Ideology

2254 words, 11 min read

One of the fundamental questions of human existence is the basis on which we interpret reality, make subsequent decisions and perform resulting actions. How do I know what is happening in the world, how do I react to that reality and what actions do I take on the basis of these reactions? These questions have been at the heart of philosophy, theology, economics, politics and many other forms of human endeavour for millennia and remain open problems to this day, to which many answers are offered but which each one has to answer for themselves, or that each one will at least have unconscious answers to that drive their choices.

In the above context, a particularly negative role is played by ideologies, which are injected between a subject and the reality they inhabit and which distort their choices. Instead of a subject engaging with reality and deriving choices on its basis, an ideologised subject takes the tenets of their ideology as a source of decision making. Instead of their own understanding of reality, which ideology suppresses, distorts and supplants, the ideologised subject derives decisions and actions from their ideology. An ideology that taught the impossibility of fire would see its followers proclaim it while burning to death in blazing house.

If ideologies are at odds with reality, why would anyone follow them though? Why would anyone act on a basis disconnected from reality? I believe there are several reasons for this: First, it is increasingly difficult to tell reality from ideology, both because of the inherent challenges of knowledge that epistemology has been grappling with since antiquity (e.g., the ultimate impossibility of going beyond my own experiences) and because of the growing complexity of global interconnectedness and the impossibility of experiencing all relevant events for oneself. Second, even a direct engagement with reality (as far as epistemologically possible) that would seem free from ideology would not be free from some a priori conceptual framework of beliefs not derived from reality (e.g., repeatability, causality, falsifiability), which leads to the obvious question of what makes one set of beliefs an ideology while another set is a valid conceptual apparatus necessary for engaging with reality.

In other words, how do we recognise ideologies so that we may avoid them ourselves and so that we may help others not become entrapped by them.

In fact, the original intention of the French philosopher Antoine Destutt de Tracy, who coined the term ideology during the French Revolution, was to devise a rational system that could counter what he saw as the irrational mob rule of the day, i.e., precisely not what is understood by ideology today. However, already Tracy’s initial opponent, Napoleon Bonaparte, used the term ideology in a derogatory way. Karl Marx then picked up Napoleon’s use of the word and directed it against the ideological patterns employed by the capitalist bourgeoisie he challenged. Ideology has since been a mainstay of marxist analysis, in particular by thinkers like Louis Althusser, Terry Eagleton and Slavoj Žižek, who see ideology as a means of control, effected by imposing a set of action-oriented beliefs whose scrutiny is prohibited and which are placed above experience.

Eagleton presents a variety of definitions of the concept in his 1991 book “Ideology: An Introduction”, starting with the most widely-held one, formulated by John B. Thompson:

“A dominant power may legitimate itself by promoting beliefs and values congenial to it; naturalising and universalising such beliefs so as to render them self-evident and apparently inevitable; denigrating ideas which might challenge it; excluding rival forms of thought, perhaps by some unspoken but systematic logic; and obscuring social reality in ways convenient to itself. Such ‘mystification.’, as it is commonly known, frequently takes the form of masking or suppressing social conflicts, from which arises the conception of ideology as an imaginary resolution of real contradictions. In any actual ideological formation, all six of these strategies are likely to interact in complex ways.”

While the reference to a “dominant power” may render the above definition too narrow, as Eagleton and other have argued, its focus on the denigration of challenging ideas, the exclusion of rival forms of thought, the obscuring of reality and the offering of imaginary resolutions can readily be recognised in ideologies regardless of whether or not they come from a position of power.

With such a broadening of the scope of ideology, and given the challenges of distinguishing it from other sets of ideas or beliefs, it is no surprise to see Louis Althusser argue that we are all “ideological subjects”, that being ideological is inherent to being a subject and that “man is an ideological animal by nature”. Althusser also points to a particularly insidious pattern employed by ideologies, where fictitious relationships are presented as real, to further ulterior motives:

“But it is by an apprenticeship in a variety of know-how wrapped up in the massive inculcation of the ideology of the ruling class that the relations of production in a capitalist social formation, i.e. the relations of exploited to exploiters and exploiters to exploited, are largely reproduced. The mechanisms which produce this vital result for the capitalist regime are naturally covered up and concealed by a universally reigning ideology of the School, universally reigning because it is one of the essential forms of the ruling bourgeois ideology: an ideology which represents the School as a neutral environment purged of ideology (because it is ... lay), where teachers respectful of the ‘conscience’ and ‘freedom’ of the children who are entrusted to them (in complete confidence) by their ‘parents’ (who are free, too, i.e. the owners of their children) open up for them the path to the freedom, morality and responsibility of adults by their own example, by knowledge, literature and their ‘liberating’ virtues.”

