Popes understand the weaknesses of democracy more than politicians

Niall Gooch• May 24, 2025

In 1995, St John Paul II wrote, in his encyclical Evangelium Vitæ, that “without an objective moral grounding, not even democracy is capable of ensuring a stable peace”. That document, issued just over 30 years ago, is best remembered for its compelling reaffirmation of the Church’s teaching on life issues – but it also contained extensive reflection on broader political matters, especially those concerning the dignity of the individual.

Only a few years after the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, this aspect of the document had a particular resonance for nascent democracies like John Paul II’s own beloved homeland of Poland, many of which were historically Catholic. Some had never known genuinely democratic government before, and there was much debate over how to balance freedom, tradition, prosperity, community and morality.

The specific guidance offered by the Pope was especially important in this context. He did not set out a detailed political programme of his own, but he did reiterate the kind of considerations that Catholics must take into account, and explored the tensions that exist for Christians in trying to form their own political views, and in understanding the philosophical underpinnings of democracy.

The essential point is summarised this way: “Democracy is a system and as such is a means and not an end. Its moral value is not automatic, but depends on conformity to the moral law to which it, like every other form of human behaviour, must be subject.” What this means is that, for Christians, the vox populi is not the vox dei.

Representative and accountable government is good, but instrumentally good – that is, insofar as it generates morally acceptable outcomes. We cannot make an idol of democracy, as if ideas that gain majority support are thereby inherently valuable. This would go against the entire grain of Christian theology. As the Catechism puts it, we have darkened intellects, weakened wills and disordered passions.

All this came to mind recently as I read a fascinating book called Against Sortition? The title is, admittedly, unpromising. “Sortition” is a somewhat archaic term in English, but it refers to a venerable practice of selecting members of a political community at random to participate in government. This was used in Ancient Greece, notably in Athens, and appeared in the city states of late-medieval Italy.

Pope John Paul II listens to Polish Premier Wojciech Jaruzelski delivering a speech after their meeting in the Belvedere Palace in Warsaw, Poland, 17 June 1983. (Photo credit should read STAFF/AFP via Getty Images.)

Nowadays sortition is often used to describe the common practice in developed democracies of involving “citizens’ assemblies” in decision making, alongside or in place of traditionally elected parliaments. The idea is that involving “normal people” in such deliberation helps to spread power more widely and obtain broader perspectives.

The contributors to the book set out various reservations about this idea, and various objections. Many of them have procedural concerns – for example, they believe that existing approaches don’t gain a wide enough spectrum of opinion, or that they are easily captured by special interests, or that they don’t really add anything new to a conventional elected legislature.

Others highlight the problems of accountability raised by citizens’ assemblies, or the way in which they dilute the legitimacy of existing bodies. But a few contributors are clearly trying to articulate something like the more fundamental problem identified by John Paul II, which we might sum up with this question: “Does involving lots more people in political decision making actually get you closer to the truth?”

The question of where the legitimacy and authority of government comes from, and how it can be maintained, is an increasingly pressing one for establishments in what used to be called the First World. Decades of large-scale immigration, cultural fragmentation, and the fading of traditional religious belief and customs all feed into a deep existential crisis for nations.

Is representative parliamentary democracy feasible for extremely diverse populations? If authority belongs to The People, who are the people? If it doesn’t, where does it come from? Experts, perhaps? But they have feet of clay just like the rest of us, and expertise is domain-specific. A brilliant doctor or a brilliant physicist or a brilliant political scientist has no special insight into moral or metaphysical matters.

This is where we should return to the approach so beautifully defended in Evangelium Vitæ. Of course, a single encyclical cannot be regarded as the last word in Catholic politics; a similar teaching issued today might address itself to new problems. But the core insights in that document are those that have animated Christian political thinkers for centuries, and continue to do so.

There is a God-given coherence to the world; there is a moral order, and the task of politics is to enable and encourage us to orient our lives to those realities. That is not the end of the story – Christians can disagree in good faith on the detail – but it makes for a very good start.

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Photo: Pope John Paul II, accompanied by General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Polish premier during the final years of communist rule in the country, listens to Polish anthem at Warsaw`s Okecie airport at the end of the Pope’s third visit to Poland, 14 June 1987. (Photo credit DANIEL JANIN/AFP via Getty Images.)

This article appears in the May 2025 edition of the Catholic Herald. To subscribe to our thought-provoking magazine and have independent, high-calibre and counter-cultural Catholic journalism delivered to your door anywhere in the world click HERE.