Faithful Democrats
In today's major address at Catholic University, Casey said: "The
central question should not be, 'Are you better off than you were four years
ago?' It should be, 'How can we – all of us, especially the weak and
vulnerable – be better off in the years ahead?'"
"Restoring America's Moral Compass: Leadership and the Common Good"
Delivered at Catholic University, Washington, D.C.
It is an honor to be asked to speak here today in the 38th
annual Pope John XXIII lecture. I am humbled to be following such
distinguished lecturers, including my own father who spoke here in 1994. I
would like to thank the President of Catholic University, Father O'Connell,
the Dean of the Law School, Dean Veryl Miles, and the faculty and students
for this invitation. I am looking forward to our discussion over the next
hour…
After I graduated from Holy Cross and before I came here to Catholic
University Law School, I spent a year in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. I
taught fifth grade and coached the basketball team at the Gesu School at
18th and Thompson streets in North Philadelphia. The Gesu was and is a
wonderful school in a low-income, inner-city neighborhood. Kindergarten
through eighth grade, the school is run by Jesuit fathers and IHM sisters,
but few of the students are Catholic.
The children at the Gesu taught me more than I could ever teach them. I
learned much about their struggles and the challenges their family faced
everyday. During my year at the Gesu, I lived in another section of North
Philly, near 23rd and Tioga Streets. You learn a lot about a city and its
people by living in a neighborhood and riding public transportation. I
remember riding the 33 Bus in the morning and evening and seeing working
mothers get on the bus with grocery bags and their children. I was not in
Scranton any more.
My short year as a Jesuit volunteer had a profound impact on my life, and
the struggles of those I met in the inner city continue to inspire me.
Those lessons I learned are central to what I'd like to talk to you about
today.
I am here today to talk to you about an America where we are known for what
unites us, not what keeps us apart; where we are better defined by our
hopes, not our fears; where we measure our success as a nation not by the
abundance of those who have much but by the opportunities for those who have
little; and where our moral authority rather than just our military might is
what maintains our superpower status throughout the world. I speak of what
we all know America must be: a country dedicated to the common good.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' latest publication of a
Guide to Faithful Citizenship states: "Politics in this election year and
beyond should be about an old idea with new power – the common good. The
central question should not be, 'Are you better off than you were four years
ago?' It should be, 'How can we – all of us, especially the weak and
vulnerable – be better off in the years ahead?'"
That's the right question.
My understanding of our common good comes from my family and my
faith. Anyone growing up in a family of eight children learns about the
importance of the common good whether you want to or not. But I was
especially blessed to have parents who taught me about the common good by
the way they lived their lives and raised our family.
My understanding of the common good also comes from my faith: faith in God,
that all things will ultimately work to His greater good; and my faith in
the ingenuity, compassion, and generosity of all Americans to give their
time, talent, and treasure to make this country great. There is a beautiful
definition of "faith" in the book of Hebrews. The scriptures tell us,
"faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen." I will get into the substance of my hopes in just a minute, but the
evidence of our country's potential is not so hard to see because we've been
there before.
When I was growing up, most parents believed that their children would have
better lives and more opportunities than they themselves had, and we all
believed in the promise of tomorrow and a brighter future. A perfect
example of that belief was my grandfather, Alphonsus L. Casey, who went to
work in the darkness and danger of the anthracite coal mines as a mule boy
when he was just 11 years old. The novelist Stephen Crane wrote about
miners and mule boys "toiling in this city of endless night." And he
described how mule boys would carry a lamp and "run ahead with the light" in
the darkness. Only in a country like America could a mule boy go on to earn
a law degree and create a new life for himself and his family, one that
would inspire his son to carry a different kind of light as the governor of
Pennsylvania.
But something seems to have changed in recent years. Instead of hope, fear
threatens to become the pervasive feeling in this country. We now live in a
country where, according to a recent Pew study, only one third of all
parents expect their children to be better off than they themselves are.
