Christifidelis Laici: an application

     This week we are going to step away from our exploration of Pope St. John Paul II’s exhortation, but for good reason!  The pages of this last week’s papers have given us an important example of what our Holy Father has been talking about, especially with regards to what we discussed a few weeks ago regarding the duty of Catholics to live their faith in their public life, including at work.

     The United States Supreme Court handed down their decision concerning two Catholic schools in California (the vote was 7-2) and the issue of the right of the Church to hire / fire school teachers.  The reason this concerns us is not so much the details of the case but the reasoning in Justice Thomas’s opinion.

     Justice Clarence Thomas (a Catholic) recognized in his concurring decision that those working in a Catholic institution are expected to live according to Catholic teaching, not just in their behavior at work, but also outside of work, at home.  This is an issue that has come up again and again, especially as people have chosen to live their lives according to their own desires and yet expect that the Church should just overlook these things and employ them anyway.  This has been especially true, in recent years, in our Catholic schools, hospitals, and other institutions of apostolic works.

     This dove-tails remarkably well with what we have been reading in Christifideles Laici as our Holy Father has pointed out that our whole life is our faith life, and must then be lived at home, at work (regardless of what our work is), in our political life, and in our economic life.  When we hitch our train to God we must be “all in”.