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The Cross Was Not Prudent

Several years ago John Cardinal O'Connor of New York and his auxiliary bishop, Bishop Austin Vaughan caused a stir with some remarks on Catholic politicians who claim to be 'personally opposed but...' and the ever stimulating topic of excommunication. Catholic 'pro-choice' politicians responded with the usual generic disclaimers as 'Religion is a very private matter...' and 'My religion is a great comfort to me...' and so on.

Such politicians show a certain lack of belief and/or understanding of the Catholic Church and the nature of Her mission and teaching. They protest that the Church is a source of comfort to them, but their behavior and tone indicates that they answer to a higher power than the One the Church represents. As for religion being a private matter, these are public persons elected by a people who have a right to expect a certain integrity between an official's claimed inward moral foundations and outward public action.

It seems these politicians suffer from a case of bad ecclesiology. The Church is not a comfort factory. Jesus Christ made (and still makes) many more people uncomfortable than comfortable with His message. The Church is Christ's presence continued in time. She exists to proclaim the Truth which is Good News. Our discomfort with the Good News ought to cause us to recognize that our degree of comfort is our measure of harmony with that Truth. The graced recognition of this disharmony and the pain of this discomfort leads us to repentance and change, to come into conformity with reality. To be 'pro-choice' is to give approval to killing. We are not absolved by claiming that we wouldn't do it ourselves. Mere approval itself is participation. That ought to make any of us uncomfortable.

The veiled threat that the Church is somehow going to hurt Herself with talk of excommunication is misinformed and uneducated as to Catholic belief. The only thing the Church has to fear is not telling the Truth. The opinion polls do not matter, for Our Lord tells us that 'Narrow is the way that leads to life; broad and wide is the path that leads to destruction.'

If the Church is going to live the life of Christ, She must share in His sufferings which included the pain of being misunderstood, of seeing people leave Him on account of His message, (people He didn't call back, by the way. See John's Gospel, Chapter 6). If we must have empty Churches, so be it. Jesus even asked His closest friends if they too were going to leave Him, while showing no intention of persuading them to stay or changing His message. St. Peter had the humility to trust Christ despite his lack of understanding and had the grace and good sense to ask 'Where else are we to go? You have the words of Eternal Life.' The keys to that Eternal Life were eventually entrusted to that same Peter as the first universal shepherd of the Catholic Church, to whom, Catholics believe, those Words have been entrusted.

If the Church is the living embodiment of Christ, as Catholics believe, She must continually pass through the Cross as She makes her earthly pilgrimage. Christ was a broken and abandoned man on the Cross. In worldly terms the Cross was not prudent. Politically or otherwise. It was not expedient. He went against His best advisors by embracing it. He even rebuked St. Peter as 'Satan' for suggesting an alternate plan. Christ did not suffer, die, and rise that we may have congregations to the full, or so governments would be happy with us. As desirable as those things may be, the worldly powers weren't happy with Christ and they won't always be happy with the Church. He suffered, died, and rose that we may have life and have it to the full.

There is a very human tendency on the part of Christians to think, 'The better Christian I am, the more I will be liked and admired.' Would that it were so. A more likely question that the Gospel puts to usthese days as in the pastis, 'How willing am I to be hated for Christ, and for faithfulness to His Church?' Can we share the acute pain of being misunderstood as Christ was? Can we share the injustice of false and inane accusations? Death? The night before He died Jesus warned us that the as the world hated Him it would hate us also. The Christian life on this earth is not a party. That comes later.

When any bishop speaks of excommunication he is not speaking as a politician. It is not a 'tactic' or a 'maneuver' or a 'power play.' He is speaking as a teacher of the nature of reality. No bishop, pope, nor even God Himself 'sends' anyone to Hell. It is a choice. A choice made in the heart of each individual person either explicitly by an open, knowing rejection of God and His Truth, or, implicitly, by a lifetime of willful, unrepentented small rejections that Christians call sins. This gives a whole new meaning to the term 'pro-choice.'

When a bishop speaks of excommunication he is sounding a warning about a state of danger to the soul that may well be already in place which may result in eternal separation from God as a matter of course if it remains unchanged. There is something larger at stake than politics, popularity and tax exempt status. Such a bishop is acting as a pastor towards those for whom he is deeply concerned and for whom he must someday give answer.
John Mallon is contributing editor for Inside the Vatican magazine and a member of The Daily Oklahoman's Opinion Board of Contributors. This article originally appeared in The Sooner Catholic on November 6, 1994. Send an e-mail to John Mallon

Political and Spiritual Integrity

History gives some examples of Catholic politicians who have their priorities straight. Around the turn of the century Hilaire Belloc, the Catholic writer and historian was running for Parliament in England. He was advised to downplay his religion for political expediency, since his enemies were using it against him. Instead he addressed a packed audience with these words:

'Gentlemen, I am a Catholic. As far as possible, I go to Mass every day. This [taking a rosary out of his pocket] is a rosary. As far as possible, I kneel down and tell these beads every day. If you reject me on account of my religion, I shall thank God that He has spared me the indignity of being your representative.'

According to his biographer, after this statement, 'There was a hush of astonishment followed by a thunderclap of applause.' On another occasion Belloc said:

'My religion is of course of greater moment to me by far than my politics, or than any other interest could be, and if I had to choose between two policies, one of which would certainly injure my religion and the other as certainly advance it, I would not for a moment hesitate between the two.' (Source: The Life of Hilaire Belloc (1957) by R. Speaight)

Robert Bolt in his magnificent play A Man for all Seasons about the courage of St. Thomas More refusing to betray his faith under political pressure at the cost of his head has the great saint say to Richard Rich, the petty official who betrayed him for political position, upon his appointment as Attorney General for Wales, 'Why, Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world...But for Wales!'

And on his own sentence of death:

'I die the king's good servant...but God's first.'

St. Thomas More, pray for us.