Kaustuv Roy then takes Althusser’s theory and identifies a pattern in ideological beliefs which is that of being lacunar, of leaving “holes” in the legitimacy and truth of the discourses constructed from them:

“The proposition “modern education promises equal opportunity for all” is not, on the face of it, a false or untrue proposition. It is, after all, one of its basic premises. At the same time, we know that existing property relations, differential schooling, elite behaviour, and social prejudices all falsify this “true” proposition. Again, consider the proposition “the law takes precedence before anything else.” This is not untrue in its purely rational form, yet, we know that many things including social, political, and financial power often determine which way the law moves. [...] In other words, they are pre-aligned toward certain effects. The above are examples of “lacunar discourse,” meaning that they cover up or hide a lacuna. A number of propositions which are not untrue suggest or lead up to other propositions which are operatively and pragmatically untrue. In other words, the former cluster create an aura of “truth” that point toward and suggest legitimacy for another set whose assumptions are simply not true. In a restricted and more useful sense, ideologies can be seen as lacunar discourses that offer legitimacy to a wide range of assumptions by starting off from reasonable propositions.”

Slavoj Žižek uses a similar example of falsehood admixed with truth as a starting point of his analysis of ideology:

“[T]he starting point of the critique of ideology has to be full acknowledgement of the fact that it is easily possible to lie in the guise of truth. When, for example, some Western power intervenes in a Third World country on account of violations of human rights, it may well be ‘true’ that in this country the most elementary human rights were not respected, and that the Western intervention will effectively improve the human rights record, yet such a legitimization none the less remains ‘ideological’ in so far as it fails to mention the true motives of the intervention (economic interests, etc.).”

While most critiques of ideology see it as a mechanism of manipulation that some impose on others, Žižek thinks of it in a rather different way:

“[I]deology is not simply imposed on ourselves. Ideology is our spontaneous relation to our social world, how we perceive each meaning and so on and so on. We, in a way, enjoy our ideology. To step out of ideology, it hurts. It’s a painful experience. You must force yourself to do it.”

Given such ubiquity of ideology and its being a constituent part of human nature, the question becomes not one of how to avoid ideologies that may be coming my way from afar, but to strive for a recognition and avoidance of ideological patterns in thought and action. This realisation is present already Eagleton’s analysis, who, as a Marxist, sees the danger of ideologisation even in movements close to his own world view, instead of only in the capitalist system that is opposed to it.

It should therefore come as no surprise that the recognition of ideologisation and attempts to counter it can arise in all contexts, even the one that Althusser used as the ideological case study par excellence - the Catholic Church. This is a strong theme in the thought and actions of the current pope, Francis, who has frequently spoken about and decried ideologies both outside and within the Church.

Looking at the Church, Francis’ homily from 23rd October 2013 is a particularly cutting critique:

“Faith passes, so to speak, through a purifying apparatus and becomes ideology. And ideology does not attract. In ideologies there is no Jesus: his tenderness, love, meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Always: rigid. And when a Christian becomes a disciple of ideology, he has lost faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought, of that ... And this is why Jesus says to them: ‘You have taken away the key to knowledge’ [Luke 11:52]. The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and even moralistic knowledge, because they closed the door with so many prescriptions.

Faith becomes ideology and ideology frightens, ideology chases people away, drives people away and takes the Church away from people. But it is a serious disease, this of ideological Christians. It’s a disease, but it’s not new, is it? Already the Apostle John, in his first Letter, spoke of this. Christians who lose faith and prefer ideologies. Their attitude is: to become rigid, moralistic, ethicist, but without goodness. The question may be this, right? But why can a Christian become like that? What happens in the heart of that Christian, of that priest, of that bishop, of that Pope, who becomes so? Simply one thing: that Christian does not pray. And if there is no prayer, you always close the door.

They do not pray, they abandon faith and turn it into a moralistic, casuistic ideology, without Jesus. And when a prophet or a good Christian reproaches them, they do the same thing they did with Jesus: When he came out of there, the scribes and Pharisees began to treat him in a hostile way - these ideologues are hostile - and to make him speak on many subjects, trying to ensnare him - they are insidious - to surprise him in a few words out of his own mouth. They are not transparent. Eh, poor things, they are people soiled by pride. Let us ask the Lord for grace, first: do not stop praying, so as not to lose faith, remain humble. And so we will not become closed, we won’t close the way to the Lord.”

