Posted on 05/06/2005 1:07:06 PM PDT by Caleb1411
Spain used to be one of the most culturally conservative, devoutly Roman Catholic countries in Europe. Now Spain is about to pass a law legalizing homosexual marriage and adoption.
When equally Catholic Belgium legalized gay marriage and adoptions, the Vatican, under Pope John Paul II, opposed the action with words. But Pope Benedict XVI, in the first policy test of his papacy, is going much further.
A Vatican official told Spaniards that if the measure passes, they must defy it. Officials should refuse to marry same-sex couples or even process the paperwork if they try to adopt a child. Bureaucrats and others who find themselves complicit in gay marriage or adoption should refuse to obey the law, even if it means losing their jobs.
"A law as deeply inequitable as this one is not an obligation," said Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo of Colombia, the head of the Pontifical Council on the Family. "One cannot say that a law is right simply because it is a law." To tell citizens that they should not obey the laws of their country is a very unusual and aggressive action. Said a history professor at a Spanish university, "I had never heard of such a direct call to civil disobedience."
American evangelicals, for all of their political activism, have not gone so far as to tell file clerks in Massachusetts to misplace the marriage records of gay couples, or a worker in an adoption agency to lose the application of homosexuals. And it is not clear that they should. It is a tough call on where to draw the line between Romans 13 ("be subject to the governing authorities") and Acts 5 ("we must obey God rather than men"). It may be easier under Roman Catholicism, with its ancient—and unbiblical—teaching that the church has temporal authority over the state.
Still, if the new pope is going to be this assertive on cultural issues, evangelicals should pay attention. Evangelicals and Catholics have huge—and important—theological differences, but when it comes to pro-life issues, sexual morality, and resistance to militant secularism, they find themselves on the same side of the culture wars.
Some critics say that a hard line from the pope will only increase the secularization of Europe. Eighty percent of Spaniards are Catholic, but only a third of them go to church and follow its teachings. Won't threatening the file clerks just drive them away? If the file clerks disobey and process the marriage licenses and adoption forms despite what the pope tells them to do, will the church excommunicate them? Whether the hard line makes the nominal Catholics quit or if the church expels them, either way the result will be fewer Catholics.
But this brings up the other part of the pope's strategy, one that is even more radical. Before he became pope, Cardinal Ratzinger argued that the church needs to get smaller so that it can become purer.
Some observers are interpreting this in institutional forms. "If it's true Pope Benedict XVI prefers a leaner, smaller, purer church as he has spoken of before," said Notre Dame professor R. Scott Appleby, "we could see a withering of certain Catholic institutions because they're not considered fully Catholic. This might include Catholic colleges, hospitals, and other Catholic institutions."
But surely it is precisely the nominal Catholics—those who claim membership but hardly ever go to church and ignore its teachings—that the new pope would be glad to be rid of.
The problem of secularism is not just with the outside culture thinking it can do without God. The deeper problem is that the church itself has become secularized. A smaller but purer church may well have more impact than the diffuse cultural Christianity that has lost its saltiness and its savor.
This is a challenge that evangelicals need to consider. With our megachurch, church-growth mindset, we often assume that bigger is better, and a church with lots of members is a strong church. Is this always true? In our efforts to reach the secular culture, is the secular culture instead sometimes reaching us?
The ideal would be to have both size and purity. But might there come a time when American evangelicalism too will need to be winnowed? —•
Dear CatoRenasci,
Individual Catholics should not believe ourselves individually possessed of the Truth.
However, we do believe that the Catholic Church is possessed of the Truth. In fact, as the Body of Christ, we believe that the Catholic Church is the foundation and pillar of Truth.
To believe otherwise isn't exactly Catholic.
sitetest
Should persons living under the Nazi regime have obeyed the secular law, attempted to withdraw from public life, or subverted the system and disobeyed the law when necessary in order to save the most lives?
What if those persons were confessing Catholics?
Excellent analysis.
The Spanish Inquisition didn't attempt to assert temporal power over the state, though. In fact, it ended up being basically an organ of the state; when the Spaniards shut it down, they didn't even bother to ask Rome's permission.
Keep in mind, also, that it was the Spanish government that asked the Church to establish the Inquisition, not the other way around.
I do not require that one subordinate one's conscience to the state, rather that one should take an oath to uphold the laws of the state, and then claim the right to violate those laws on account of religious scruples. Or, in the case of the duties of all citizens, one must accept the secular consequences of placing religious conscience ahead of those duties. That was the idea of civil disobedience: that if you break the law, you accept the punishment. After all, it's a cheap conscience that is not willing to accept adversity as the price of following it.
The further difficulty with your argument, and indeed with trying to have a discussion with you, is that people of good conscience may well, and do, disagree on what constitutes natural law or the truth. To argue that any particular version of truth is subject to debate is not to argue that there is no absolute truth, rather that we know it only imperfectly.