And around the world, America is losing the moral authority that has made us
the standard for other nations to emulate. Many factors play into these
changes. But at the core is something quite simple: Many of our leaders
have lost their moral compass and no longer seem to believe that the purpose
of government should be to promote the common good.
Justice
The common good must first be based upon a solid foundation of justice. As
Saint Augustine taught us: "Without justice, what are kingdoms but great
bands of robbers?" Justice cannot abide 34 million people in poverty and
8.3 million children without health care. Justice cannot ignore the
suffering of millions of parents in this country who have to face the
soul-crushing thought that they might have to tell their child to go to bed
hungry…or who realize that they simply cannot afford the medical treatment
their child needs. Justice demands our understanding that the hungry, the
impoverished, and the uninsured in this country are not statistics, they are
children of God. They are our brothers and sisters, our fellow Americans.
We see poverty on the rise and middle-income families struggling to make
ends meet not because they lack the drive to make a better life for
themselves and their families. Rather, the problem stems from mistaken
priorities and failed leadership. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated so
wisely, "It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often
groans more loudly than an empty stomach." And that is exactly what we've
seen. At a time when the number of working poor in this country keeps
increasing year after year, tax cuts for the wealthy should not be the price
we are asked to pay for an increase in the minimum wage.
Just a few weeks ago, we remembered the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
The inexcusable response to Katrina was not the result of malice, but of
malign neglect on the part of our government. Katrina stands as a tragic
example of what happens when governments are so consumed with their own
agenda that they stop paying attention to the needs of their people.
Sadly, soaring deficits and mistaken priorities have also spawned a series
of "slower-moving Katrinas" that threaten our schools, our environment, our
economy, and our security. Devastation doesn't always come with the awful
swiftness of a hurricane. Often it takes years. But neglect, fueled by
arrogance, can cause problems to fester. All Americans are affected when
our government does not fulfill its duties. But far too often it is the
least, the last, and the lost among us who pay the greatest price for our
governmental failings.
As my father once wrote:
"Only government, when all else fails, can safeguard the vulnerable and
powerless. When it reneges on that obligation, freedom becomes a hollow
word. A hard-working person unable to find work and support his or her
family is not free. A person for whom sickness means financial ruin, with
no health insurance to soften the blow, is not free. A malnourished child,
an uneducated child, a child trapped in foster care – these children are not
free. And without a few breaks along the way from government, such children
in most cases will never be truly free."
When our government seeks to reward the powerful and enrich the wealthy at
the expense of the average working American, it is no longer a question of
economics or politics. It is a question of justice.
Integrity & Compassion
The common good must also be based upon compassion, informed by integrity,
bearing witness to the truth. As many of you know, I am a pro-life
Democrat. I believe that life begins at conception and ends when we draw
our last breath. And I believe that the role of government is to protect,
enrich, and value life for everyone, at every moment, from beginning to end.
We must unite as a country, Democrats and Republicans, behind
the understanding that the common good requires us to value all life. For
33 years, this issue has been used mostly as a way to divide people, even as
the number of abortions continues to rise. We have to find a better way.
There have been times when members of my party have vigorously opposed me
because of my position on abortion. And those of you with long memories can
recall a dark night in 1992 when the national Democratic Party insulted the
most courageous pro-life public official in our party who simply asked that
those who believed in the right to life be accorded the right to speak. But
things have changed over the ensuing 14 years. I have been encouraged to
see Democrats in this new century becoming more open to people who are
pro-life. The common good can be advanced by working towards common ground.
For example, pro-life Democrats in the House are on the verge of introducing
legislation that would work toward real solutions to our abortion problem by
targeting the underlying factors that often lead women to choose abortion.
As a public official, I will continue to work within the party to ensure
that Democrats are welcoming and open to such initiatives.