If you are reading the above and are not a Christian, it is worth saying something about prayer, lest is may sound like something archaic or even ideological. Prayer here is, I believe, to be read as a conscious attitude of being close to God and of seeking to love in every present moment. This is consistent with how Francis speaks about it and also with Jesus telling his disciples to pray always (cf. Luke 18:1). Prayer here is an attitude seeking closeness with and responding to reality, i.e., a fundamentally anti-ideological attitude.

Another key to countering ideology according to Francis is to place the encounter with others ahead of ideas or ideologies. E.g., during his trip to Cuba in 2015 he said: “Service is never ideological, for we do not serve ideas, we serve people.” In fact, this reminds me of the suggestion Eagleton makes about how one might become freed from an ideological belief, where he too points to the power of evidence and of encounter with other persons: “If someone really does believe that all childless women are thwarted and embittered, introducing him to as many ecstatic childfree women as possible might just persuade him to change his mind.”

Looking at the above I have the impression that, instead of thinking that there are some specific, well-delineated ideologies that need to be avoided and countered, I need to recognise that I too am steeped in ideology and that I may not even be aware of that being the case. What can I do about it? Having seen ideological patterns of discourse laid bare, I can strive to recognise them and counter their closed, narrow and restrictive mode by contrasting them with evidence and experience. And, I can direct my attention to those around me so that I may relate to and discover each person instead of letting ideologies become filters through which I see them. As Žižek says though, it will be hard and painful, but it strikes me as a fight worth fighting.

Law and disobedience in the Church’s social doctrine

5684 words, 29 min read

In 2004 the Catholic Church published a key document, the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, where she sets out her teaching on all aspects of how a society ought to be ordered and of how one ought to act in a society, regardless of its ordering, for the greater good of all. The 142K word document presents a comprehensive overview of current Church teaching, with 1232 references to Scripture, the magisterial documents of the Church and to the teaching of the saints. It “is presented as an instrument for the moral and pastoral discernment of the complex events that mark our time; as a guide to inspire, at the individual and collective levels, attitudes and choices that will permit all people to look to the future with greater trust and hope; as an aid for the faithful concerning the Church’s teaching in the area of social morality.” And since complex events are indeed the order of the day, I would here like to share some key passages that stood out to me when reading the Compendium. Doing so in the wake of recent events in Catalonia, which I experienced first hand and that deeply sadden and trouble me, has resulted in following a certain thread that deals with issues of law and disobedience. With the desire to form my own conscience, I wanted to understand how the Church frames such “complex events” and even if you are not a Catholic, I hope you will find the following to be of interest. I would also wholeheartedly encourage anyone to read this document in full.

To begin with, the Church presents a social vision of freedom that is both possibility and limitation; that is gift, that is to be cultivated and whose death destroys individual and society alike:

“Freedom in fact does not have “its absolute and unconditional origin ... in itself, but in the life within which it is situated and which represents for it, at one and the same time, both a limitation and a possibility. Human freedom belongs to us as creatures; it is a freedom which is given as a gift, one to be received like a seed and to be cultivated responsibly”. When the contrary is the case, freedom dies, destroying man and society.” (138)

Such freedom is best participated in with the help of a conscience that is formed in truth and that supports actions rooted in it:

“The truth concerning good and evil is recognized in a practical and concrete manner by the judgment of conscience, which leads to the acceptance of responsibility for the good accomplished and the evil committed. “Consequently in the practical judgment of conscience, which imposes on the person the obligation to perform a given act, the link between freedom and truth is made manifest. Precisely for this reason conscience expresses itself in acts of ‘judgment’ which reflect the truth about the good, and not in arbitrary ‘decisions’. The maturity and responsibility of these judgments — and, when all is said and done, of the individual who is their subject — are not measured by the liberation of the conscience from objective truth, in favour of an alleged autonomy in personal decisions, but, on the contrary, by an insistent search for truth and by allowing oneself to be guided by that truth in one’s actions”.” (139)

Truth then is accessed by means of the rationality that is universal to all humanity and that Christians identify with God himself. It demands submission to itself and insists on everyone “seeing others as equal to oneself”:

