Posted on 09/16/2006 12:32:51 AM PDT by goldstategop
Pope Benedict set off an anti-Catholic flash fire in the Canadian media this month. In an audience at Rome with six Ontario Catholic bishops he deplored Canada's adoption of gay marriage and the "daily destruction of unborn children," all done "in the name of tolerance."
Irate letters to the newspapers directed the Pope to "stay out of Canadian politics." The Toronto Star hired firebrand ex-nun Joanna Manning to compose a 750-word denunciation of the Catholic Church, depicting it as the enemy of Jesus Christ who, she says, preached "freedom and tolerance."
The Globe and Mail hired Michael Higgins, president of St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, to defend the Pope as a man doing what popes are supposed to do. But it accompanied his defense with a cartoon caricature of Benedict as a sinister gnome-like demon, smiling satanically as he hides the Canadian flag's maple leaf behind a cross.
The Pope's observations could indeed have consequences. The Liberal Government pushed a gay marriage law through Parliament last year. Ostensibly it was to be a free vote, but Prime Minister Paul Martin, himself a Catholic, ordered his cabinet ministers to vote in favor of it, regardless of their personal position. The bill passed 158-133.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has declared that he will introduce a resolution this fall asking the new Commons whether they want to "revisit" the issue. If it carries, he will introduce a bill, reaffirming traditional marriage and in effect repealing the Martin legislation. But that would no doubt follow the election expected next spring, making gay marriage a major election issue for every MP.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Church in Canada was already embarrassed by the question after one tough bishop actually denied communion to an Ontario MP because he had voted for gay marriage. People asked: What's going on here? If that MP is excommunicated, why wasn't Martin himself excommunicated, and all Catholics in cabinet?
No clear answer was forthcoming. Some held that excommunication of a church member should be decided by each individual bishop, which does not accord well with Benedict's statement on Sept. 8. The Catholic News Agency quoted him directly:
"False dichotomies are not unknown within the Christian community itself. They are particularly damaging when Christian civic leaders sacrifice the unity of faith and sanction the disintegration of reason and the principles of natural ethics, by yielding to ephemeral social trends and the spurious demands of opinion polls. Democracy succeeds only to the extent that it is based on truth and a correct understanding of the human person.
"Catholic involvement in political life cannot compromise on this principle; otherwise Christian witness to the splendor of truth in the public sphere would be silenced and an autonomy from morality proclaimed."
He told the six bishops: "In your discussions with politicians and civic leaders, I encourage you to demonstrate that our Christian faith, far from being an impediment to dialogue, is a bridge, precisely because it brings together reason and culture."
This exhortation does not easily accord with the "go-any-way-you-like" formula that left each bishop to decide. Meanwhile, however, the tenor of the response to Benedict's statement implied that many Canadians are convinced that no politician should ever allow his religion to influence his vote.
Consider the implications of this, when every law on the books is at some level the expression of a moral principle. The various criminal codes are anthologies of morality: Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, etc. So are the civil laws. Building codes enforce the moral principle that if you invite someone into your home or building, you are obligated to assure their safety. The graduated income tax act expresses the moral principle that those who earn more should pay more.
Since the business of legislators is to pass laws, every elected official is in this sense a moralist, whose job is to decide right from wrong in each specific instance.
But the sole basis of morality for all religious people is their faith. They decide a thing right or wrong on the basis of whether God would or would not approve. Thus to forbid them to allow their religion to influence their vote is in effect to prevent them from holding public office – only atheists and agnostics would be fit to serve. In effect it disenfranchises most of the nation.
Our liberal editors and civil liberties zealots, however, never seem to have figured this out. I at least have never seen one attempt to answer it.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
"You keep your religion and your Apostles' Creed out of our politics, Pope! Our politics already have an underlying religion. It's called secular humanism, and our creed is Humanist Manifesto II!"
Give me a cold beer and start singing the National Anthem.
Government IS Religion applied to Economics.
Governments pass laws, according to what society thinks is right or wrong, which is based on morality/religion.
"Governments pass laws, according to what society thinks is right or wrong, which is based on morality/religion."
So true. One of the vapid banalities of moral relativism is this:
"You can't legislate morality."
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
What are the laws restricting such behavior based upon then, I ask? Before I was a Christian I used to spout that illogical pap also.
What was I thinking? Answer: I wasn't thinking.
I've said it since I first began feeling it in college in the 90s: the diversity/tolerance police have been doing our nation and the world no service.
BTTT
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