Abortion is clearly an important life issue, and as a Catholic,
I understand that life extends beyond the womb. In my view, neither party
has gotten it right when it comes to life issues. We can't realistically
expect to tackle the difficult question of abortion without embracing the
"radical solidarity" with women who face a pregnancy that Pope John Paul II
spoke of many years ago.
If we are going to be pro-life, we cannot say we are against
abortion of unborn children and then let our children suffer in degraded
inner-city schools and broken homes. We can't claim to be pro-life at the
same time as we are cutting support for Medicaid, Head Start, and the Women,
Infants, and Children's program. I believe we need policies that provide
maximum feasible legal protection for the unborn and maximum feasible care
and support for pregnant women, mothers, and children. The right to life
must mean the right to a life with dignity.
Service
It is this understanding that draws many Americans to another building block
for the common good: service. The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.
said: "Everyone can be great because everyone can serve." One of the
greatest paradoxes of our faith is that it is in humbling ourselves in
service to others when we are lifted up, and it is in giving when we
receive. This is a complicated principle, but it is clearly something most
Americans understand. Just ask the priest who runs the midnight basketball
league in his community; or the woman who shows up every Saturday morning at
the food kitchen; or the church community that builds Habitat homes. These
people understand that their interests are served through the common good
when they serve others.
That is the underlying principle of another kind of service, public service.
One of the best statements on public service is inscribed on the building
where I work in Harrisburg. "All public service is a trust given in faith
and accepted in honor." A country that seeks the common good must have
leaders who understand and honor that sacred trust. Yet sadly, our
government has been plagued in recent years by corruption, the abuse of
power, and politicians who put personal and political gain over what is best
for America. Corruption is bad enough for what it costs from a financial
and policy perspective, but worst of all, it erodes confidence in
government.
The common good can never be achieved if we continue to allow our country's
special interests to trump our moral interests. We must wipe corruption
from the halls of government. To do that, we need leaders with the moral
courage to match the courage of everyday Americans.
Community
Finally, the common good is about community. The common good
for the entire human community summons us to take steps to counter the
effects that human activity is having on all life on earth. We are called
to be good stewards of God's creation, and America should stand as an
example to other nations of how we must protect Creation for future
generations. The great statesman, Edmund Burke, put it well when he said,
"history is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn."
We have inherited Creation from those who came before us, and it
will be one of the most tangible things we leave to our children and our
children's children. In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the connection
between the environment and the common good is expressed in our State
Constitution. Since this is an audience of lawyers, I wanted to be sure to
give you the citation.
In Article I, Section 27, we read:
"The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation
of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment.
Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the
people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources,
the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the
people."
After all, what could be more in the interest of the common good than clean
air, fresh water, and a healthy and sustainable environment?
Our moral obligation to the common good and to building
community is based on a fundamental belief that we are all in this together,
we are our brother's keeper, and a go-it-alone culture leaves us isolated,
insecure, and morally bankrupt.
I greatly admire the words of Pope John XXIII — for whom this
lecture series is named. As he so eloquently expressed in his landmark
encyclical Pacem in Terris, we cannot fully grasp the concept of the common
good without looking beyond our borders and understanding that we are all
part of a global community.
Pacem in Terris focused on peace, human rights, and the concept
of the universal common good. It was written in 1963 for an extremely
divided world. The Berlin Wall had been erected two years earlier, and just
months before the world had come to the brink of a nuclear war during the
Cuban Missile Crisis. Many believed that humanity was condemned to live
indefinitely in the precarious condition of "cold war," praying that neither
an accident nor an act of aggression would trigger nuclear annihilation.
I believe the lessons of Pope John still apply today. As we
remember the fifth anniversary of the September 11th attacks this week, my
thoughts keep returning to where we were on September 12th when the world
had rallied behind us and every American was ready to make the sacrifices
necessary to protect the country we love. We will long remember the
sacrifice of firefighters, police officers, and other rescue workers who
rushed into the burning towers. To be worthy of their sacrifice, or as
Lincoln said, "their last full measure of devotion," we should have united
our country and the world around a common purpose. Instead, in the ensuing
five years, some of our leaders continued to divide Americans from their
fellow citizens, and isolate our nation from the rest of world.