“The exercise of freedom implies a reference to a natural moral law, of a universal character, that precedes and unites all rights and duties. The natural law “is nothing other than the light of intellect infused within us by God. Thanks to this, we know what must be done and what must be avoided. This light or this law has been given by God to creation”. It consists in the participation in his eternal law, which is identified with God himself. This law is called “natural” because the reason that promulgates it is proper to human nature. It is universal, it extends to all people insofar as it is established by reason. In its principal precepts, the divine and natural law is presented in the Decalogue and indicates the primary and essential norms regulating moral life. Its central focus is the act of aspiring and submitting to God, the source and judge of everything that is good, and also the act of seeing others as equal to oneself. The natural law expresses the dignity of the person and lays the foundations of the person’s fundamental duties.” (140)

This universal, underlying rationality (natural law) is ubiquitous and even when suppressed or unrecognized, it is a force that rises again in individuals and societies:

“In the diversity of cultures, the natural law unites peoples, enjoining common principles. Although its application may require adaptations to the many different conditions of life according to place, time and circumstances, it remains immutable “under the flux of ideas and customs and supports their progress ... Even when it is rejected in its very principles, it cannot be destroyed or removed from the heart of man. It always rises again in the life of individuals and societies”. Its precepts, however, are not clearly and immediately perceived by everyone.” (141)

Given its force and foundational identity, natural law is destined to be the basis of civil law. If such a link between universal rationality and juridical systems is lacking, the result impedes “true and lasting communion” in a society.

“The natural law, which is the law of God, cannot be annulled by human sinfulness. It lays the indispensable moral foundation for building the human community and for establishing the civil law that draws its consequences of a concrete and contingent nature from the principles of the natural law. If the perception of the universality of the moral law is dimmed, people cannot build a true and lasting communion with others, because when a correspondence between truth and good is lacking, “whether culpably or not, our acts damage the communion of persons, to the detriment of each”. Only freedom rooted in a common nature, in fact, can make all men responsible and enable them to justify public morality. Those who proclaim themselves to be the sole measure of realities and of truth cannot live peacefully in society with their fellow men and cooperate with them.” (142)

Being open to abuse, to being used against others instead of as a means for a gift of self, freedom is in need of purification:

“Human freedom needs therefore to be liberated. Christ, by the power of his Paschal Mystery, frees man from his disordered love of self, which is the source of his contempt for his neighbour and of those relationships marked by domination of others. Christ shows us that freedom attains its fulfilment in the gift of self. By his sacrifice on the cross, Jesus places man once more in communion with God and his neighbour.” (143)

The dignity of each human being that a distortion of the freedom of others can bring about is the basis of human rights, whose identification and proclamation the Church presents as “a true milestone on the path of humanity’s moral progress” (152):

“In fact, the roots of human rights are to be found in the dignity that belongs to each human being. This dignity, inherent in human life and equal in every person, is perceived and understood first of all by reason. The natural foundation of rights appears all the more solid when, in light of the supernatural, it is considered that human dignity, after having been given by God and having been profoundly wounded by sin, was taken on and redeemed by Jesus Christ in his incarnation, death and resurrection. The ultimate source of human rights is not found in the mere will of human beings, in the reality of the State, in public powers, but in man himself and in God his Creator. These rights are “universal, inviolable, inalienable”. Universal because they are present in all human beings, without exception of time, place or subject. Inviolable insofar as “they are inherent in the human person and in human dignity” and because “it would be vain to proclaim rights, if at the same time everything were not done to ensure the duty of respecting them by all people, everywhere, and for all people”. Inalienable insofar as “no one can legitimately deprive another person, whoever they may be, of these rights, since this would do violence to their nature”.

Human rights are to be defended not only individually but also as a whole: protecting them only partially would imply a kind of failure to recognize them.” (153-4)

Instead of applying only to individuals, human rights extend to peoples and nations too, whose rights to self-determination and free cooperation are the basis of international law:

“The field of human rights has expanded to include the rights of peoples and nations: in fact, “what is true for the individual is also true for peoples”. The Magisterium points out that international law “rests upon the principle of equal respect for States, for each people’s right to self-determination and for their free cooperation in view of the higher common good of humanity”. Peace is founded not only on respect for human rights but also on respect for the rights of peoples, in particular the right to independence.

