In
debates about how far we can go in accommodating the world, I was struck by some
words of Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia (see here ). The Archbishop
said,
“Thinking about the
relationship of Caesar and God, religious faith and secular authority, is
important. It helps us sort through our different duties as Christians and
citizens. But on a deeper level, Caesar is a creature of this world, and
Christ's message is uncompromising: We should give Caesar nothing of ourselves.
Obviously we're in the world. That means we have obligations of charity and
justice to the people with whom we share it. Patriotism is a virtue. Love of
country is an honourable thing..But God made us for more than the world. Our
real home isn't here. The point of today's Gospel passage is not how we might
calculate a fair division of goods between Caesar and God. In reality, it all
belongs to God and nothing - at least nothing permanent and important - belongs
to Caesar. Why? Because just as the coin bears the stamp of Caesar's image, we
bear the stamp of God's image in baptism. We belong to God, and only to God.
I
think we are selling out the image of God within us by accommodating the world.
For example, the Lord gives no place to same-sex ‘marriages’, so we say we have
no place for them either –yet go on to say “but we accept civil ‘unions’”. That is sophistry. We say we don’t
accept civil ‘marriage’ after divorce, but describe some such ‘marriages’ as good
‘marriages’. That is double-speak. We
say we want our children protected from impurity; that we uphold the parent’s
right to form them in sexuality according to the capacity of the child, but we then
go on to support mandatory education in schools on homosexuality, contraception
and abortion. That is a contradiction.
What are we playing at compromising the Gospel in this way? Why engage in such
sophistry, double-speak and contradictory antics? I think it all arises from one
of five causes (you can probably add more). Is it
One,
that we (and our shepherds) are not convinced of the Church’s wisdom; that we
think the world might have got it right and should be followed by the Church.
Two,
that we (and our shepherds) do not believe the Church’s teaching is unchanging
Truth from the unchanging God (both of the above demonstrate a loss of faith in
the Church).
Three,
that we (and our shepherds) have become so lost in attending to social needs
that we have forgotten spiritual realities.
Four,
that we (and our shepherds) have become so eager to have the Church accepted by
the world that we are willing to compromise the Gospel in order to achieve that
acceptance.
or
Five, that we (and our shepherds) have lost our faith, period.
None
of us can claim to be a fount of all wisdom, but we can all offer some solution
to the contemporary problem of accommodating the Gospel to the world –indeed we
may be obliged to offer one if we have made a criticism or are guilty of
moaning about troubles: we cannot criticise or bemoan a problem while making no
attempt to be part of a solution. My solution would be for Catholic Shepherds to
make a clear statement that
The Catholic Faith applies reason to
Divine Revelation so that the end goal –salvation- can be attained. This
applies to issues of human life and sexuality. While we cannot and will not
judge people we can and must judge, and refuse to cooperate with, acts contrary
to the teaching of Christ; acts which do not protect and promote human life in
all its stages and its natural transmission. These include not only oppression
of the poor, the sick and the marginalised, but sex outside of marriage,
contraception, homosexual acts, abortion, euthanasia, IVF, serial “marriages”
and school-based sex education of our children. All of these make shipwreck of
a person’s Faith and objectively militate against salvation. To identify as a Catholic in union with the Church and receive Holy
Communion, one must be in a state of grace and free from the above sins.
Having
made such a statement, benefits will follow: our shepherds will be obliged to act
on their words in order to avoid charges of hypocrisy; governments will know
they face confrontation on moral issues; priests at the coal face will know they
can rely on the support of the Bishops; the people will know where we stand in claiming
to follow conscience rather than the Church.
I
cannot help but wonder if our shepherds are too faithless, too cowardly, too
darkened by Satan, or just too dazzled by the false lights of the world (Opening
Collect, Sunday 15) to live-out what we have received from previous
generations. Or do we need to add pride to the list of causes of our failure; pride
that the generations from the 60’s onwards are the first to have understood the
Gospel and its endorsement of contraception, abortion, homosexual acts and
serial marriage? I can hear a chorus of voices saying, “No we have just become more
compassionate and person-centred”. Well, I wonder how compassionate it is to
give potassium-rich foods to the renal patient or cigarettes to the COPD patient,
I wonder how compassionate it is to support people in living by their
subjective opinions rather than The Truth (Christ). Genuine compassion would
not give patients harmful foods, nor does a sound shepherd favour subjective
opinion over the Gospel and our Tradition, which are God’s vehicles of
objective Truth.
Joe Shaw's latest posts on the Eich affair, address these concerns.
ReplyDeleteWe need, I think, to begin from a perspective of Faith rather than Reason; though our Faith is rational, reason cannot substitute for Faith and Revelation but come from our Communion with Christ, we cannot begin from the worldly-wise. In fact Traditionally we have begun from 'the end', from the teleological perspective of what will save souls, or better, what brings us into Communion with God.
Thank you, Father, for these comments.
DeleteI was trying to show that reason is not inconsistent with the Faith, but obviously did not make it clear that reason is applied to Divine Revelation (as in theology being “Faith seeking understanding”). I shall edit the post at some time and try to get these things in place; I had in my mind those who think faith is opposed to reason, and I tried to indicate that people can have an intellectual aspect to their conversion.
To share a somewhat funny story that might illustrate where I was coming from. During a disagreement with two long-serving and morally 'entrenched' Social Workers with whom I worked (one being a lapsed Catholic) Church teaching on IVF was brought up and bluntly rejected by them: “everybody has a right to a child, Andrew. It’s so natural”. I then dropped in the one-liner that “we cannot have a right to a child because we cannot have a right to a person”. It was the first time I've ever seen someone dumbfounded, gasping like a fish! The argument from reason won the day.
I shall have to look up teleology as it is not a word with which I am familiar.
God bless.
So Father... I'm kinda getting the impression from these many posts relating to the upcoming synod that you're feeling a little wound-up and anxious about what's looking increasingly likely to be significant curial / church reform. Please don't take offense when I say that you're ever so slightly giving off the impression of a man in denial, fixated, desperately trying to convince himself by issuing long successive almost ranting posts, on the edge of a breakdown! Where's your faith?
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting Karen, and your good wishes.
DeleteI have to point out that this is my post, not Father’s, and I don’t mention the synod. It was a post that arose from a discussion on the fact that we hear a lot about social issues these days but not much on those areas of moral teaching that affect the individual in a personal way. Our Bishops and priests are not very vocal or absolutely clear in expounding these issues and do seem even to excuse them at times.
Father has obviously seen your comment and responded by saying that any major issue looming will (I would say should) take a large place in our prayer and reflection, which doesn’t mean a lack of faith, denial, fixation or any other such thing, but concern and focus. Our personal standpoint makes a difference: a wife may describe her husband’s constant spending on DIY projects around the home as either a waste or as an investment: the mindset and desires of the wife filters and determines her reaction to her husband’s constant spending.
Thank you for this post, Andrew. I thank God for the internet, I find much encouragement from so many faithful bloggers and commentators who are determined to cling to the faith as handed down to us without compromise. Today's first reading seems to sum up the position of faithful Catholics.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Lepanto.
DeleteYes, indeed! Many Faithful Catholics feel they are being burned these days...
I'm glad you find the blogs supportive; they do show we are not an isolated few.
God bless.