Angry in the Great White North

The National Post brings us the story of a second NDP MP being barred from Catholic Church activities because of his support of same-sex marriage:

Bishop Ronald Fabbro of the Diocese of London admonished Windsor-Tecumseh MP Joe Comartin in a July 6 letter to priests, saying "a person who does not accept Catholic teaching on fundamental matters is disqualified from acting on behalf of the church in a public capacity."

Fabbro said the measure would remain in effect until Comartin has "a change of mind" in using the term marriage with reference to homosexual unions.

In Comartin's case, he did not merely vote in favour of C-38, he spoke in support of it, and criticized the Church in a speech in Parliament:

One of my visions is that some day my church will allow those couples to not only be heterosexual but also to be homosexual. My vision says to me that some day this will happen. The Roman Catholic Church in this country and across the globe will follow the precedents that the United Church, the Quakers, the Metropolitan Church and any other number of Christian denominations have taken. This is about love; we will guarantee within our religious services that all couples will be treated equally.

In Comartin's case, he is no longer able to give marriage preparation course, participate in Church fundraising, or administer the Eucharist. He will be able to take communion, though.

As expected (by me, anyway), Comartin is patiently waiting for the Church to change:

"I hope Bishop Fabbro will reconsider his actions," Comartin said. "In this spirit, I welcome a dialogue with the diocese, and will strive to not only provide a fuller understanding of my intentions but also do my best to understand Bishop Fabbro's intentions."

The Church has changed very slowly over 2000 years, and on on some subjects, has not changed at all. Comartin will have to be very patient, but even if he has Methuselah's longevity, his wait will probably be in vain.

I've already written about NDP MP Charles Angus and his problems with the Catholic Church, and his equally odd notion that the Church is behaving in an unacceptable manner, and will hopefully come to her senses soon. The post was easily one of the most actively read, with over 100 comments in the ongoing debate. I invite you to read it if you haven't already -- the points made are relevant to this situation, and I won't rehash them here.

Seeing a second case of a member of parliament for the NDP being punished by the Church, I began to wonder if I could tease out a pattern. It is much too soon, of course, but why be a blogger if you can't go out on a limb once in a while?

The Church is constrained by tradition and by legalities (in particular, the tax code for charitable institutions) from directly involving itself in politics. Today, that seems to mean that the Church can make any statement she wants on any subject as long as it is not a subject of Parliamentary interest. The moment it is, it becomes a political issue, and suddenly the Church's opinion, perhaps two millennia old, are verboten, and voicing that opinion is meddling in secular matters.

Keep that in mind, but for now, it is enough to say that it seems hardly fair or logical. Until that changes, the Church might be taking a different approach. The Church begins to exercise her right to manage her membership and starts to punish MPs who actively campaigned in support of matters that the Church has deemed morally indefensible. As long as her actions stay within the walls of the Church, the threat to remove her tax exempt status is difficult to make. Likewise, the government cannot simply sue the Church not to punish her members. Those are ecclesiastical decisions, and if the government tries to meddle in those, all bets are off.

The Church is two thousand years old, and as an organization, she thinks in the long term. What are the long term effects of punishing Angus, Comartin, and others, assuming there will be more? The most obvious one is to hurt the ability of a political party, in this case the NDP, to recruit possible candidates, or even staff and members. If Catholics see a pattern of NDP candidates being punished by the Church, they will see membership as a potentially dangerous thing. Some will rebel and support the NDP anyway, but others, and perhaps the majority, will defer and withdraw their support. Potential candidates will not submit their names for nomination, either because of their own misgivings, or because of extreme pressure from a spouse.

In ridings where 60% or more of the constituents are Catholic, that kind of pushback has got to hurt. All parties will consider their platforms from the point of view of how it might play to a Church heirarchy ready and willing to exercise its ability to manage its own membership. Though I don't see parties suddenly adopting a Catholic platform, we might see adjustments -- for instance, certain policies that are counter to Church teachings are listed as issues of conscience, and that MPs for the party are free to vote against that particular plank in the platform without fear of reprisals.

