Pope Reiterates Catholic Politicians Must "Remain Coherent To the Faith They Profess"

By Thaddeus M. Baklinski

VATICAN CITY, November 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI told an assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Laity on Saturday that where "the authentic quality of human life in society is implicated," Catholics involved in political life must "remain coherent to the faith they profess, uphold their moral rigour, capacity for cultural judgement, professional competency and passion for service of the common good."

The Holy Father's statement reaffirms his commitment to promoting religious freedom within the realm of public life. In his address to the UN earlier this year the Pope stated that the human right of religious freedom includes the right to make political decisions that are informed and directed by faith.

"Human rights, of course, must include the right to religious freedom,” he said. “It is inconceivable, then, that believers should have to suppress a part of themselves - their faith - in order to be active citizens. It should never be necessary to deny God in order to enjoy one's rights.” He concluded, "The full guarantee of religious liberty cannot be limited to the free exercise of worship, but has to give due consideration to the public dimension of religion, and hence to the possibility of believers playing their part in building the social order."

During his meeting with the Bishops of the United States in April Pope Benedict also addressed the "particular problem" of secularism in America, which, while allowing profession of belief in God, "can subtly reduce religious belief to a lowest common denominator," thereby creating a separation "of faith from life: living 'as if God did not exist'."

The Holy Father lamented that some Catholics believe they have "a right to pick and choose" in the faith, "maintaining external social bonds but without an integral, interior conversion to the law of Christ."

The Pope stressed that the intrinsic bond between faith and reason, "the intrinsic relationship between the Gospel and the natural law," was the means by which the "sound understanding of freedom, seen in positive terms as a liberation both from the limitations of sin and for an authentic and fulfilling life" could guide Catholics in political life.