Pope Leo: For Catholic Elected Officials, No Duality!

Excerpts from Pope Leo's powerful address to French elected public officials assembled at the Vatican today, with emphasis added:

I extend my most cordial greetings to His Excellency, Monsignor Dominique Blanchet, and I offer my welcome to all of you, elected officials and civic leaders of the Diocese of Créteil, on pilgrimage to Rome.

I am happy to receive you in this act of faith: you will return to your daily commitments strengthened in hope, more firmly established to labor for the building of a world more just, more humane, more fraternal, which can only be a world ever more imbued with the Gospel. In the face of the various forms of deviation that our Western societies are experiencing, we Christians can do no better than to turn to Christ and to ask His help in the exercise of our responsibilities.

This is why your undertaking, more than a mere personal enrichment, is of great importance and great usefulness for the men and women whom you serve. And it is all the more meritorious since it is not easy in France, for an elected official, because of a laïcité sometimes misunderstood, to act and to decide in coherence with his faith in the exercise of public responsibilities.

The salvation that Jesus won through His death and resurrection encompasses every dimension of human life—such as culture, economy and labor, family and marriage, the respect for human dignity and life, health, as well as communication, education, and politics. Christianity cannot be reduced to a simple private devotion, for it entails a way of life in society imbued with the love of God and of neighbor, who in Christ is no longer an enemy but a brother.

Your region, the place of your commitments, is confronted with great social challenges such as violence in certain neighborhoods, insecurity, poverty, drug networks, unemployment, the disappearance of social bonds… To confront them, the Christian public servant is strengthened by the virtue of Charity which has dwelt within him since his baptism. This is a gift of God, a “a force capable of inspiring new ways of approaching the problems of today’s world, of profoundly renewing structures, social organizations, legal systems from within. In this perspective love takes on the characteristic style of social and political charity: “Social charity makes us love the common good”[457], it makes us effectively seek the good of all people” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, n. 207). This is why the Christian public servant is better prepared to face the challenges of the present world, insofar, of course, as he lives and bears witness to his living faith, to his personal relationship with Christ who enlightens him and gives him this strength. Jesus declared forcefully: “Apart from me you can do nothing!” (Jn 15:5). It is therefore no cause for surprise that the promotion of “values,” however evangelical they may be, but “emptied” of Christ who is their author, should prove powerless to change the world.

Now then, Monsignor Blanchet asked me to give you some advice. The first—and the only—that I shall give you is this: unite yourselves ever more closely to Jesus, live from Him, and bear witness to Him. There is no division within the personality of a public figure: there is not on one side the politician, and on the other the Christian. Rather, there is the politician who, under the gaze of God and of his conscience, lives out his commitments and his responsibilities in a Christian manner!

You are therefore called to strengthen yourselves in faith, to deepen your knowledge of doctrine—particularly of social doctrine—which Jesus taught to the world, and to put it into practice in the exercise of your responsibilities and in the drafting of laws. Its foundations are fundamentally in harmony with human nature, with the natural law that all can recognize, even non-Christians, even non-believers. You must not therefore fear to propose it and to defend it with conviction: it is a doctrine of salvation that seeks the good of every human being, the building of societies that are peaceful, harmonious, prosperous, and reconciled.

I am well aware that the openly Christian commitment of a public official is not easy, especially in certain Western societies where Christ and His Church are marginalized, often ignored, sometimes ridiculed. Nor am I unaware of the pressures, the party directives, the “ideological colonization”—to borrow an expression of Pope Francis—to which politicians are subjected. They need courage: the courage at times to say, “No, I cannot!” when the truth is at stake. Once again, only union with Jesus—Jesus crucified!—will give you the courage to suffer for His name. He said to His disciples: “In the world you will have tribulation, but take courage! I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33).