Democracy on the March

Bill Safire at the N.Y. Times is on fire today with a column entitled "The Fourth Election." The "Fourth Election" is the Iraqi election scheduled for January 30th, an election that some Sunni political parties are trying to delay. (The Sunnis are the Moslem minority in Iraq who held virtually complete political power in Saddam's Iraq.)

Safire calls the Iraqi election the "fourth" because those in favor of freedom in the Middle East have so far won three elections in a row: the recent election of the incumbent president of Afghanistan with virtually no violence (contrary to the usual media pessimism); the re-election of Australian Prime Minister Howard, a strong Bush supporter; and, of course, the re-election of President Bush himself.

Democracy has many flaws, but one great advantage: it tends to focus policy on the common good. To the surprise of many, the roots of democracy lie not in the skepticism of the Enlightenment but rather in the great Catholic medieval and scholastic thinkers.

While we cannot say unequivocally that Aquinas was a "democrat" per se, there are passages in Thomas "to the effect that the ruler represents the people (S.T., Ia, IIae, 90, 3) or that the prince has legislative power only in so far as he stands in the place of the community (S.T., Ia, IIae, 97, 3, ad 3)" (Copleston, Aquinas [Penguin, 1991], p. 241).

These hints of democratic theory became more pronounced in scholastics such as the Spanish Jesuit Francisco Suarez (1548-1617), called by Pope Benedict XIV the "Exceptional or Uncommon Teacher," Doctor Eximius (see Hardon, Modern Catholic Dictionary under "Suarezianism").

Suarez "is the acknowledged source of the philosophy of natural rights, the law of nations and constitutional law as these have developed in modern times among Christian philosophers as opposed to the divine right of kings" (see Hardon source above). The thought of Thomas and Suárez is the intellectual ancestor of the rhetoric of our Declaration of Independence.

In the encyclical letter The Gospel of Life, John Paul II affirms the value of democracy: "If today we see an almost universal consensus with regard to the value of democracy, this is to be considered a positive 'sign of the times,' as the Church's Magisterium has frequently noted" (Para. 70.4). But as those of us who are pro-life and pro-marriage know only too well, "the value of democracy stands or falls with the values which it embodies and promotes" (Gospel of Life, para. 70.4).

Yet, it is noteworthy that, at least here in the United States, it is unelected judges who have taken the lead in promoting abortion and gay marriage and in removing these issues from the ballot box.

Democracy is on the march in the Middle East--even the Palestinians are now planning elections because of the recent death of Arafat. May Iraqis successfully hold their own elections on schedule--a process with distinctly Catholic roots.