The political process seems at times to be unmoored from anything solid on which it can function effectively. I know… we have the Constitution and 50 state costitutions that provide some grounding, but I sometimes wonder whether those we send to the legislative houses know these documents and understand their purpose, i.e., they are external “truths” to which we adhere in the firm knowledge that they are “goods” that we strive to apply to our lived experiences so as to bring about the common good in a peaceful and orderly manner.
With the loss of knowledge, understanding and appreciation of such external truth in our political processes we find ourselves struggling with political unruliness, discord, a disintegration of basic social structures (such as marriage and family) and for some, a sense of despair with politics itself.
It confuses me why we nearly universally accept the necessity of a constituitions that lay out fundamental political truths but we have bought into moral relativism in the religious and spiritual spheres, a relativism that essentially says there is no truth outside of ourselves or our personal judgment as to truth and untruth, right and wrong, good and evil. We acknowledge the Constitution as being inherent to who we are as Americans, something that exists independently of us that we need to cooperate with and incorporate into our political and social lives, and something that has authority over us. Yet we are slow to acknowledge that there exists a natural moral law that corresponds with God’s divine law, something with which we need to cooperate, appreciate and incorporate into our lives, something that has authority over us, and without which we can only expected rancor, disorder and unhappiness.
Cardinal Raymond Burke recently said at a Knights of Colombus meeting that faith “purifies” politics for it offers moral grounding upon which the political process can function.
I think he has a point. Faith expresses the natural law that is inherent in the human person and offers what moral relativism cannot: peaceful order, social cohesion and a respect for the human person.