The rights of nations are nothing but “‘human rights’ fostered at the specific level of community life”. A nation has a “fundamental right to existence”, to “its own language and culture, through which a people expresses and promotes ... its fundamental spiritual ‘sovereignty”’, to “shape its life according to its own traditions, excluding, of course, every abuse of basic human rights and in particular the oppression of minorities”, to “build its future by providing an appropriate education for the younger generation”. The international order requires a balance between particularity and universality, which all nations are called to bring about, for their primary duty is to live in a posture of peace, respect and solidarity with other nations.” (157)

In this context, the task of political authority is to support the striving for the common good that is attainable at any one moment in any one place:

“The responsibility for attaining the common good, besides falling to individual persons, belongs also to the State, since the common good is the reason that the political authority exists. The State, in fact, must guarantee the coherency, unity and organization of the civil society of which it is an expression, in order that the common good may be attained with the contribution of every citizen. The individual person, the family or intermediate groups are not able to achieve their full development by themselves for living a truly human life. Hence the necessity of political institutions, the purpose of which is to make available to persons the necessary material, cultural, moral and spiritual goods. The goal of life in society is in fact the historically attainable common good.” (168)

The legal dimension of the Church’s social teaching is introduced by reflecting on Jesus’ relationship with temporal authority, which is selective in that he recognizes its partial legitimacy, directed towards service, while refusing its power when despotic:

“Jesus refuses the oppressive and despotic power wielded by the rulers of the nations (cf. Mk 10:42) and rejects their pretension in having themselves called benefactors (cf. Lk 22:25), but he does not directly oppose the authorities of his time. In his pronouncement on the paying of taxes to Caesar (cf. Mk 12:13-17; Mt 22:15-22; Lk 20:20-26), he affirms that we must give to God what is God’s, implicitly condemning every attempt at making temporal power divine or absolute: God alone can demand everything from man. At the same time, temporal power has the right to its due: Jesus does not consider it unjust to pay taxes to Caesar. […] As his disciples are discussing with one another who is the greatest, Jesus teaches them that they must make themselves least and the servants of all (cf. Mk 9:33- 35), showing to the sons of Zebedee, James and John, who wish to sit at His right hand, the path of the cross (cf. Mk 10:35-40; Mt 20:20-23).” (379)

When consistent with conscience, compliance with legitimate authority is a good, while freedom directed at selfish ends an evil:

“Submission, not passive but “for the sake of conscience” (Rom 13:5), to legitimate authority responds to the order established by God. Saint Paul defines the relationships and duties that a Christian is to have towards the authorities (cf. Rom 13:1-7). He insists on the civic duty to pay taxes: “Pay all of them their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, fear to whom fear is due, respect to who respect is due” (Rom 13:7). The Apostle certainly does not intend to legitimize every authority so much as to help Christians to “take thought for what is noble in the sight of all” (Rom 12:17), including their relations with the authorities, insofar as the authorities are at the service of God for the good of the person (cf. Rom 13:4; 1 Tim 2:1-2; Tit 3:1) and “to execute [God’s] wrath on the wrongdoer” (Rom 13:4).

Saint Peter exhorts Christians to “be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution” (1 Pet 2:13). The king and his governors have the duty “to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right” (1 Pet 2:14). This authority of theirs must be “honoured” (1 Pet 2:17), that is, recognized, because God demands correct behaviour that will “silence the ignorance of foolish men” (1 Pet 2:15). Freedom must not be used as a pretext for evil but to serve God (cf. 1 Pet 2:16). It concerns free and responsible obedience to an authority that causes justice to be respected, ensuring the common good.” (380)

The Church then has harsh words for authority that places itself above “the limits willed by God” (which coincide with natural law, i.e., universal rationality):

“When human authority goes beyond the limits willed by God, it makes itself a deity and demands absolute submission; it becomes the Beast of the Apocalypse, an image of the power of the imperial persecutor “drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” (Rev 17:6). The Beast is served by the “false prophet” (Rev 19:20), who, with beguiling signs, induces people to adore it. […] Before such a power, Saint John suggests the resistance of the martyrs; in this way, believers bear witness that corrupt and satanic power is defeated, because it no longer has any authority over them.” (382)

Instead, authority is called to have regard for human freedom and peace rather than be domination:

“Christ reveals to human authority, always tempted by the desire to dominate, its authentic and complete meaning as service. God is the one Father, and Christ the one Teacher, of all mankind, and all people are brothers and sisters. Sovereignty belongs to God. The Lord, however, “has not willed to reserve to himself all exercise of power. He entrusts to every creature the functions it is capable of performing, according to the capacities of its own nature. This mode of governance ought to be followed in social life. The way God acts in governing the world, which bears witness to such great regard for human freedom, should inspire the wisdom of those who govern human communities. They should behave as ministers of divine providence”. The biblical message provides endless inspiration for Christian reflection on political power, recalling that it comes from God and is an integral part of the order that he created. This order is perceived by the human conscience and, in social life, finds its fulfilment in the truth, justice, freedom and solidarity that bring peace.” (383)