Dear Campion,
"Keep in mind, also, that it was the Spanish government that asked the Church to establish the Inquisition, not the other way around."
As well, I thought that the Inquisition was directed toward those who counted themselves publicly Catholics, not toward those who publicly claimed to be non-Catholic.
sitetest
but can you all see where if you replace Catholic with Islam
in that same paragraph we all get the heebejeebies, but the Muslims believe the exact same thing, it's their duty to bring you into their way of thinking.......
One of the biggest myths about history is that the Spanish Inquisition was some kind of Church-sponsored crime. The reality is that the Catholic Church implemented what we now call the "Spanish Inquisition" specifically in response to excessive measures that had been taken by the civil government of Spain to deal with the threat of Islam in Spain.
But this teaching has largely been a dead letter. The bishops in America have called for disobedience to the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions precisely ONCE, in April of 1973. The rest of the time, they have called upon Catholics to DISAGREE with the Supreme Court's decisions.
You make a good point for discussion here. Surely the #1 duty must be to exert all of one's powers to get the unjust law changed. If it passes, you must make every effort to make sure it doesn't require any cooperation from you; you must try to secure some legally-recognized conscientious-objector status.
If you can't do that, you may have to resign your job (as Thomas More resigned his Chancellorship undr Henry VIII.) If they won't let you resign, or if the evil is required of you as a subject or a citizen, I guess you have to face penalty, prison, martyrdom.
But here's two questions: are there any circumstances where either refusal to comply (without resigning your job) or covert sabotage, are either allowed or required?
I'd like to hear some opinions here, preferably with historic illustrations. I seem to remember Norwegian schoolteachers under the Quisling regime, openly refusing to teach a Nazi curriculum in their schools?
Why should we? Moslems have the same freedom to attempt to convert others to their religion as any other group, within the limits of the civil and criminal law. If a member of any religion breaks the law, then it's the fact that he broke the law that is relevant ... not the content of his religious faith.
Dear littlelilac,
As I haven't argued that folks should be "persuaded" of the truth of Catholicism at the point of the sword, I'm not sure that replacing "Catholic" with "Islam" is quite the same.
The Koran is pretty explicit about the use of the sword to compel assent to Islam.
If the biggest worry of Islam were from peaceful attempts to persuade us to belief in it by its adherents, life would be far freer, easier, and safer.
sitetest
Over the past few weeks I've listened to my fellow Catholic friends explain to me that the Catholic Church MUST change...allow priests to marry, allow women to be priests, "lighten up" on abortion....etc.
I've reached the point where I now respond: "You need to find another Church".
In the humble opinion of this Catholic..."smaller but purer" sounds like an idea whose time has come.
Godspeed, Holy Father.
When equally Catholic Belgium legalized gay marriage and adoptions, the Vatican, under Pope John Paul II, opposed the action with words. But Pope Benedict XVI, in the first policy test of his papacy, is going much further.
Viva il Papa!
This is an easy one. Germany invaded and conquered Norway. The Norwegian government went into exile in England, while the Nazi's stooges took over in Norway, and held power only by force of arms. Teachers whose duty was to the legitimate Norwegian government had no duty to the Nazis or their lackeys.
Well put. It is our own hubris I fear to think the world should be remade so that it is easy to be a Christian.
Sorry, but even though I agree with strenuous opposition to queer marraiges, the Pope is on very shakey ground here: telling citizens of another state to fail to do their duties under that state's laws is an attempt to assert temporal power.
With respect, your premise is flawed. His Holiness is NOT asserting "temporal power" he is acting as the spiritual leader pointing out two truthes; first that a Catholic MUST not obey or assist a law that contradicts the Faith and second, that NO state has the moral right to compel such an action.
Many Catholic germans resisted Hitler, opposed by flight or direct action the evil laws of the Nazi regime and they were right to do so.
I admit dear Campion you may have got me on that one, and my example of the Spanish Inquisition was perhaps a poor one though was not Spain lead by a Catholic monarchy, so the fact that Rome participated in that Inquisition is no better or worse than confessing Catholics supporting a Nazis regime if you accept the fact that the Spanish Inquisition was more of a political witchhunt than a religious one....
since you and Cato are more well versed in this area, from my very limited reading, hasn't there been a tension between the Vatican and its relationship with various states or a blurring of the lines, sometimes the Vatican has been very independent, at other times it serves the ruling authority, at other times it appears to be the ruling authority, though it seems to me the first option is what the Vatican ought to be, and certainly is today......
Dear CatoRenasci,
"Teachers whose duty was to the legitimate Norwegian government had no duty to the Nazis or their lackeys."
What duty did German teachers owe to the Nazi government of Germany?
What duty did German soldiers owe to their superiors who ordered them to commit war crimes and atrocities?
An intrinsically evil law is not truly law.
If that is not so, then we owe an apology to those Germans who defended themselves by accurately claiming that they were only following orders.
sitetest
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