A salient aspect of the U.S. Constitution is the separation of church and state. A government cannot establish or show preference for a religion or sect thereof. Although church clerics can state a politically partisan preference, they risk their religious organization’s tax-exempt status. In the presidential election of 1960, John F. Kennedy was under sufficient popular pressure to publicly assure the American electorate that he would, if elected to America’s highest governmental office, let himself be an agent for the Roman Catholic Pope in Rome. So, when Bishop David Kagan of Bismarck, North Dakota urged his flock to vote for the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2012, Maureen Fiedler, a Sister of Loretto and a holder of a doctorate in government from Georgetown University, wrote, (I)t is flatly unacceptable for a bishop to be giving voting instructions to his flock.”[1] Interestingly, the instructions trump even the primacy of an informed individual conscience.
In 2012, Heidi Heitkamp, a former
North Dakota Attorney General, beat Republic Rick Berg by just 0.9 percent.
During the campaign, the Republican Party ran an ad referring to Heitkamp as likeable.
David Kagan picked up on that adjective in writing a letter with instructions
that it be read at all Masses to urge the laity not to vote for the more
likeable candidate. Maureen Fiedler claimed in an article that such a de facto
endorsement of Berg put the Catholic Diocese’s tax-exempt status at risk.
Fiedler points out that the
partisan, or partial, orientation of the bishop is evident in his letter
in that he “zeroes in on social issues.”[2]
Specifically, Bishop Kagan states that the following should never be allowed
legally: “abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, and not regarding
the unique and special role of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”[3]
Fiedler points out that the letter does not mention “poverty, economic justice,
immigration, peace in the world or human rights.”[4]
Therefore, Kagan’s ideology cannot claim to embrace wholeness, and his partial
orientation naturally invites ideological opposition. As is common in churches explicitly
“on the left” or “on the right” politically/ideologically, whether in demanding
that people “use their pronouns” or “oppose abortion (in order to receive communion),”
people who might otherwise benefit in terms of religious faith by going
to church don’t go. To willow the gateway using nonreligious criteria is
dogmatic (i.e., arbitrary) from a religious standpoint. It is not good for a
church in taking up monetary collections either.
In regard to Bishop Kagan, his
exclusion of issues such as poverty detracts from his political and even
religious credibility. Making matters worse for himself, he erroneously claims in
his letter that informed consciences must conform to the magisterium (i.e.,
teachings of the Church), and thus to his partisan letter. Kagan declares that
a “properly formed Catholic conscience will never contradict the Church’s
teachings in matters of faith and morals.”[5]
His statement contradicts the Roman Catholic Church’s Cathechism and the Second
Vatican Council. The 1992 volume of the Cathechism states, “Man has the right
to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions.”[6]
That freedom is denied if a conscience must never contradict the Church’s
magisterium. The Vatican II document Dignitatis Humanae makes it clear
that a person “must not be forced to act contrary to [one’s] conscience. Nor must
[one] be prevented from acting according to [one’s] conscience, especially
in religious matters.”[7]
This does not mean that the magisterium (teachings) of the Church can be dismissed,
for, the same document goes on to say, “the faithful must pay careful attention
to the sacred and certain teachings of the church.”[8]
To pay attention to something is to include it in the process of discernment of
one’s informed conscience, rather than having to abide by the external teachings
as if they were edicts that must circumscribe a conscience.
Bishop Kagan’s view of the
relationship between conscience and ecclesiastical moral teachings on
contemporary issues was erroneous, according to Tim Mathern, a Catholic and a
senator in North Dakota’s legislature when Kagan was telling people in his
churches to vote for the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate. Mathern issued a
press release, which states in part, “A Catholic owes a duty to listen
thoughtfully to the bishop, but if in ‘good conscience’ he or she cannot give
assent, the Catholic must be free to follow his or her own conscience, which is
the true moral responsibility.”[9]
Even as God alone is the source that transcends even the magisterium in forming
a person’s conscience, moral responsibility—that which a conscience discerns is
a morally responsible position on particular contemporary political (i.e.,
partisan) issues is part of the created realm, rather than being sacred. That is
to say, a person’s moral position on “social issues,” which may inform selecting
whom to vote for, cannot be assumed to be God’s position, as if God takes
sides. For a stance on a partisan issue as a matter of moral responsibility is
a human construction, and God’s nature, and thus omnipotence (power), cannot be
constrained by human artifacts, including moral principles. In fact, God
transcends our conceptions of moral responsibility.
