A few years ago, Cardinal Francis George, the Catholic archbishop of Chicago, issued
a dire prophecy about religious liberty in America:
“I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison
and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor
will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild
civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”
Well, we all must hope and pray it doesn’t come to that, but if it
should, we Christians must hope and pray that Catholic bishops, and all
Christians, will accept persecution and martyrdom before betraying the
faith in the face of pressure from the State.
There is a bad omen on this front from Catholic colleges (though not yet from the bishops).
Rusty Reno writes that more of them — including Notre Dame — are slowly but surely making their peace with same-sex marriage.
What sparked his column was the announcement by the president of
Creighton, Reno’s former employer, that it was going to offer benefits
to same-sex couples, but that this should not be seen as endorsement of
same-sex marriage. Reno points out that no bishop is compelling Catholic
colleges to do this; the Archbishop of Omaha strongly criticized the
Jesuit-run college for its move. Nor is the State forcing it; Creighton
is in Nebraska, which does not have gay marriage.
So why are Catholic institutions embracing same-sex marriage? Jesuit
(of course) Father Timothy Lannon, the president of Creighton,
told the local newspaper that
his decision was inspired in part by Pope Francis, and also: “I asked
myself, what would Jesus do in this case? And I can only imagine Jesus
being so welcoming of all people.”
How nice of Jesus to have reversed 2,000 years of clear Christian
moral understanding of sexuality, at just the time when public opinion
shifted.
Among the non-Jesuit-friendly answers Reno gives:
1. Creighton, like nearly all American Catholic
institutions, is run by upper-middle-class Americans. They are more
loyal to their class and its values than the Catholic Church, which over
the last fifty years has for the most part renounced its own
intellectual and moral culture. This doesn’t mean Catholic leaders lack
faith. What it means is that it’s existentially painful for them to be
out of sync with dominant opinion. Like all normal people, they want to
avoid pain, and so they find ways to conform while pretending to be
dissenters, a trick Americans perform very well. Expect more
announcements that conformity to the gay liberation project doesn’t
constitute “approval.”
And:
4. Pope Francis routinely denounces Catholic
conservatives as small-minded and warns us not to “obsess” about things
like homosexuality. However one reads the Pope’s intent in these and
other statements, there can be no doubt they’re very handy instruments
for justifying capitulation on gay marriage (and other issues that
prevent Catholic organizations from being “mainstream.”) Expect many
references to Pope Francis as Catholics in America adjust themselves to
the new marriage regime.
Read the whole thing.
Reno goes on to say that he doesn’t despair, because this is far from
the first time that the Church has given itself over to the priorities
of the State and the wider culture, even if those priorities run
contrary to the faith. Still, it’s depressing to see that the battle
lines don’t run between the Church and Society, but right through the
heart of the Church (and not just the Catholic Church).
Alan Jacobs has
a disturbing question for
Christian institutions like Creighton, Notre Dame, and others that are
“evolving” on same-sex relations, to suit the changing times. He goes
through several possible
rationalizations explanations the
institutions could offer for their shift, but is not persuaded by the
consistency or integrity of any of them. Excerpt:
Note that there is no way to read this story as one of
consistent faithfulness to a Gospel message that works against the grain
of a dominant culture.
And that’s the key issue, it seems to me — that’s what
churches and other Christian organizations need to be thinking about.
Either throughout your history or at some significant point in your
history you let your views on a massively important issue be shaped
largely by what was acceptable in the cultural circles within which you
hoped to be welcome. How do you plan to keep that from happening again?
Meanwhile,
someone over at The Mitrailleuse has some sharp words about
Christians who take their convictions not from the Holy Spirit, but
from the Zeitgeist. Quoting Solzhenitsyn, in a letter to Sakharov about
the dissent in the USSR:
Our present system is unique in world history, because
over and above its physical and economic constraints, it demands of us
total surrender of our souls, continuous and active participation in the
general, conscious lie. To this putrefaction of the soul, this
spiritual enslavement, human being who wish to be human cannot consent.
When Caesar, having exacted what is Caesar’s, demands still more
insistently that we render unto him what is God’s — that is a sacrifice
we dare not make!
The most important part of our freedom, inner freedom, is always
subject to our will. If we surrender it to corruption, we do not deserve
to be called human.
But let us note that if the absolutely essential task is not
political liberation, but the liberation of our souls from participation
in the lie forced on us, then it requires no physical, revolutionary,
social, organizational measures, no meetings, strikes, trade unions —
things fearful for us even to contemplate and from which we quite
naturally allow circumstances to dissuade us.
No! It requires from each individual a moral step within his power —
no more than that. And no one who voluntarily runs with the hounds of
falsehood, or props it up, will ever be able to justify himself to the
living, or to posterity, or to his friends, or to his children.
Look, I don’t believe we are close to a dire situation, at least not
yet, but the principle Solzhenitsyn identifies still applies. And though
liberals are going to invoke Godwin about the part of Reno’s column in
which he refers to the Concordat, again, the principle he cites applies
to our much less critical situation. Once bright lines start being
crossed and rationalized, it’s harder to stop them from being crossed.
Again, so far the Catholic bishops are not yielding. I don’t expect
that to last, unless the next pope comes in and stiffens their spines
before this trend goes too far. It’s interesting to observe that none of
these Catholic institutions independent of the dioceses seem all that
concerned about getting on the wrong side of their bishops. Power has
shifted decisively, has it not?
UPDATE: Reader Aaron Gross finds that
Alan Jacobs wrote specifically on this issue — and criticized Rusty Reno. I
post it because he makes a reasonable point, and I don’t want you to
think my citing him earlier means he agrees with Reno on this issue.
Excerpt:
This comparison doesn’t help anyone or anything. It is
ratcheting up the culture-war rhetoric to the highest possible pitch,
and I think inappropriately, since the issue at hand is Creighton
University’s decision to provide benefits to legally married same-sex
spouses.
Isn’t that an eminently defensible action on specifically Christian grounds, namely the grounds of charity?
After all, Jesus didn’t subject people to tests of their morals before
healing them. In this case, isn’t the university just saying, “We may
not approve of your sexual behavior, but we don’t want people you love
to get sick and die?” In a country without universal health care, an
employer who seeks to deny benefits to spouses comes off simply as
punitive. Wouldn’t it be both wiser and more Christ-like to err on the
side of compassion in these matters?
[Hat tip to JM]
Mayor Eddie Francis pleads to save Assumption Church" (CBN News, October 31, 2014):