "elite" with a narrow agenda which confuses spiritual matters with the demands of realpolitik. Political leaders don’t have to be disciples of Machiavelli to stumble into the insight, once in power, that political alternatives do not always fall into neat categories of the indubitably right vs. the clearly wrong.

Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, where the role of the Church in political matters is concerned, is by no means a convenient, step-by-step guide to when the clergy can get involved and when they should stay away. Concrete action requires reflection, insight, even "constant purification." As the encyclical notes, the "dazzling effect of power and special interests" can cause "ethical blindness" which must be gotten rid of ("purified"). This malady, the Church must have the humility to admit, has been known to affect not only politicians, but members of the clergy as well.

Thus, when the Pope in his encyclical says that "the Church is duty-bound to offer, through the purification of reason and through ethical formation, her own specific contribution towards understanding the requirements of justice and achieving them politically," is the Holy Father offering an answer to specific questions such as, for instance, may members of the clergy sign impeachment complaints?

I think he is, but it’s neither clear nor easy because he counsels not a knee-jerk response which cries out "Of course!" but mature and serious reflection which considers more than what appears to be the "popular will" of the moment.

Take that oft-cited excerpt from the encyclical which says that the Church "cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice." That certainly seems like a clear call to action, including vigorous participation in a legal impeachment process which has failed to render justice after alleged "bastardization" by corrupt congressmen. Until, that is, you read what comes before, and after, that passage.

Right before that remaining-on-the-sidelines comment, there is this: "The Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible. She cannot and must not replace the State." Moreover: "A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the Church."

One paragraph up are these statements: "Building a just social and civil order, wherein each person receives what is his or her due, is an essential task which every generation must take up anew. As a political task, this cannot be the Church’s immediate responsibility."

I do not see any problem when individual Bishops file impeachment complaints. As the CBCP clarifies, they act on their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of other Bishops or of the Philippine Church collectively. The problem is what happens when the Constitutional process results in another dismissal of that complaint.

Specifically, supposing the Constitutional process does not result in a full hearing of the charge of alleged cheating in the 2004 elections, with Garci as star witness or chief respondent, what’s the next step for the clergy?

Will the clergy protest an outcome which does not provide the relief the complaint envisions, namely the ouster of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo? Through what means? Will they reject the legal process as unjust and take to the streets and rely on "People Power" to obtain the desired result? Is that what the Papal injunction against standing on the sidelines in the fight for justice really means?

There is a school of thought within the Church, you might be surprised to learn, which insists that the Church must accept even an unfavorable outcome in the legal impeachment process. This view further holds that the Church should thereafter move on to other areas where it can be more effective in the fight for justice. One reason for this view is the fear of exploitation by the radical left and "civil society" which have their own agendas but ride on the moral authority and influence of the Church.

Deus Caritas Est, in the final analysis, will not comfort those in the clergy who hurl themselves into the political and legal impeachment process with preconceived and rigid notions of what results must be achieved. In determining where the genuine common good lies, their analysis must be much more thorough, broad-based and perceptive than holding up a moist finger and finding out which way the wind blows.