Posted on 05/06/2005 1:07:06 PM PDT by Caleb1411
Spain used to be one of the most culturally conservative, devoutly Roman Catholic countries in Europe. Now Spain is about to pass a law legalizing homosexual marriage and adoption.
When equally Catholic Belgium legalized gay marriage and adoptions, the Vatican, under Pope John Paul II, opposed the action with words. But Pope Benedict XVI, in the first policy test of his papacy, is going much further.
A Vatican official told Spaniards that if the measure passes, they must defy it. Officials should refuse to marry same-sex couples or even process the paperwork if they try to adopt a child. Bureaucrats and others who find themselves complicit in gay marriage or adoption should refuse to obey the law, even if it means losing their jobs.
"A law as deeply inequitable as this one is not an obligation," said Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo of Colombia, the head of the Pontifical Council on the Family. "One cannot say that a law is right simply because it is a law." To tell citizens that they should not obey the laws of their country is a very unusual and aggressive action. Said a history professor at a Spanish university, "I had never heard of such a direct call to civil disobedience."
American evangelicals, for all of their political activism, have not gone so far as to tell file clerks in Massachusetts to misplace the marriage records of gay couples, or a worker in an adoption agency to lose the application of homosexuals. And it is not clear that they should. It is a tough call on where to draw the line between Romans 13 ("be subject to the governing authorities") and Acts 5 ("we must obey God rather than men"). It may be easier under Roman Catholicism, with its ancient—and unbiblical—teaching that the church has temporal authority over the state.
Still, if the new pope is going to be this assertive on cultural issues, evangelicals should pay attention. Evangelicals and Catholics have huge—and important—theological differences, but when it comes to pro-life issues, sexual morality, and resistance to militant secularism, they find themselves on the same side of the culture wars.
Some critics say that a hard line from the pope will only increase the secularization of Europe. Eighty percent of Spaniards are Catholic, but only a third of them go to church and follow its teachings. Won't threatening the file clerks just drive them away? If the file clerks disobey and process the marriage licenses and adoption forms despite what the pope tells them to do, will the church excommunicate them? Whether the hard line makes the nominal Catholics quit or if the church expels them, either way the result will be fewer Catholics.
But this brings up the other part of the pope's strategy, one that is even more radical. Before he became pope, Cardinal Ratzinger argued that the church needs to get smaller so that it can become purer.
Some observers are interpreting this in institutional forms. "If it's true Pope Benedict XVI prefers a leaner, smaller, purer church as he has spoken of before," said Notre Dame professor R. Scott Appleby, "we could see a withering of certain Catholic institutions because they're not considered fully Catholic. This might include Catholic colleges, hospitals, and other Catholic institutions."
But surely it is precisely the nominal Catholics—those who claim membership but hardly ever go to church and ignore its teachings—that the new pope would be glad to be rid of.
The problem of secularism is not just with the outside culture thinking it can do without God. The deeper problem is that the church itself has become secularized. A smaller but purer church may well have more impact than the diffuse cultural Christianity that has lost its saltiness and its savor.
This is a challenge that evangelicals need to consider. With our megachurch, church-growth mindset, we often assume that bigger is better, and a church with lots of members is a strong church. Is this always true? In our efforts to reach the secular culture, is the secular culture instead sometimes reaching us?
The ideal would be to have both size and purity. But might there come a time when American evangelicalism too will need to be winnowed? —•
"No one is persecuting Catholics. No one is even removing Catholics from government service."
Tell that to Miguel Estrada. Essentially modern secularism is telling the Catholic, "no judicial appointments, no pharmacy licenses, no medical school or medical licenses for you". That IS persecution, that IS interefernce in our right to the free exercise of our faith, that is (under your belief system regarding honor and an oath) a removal from office.
This is too easy. Because that's not the oath he took!! The oath is to uphold the law, not just to uphold the laws he thinks are OK.
By defining "government service" as upholding laws that are incompatible with Catholic faith, they most certainly are doing exactly that.
Are you saying that the Nuremberg laws would have been okay if they'd permitted Jews to stay where they were, as long as they regularly ate pork barbecue and shrimp cocktails?
The initial phase of the Inquisition was primarily an attempt to purify Catholic doctrine after centuries under Islam. Many of the initial targets of the Inquisition were, in fact, clergy, who were living in concubinage or were teaching false, syncretist doctrine. During this phase, non-Catholics were not even affected by the Inquisition, which extended only to Catholics.
