St Michael Society

by Patrick Looby

Suppose Governor George Wallace of Alabama had told the Catholic Archdiocese of Mobile that as a condition of receiving state aid for social services it had to stop performing interracial marriages – compelling it to accept his view that blacks and whites should remain segregated.  Then, suppose that the Archdiocese responded by stating that since such an imposition would violate their beliefs about marriage that they would be forced to stop receiving state aid and would then have to close down some of its services to the poor. 

No one would have seen this as the Church playing politics with the poor, but rather as Governor Wallace using the poor in order to push an agenda of segregation onto the Church.  No one in their right mind would have said something inane like “the message that the Church is sending with its action is wrong, and has left me and countless other Catholics heartbroken.”  Rather, the Church would have been praised for sticking to its fundamental beliefs in the face of government pressure to redefine its creed. 

This is the hypothetical example that Bill Donahue of the Catholic League gives in his response to those who object to the decision of the Archdiocese of Washington to close some of its social services if the city attempts to compel them to accept the idea of same-sex marriage as a result of receiving state aid for those services.  And despite the ramblings of the left-leaning media, this is a clear case of the DC City Council playing politics with the poor and trampling on the free practice of religion. 

Yet, this doesn’t stop people like Petula Dvorak  of the Washington Post from accusing the Church of unjust discrimination and being on the ’wrong side of history.’  In typical liberal fashion, Dvorak’s revisionist history ignores the fact that the Catholic Church was a lone voice for the proper treatment of homosexuals back in the 1980’s at the height of the AIDS crisis.

Writing an instruction to Bishops in 1986, Cardinal Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) pleaded with Americans to remember that “it is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church’s pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.”

So,while Catholics may disagree with Dvorak’s conclusions about same-sex marriage, it is very nice to see that she and her friends in the liberal media have finally caught up to the Catholic Church’s 25 year plea for an end to the maltreatment of homosexuals in society – even if it’s only because it is now fashionable for them to do so.

Though she appears to care only for the poor and is not interested in making “an argument in favor of same-sex marriage,” Dvorak’s feigned emotional plea for the poor is nothing more than spin and an obvious tone-deafness in regard to Catholic theology.

 The bottom line is that the Catholic Church is the largest charitable organization because it believes in certain truths – truths that come directly from the teaching of Christ. And those truths are intimately wrapped up into seven simple, yet profound, acts called the Sacraments. It is from the grace received in these sacraments that the Church is driven to build more hospitals, staff more homeless shelters, provide more crisis pregnancy centers, and run more schools than any other organization in the history of the world.

And so it shouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that if the state ever attempted to force the Church to change how She views or defines one of these seven sacraments, that the Church would have no choice but to object and possibly close operations. In fact, what secularists don’t understand is that if the Church allowed such a change the operations would eventually close anyway.

Why? Because making such a change would force the Church to behave as a secular organization.  And when was the last time you went to a non-profit hospital that was established by a secular humanist organization? When was the last time you saw a group of secular humanists volunteering at a secular humanist soup kitchen that they set up with donations from secular humanists? When was the last time you saw a secular humanist charity run a food drive, or provide volunteer counseling to unwed mothers?  When was the last time that you saw a bunch of secular humanists take a vow of lifelong poverty and celibacy in order to free themselves to serve in the poorest parts of the world?

The point is that the government and all of these well-meaning secularists miss a crucial point about the human spirit. Yes, we all have an altruistic streak. We all know that something has to be done to help the poor and those less-fortunate.  But, it is one thing to know this, and something entirely different to actually do something about it. And when it comes to the latter, it is the people of faith who do it much more frequently and much more efficiently.  That is exactly why the Church has the overwhelming charitable presence in the world.

The fatal error of people like Petula Dvorak – whose depth of Catholic experience she summarizes as ‘bike rides with Fr. Joe’ – is the false pelagian notion that the Church can still be the Church if She is forced to let go of Her most basic teachings. That somehow the selfless giving that has built hospitals and homeless shelters for 2000 years will continue if it is divorced from its source of grace in the seven sacraments.

But the Church knows better. She knows that allowing the state to dictate what the Church must support in the way of marriage or any other sacrament, would effectively reduce the Church to a secular humanist insititution. 

So, the Church is fighting for the poor when She stands up to the state in these matters. For if the state is allowed to strip religious organizations of their creed which drives them to service in the first place, then that will effectively eliminate their service to the poor altogether.  If the DC City Council wants to defund these charities because the Church doesn’t support same-sex marriage that is their choice.  But the Church will not change Her beliefs.

-  Mr. Looby is a graduate of Wadhams Hall Seminary and has been teaching Theology and Philosophy for 13 years.  In addition, he is a freelance writer and speaker on issues pertaining to the Catholic faith.