Rosemary Lennon Maher and Teresa Hawkes in Merrion Square, Dublin to attend a pro-life rally. Photo: John Mc Elroy. If I was a member of the Association of Catholic Priests, I would strongly consider my continued membership, writes Dr Tom Finegan
I have never met anyone involved in the leadership of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP), and I know little about the wider ACP itself. I’ve been told that it does some good work on behalf of priests, and I’m happy to believe that. As a lay Catholic who is married with three children (and thus who has a very personal interest in the future of the Church in Ireland) my only concern is that groups such as the ACP don’t obscure the Gospel message or confuse Catholics’ understanding of Church teaching or cause unnecessary strain on Church unity. I don’t think this is too much to ask of a group of ordained Catholic priests.
The leadership of the ACP has issued a statement concerning the forthcoming referendum. (The term “the leadership” is a direct quote from the statement, and I direct my critique to it, rather than to the wider ACP membership.) The statement expressed concern “that some Catholic parishes are allowing their pulpits to be used by campaigners during Mass”.
It went on to state that “it would be better if this practice ceased for the rest of the campaign”.
Affirmation
The “campaigners” in question are lay Catholics. The “practice” in question is the affirmation of Church teaching during Mass. So, the leadership is objecting to the affirmation of Church teaching by lay Catholics during Mass. It’s a bold move, coming from priests. What reasons does the leadership adduce to support its objection?
Three, from what I can gather.
First, the leadership argues that while there is a moral content to the referendum, there are also “social, political and pastoral dimensions” to it too. Supposedly therefore, the practice of advocating a ‘no’ vote from the pulpit should cease. Non-sequitur.
There are social, political and pastoral dimensions to literally every Church teaching – should Church teaching be entirely absent from Mass?
Second, the leadership argues there are “a great variety of opinions on this vote” among “faithful, Church-going Catholics” and it would be “insensitive” to advocate a particular position at Mass. Equivocation, error and unsound principle.
No doubt some who attend Mass intend to vote ‘yes’ to abortion. These are “Church-going Catholics”. But, to the extent that they reject clear Catholic teaching as regards abortion, they are not faithful to a divinely-inspired teaching proclaimed by the Christ-established Church.
Rather than be cowed into silence by unfaithful intentions, the Church ought to encourage all in her pastoral care to live fully and consistently by the Gospel. Furthermore, just because some may be offended by Church teaching is absolutely no reason whatsoever to refrain from affirming Church teaching. Christ’s mission caused offence at every turn.
Third, the leadership claims that the practice “will be regarded by some as an abuse of the Eucharist.” Does the leadership itself agree with the objection that the practice is an abuse of the Eucharist? If the answer is ‘no’, then why be guided by the objection as a reason for action? If the answer is ‘yes’, then the leadership is utterly and completely wrong.
Unless the leadership denies the truth of Church teaching on abortion, the only way the objection could even begin to make sense is if morality is divorced from faith and sacramentality. Such a divorce is alien to the Catholic tradition.
Rather than being an “abuse” of the Eucharist, proclamation of the Gospel’s implications for moral living is both preparation for the Eucharist and an outworking of Eucharistic charity. In the Eucharist we are united with Christ, as we are when we live according to his example and teaching. The charge of “abuse” is patently unfounded, and painfully wrong.
Statement
The lack of a reasonable basis for the leadership’s statement is stunning. How is this to be explained? The statement begins by claiming: “We fully endorse the Catholic teaching that all human life, from beginning to end, is sacred, and that every human person shares in the fundamental right to life.”
That teaching isn’t an isolated, free-floating bubble. It involves a network of implications. One is that choosing or co-operating with the intentional killing of an innocent person is intrinsically wrong and, potentially, mortally sinful.
Pope St John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae makes clear that this extends to voting for abortion. This has been re-affirmed by both the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the US Catholic Bishops.
The lay Catholics whom the leadership criticised were giving expression to this teaching. The leadership has offered no reasonable basis for judging the lay Catholics’ activities wrong. What the leadership’s statement does offer, though, is a premise for thinking that the leadership isn’t as fully committed to Catholic teaching as it claims. In referring generally to abortion it states that some situations are “more often grey than black and white”. This is a vague statement. Does the leadership mean by it that a choice to abort a child or to co-operate in the abortion of children isn’t intrinsically wrong?
The proposition could be interpreted that way, which would offer a much better explanation for the statement as a whole than the reasons explicitly adduced by the leadership.
Or the proposition could be interpreted in a way that is consistent with Church teaching, in which case the leadership’s statement offers literally no reason for the request it makes of faithful lay Catholics, priests, and bishops.
There is another curious aspect to the leadership’s statement. The leadership indicates that it does “not wish to tell anyone how they should vote”. So, a group of priests who claim to be faithful to a particular Church teaching, in making a statement concerning that particular Church teaching, wish to avoid indicating to Catholics the concrete moral requirements inherent in that teaching. But, why? The leadership implies that it is because it is composed of celibate men. That didn’t stop Christ from teaching about adultery, prostitution, and general sexual immorality, though.
So, is there a good reason for the priests’ wish to avoid giving moral and pastoral guidance? Or is the wish explicable in terms of moral capitulation?
The irony is that the leadership is more than happy to tell some Catholics what they should do: lay Catholics, priests, and bishops must not engage in or support outlining the implications of Church teaching for the forthcoming referendum at Mass.
The leadership has chosen to refrain from giving guidance on a matter that is subject to clear teaching and which confers a grave and indefeasible moral obligation upon Catholics, but has instead chosen to give ‘guidance’ on a matter that is not subject to teaching at all and which, even if it was, couldn’t by its nature confer a grave and indefeasible moral obligation upon Catholics. The leadership has it completely backwards.
The leadership’s statement fails on almost every level. Its rationale is woefully lacking, even to the point of incoherence. The manner of its communication has served the plans of those who campaign to co-opt Catholics to co-operate in the abortions of children, thereby leading them from the source of all life and all goodness.
It has also caused confusion among Catholics about Church teaching, the nature of Church, and the requirements of living according to the Gospel. And the statement has further eroded unity within an already fractured Church by unnecessarily straining relationships among priests, between priests and bishops, and between priests and faithful lay Catholics who, enthused by the Spirit, have taken a courageous stand in favour of our unborn brothers and sisters in the womb.
I don’t think the term shameful is too strong.
If I was a member of the ACP, I would strongly consider my continued membership in light of its leadership’s recent statement. Something is very, very seriously amiss within the leadership if that statement is anything to go by. Perhaps the ACP requires a reformation.
Dr Tom Finegan is a lecturer in theology at Mary Immaculate College, St Patrick’s Campus, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.