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The Federal election next month (3 May) may be the first in Australian history in which both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition identify as Catholics.

“Identify” is the operative word. Neither Anthony Albanese nor Peter Dutton is a regular churchgoer, but both acknowledged in conversation with The Australian’s Troy Bramston recently that they have Catholic backgrounds.

Mr Albanese said that his Catholic faith was a source of solace and strength. “I regard myself as a flawed Catholic, but it’s a part of my values,” he told Bramston. “I go to church occasionally just by myself. That sense of who I am, it is certainly how I was raised, and those values of kindness and compassion being something that is a strength.”

And Mr Dutton disclosed that he grew up in a mixed marriage, his father a Catholic and his mother a Protestant. He went to an Anglican school but, according to the interview, nowadays he identifies with the Catholic Church even though he does not attend church regularly.

Obviously the old stereotypes no longer hold water. The Catholic Church used to be described as the Labor Party at prayer and the Liberal Party was regarded as a Masonic stronghold. People used to fret about the marriage of religion and politics. But no one is aspiring to marriage nowadays, only a tenuous relationship between virtual besties. At best.

The faith of our leading politicians has dwindled from an open allegiance to timeless, sacred principles into a seldom-disclosed and potentially embarrassing personal preference.

Is the new configuration of religion and politics an improvement?

Hypocrites

That’s far better, of course, than American politicians’ habit of wearing their faith on their sleeve while their hands are busy signing abortion bills. Former President Joe Biden was ostentatiously Catholic, even though he was a strong and unapologetic supporter of abortion and transgender rights. The contradiction didn’t bother him; in fact, he defended it vigorously. “The next Republican that tells me I’m not religious, I’m going to shove my rosary beads down their throat,” he once said.

To say nothing of Nancy Pelosi, Mario Cuomo, Andrew Cuomo, John Kerry, Tim Kaine, Dick Durbin, and a host of other notables in the US who both flew the Catholic flag and earned a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood.

Whether lukewarm affiliation is better than defiant contradiction is best left to moral theologians. What the rest of us take away from the sight of this gulf between faith and practice is a temptation to think that a successful politician can never be a good Catholic. The pressures are too great; the temptations too many.

The 19th-century Catholic historian Lord Acton said it best: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority.”

As a principle, this is false, completely false.

Saintly Statesmen

Recent popes have praised politics as a profession. Echoing John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Francis has suggested that it is a way to holiness. “Christians are called to restore dignity to politics and to view politics as a lofty service to the common good, not a platform for power,” he said in 2017. Politics is “a noble expression of self-sacrifice and personal dedication for the benefit of the community.”

Which is why two of the founders of the European Union are on their way to becoming saints.

Robert Schuman (1886-1963) was foreign minister and prime minister of France after World War II. He helped to create both NATO and the organisations which evolved into the EU. He was declared a Venerable in 2021.

And Italy’s Alcide De Gasperi (1881-1954) was prime minister for eight years in the ’40s and ’50s and president of the nascent European Parliament. He has been declared a “servant of God”, the first step towards canonisation.

Christian Vision

Does it make any difference if MPs identify merely as “cultural Christians”? In some obvious ways, it does. They are unlikely to understand the deeper implications of restrictions on religious freedom or of abortion or euthanasia, for starters. In most areas, from traffic rules to foreign policy, probably not.

But it’s all but certain that they will lack a vision of the big picture of what is needed to advance human dignity and create a more humane society. Schuman and De Gasperi were visionaries and after the most violent war in history, they changed Europe for the better. Albanese and Dutton may be many things, but not visionaries.

Speaking of canonisations, what about Tasmania’s Senator Brian Harradine, the longest-serving independent federal politician in Australian history, a prayerful father of a family of thirteen, a tough and wily negotiator, and an uncompromising champion of the pro-life cause? There was a man with vision.

It’s about time, in my opinion, that his cause for sainthood was launched.

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Republished with thanks to The Catholic Weekly.