Why the Church Must Fight...

With the troubles regarding the "reproductive health" bill bound to stay with us for the decades to come, (and no, it will not end with a vote on this bill...) it has become quite fashionable to criticize the bill's most visible opponent, the Roman Catholic Church. The usual cliches have all taken their turn. See here  and here for a few examples. Take your pick. The Church is "anti-sex". (Yeah, the Church that holds as sacred the Song of Songs has got to be prudish about sex...) The Church is a hypocrite. (*sigh*) The Church is anti-poor. (Because, you know, being the largest charitable organizer and provider in the world is not enough.) The Church has no knowledge of economics. (And at the same breath, some idiot will comment on the Vatican's so-called billions.) Blah blah blah. You'd be surprised how stupid otherwise intelligent people can be sometimes.

Oh, and of course, there is the separation of Church and State canard, which always makes an appearance whenever a Christian position in public life is involved. Its actually kind of funny that this particular aspect of our democracy never pops up where Muslims are concerned, but whatever.

The thing is, the Church cannot stop fighting the good fight. I found this article, which is the introduction of a book about the decline of Boston's Catholic culture. Boston, Massachusetts used to be the center of power of American Catholicism. Today, Massachusetts is the first state to recognize the abomination of gay marriage. What happened to the Church is Boston?

To put it simply, the Catholic Church in Boston did what all these people who now criticize the Catholic Church in the Philippines want the Church to do: it stopped preaching and teaching its doctrine. To preserve its prestige, it granted concessions to its members. Catholics held majorities in every legislative house in Massachusetts. In order to maintain the rapport, the heirarchy granted concession after concession. Remember JFK distancing himself from the Pope and his "orders" in order to appeal to the American electorate? The Catholic Church in Boston used the same template with Catholics in political life. As early as the 1950's an archbishop of Boston discouraged one of his priests from preaching a dogma some people found "offensive". By 1974, Catholics in the city were discouraged by their own bishop from sending their kids to parochial schools. Catholic politicians were told that they could flout Church teaching with no religious repercussions. By the 70's, Massachusetts had completed the transformation from a socially conservative Catholic state to one of the most liberal states in the US.

All this happened because the bishops kept on yielding to the secular culture until there was nothing left to yield. To paraphrase Edmund Burke, evil succeeds when good men choose to do nothing. And do nothing was what the bishops of Boston did from the 50's onwards, from contraception and abortion, to the latest scandal involving pedophilic and ephebophilic homosexual priests. They even went so far as to caution younger priests against preaching "controversial doctrine", so as not to offend Mass-goers.

The result? I think a passage from the article captures it well enough.

The bishops made a fool's bargain. They were prepared to sacrifice the essential elements of the Catholic faith: the moral teaching, the clerical discipline, even the loving care for the faithful. In return, they hoped to prop up the prestige of the institutional Church. But whatever prestige the Church enjoys is based on public respect for those essential elements of religious faith. When the disgraceful stories eventually hit the headlines, the bishops could no longer fall back on the conventional respect they had once taken for granted. They were willing to sacrifice their apostolic mission to preserve their prestige; in the end they were left with neither mission nor prestige.

This is what awaits the Catholic Church in the Philippines if She begins listening to the intelligentsia and yields. And so She continues to fight, with loud banners in churches and scathing sermons from the pulpit. It is a beautiful sight to see, like a field of Spartans in their shining bronze armor. If the Bishops surrender because a few parishioners get their feelings hurt, then what the Church is and ought to be will mean nothing.

And so She fights. And, long may She continue to fight. Carthago delenda est.