Posted on 07/25/2013 2:05:34 PM PDT by NYer
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In the Office of Readings today we read from 2 Corinthians 4 where St. Paul well describes the work of the Church in the Public square: Setting forth the truth plainly, we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God (2 Cor 4:2). Not a bad description of our posture and practice toward the secular world.
Yet, that is not often the impression many take from our posture. In what I would called a misplaced fear, many think of the Church as trying impose her power and views on others. In much of the heated public debate on the HHS mandate (that the Catholic Church pay for contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilization) and over gay “marriage,” there is a strain to the conversation, that somehow, the Catholic Church is trying to “force” people to follow what she teaches.
To think that we have such power is fanciful, but the charge comes up a lot and in different forms. Consider the following comments I gleaned from various sources, mainly from the comboxes of several secular papers. These comments are not made up by me. I cut and pasted them into a reference file over the last two years, they are actual quotes of readers. All of them see us as trying to use power to force others to do what we want. (I have added a few responses in Red just because I can’t resist):
OK, well you get the point. A LOT of people think we have a lot more power than we do. Frankly it’s laughable to think think the Catholic Church has all this power. We can’t even unify our own believers. I have written before (with love) that unifying Catholics is like herding cats! I would to God that we could really unify around anything. Then we might be a political force to be reckoned with. And as citizens we would have every right to be such a force. But as it is, we are (sadly) a rather divided lot, even on abortion. I can assure you , most Catholic politicians do NOT have a hotline to the Vatican or take even a scintilla of advice from the Pope or Bishops. And even if they accidentally agree with the Pope or the bishops, for most of them, it is because the politics make sense, not that the faith has “compelled” them. No, don’t worry too much about the “power” of the Church.
That said, I have already commented above (in the red remarks) that Catholics, as citizens of the Untied States of America have the same rights as any other citizen to petition the government, to seek to enact laws that reflect our values and concerns. But we have no more or less power or voice than any other citizen of this Land. We, like others, often band together with coalitions. But again, if this is somehow wrong, then why is it not wrong for feminists, or environmentalists, or unions, or advocates of any number of hundred of other causes to do the same? We are Americans with rights. And people of faith have just as much right to be in the public square and the public conversation as any one else.
Some of the commenters in Comboxes, I survey like to recite grievances from the Middle Ages about Church power then etc. Why not leave the 14th Century politics in the 14th Century, and let’s stay in the 21st Century. There was a LOT of bad stuff in the old days. It wasn’t just the Church, governments too were different then. Modern democratic republics were unknown in those days. Today the political landscape is different. And if the Church ever did have all the power (and some of the claims are exaggerated and the Inquisition is often cartoonishly portrayed) that is not the case today. For our purposes we are in the 21st Century West.
Finally, I return to the quote from St. Paul in today’s office that rather well distills what we, as a Church, and as believers, seek to do in the public square of America. More than acquire power (which is not easy in a wide and pluralistic culture), we seek to commend ourselves, and our message to everyone’s conscience. St. Paul says in context,
Rather, renouncing secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the Word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly, we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God (2 Cor 4:2)
Yes, frankly we do have vigorous disagreement with secret (and not so secret), and shameful practices. And we will not, in order to be popular or conformed to these times, distort or misrepresent the Word of God. Abortion is wrong. Fornication, adultery, and homosexual acts are wrong. Divorce, and chosen single parenthood, and so called gay “marriage” are wrong. Contraception, sterilization, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, wrong, wrong wrong.
But I cannot force you to obey me. Rather I commend myself to your conscience. And even if Scripture will not be acceptable to you, I will have recourse to Natural Law. I, indeed the whole Church, will continue to commend ourselves to your conscience. And even though the gospel is currently “out of season” (cf 2 Tim 4:2) and you laugh at me and call me names like intolerant, bigoted etc., I will continue to commend myself to your conscience.
As long as I live I will speak the truth in love. And however you choose to understand me I will continue to speak. You may wish to call me hateful. I am not. I invite you to conscientiously consider what I say. I cannot command you, so do not fear me. But I do commend myself to your conscience.
