David Quinn
Minister Katherine Zappone Politicians are forcing their views on the Church, writes David Quinn
Liberalism is an extremely aggressive and domineering ideology. In the name of ‘tolerance’ and ‘inclusion’, it intimidates opponents into submission by denouncing them as ‘bigots’ and ‘haters’.
Like Christianity when it was politically and socially very powerful, liberalism will brook no rivals. It sees the Catholic Church as a rival, albeit a greatly diminished one, because on some of the big issues of the day – sex and gender, the family and the right to life – where it does not conform to liberal ideology. Huge pressure is therefore being exerted on the Church to change its views on all these things. There are plenty of Catholics, including senior clergy and religious, who are perfectly happy to cooperate with these efforts.
Here in Ireland, the pressure is mounting ahead of the World Meeting of Families in August. Last weekend, a conference was organised with that event in mind and with a view to pressuring the Church to change its teachings on issues like divorce and remarriage, and same-sex marriage.
Change
Former TV3 journalist Ursula Halligan told the conference: “As a woman and a gay person, I’m not putting up with it any longer. I’m not sitting at the back of the bus any more. The institutional Church has to change on this.”
She continued: “I believe my love is as good as anyone else’s love and as a Catholic I’m looking for full sacramental marriage for same-sex couples.”
Susan Casey, a divorced mother of two, criticised the Church’s “demonisation” of divorced and separated families and warned that “the Eucharist is being used as a weapon rather than nourishment” against people whose marriages fail.
The conference was called ‘Future Families: Challenges for Faith and Society’.
Meanwhile, Fine Gael TDs Regina Doherty and Josepha Madigan, both of whom describe themselves as practising Catholics, criticised those bishops who released pastoral letters at the weekend defending the right to life.
Doherty said we should “support” and not “judge” the women who have abortions.
Madigan said women contemplating abortion need “care and compassion”.
This, of course, sets up a false dichotomy. You can both oppose abortion and offer support to women considering a termination. It’s not either/or. Indeed, the various pastorals referred to the support that is on offer to women in this situation. The truly compassionate response to an unwanted pregnancy is to protect the child and support the mother.
Meanwhile, we have had Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone telling the bishops in the context of the abortion debate that they “cannot determine the laws of the land”, while at the same time feeling free to travel to Rome for St Patrick’s Day and publicly support Mary McAleese’s condemnation of the Church as an “empire of misogyny”.
If it is a senior Government Minister’s business what goes on in the Catholic Church – which no-one has to belong to – then why is it not a Catholic’s business what the State does, given that we all live under the laws of the State? The State is a far more powerful entity than the Catholic Church.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has also jumped on the bandwagon. Speaking about the World Meeting of Families, he said: “The Government is very much of the view that there are many different types of family and all types of family should be celebrated.”
He added: “We will make it known in our meetings with the organisers that that is the Government’s view, that families in all their shapes and forms should be celebrated. That’s in line with the Government’s commitment to personal liberty and equality before the law”.
The debate about abortion is between those who think the right to life of the unborn child is the most important thing, and those who believe the woman’s right to choose is more important.
But in all the flashpoints between liberalism and Christianity, the conflict is around the ‘right to choose’.
Christianity says men and women should marry before they have children, and then do their best to stay married for life. (Will the World Meeting of Families gather up the nerve to actually say this?)
Liberal society says people should be free to choose to live in whatever kind of family they want: cohabiting, single parent, same-sex, divorced and remarried and so on.
Christianity says we must live out our lives until natural death. Liberal society says we ought to be allowed choose assisted suicide if we become sufficiently old or unwell.
Christianity says we are made male and female. Liberals societies say we have a right to choose between numerous different genders, not just male and female.
To put it another way, Christianity says some things are not simply a matter of personal choice. Whether you are male or female is a given, not a choice. Men are different from women. The conjugal union of male and female is different from a same-sex union by any objective reckoning.
Choosing to kill an unborn human being is wrong, and so is assisted suicide.
Liberal critics of Christianity say we lack compassion when we don’t help a person to do what they want, or worse, stand in their way. We say it is wrong to help someone do the wrong thing. It is wrong, therefore, to facilitate abortion or assisted suicide, and it is wrong to pretend one type of family is just the same as another.
But then the Church finds itself condemned as ‘judgemental’. Politicians are quick to take this line and feel perfectly entitled to pressure the Church to bend to their ideology of choice or find itself ostracised, marginalised.
The Church has to stand its ground. If it succumbs it will not serve the world well. The world is only ever served by speaking and acting in truth. Not all choices are the same. Some choices are better than others.
Neither women nor babies are well served by abortion. Children ought to be raised by a loving mother and father whenever possible. Lifelong marriage is a great good. Assisted suicide is not compassionate. Helping the old and infirm to live with dignity until natural death is true compassion.
Liberalism ought to know that every dominant idea needs its critics, as the Church did in its day. Liberalism has its own pathologies, and the biggest one is a totally exaggerated individualism. The Church cannot be silent about this, or allow itself to be silenced.