Political commitment: Being a saint serving the society

All christians are called to holiness. That means that they take care of their fellow men, also in politics. For catholics the Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis is a guideline which shows how a coherent christian should intervine in politics.

Recently, the Spanish had to go to the polls again, due to the situation of political and institutional impasse that we live since the last general elections held last December. All of us, but especially young people, have been the target of many political parties, whose representatives have promised us the moon and the stars if they form a government; an easy life in exchange for nothing. The price of this is to give the vote (and sell the soul) to populist political parties that promote abortion, deny parents the right to choose what education their children should receive, to advocate the disappearance of religion in any public sphere and to try to impose a paternalistic conception and – why not – an “Orwellian” State.

We are all called to holiness and we can achieve it by sanctifying our job and our daily life. Spain needs politicians who hallow policy, who commit themselves to respect and defend human life from birth to death. Politicians who protect families based on marriage between man and woman, freedom of education for the children and promoting the common good please specify in all its forms (Benedict XVI, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, 22 February 2007 , p. 83 ).

It is difficult for many catholic politicians to defend these ideas when often they don’t coincide with those of their voters. What will they say or think about a politician who makes such statements? What will happen to him if, for defending what is right, he compromises his professional future?

But what is the task of a politician? Is it to serve the public in accordance with justice? Or justifying his approach to the people and himself? Or maybe to follow the people’s will regardless whether it is fair or not?  These questions can make us scrutinise the form of government, whether we prefer a democracy or maybe an aristocracy. However, this is an issue that I’ll leave for next time you read me. The 6th of July will mark 481 years of the martyrdom of St. Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of Henry VIII of England. Remaining true to his principles, he defended the validity of Catherine of Aragon’s marriage with the monarch and he also refused to recognize the subsequent marriage of the King.

For these acts, he was beheaded by order of the King in Tower Hill (London) on the 6th of  July in 1535 and before the crowd gathered the said, “I die being the King’s good servant, but God’s servant first.” He was canonized by the pope Pius XI on the 19th of  May in 1935 and since then he has been the patron of politicians and governors. And to conclude these lines, I beg St. Thomas More: watch over our society and protect it from pirates and charlatans.