I will meet you in the public square, for that is my right as much as yours. But in the end, mandates and forced adherence are not in my power. I commend myself to your conscience, I do not, I cannot, command you.
Those of this world may choose on their own to be pleased or displeased by what we say. As for me, my prayer is and must remain: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you my God (Psalm 19:14).
Ping!
We have a dumb-as-post permanent deacon whose day it was to preach (something we all dread).
He talked about the evil of our “capitalist system” that praises people like Bill Gates but ignores the “single mother.”
Aside front the fact that this deacon is dumb by nature, the clergy as a whole are undereducated and dim.
It’s fine for Bill Gates to be rich - his product changad life in our world. It’s not fine for Bill Gates to have his foundation promote abortion worldwide.
And as for the single mother, what happened to the child’s father? Did he abandon the family or was she sleeping with him without being married to him...letting him use her, in other words. And shouldn’t the Church oppose this? Call men to be responsible and women not to let themselves be used?
But that might require too much knowledge of the Faith.
1 man in 7.
The day after the primary elections next year, walk into a bar room and ask for a show of hands on how many voted. 1 man in 7.
Then walk into daily Mass and ask for a show of hands on how many voted. 1 man in 7.
A Consideration of the Church’s Role in the Public Square?
Or
A Consideration of the Church’s Role in ... the Church?
The man in the pews has generally decided not to have a role in the public square.
Have you ever thought that the Deacon you condemn and insult had a point?
We do over celebrate success of rich men. What about the struggling widow or single mother?
There is a person who has a hard cross to bear.
Remember, as Catholics it is the cross that you carry that is more virtuous than your bank account.
The deacon was condemning capitalism, and using the single mother as an excuse.
The Church looks after widows and orphans. She also looks after single-by-choice mothers . . . who nailed themselves to that cross. But She suggests that they change their ways.
The capitalist system that the deac was condemning is far from perfect. The Church ameliorates its worst side-effects. But the socialist system that I guarantee the deac was promoting is far, far worse.
Everybody has sympathy for the struggling “single mother,” but she does not need to be celebrated.
The Church and its ministers, many of whom really couldn’t even make it in private industry, need to stop criticizing people for being wealthy, particularly when wealth has come to them through their efforts to build something great. Bill Gates is not celebrated because he is wealthy, but because the programs his company created really made possible an entirely new information society, accessible to all.
Instead, the Church needs to offer moral teaching to people that will help them do things like use their wealth properly (i.e., not in promoting abortion worldwide, although the Gates Foundation actually does some other things that are very good) and resist the temptation to think that being wealthy or powerful exempts them from “common” morality (for example, the Anthony Wieners of this world...).
And the poor need moral teaching too. The single mother in question is hardly likely to be a struggling widow, but simply somebody who was never married in the first place. The Church has virtually stopped teaching about sexual ethics and supposed Catholics sleep around just as much as everybody else and have equally little respect for marriage. Almost all the people now married in church weddings have been living together prior to finally deciding to get married, and sometimes have lived with other people in a succession of potentially single-motherhood-producing relationships before they finally pick someone to marry. Remember, the one clear thing in poverty statistics is that children from a home where there are two parents, married to each other, are far less likely to be poor than children of “single mothers.”
So the Church is doing no one any favors by “celebrating” single motherhood or victimhood. Obviously, people like that need material help and support and to my knowledge, nobody in church is refusing it to them. But the Church is a moral authority, not a social welfare agency that exists solely to channel government money to society’s victims, and it is the failure of the Church to preach Christian morality and ethics that takes much of the blame for the social situations that create these unfortunate people.
And as for wealth, why not criticize the right problem: for example, the fact that the fantastically wealthy rappers and rock stars became wealthy because people (including the poor) seem to have an insatiable appetite for out-of-control sex and violence and are happy to pay lots of money to hear it or see it. Again, where is the Church’s voice, saying that these things are evil, that people’s addiction to violence and gruesomely horrible sexuality is a moral issue and is something that the Christian message can free them from?
Getting up in the pulpit and saying rich = bad, poor = good does nothing to solve any of the problems of either the rich or the poor and nothing to advance the Christianizing of society.
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