Political Series Show 3 

"The Enemy is Us! -- We can do a lot more than we think we can!"

"All authority has been given to me…" the Lord said. "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations…"

What is our mission, and who calls us to carry it out? It is the Lord…The Church has a spiritual, not a political mission -- but nevertheless is called to speak to political realities and transform them.

The Church does not set up the voting booths -- but neither do we cease to be members of the Church when we go into the voting booths…

It would be important to speak at any time to political matters affecting fundamental human rights. But at the present moment, it is even more imperative, because of the nature of the battle over human life. The uniqueness of this moment is worldwide, as the Holy Father explains in "The Gospel of Life."

We have in the Catholic Church, moreover, a unique system of communication for reaching people through parishes, schools, and other Catholic institutions that directly minister to the needs of people.

The Church must be free to speak, as Bishop Elio Sgreccia, Vice-President of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life recently explained: "[The Church must speak out] in today's context on fundamental rights, the right to justice, the right to peace, but above all and in the first place, the right to life. If the Church did not speak, did not proclaim the truth, it would be abandoning its duty; it would be unfaithful to society, to the good of society. Therefore, its precise duty is the very liberty to intervene with word, and also with example -- the example of promoting human life, of intervening for the salvation of mankind."

The political action director of the National Right to Life Committee, Carol Tobias, recently summarized a few of the things that the Church, through its structures, can call on people to do:

"We need to make sure that every pro-lifer is registered to vote. Priests for Life and the National Pro-life Religious Council have been very good in working with the Churches to make sure people are registered to vote. We really do need to get our people registered because obviously if we can't vote we aren't going to win the elections. Educate other people as to where the candidates stand on the issues.

Getting that information into churches, into community groups, to our families our friends our neighbors, people who care about this issue. They really do need to know where the candidates stand. So education, getting that information out, getting people to the polls. Calling them up on Election Day and saying "have you voted yet and if you haven't can I give you a ride to the polls?"

What different types of organizations can do regarding elections is regulated by various laws and guidelines. This applies to Churches as well, which, because they are tax-exempt, may not endorse or contribute to candidates. But the prohibitions are very narrow, and should not be confused.

One of the nation’s top experts in this area of the law is James Bopp, Jr. He serves in many capacities, including as General Counsel for the National Right to Life Committee. He explained in a recent interview some of the parameters of what Churches can do. Here are his words:

"People and organizations are free to discuss issues that concern them. Free to discuss what governmental officials are doing about those issues in office or the positions of candidates on those issues as long as they don't expressly advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate.

"The IRS standards, at least as they articulate them are broader and vaguer. More difficult for the average citizen or the average group or church to understand. Therefore it is necessary and their have been efforts to try and get the IRS to adopt more bright lines so that citizens will know and churches and organizations that are exempt under 501 C3 will know when they are engaged in an activity that intervenes in a political campaign. There is some vagueness there. There is some of what we call over breath, that is the standards that are used are hard to understand and hard to apply.

"Even though their standard seems to be broader and vaguer, the IRS has been very reticent to apply these standards as broadly as people might interpret their standards to be. In fact the only circumstances in which churches have lost their tax exempt status for having intervened in a political campaign is when they have used church money and given it to a candidate. When they have passed the hat at a church service to raise money for a candidate or when Church funds have been used to expressly advocate the elections or defeat of a candidate. These are very narrow circumstances. People can understand that you should not give church money to a candidate and you should not use church funds to say vote for or against a candidate. So, these are really the narrow circumstances when the IRS has actually sought to enforce this political intervention rule.

"There's a lot of activities that churches can do that really the enemies of the people of faith try to intimidate churches from participating in. Things like discussing the abortion issue in the context of an election or having a public official come to a church service or candidate and be introduced or speak. Of course without the candidate being endorsed. Or distributing non-partisan voter guides where the positions of candidates are simply explained. All of these activities are one's that are well protected under the first amendment in no case has the IRS removed the tax-exempt status of any church for having engaged in these activities. But there are activities that people who are the enemies of people of faith who want to preclude people of faith from participating in our democratic process often try to get churches not to do. That's really not justified.

"Well, the Catholic Church generally has taken a very restrictive view on what is allowed in terms of candidates and issues and activities associated with the Catholic Church. Some people fear that if there would be one priest in one parish that would do something that the IRS would consider to be political intervention that the entire Catholic Church would have its tax exempt status removed.

I think this fear is unjustified. The IRS takes a very restrictive enforcement view of the circumstances in which they will pursue political intervention and the idea that the entire Catholic Church would have its tax exempt status removed, I think, is beyond the pail.

"A Catholic Priest in a pulpit or any minister in a pulpit has quite a wide range of things that they could talk about in the context of elections. Certainly a Catholic priest could discuss important moral issues and what is the appropriate position that people should have on those moral issues. It would be appropriate to discuss the position of candidates on issues and whether or not they comply with the position of the church. Whether or not public officials in their conduct in office has acted in a way consistent with the teachings of the Church. These are all things that can be discussed. And finally, a Catholic priest could explain the moral imperatives of how people should vote. That is that they should vote for candidates whose positions are in accordance with Catholic teaching.

"As we know there are groups that want to communicate to parishioners about the positions of candidates on issues. In some cases there have been Catholic priests who have viewed it to be their obligation if these people came on to the church parking lot to actually run them off. I don't think that is required under any reasonable interpretation of the internal revenue code. When someone is distributing a brochure that they themselves have paid for and their distributing it on cars, there is no expenditure by the church and in fact there is no activity by the church relating to this. This is the activity of private individuals spending their own money. I don't think that it is necessary for a Catholic priest to enforce and prohibit people from coming onto the church parking lot when they are engaged in activities that they themselves are spending their money on.

"Some people in distributing literature at parishes do so on public sidewalks or public thoroughfares. The first amendment to the US constitution applies directly to that activity. That is people have a constitutionally protected right to stand on public sidewalk or on public thoroughfares and engage in communicative activities such as distributing leaflets or brochures. As long as the people do not obstruct traffic either car traffic on the thoroughfare or pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk they have an absolute right to be there and to distribute literature and it would be a violation of those rights for anyone to interfere with that activity. Including a Catholic priest coming out of church onto a public sidewalk saying you can't pass out literature on a public sidewalk."