But can this actually work in the way I've suggested? I doubt it. It might work in some ridings in affecting who runs as a candidate, but across the national level, the influence on party platforms will be minor, if any.

If that's the case, then is there a different issue being played out here? Why is the Church risking being seen as meddling in politics if it is unlikely that it'll work?

We've defined the goal as affecting the platforms of the parties. Maybe we're focusing on the wrong thing. We're looking at the end result of the meddling. Maybe we need to look at the meddling itself.

Is the Church meddling in politics? It depends on what you mean by meddling. Consider these words from Pope Pius XII:

20. And since these crimes are being committed under the guise of patriotism, We consider it Our duty to remind everyone once again of the Church's teaching on this subject.

21. For the Church exhorts and encourages Catholics to love their country with sincere and strong love, to give due obedience in accord with natural and positive divine law to those who hold public office, to give them active and ready assistance for the promotion of those undertakings by which their native land can in peace and order daily achieve greater prosperity and further true development.

22. The Church has always impressed on the minds of her children that declaration of the Divine Redeemer: "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's."[5] We call it a declaration because these words make certain and incontestable the principle that Christianity never opposes or obstructs what is truly useful or advantageous to a country.

23. However, if Christians are bound in conscience to render to Caesar (that is, to human authority) what belongs to Caesar, then Caesar likewise, or those who control the state, cannot exact obedience when they would be usurping God's rights or forcing Christians either to act at variance with their religious duties or to sever themselves from the unity of the Church and its lawful hierarchy.

24. Under such circumstances, every Christian should cast aside all doubt and calmly and firmly repeat the words with which Peter and the other Apostles answered the first persecutors of the Church: "We must obey God rather than men."

Those words are from the Encyclical of Pope Pius XII on Communism and the Church in China, written in 1958.

Personally, I think it is a tragedy that those words aimed at Communist China in 1958 should seem to apply to Canada in 2005.

In any case, the Church is clear on the issue. Compelling an individual, regardless of their role in civil society, to act against their religious beliefs or ignore their religious duties is where the meddling lies. It is the State meddling in the role of the Church to give guidance to her members, and not the meddling of the Church in the political matters of the State. By punishing Angus and Comartin, the Church is reminding the State and the Church membership of that principle.

The ball is now in the court of the State. The government of Canada, and the parties in Parliament, can choose to withdraw the whip of party discipline in matters of religious duties of its members.

I fear a different path will be taken. In Catholic Morals, it is taught "Nemo summus fit repente" -- nothing very bad or very good happens suddenly. Great evil happens at the end of a whole series of small steps, sometimes unnoticed, sometimes resisted but conceded when their significance went unappreciated.

Many people say C-38 is not that important, and that resisting it was misguided or a waste of effort. The bill affects few people and traditional marriage will not falter.

Nemo summus fit repente.

What "great evil" lies at the end of these small steps? One possibility is regalism, which exists in Communist China:

The Theory of the Regalists conceded to the Church a certain amount of social right from its Divine Founder, but conditioned the exercise of all social powers upon the consent of the civil government. The theory gradually extended its contentions so far as to make the Church indirectly subordinate to the State, attributing to the State the authority to forbid the Church any juridical act that might work to the detriment of the State and to command the Church in case of necessity to put forth her full powers to promote the interests of the State.

Sounds like what a lot of people are saying in Canada today:

The National Post reports today that Liberal Foreign Affairs Minister, Pierre Pettigrew declared that because Canada has “Separation of Church and State,” the Church is obliged to remain silent on the issue of same-sex unions.

Is that what this is all about? Has the Church recognized the creeping influence of regalism in the Canadian body politic, and is trying to head it off by punishing Angus and Comartin?

Or maybe I've missed the point altogether.

[La Shawn Barber has a post about the pressure on Christian churches to abandon their principles.]

[More developments]