Editor's Desk: Let's Be Candid

(From the issue of 9/30/04)

The following unsigned editorial recently appeared in The Catholic Register, a national Canadian Catholic newspaper based in Toronto. It provides an interesting "outsider’s" perspective on the current presidential campaign.

Now that the Republican convention is over and U.S. President George Bush has officially signaled he is running for re-election, the American campaign is heading into its final feverish months. The unfolding saga, drenched with all the melodrama the media can unleash, holds an object lesson for Canadians.

There are two observations that Canadians routinely make about their counterparts to the south, usually with a polite but distinctly smug smile. First, the nastiness of American elections is exponentially worse than our own relatively bland discourses. Secondly, we tut-tut over the admittedly horrific spending of billions of dollars by not just the candidates and their political machines, but also by an uncountable number of lobby groups of varying shapes and sizes. Most members of Congress — as a matter of survival — spend the bulk of their time raising money for the next election campaign.

But there is another observation that needs to be made. It is about religion and politics in the United States compared to Canada. It is true, Americans are the most visibly religious people on earth, even as they are often the most determinedly secular. It is one of the paradoxes Alexis de Toqueville discovered in his 19th-century study of the United States and it is still true today.

Americans are unabashed about roping God into their politics and not shy about suggesting their opponents are in league with the Other Guy, even as they insist on a strict separation of the institutions that represent faith and the temporal. Conservative Christians openly wear their faith on their sleeves and work assiduously to elect those candidates who match their view of heaven on earth. Liberal Christians form their own lobby groups to ensure the Republicans have no exclusive franchise on divine intervention. Moral Majority, meet Catholics for Kerry.

This makes for extremely interesting politics — and a far more enlightening campaign. The president may pepper his speeches with God talk and promise to fight on behalf of the unborn, but he is called to account for his avid support of capital punishment and for the deathly tragedy of the war in Iraq by others who talk the same language and use theological arguments to make their point.

Sen. John Kerry, the Democrat contender, for his part is forced to defend how he can be a practicing Catholic yet a fervent enemy of every pro-life bill that has come through Congress in recent years. He is finding that these pointed criticisms cannot be shrugged off.

The frankness of the American debate is refreshing, as bruising as it is. By contrast, our last federal campaign featured prime ministerial candidates trying to limit any debate on moral issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage to single epithets for their opponents. With a word or two —"scary" and "radical" come to mind — the entire subject could be swept under the rug with the help of a complacent secular media.

The deep faith convictions of millions of Canadians deserve far better treatment than they've received from their political class. The U.S. campaign may have its deficiencies, but its ability to make room for vibrant religious debate on public policy puts us to shame.

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