Church and State
If God were to offer political commentary, I—and I’d have to imagine most everyone else—would be hard pressed not to tune in. As an end in and of itself, politics is about as engaging, and important, as any particular thing can be: it is the dialogue through which society organizes itself, the discussion through which change can be brought and, somewhat less philosophically, immensely entertaining. Running the risk of sounding naively idealistic, however, it seems to me that on a somewhat deeper—although much more simplistic—level, politics must be recognized as an iteration of a group of individuals’ sets of beliefs. Like everyone else, politicians act on what they believe, and inasmuch as religion is often times responsible for shading those sets of beliefs it seems that God would be uniquely positioned as a political pundit.
Whether it’s the Vatican offering its two cents on sexual orientation, domestic debates over abortion or foreign entanglement with nations spiritually composed in someway other than our own, politics is consistently comprised of lay men acting under the guise of faith and as the voice of the divine. Nowhere that I’ve seen is there a direct line to heaven, but that hasn’t—nor will it ever—stop leaders and politicians from acting as if they’ve got the Holy on speed dial. While only God herself is adequately positioned to truly grapple with things pertaining to the world to come, those of us somewhat less omniscient capable can try and decipher the sets of beliefs about the divine on which public actors are operating. And although God couldn’t be reached for comment, it seems as if this might be a way of augmenting our understanding of the politics and hopefully is an arena in which this blog—un-divinely inspired as it may be—might be of some service.
The following was published in the November 2009 edition of the Washington University Political Review.
Though only open to Vatican staffers, the room must have been spun into a stunned silence when the speech came to an end. On December 23, 2008, the Pope delivered an end-of-year address in which he explained the ways in which mankind needed to listen to the “language of creation” in order to fully come to grips with the proper roles of men and women. Non-heterosexual behavior, he went on, is a “destruction of God’s work,” and, yes, “the tropical forests do deserve our protection. But man, as a creature, does not deserve any less…What’s needed is something like a ‘human ecology’… It’s not simply an outdated metaphysics if the Church speaks of the nature of the human person as man and woman, and asks that this order of creation be respected.” Surely, had the speech been open to the public, those in attendance would have been shocked. Never one to disappoint, however, the present Papacy was not content to put its thoughts on homosexuality to bed after this particular exploit. Although somewhat less visceral and entirely less explicit, one can’t hardly help but feel that the recent Papal invitation to discontented Anglicans should have induced a sense of almost deja vue in the hushed room by which it was surely met.
As explained by Rachel Donadio and Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times, “in an extraordinary bid to lure traditionalist Anglicans en masse, the Vatican said October 20 that it would make it easier for Anglicans uncomfortable with their church’s acceptance of female priests and openly gay bishops to join the Roman Catholic Church while retaining many of their traditions.” And while not pertaining at all to Catholic ideology or disposition as such, this bit of news should speak very loudly and very clearly to the even partially engaged observer: the Catholic Church is an institution defined by its own conception of traditional conservatism and is not interested in changing.
The Vatican—and, perhaps more significantly, the present eye of the Holy See—is notoriously perverse in dealing with anything at all akin to liberalization. Indeed, the strength with which the Pope’s October 20th announcement drives this point home is almost humorous. While, as Jerry Betz of the Gay Catholic Forum rightfully points out, the timing of the Papal statement shines light on the “Vatican’s lack of respect for Anglicans,” it seems as though on an alternate level it must be taken as doing something else entirely. By pandering to a portion of the Anglican community discontented over the ordination of an openly gay Bishop, the Catholic Church is reaffirming its position on homosexuality and, thus, its role as a social institution. And this is problematic.
Though perhaps slightly sacrilegious, a comparison between the sacred and profane is often rather informative. Quite possibly the single most critical insight to come from last year’s Presidential campaign remains utterly lost on the Catholic Church: failure to keep pace with the times equates to eminent—and assured—failure at large. Obama Facebook-posted, text-messaged and, ultimately, emerged the victor. McCain engaged, more or less, in politicking as usual and eventually found himself defeated. Obviously, there were a range of other issues at play, but it nonetheless seems unlikely that Obama could have achieved quite the same level of momentum had he been less engaged in contemporary—even trendy—modes of political mobilization. It’s clear that the Catholic Church—whose very essence is defined by traditional values and pervasive conservatism—will not emerge as the Obama of religious institutions. This is problematic, however, not only because the Catholic Church lacks the capacity for Obama-esque social engagement, but also because it lacks the ideology. If the Catholic Church in its present form were to engage more effectively with the cultural and social world, it would, quite frankly, bring to bear a negative influence. In order to keep from being reduced to utter irrelevancy, the Church needs to evolve not only in terms of social savvy, but social perspective as well.
Cliché as it may be, the question seems to be of crucial relevance: what would Jesus do? Or, perhaps slightly tweaked, how would Jesus feel? Inasmuch as the message of the New Testament—regardless of the one’s own religious predilections—has to be read as one of positive social change, it seems as if Jesus himself would be utterly dismayed. Though obviously problematic on its own, the issue at hand is not just that the Catholic Church is homophobic. The more causal concern is that the Catholic Church is forfeiting the Catholic community’s potential to bring about good. If it remains unrevised, the Vatican’s present policy of utter stagnation will keep the Catholic Church from being able to engage with the people and problems it has the spiritual and material capacity to help. As of now, however, it remains troublingly unfortunate that the Holy just can’t see.