Posted on 07/20/2005 10:47:04 AM PDT by yavorssj
Listen to today's Commentary
Introduction:
Men and women within the Roman Catholic faith are still hoping that the church can change to more accurately reflect the World in which we live.This week-end, for example, an international conference will be held in Ottawa to support women's equality in religions. WOW, or Women's Ordination Worldwide, is fighting for the ordination of women in all Christian Churches. It says it wants to open a global debate on the issue.
And some were hoping for reform during the period when the old pope was dying and the new pope was being anticipated.
Bob Ferguson is a retired professor from the Royal Military College. He believes that Catholics are unlikely ever to see changes in policy on birth control or on the question of married or female priests. In fact, he says change won't come until the churches are forced to comply with the same human rights legislation that affects the rest of society.
Bob Ferguson:
Given the inertia of the Catholic Church, perhaps we could encourage reform by changing the environment in which all religions operate.
Couldn't we insist that human rights, employment and consumer legislation apply to them as it does other organizations? Then it would be illegal to require a particular marital status as a condition of employment or to exclude women from the priesthood.
Of course the Vatican wouldn't like the changes, but they would come to accept them in time as a fact of life in Canada. Indeed I suspect many clergy would welcome the external pressure.
We could also help the general cause of religious freedom by introducing a code of moral practice for religions. They will never achieve unity so why not try for compatibility? Can't religious leaders agree to adjust doctrine so all religions can operate within the code?
I am an engineer so the model I am thinking about is rather like the provincial acts regulating the practice of engineering. For example, engineers must have an engineering degree from a recognized university or pass qualification exams. They must have a number of years of practical experience and pass an ethics exam. The different branches: mechanical, electrical, civil and the like have a code of practice that applies to everyone. Why can't religious groups do the same?
I envisage a congress meeting to hammer out a code that would form the basis of legislation to regulate the practice of religion. Like the professional engineers' P.Eng designation, there would then be RRPs (or registered religious practitioners). To carry the analogy to its conclusion, no one could be a religious practitioner without this qualification.
I won't try to propose what might be in the new code except for a few obvious things: A key item would have to be a ban on claims of exclusivity. It should be unethical for any RRP to claim that theirs was the one true religion and believers in anything else or nothing were doomed to fire and brimstone. One might also expect prohibition of ritual circumcisions, bans on preaching hate or violence, the regulation of faith healers, protocols for missionary work, etc.
Now what is the point of proposing this? I do it because I am worried that the separation between church and state is under threat. Religion is important in our lives, but it can become a danger to society when people claim that the unalterable will of God is the basis for their opinions and actions. Yes religion can be a comfort and a guide, but we cannot take rules from our holy books and apply them to the modern world without democratic debate and due regard for the law.
For Commentary, I'm Bob Ferguson in Marysville, Ontario.
The exclusion of women from the priesthood amounts to sexual discrimination in the workplace. That will be the angle of attack on the Catholic Church. It's coming. Just a matter of time.
Canadian National Public Radio Broadcasts Call for State Control of Religion
You know...we really need to guard that Northern Border ALOT better. We don't want that nonsense floating our way.
Like they accept the National Patriotic Church in China.
It's lovely to see national socialist concepts grow to maturity in Canada. Re-education camps, anyone?
Bob-a-loo! Why don't you start with the imams and get to the Catholics later? See how it goes? Work out the bugs in the system (that should appeal to an old engineer). They seem like a rational lot. Take a run at them for a start. While you're at it, insist that the genders should attend Friday prayers with no segregation.
And check all the locks on the doors before you tuck in to bed that night.
Thanks for the link. I did not see that other thread...
Sounds as if this writer wants to "force" Catholicism into submission to the will of the state with regard to this, but is not particularly concerned about other religous traditions who also do not go along with his vision of how religion should operate in a secular state. You notice that there is no mention of Muslim, Hindu, Judiasm and so on. Once again, the Catholic Church is being singled out for a type of punitive legislation that would not apply to ALL religions.
When I read about stories like this, I see it as convincing evidence that Catholicism is the one true faith.
So his solution is force the church to obey the state, under penalty of law?
Lies are truth, slavery is freedom, war is peace ... Orwell was a prophet.
Agreed, the Catholic Church was singled out. I believe all Christian Churches that preach against sin (including homosexuality) will be persecuted. It will start as hate speech against people who practice homosexuality, beastiality, polygamy, witchcraft and will digress from there. All churches need to be on the alert and come to the defence of the others.
When the state determines religious doctrine and practices, it is usurping God. He might have in mind the old days in Europe when, in an attempt to end religious conflict, the monarch's creed became the creed of the country. (That's probably giving him too much credit, though, and the analogy doesn't exactly fit.) But this reminds me more --as our Senator Durbin might put it--of the Nazis, the Soviets and their Gulags, or some mad regime such as Pol Pot.
When Hell freezes over, Professor. Wake up, Canadians.
SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!
You're asking Canadians to wake up?? The people who just made the homo "marriage" act the law of their benighted land? LOL! Let the idiots sleep, as long as they stay in the Great White North.
I'm being optimistic. I find it hard to believe that the whole population is as idiotic as its government, academia, press, etc.
Are you sure that Dave Barry didn't write this commentary?
Although the introductory comments are (apparently) a bit more serious and provide some chilling thought as to the mindset of the Canadian press, I hope that the author of this commentary didn't injure his tongue too severely when he embedded it in his cheek.
Bingo! Sounds a lot like China.
Those wacky Canadians!
Assuming this whole thing is not tongue-in-cheek ...
This betrays a serious ignorance of history. Catholicism has been outlawed in England [the most recent example ended only a little more than a century ago], and severely persecuted in various Communist regimes, among others. "The Vatican", and ordinary members of the faithful, did not acquiesce to these pressures. The doctrine was not changed to suit the Zeitgeist, nor was the practical application of that doctrine to daily life changed. People simply accepted their sufferings and quietly resisted. And, ultimately, the opposing regimes sickened, and the Church endured.
The Church does not belong to any earthly power, but to Christ. And we are not at liberty to alter His truth to suit political whims. The state may proclaim that 2+2=5 all it wants, the delusional populace may find immediate advantage in agreeing with such error, but no force can make the statement other than false. Denying the ontological nature of a thing will, eventually, have negative repercussions. The process during which those repercussion are played out will be extremely painful, but truth will eventually prevail. And the Church will still be there, after it's all over, to pick up the pieces and start the arduous task of rebuilding civilization.
When Popes crowned kings, it was a reminder that the state existed at the pleasure of God. Nothing the king could do in the civil realm could overturn the moral law, which is divine in origin. Naturally, this chafed, and temporal rulers were quick to find ways to avoid such limits to their power.
But, just in modern times, we've survived the Protestant Deformation, which was the first attempt to make the Church subservient to the state, the murderous excesses of the Endarkenment, the Kulturkampf, the rise of nihilistic Fascism, and sundry manifestations of atheistic Marxism. I expect we'll survive the Age of Hedonism as well.
What the advocates of the Culture of Death never seem to realize is that their "philosophy" is self-limiting. It contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction. It is cultural suicide, though it will murder a good number of innocents in the process. One has only to wait long enough, and the Culture of Death will be dead. The Catholic Church always wins by simply enduring, and it will be there again to pick up the pieces after this latest human folly has collapsed under the weight of its own nonsense.
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