On April 4, 1968, a promising young white politician struggled with how to break the news to a predominantly black crowd that Martin Luther King Jr., had been gunned down by a white assassin. In what many consider one of the greatest speeches of all time, he spoke of a country polarized and racially divided, white against black, and black against white.

He said the country could move in that direction “with hatred against one another. Or we could make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land… What we need in the United States is not division, what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but it is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another…”

The following day he spoke of another kind of violence affecting our country which was “slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night.” This was a “time of shame and sorrow,” he said. “When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and mastered.

“We learn, at the last ... to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force.”

The orator, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated two months later while campaigning for president in Los Angeles.

Times have changed, but we continue to live in a polarized political climate that encourages division, not collaboration. We work hard to find fault with our political rivals, and those who do not agree with us philosophically. When fault is found, we attempt to convince others that this person is a “lesser” man or woman, or an “enemy” to be “subjugated and mastered.” We bow to the extreme views, embracing issues that may be contradictory to our own beliefs in an effort to gain favor or avoid conflict. And as we do, we separate ourselves from sisters and brothers, all created by the same God.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued the document “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” to provide guidance for our political decisions which require a “well-formed conscience aided by prudence.” Based on the seven themes of Catholic social teaching, “The consistent ethic of life provides a moral framework for principled Catholic engagement in political life and, rightly understood, neither treats all issues as morally equivalent nor reduces Catholic teaching to one or two issues. It anchors the Catholic commitment to defend human life, from conception until natural death, in the fundamental moral obligation to respect the dignity of every person as a child of God. It unites us as a “people of life and for life” (Evangelium Vitae, no.6)”

Let us ask God for guidance this election season to help us find ways to work with others to benefit the common good of all: to remember that life is sacred, and to respect life in all forms from conception to natural death. Let us ask God to help us to respect the dignity of all persons, including those with whom we may disagree, and help us to find ways to work together as a society to protect the marginalized, the poor and the vulnerable united as a “people of life and for life.”


Moe Wosepka is the executive director of the Montana Catholic Conference. You can reach him by phone at 442-5761, e-mail director@montanacc.org or check out the website www.montanacc.org.


Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 24, No. 7, July 18, 2008.