The so-called “conservative” Roman
Catholic clergy who have placed such emphasis on their moral stances on a few
select social issues are guilty of conceptualizing God in their own images,
and, as Pope Francis said, of a sort of misordered concupiscence: the placing
of a lower good above a higher one. In this case, the error lies in placing a
few social issues, and even particular positions on those issues, above focusing
primarily on preaching the Gospel. The particular social issues being obsessed
over are not even mentioned by Jesus in the Gospels! Not only have those “conservative”
clergy members severely diverted their attention, but also, as stated above, some
souls that could have been saved undoubtedly stopped going to church because those
people had opposing political ideologies and positions on the vaunted social
issues and perhaps even antithetical notions of moral responsibility. No one
likes to feel like an outsider; in fact, in a Christian context, serving rather
than attacking outsiders is at the very least valued. In the religious sphere,
moreover, partisan political issues and even a person’s notion of moral responsibility
are transcended rather than allowed to be become sticking points or road-blocks.
Interestingly, the “conservative”
Pope who made Kagan a bishop was a follower of Cardinal John Henry Newman.
Unfortunately for Kagan, Newman wrote, “I shall drink to the Pope, if you
please, still to conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards. . . . Conscience
is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ.”[10]
So Kagan could not even appeal to the patron saint of “conservative” Catholic
clergy in validating the attempt to prevent Catholics from exercising freedom
of conscience. To be sure, Kagan could have appealed to his own conscience in going
against the Church’s position on conscience, but then so he would have been a
walking contradiction. As such Kagan’s stance was unethical according to the philosopher
Immanuel Kant’s ethical theory (the first formulation of his categorical imperative).
Kant must have hated logical contradictions. Furthermore, it would be the
height of arrogance were Kagan to have believed that only his conscience
matters—that those of other people, especially the laity, are inferior and thus
don’t deserve to be free.
Even more seriously, in attempting
to violate the consciences of the laity in his bishopric by artificially and exogenously
blocking the innate freedom, which is given by God, Kagan violated God. Another
Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes, states, “Deep within his
conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he
must obey. For a man has in his heart a law inscribed by God . . . His
conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with
God whose voice echoes in his depths.”[11]
A person’s conscience is formed by a sacred source, and yet David Kagan felt
the need, and indeed presumption, to tie a person’s most sacred core to a partisan
position on social issues. I wonder if the bishop at least respects himself. To
violate a person’s sanctuary, where a person is alone with God (and David Kagan),
is a violation not unlike molesting a child due to a dysfunctional wholesale repression
of an intrinsic and basic instinctual urge—a violation that more than one
bishop has covered up.
In the spring of 2013, for
instance, news broke that the Catholic Church of Illinois, where Kagan had been
a pastor at a church and, before that, an administrative assistant to a bishop,
had underreported instances of priests molesting children. As far as I know, Kagan
was not accused of being involved in the cover-up; my only point is that he
would have been at home in an organization in which violations of the fundamental,
God-given dignity of people get covered up. While the archbishop of Munich, Joe
Ratzinger, who would go on to become Pope Benedict XVI and elevate Kagan to a
bishopric, had written a letter refusing to defrock a pedophile priest because
the scandal would hurt the reputation of the “universal Church.” So, Ratzinger directed
that the priest be transferred to another parish, where the priest was allowed
to be the youth minister.
Shortly before Kagan was appointed as a bishop, he had told his congregation in a homily on the Assumption of Mary holy day of obligation (i.e., the Virgin Mary goes to heaven bodily as well as soul) that if any of the four mysteries of Mary are difficult to understand, you should “just obey.” Included in his congregation were business executives, lawyers, and physicians. Just obey must have gone down like a lead pipe even though the congregation had the reputation of being “very Republican.” Kagan should have been quite popular there rather than an insult, and yet he was elevated to a bishopric in another state. As of 2023, more than a decade since Kagan had become a bishop, Pope Francis has not promoted Kagan; the bishop is still in North Dakota.
On ethical leadership: "Ethical Leadership"
On spiritual leadership: "Spiritual Leadership in Business"
On Christian leadership (in terms of stewardship, shephardship, and servanthood): "Christianized Ethical Leadership in Business"
[1]
Maureen Fiedler, “Catholic
Senator in North Dakota Challenges Bishop’s Election Letter,” National
Catholic Reporter, October 25, 2012
[2]
Ibid.
[3]
Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5]
Ibid.
[6] Patsy
McGarry, “Conscience
Takes Priority Over Church Teaching, Says Catholic Catechism,” Irish
Times, June 3, 2018.
[7]
Ibid., italics added.
[8]
Ibid.
[9] Maureen
Fiedler, “Catholic
Senator in North Dakota Challenges Bishop’s Election Letter.”
[10] Patsy
McGarry, “Conscience
Takes Priority Over Church Teaching, Says Catholic Catechism.”
[11]
Ibid.
