A Common Complaint I Get

“I love it when you talk about Catholic teaching, but on political stuff you drive me crazy.”

What is, for many of my readers a complete disconnect is, for me, simply continuity. I’m really quite surprised that people don’t get this.

So, for instance, when I write below about American secular messianism, I have in mind… Catholic teaching:

675 Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.

676 The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism.

Let me hasten to say that I am not an advocate of “Left Behind” scenarios, nor do I have any theory whatsoever that we are living in the “end times” as popularly conceived by Evangelicals. I am, by nature, strongly disinclined to read the signs of the times as pointing to Christ’s imminent return. I have a congenital allergy against conspiracy theories. And I don’t think Obama is The Antichrist.

However, like St. John, I do think that many antichrists have gone into the world and I do think (along with St. Paul) that the world system *is* at war with the Church. So I have no trouble believing that every time a political leader promises us some form of heaven on earth–whether it be the Neocon End to Evil rubbish or Yes We Can–if only we will cut some corners on matters which the Church says are absolutely essential (you know, like the intrinsic evils of abortion and torture) then we are hearing the whispers of antichrist and such whispers must be opposed.

Virtually all my political writing has been confined to a *very* narrow area: places where Team GOP or Team Dem urge us to ignore the Church on something the Church says we *cannot* ignore without endangering our souls. For the Rubber Hose Right of the past 8 years, that was the question of murder (i.e., unjust war) and torture, both of which can damn you to hell forever. For the Left, the issue is murder (abortion) and, very often, lust and blasphemy. I don’t have big theories about what to do about the economy. My sympathies are entirely with the teabag people in thinking that we are basically living in a period where rich and powerful people are robbing us to keep themselves rich and powerful. But since my focus is primarily on non-negotiable matters, rather than on prudential judgement about how to order our common life with respect to money, I haven’t talked about it much. I’m not an economist. What do I know? But as a Catholic and a citizen, I do think it important to speak when Caesar is doing something in my name which involves me in grave and intrinsic evil, such as torture or murder. I have *opinions* when it comes to economics, etc. Those and five bucks will get you a cup of coffee. But when it comes to killing people or otherwise engaging in intrinsic evil, I have more than opinions. I have the obligation to bang away at what the Church says, even if nobody listens.

What I honestly don’t get is how anybody could fail to miss the connection between those political remarks and the Church’s teaching.