As we remember September 11th this week, I believe our world is in dire need
of the vision John XXIII offered for global cooperation in the pursuit of
the common good. As he said:
"Each country's social progress, order, security, and peace are necessarily
linked with the social progress, order, security, and peace of every other
country. From this, it is clear that no State can fittingly pursue its own
interests in isolation from the rest."
For too long, we have failed to heed this prophetic wisdom.
America's position in the world should be based on leadership, not
brinksmanship; on hope, instead of fear. We will win the war on terrorism
not by acting alone but in concert with our allies. As the greatest nation
on earth, America's leadership in the international community must again be
defined by how we unite Americans, and by how we show leadership abroad to
confront the great global challenges of our time: the spread of terrorism
and the need for international security; the plague of global poverty that
brings suffering and death to billions of lives around the globe; stopping
the spread of HIV/AIDS; and the dark threat to human life posed by global
warming.
As history has proven time and again, an idea can ultimately be
more powerful than any army or force of nature. As we fight the war on
terror, our military must be made more robust: our troops must be
better-armed, better-equipped, and better-led by their civilian leaders. We
must confront the threat of terrorism with every weapon in the arsenal of
democracy – military might, to be sure – and our diplomatic power, our
political power, and our economic power as well. But as mighty as our
military is, as efficient as our economy is, as creative as we would like
our diplomacy to be, they are not what made America what Lincoln called "the
last, best hope of the world." Our ultimate weapon is the moral force of
America.
Although some say the war on terror will be a war without end, I
disagree. We will win this war — as we won the Cold War against Communist
tyranny — yes, because of our military might, and yes because of our
economic and diplomatic leadership. But in the end, we won the Cold War,
and we will win this war through moral force and by the strength of the idea
that is America. Throughout our history, nations have followed our
leadership abroad and our country has prospered at home because we have been
a nation that has stood for and defended the common good. We must make
America that place again.
I believe that we stand at a crossroads in history, much as our
country faced forty years ago when Pope John XXIII wrote his great
encyclical. Our nation is hungering for leaders who will call us to the
service and sacrifice needed to make America what we know it can be. As
Americans, we must challenge each other to give our time, talent, and
treasure in service, so that we may realize the full potential of the gifts
every single American has to offer this country we love, and ultimately this
world of which we are all citizens.
So to the law students here today–as tomorrow's leaders–I ask
you to seek the common good and help restore America's moral compass. We
must recommit ourselves to affirming the human dignity of every individual
and the belief that by helping those around us, we build a better world.
For we can live up to our moral obligation to promote the common good only
when we see the connection between our individual well-being and that of our
neighbors', and the connection between our national security and the
security of all nations. That is an idea worthy of our sacrifice and the
proud traditions of our nation and our faith.
Pursuing the common good will not be easy. It will not be the
path of least resistance. It will not be the smooth road. But I have faith
that, ultimately, we will complete this journey. When I look at the
students here today and when I think back on the example of my parents, the
struggles of the families in north Philadelphia, the resilience of the
American people, I see the substance of the things we all hope for, and the
even greater potential for our nation.
Our American sense of the common good has always been nurtured
by an uncommon optimism as old as our Republic. As the Constitutional
Convention in 1787 was concluding its work in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania's
delegate, Benjamin Franklin, wondered whether a carving of the sun on the
back of the President's chair depicted a rising or a setting sun. He would
later say: "Now I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a
setting sun."
As we look to our future here in the United States, as one
family, always seeking the common good, let it be said of us that we acted
with justice, spoke the truth, and cared for the vulnerable in the
ever-rising sun of America's tomorrow.
Thank you.
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