Today I will share with you an excerpt of the Compendium which highlights the moral aspects of political representation. It highlights the importance of moral and spiritual values in the exercising of political obligations.

 It is a useful piece for persons who hold political authority to read as it gives them clear guidelines for their daily lives as it relates to their work and highlights the consequences of having no morals in the conduct of their duties.

It is also useful for the citizen to read, since often we are also active participants in politics and sometimes encourage immoral behaviour or do very little to dissuade it.

“Those with political responsibilities must not forget or underestimate the moral dimension of political representation, which consists in the commitment to share fully in the destiny of the people and to seek solutions to social problems. In this perspective, responsible authority also means authority exercised with those virtues that make it possible to put power into practice as service (patience, modesty, moderation, charity, efforts to share), an authority exercised by persons who are able to accept the common good, and not prestige or the gaining of personal advantages, as the true goal of their work.”

“Among the deformities of the democratic system, political corruption is one of the most serious because it betrays at one and the same time both moral principles and the norms of social justice.

 It compromises the correct functioning of the State, having a negative influence on the relationship between those who govern and the governed. It causes a growing distrust with respect to public institutions, bringing about a progressive disaffection in the citizens with regard to politics and its representatives, with a resulting weakening of institutions.

Corruption radically distorts the role of representative institutions, because they become an arena for political bartering between clients' requests and governmental services. In this way political choices favour the narrow objectives of those who possess the means to influence these choices and are an obstacle to bringing about the common good of all citizens.”

“As an instrument of the State, public administration at any level — national, regional, community — is oriented towards the service of citizens: Being at the service of its citizens, the State is the steward of the people's resources, which it must administer with a view to the common good”.

Excessive bureaucratisation is contrary to this vision and arises when “institutions become complex in their organisation and pretend to manage every area at hand. In the end they lose their effectiveness as a result of an impersonal functionalism, an overgrown bureaucracy, unjust private interests and an all-too-easy and generalised disengagement from a sense of duty”.

The role of those working in public administration is not to be conceived as impersonal or bureaucratic, but rather as an act of generous assistance for citizens, undertaken with a spirit of service.

Next week we look at the role of political parties.

Persons interested in purchasing the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church can contact the Justice Desk, Archbishop’s House at 622-6680. Also on sale at the Justice Desk is Responses to 101 Questions on Catholic Social Teaching.