It was a later phase of the Inquisition that became almost entirely political. There there were high-ranking clergy who were involved, and they used it almost entirely as a way of attacking their personal enemies - St. John of the Cross was imprisoned by a vindictive Inquisitor, as were many other Catholics who were out of favor with the political powers at the time.
As for Jews, the motivation in both phases was primarily greed on the part of civil authorities; one of the reasons for the Inquisition with regard to the Jews, whether conversos or practicing Jews, oddly enough, was that mayors and petty nobility were jealous of the privileges enjoyed by Jews under Ferdinand and Isabel (los Reyes Católicos) and this was an attempt to protect them from random seizure of their property and persecution. In other words, authorities had to prove there was actually some case against the people they were harassing.
The Vatican did not profit - the people who profited were the civil authorities, who seized the property and used or sold it.
" However, there is no question that liberty of conscience is a fundamental principle of this republic enshrined in our founding documents. "
And THAT is one of the two truths His Holiness is pointing out. The freedom of conscience to disobey a law that violates the conscience of a Catholic. He is correct in what he says and how he says it.
Viva il Papa!
What kind of law would be sufficiently bad, in your opinion, to merit disobedience?
Who, me? I'm not in favor of forcing doctors to perform abortions. If Catholic hospitals don't want to perform abortions, that's fine by me as long as they're up front with patients about their policies. Likewise with pharmacists.
I think that's one of the reasons that B16 has obviously told the Spanish bishops to stand up on their hind legs right now and encourage Catholics to resist. To hesitate and analyze only lets the State dig in and suppress dissent before it even starts.
I hate to break it to you, but the Pope's views have absolutely no standing under the law of the United States.
but then aren't Catholic doctors also violating their oaths as doctors, which is to provide your patients information about with all options, aren't you remiss
if a drug was developed by using embryonic stem cell research, can you as a Catholic doctor refuse to tell your patient about that drug or refuse to prescribe that drug even if it was the only drug that could cure their affliction [that a big hypothetical because I know full well the biggest advances in stem cell research are using adult stem cells]
though for example in Canada, the government has no problem with allowing Catholic based hospitals to not provide abortions, in fact that decision is left up to every single hospital here I believe...but then in Canada, Catholic schools and hospitals have special status because of the way Canada and its Constitution came to be.....
Well, on the one hand, we should strive for a world in which people are free to pursue what is right and to reject what is evil. On the other hand, it seems improbable that this will be achieved on any large scale, since the New Testament describes Satan as "the ruler of this world."
My own goal is to be prepared for the testing of my faith, and to be worthy of the martyrs who have gone before.
Yes they do. First Amendment. Me and my fellow Catholics have the RIGHT to the free exercise of our religion, we have the right to freedom of speech and we will continue to exercise those rights. Get used to us. We are many and we now have a leader willing to lead.
I understand that; I didn't think you were. My point is that the "liberty of conscience" you're talking about is being badly eroded, right here in the good old US of A. What's going on in Spain is just another example of the same thing.
It's not just government employees, and it's not just going to be Catholics, either. And it's not really about some supposed political loyalty that we owe the Pope. It's about imposing a particular social agenda. That agenda is anti-family, anti-child, and anti-Christian. It's as revolutionary as that imposed by the Nazis, and the people doing the imposition have as little concern with those who suffer because of what they do.
Thank you livius, for your thorough explanation...
Well put.
Great goal, I pray you will meet the test with the Grace of God making your way easy and light.
The bishops have told Spaniards that Catholics may not vote in favor of this law. They are referring, of course, to the legislators, because the Spanish Senate still has to vote on it. Personally, I think 40 years of inaction has taken its toll, and I'd be surprised if Catholic lawmakers actually follow this order. If they don't, I hope they are excommunicated and made to repent publicly.
However, even in the case of a referendum (incidentally, polls show that the majority of Spaniards are opposed to "gay marriage"), you would have the situation where people had entered the government with the understanding that the society they were serving had certain foundations that were acceptable to their educated consciences. If a government changes these things, then it should provide a conscience clause for those who entered it under other conditions. If not, these people should be prepared to resist.
"That was the idea of civil disobedience: that if you break the law, you accept the punishment."
WHY do you assume "The Law" is somehow in a moral vacuum and MUST be right in any given conflict? WHY should ANYONE, religious or otherwise, suffer a test as to the source of his moral code?
If the law is immoral and I cannot escape it then that law and the nation that owns it are in my crosshairs. I'll be DAMNED if I'll "suffer consequences" for it. Men own the law the law does not own men.
The law does not require doctors to provide information; it requires them to provide pills.
Excuse me, I should have said "bill"; not "law". It's not a law yet.
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