True democracy and the Gospel of Life

By Derek Mobilio
Seminarian for the Diocese of Worcester

In the present American moment, many citizens dedicate themselves to the advancement of the gospel of democracy. Democracy is in danger, they say,
because our elections and the peaceful transfer of power, the most cherished rites of our collective political life, are under attack. Even though these concerns should not be disregarded prima facie, Catholic Americans should recognize that democracy has been in danger for much longer than the last four years, and not for the reasons resounding in the echo chambers of social media. Our democracy is threatened by its blatant disregard for its most fundamental principle — the right to life.
The discrepancy between the Christian and post-Christian visions of democracy consists in how each define the essence of democracy. The prevailing vision of our day sets moral relativism as the foundational prerequisite for democratic rule, such that the will of the people expressed in a majority vote is lauded and advanced over any claim about objective truth, if such claims are even possible. In contrast, the Christian vision recognizes that such voluntarism is only a false imitation of free society. To succeed in promoting the common good and the authentic happiness of mankind, democracy requires an electorate formed in a vibrant moral culture rooted in the natural law.
In paragraph 70 of Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II is chillingly prophetic in explaining our present moment from the distance of a quarter century. He writes, “Democracy cannot be idolized to the point of making it a substitute for morality or a panacea for immorality … Its morality depends on the morality of the ends which it pursues and of the means which it employs… [and its value] stands or falls with the values which it embodies and promotes.” That is, when the democratic process is exalted in the public conscience as more important than the fundamental rights it is supposed to protect in the first place, we can be sure that we are not really living in the free society we say we are. Rather, we live under the capricious and voluntaristic dictatorship of the most powerful. As John Paul II teaches in Centesimus Annus, such a democracy bereft of objective moral truth “easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.”
We consider these points during the time of year when, absent a pandemic, hundreds of thousands of Catholics and like-minded Americans, including bus loads from our own diocese, normally descend upon Washington, D.C. for the March for Life. There are many reasons we disrupt our lives for our annual pilgrimage, but obviously, traveling to our nation’s capital has a certain patriotic and democratic significance. We understand that our presence en masse gives valuable public witness to the right to life, second only in importance only to our collective worship in Mass, which is always celebrated before the March. That is, we rightly believe that our peaceful demonstration leads to real change in American jurisprudence, and thus, we save real babies from prenatal slaughter. However, our public demonstration can never remain merely an exercise of democratic will. To march only for legislative and judicial influence would constitute implicit acceptance of the false vision of democracy put forth in our post-Christian society, such that our presence would be just one more yank of the rope in the great tug-of-war between the two sides of the abortion debate.
This year, even though we will not travel to Washington, we ought to reflect on the truth that the Gospel of Life will not prevail via legislative or litigious initiative alone. When we march, we march as a tangible expression how we must work for the conversion of hearts and minds in our everyday lives, as the universal call to holiness demands. In other words, our efforts are not for the sake of the gospel of democracy, but rather, for the Gospel of Life. If in our everyday activities we foster a culture of life in our families, schools, parishes, and communities, the gospel of democracy will take care of itself.