Exercise your franchise, justly

By Fr Stephan Alexander

General Manager, CCSJ and AMMR

Hark! Silly season has begun. General elections will be held in Trinidad and Tobago on April 28, 2025. My reference to ‘silly season’ is, of course, to the intense period of pre-election campaigning, where politicians and their supporters often tend to make outlandish, unreasonable, and downright foolish statements on the campaign trail.

Yet more troubling than these perceived foolish statements is the fact that as a society, we often forget or deliberately overlook the central responsibility of politics, which according to Pope Benedict XVI (of happy memory) in his encyclical on Christian love Deus Caritas Est is the “just ordering of society and the State.”

Politics is not about power. It is about justice, which we continue to define within Catholic social teaching as right relationship.

As citizens, and specifically, as Christians, we have a responsibility to engage in ethical participation in the political life of our country, that is, not to run away from politics, not to be drawn into or complicit in the nonsense that the hustings produce and not to be indifferent to the stark reality of party politics since it affects us all.

Our participation is a necessity in the face of harsh or unjust policies, allegations of corrupt practices, and overtly separatist tactics meant to sow and widen divisions amongst our population to secure political power.

To highlight this responsibility I have selected several paragraphs from Pope Benedict’s earlier-mentioned encyclical letter to offer some guidance as we prepare to exercise our franchise in the upcoming elections.

“The Church’s social teaching argues on the basis of reason and natural law, namely, on the basis of what is in accord with the nature of every human being. It recognizes that it is not the Church’s responsibility to make this teaching prevail in political life. Rather, the Church wishes to help form consciences in political life and to stimulate greater insight into the authentic requirements of justice as well as greater readiness to act accordingly, even when this might involve conflict with situations of personal interest. Building a just social and civil order, wherein each person receives what is his or her due, is an essential task which every generation must take up anew. As a political task, this cannot be the Church’s immediate responsibility. Yet, since it is also a most important human responsibility, the Church is duty-bound to offer, through the purification of reason and through ethical formation, her own specific contribution towards understanding the requirements of justice and achieving them politically.”

…“The Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible. She cannot and must not replace the State. Yet at the same time she cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice. She has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper. A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the Church. Yet the promotion of justice through efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common good is something which concerns the Church deeply.”

….“The direct duty to work for a just ordering of society, on the other hand, is proper to the lay faithful. As citizens of the State, they are called to take part in public life in a personal capacity. So they cannot relinquish their participation ‘in the many different economic, social, legislative, administrative and cultural areas, which are intended to promote organically and institutionally the common good.’ The mission of the lay faithful is therefore to configure social life correctly, respecting its legitimate autonomy and cooperating with other citizens according to their respective competences and fulfilling their own responsibility. Even if the specific expressions of ecclesial charity can never be confused with the activity of the State, it still remains true that charity must animate the entire lives of the lay faithful and therefore also their political activity, lived as ‘social charity’.”

Friends, as members of the lay faithful (persons not ordained), there exists a calling in love to get involved in the public life of the country. To do otherwise is to turn our backs on each other.

In the coming weeks, I will break down these paragraphs to further explain the basis of our responsibility and the need for accountability during this campaign season.

The CCSJ asks for your support.

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Catholic Commission for Social Justice

Account #: 290 458 025 501

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