Next, a strong emphasis is placed on the social and political anthropology of the human person, who is fulfilled when open to others and to the Transcendent:

“The human person is the foundation and purpose of political life. Endowed with a rational nature, the human person is responsible for his own choices and able to pursue projects that give meaning to life at the individual and social level. Being open both to the Transcendent and to others is his characteristic and distinguishing trait. Only in relation to the Transcendent and to others does the human person reach the total and complete fulfilment of himself. This means that for the human person, a naturally social and political being, “social life is not something added on” but is part of an essential and indelible dimension.

The political community originates in the nature of persons, whose conscience “reveals to them and enjoins them to obey” the order which God has imprinted in all his creatures: “a moral and religious order; and it is this order — and not considerations of a purely extraneous, material order — which has the greatest validity in the solution of problems relating to their lives as individuals and as members of society, and problems concerning individual States and their interrelations”. This order must be gradually discovered and developed by humanity. The political community, a reality inherent in mankind, exists to achieve an end otherwise unobtainable: the full growth of each of its members, called to cooperate steadfastly for the attainment of the common good, under the impulse of their natural inclinations towards what is true and good.” (384)

Such humans then form peoples, who are free to express their political choices for the common good and whose members maintain their autonomy:

“The political community finds its authentic dimension in its reference to people: “it is and should in practice be the organic and organizing unity of a real people”. The term “a people” does not mean a shapeless multitude, an inert mass to be manipulated and exploited, but a group of persons, each of whom — “at his proper place and in his own way” — is able to form its own opinion on public matters and has the freedom to express its own political sentiments and to bring them to bear positively on the common good. A people “exists in the fullness of the lives of the men and women by whom it is made up, each of whom ... is a person aware of his own responsibilities and convictions”. Those who belong to a political community, although organically united among themselves as a people, maintain an irrepressible autonomy at the level of personal existence and of the goals to be pursued.” (385)

Peoples then, in general, are nations, or minorities in other nations’ states who may strive for greater autonomy or independence, when “dialogue and negotiation are the path for attaining peace”:

“For every people there is in general a corresponding nation, but for various reasons national boundaries do not always coincide with ethnic boundaries. Thus the question of minorities arises, which has historically been the cause of more than just a few conflicts. The Magisterium affirms that minorities constitute groups with precise rights and duties, most of all, the right to exist, which “can be ignored in many ways, including such extreme cases as its denial through overt or indirect forms of genocide”. Moreover, minorities have the right to maintain their culture, including their language, and to maintain their religious beliefs, including worship services. In the legitimate quest to have their rights respected, minorities may be driven to seek greater autonomy or even independence; in such delicate circumstances, dialogue and negotiation are the path for attaining peace. In every case, recourse to terrorism is unjustifiable and damages the cause that is being sought. Minorities are also bound by duties, among which, above all, is working for the common good of the State in which they live. In particular, “a minority group has the duty to promote the freedom and dignity of each one of its members and to respect the decisions of each one, even if someone were to decide to adopt the majority culture”.” (387)

The purpose, then of political authority is coordination and direction at the service of integral human growth, which - when “exercised within the limits of morality and on behalf of the dynamically conceived common good, […] citizens are conscience-bound to obey”:

“Political authority must guarantee an ordered and upright community life without usurping the free activity of individuals and groups but disciplining and orienting this freedom, by respecting and defending the independence of the individual and social subjects, for the attainment of the common good. Political authority is an instrument of coordination and direction by means of which the many individuals and intermediate bodies must move towards an order in which relationships, institutions and procedures are put at the service of integral human growth. Political authority, in fact, “whether in the community as such or in institutions representing the State, must always be exercised within the limits of morality and on behalf of the dynamically conceived common good, according to a juridical order enjoying legal status. When such is the case citizens are conscience-bound to obey”.” (394)

The subject of political authority is the people, who retain sovereignty even when they elect representatives, whom they subsequently may replace.

“The subject of political authority is the people considered in its entirety as those who have sovereignty. In various forms, this people transfers the exercise of sovereignty to those whom it freely elects as its representatives, but it preserves the prerogative to assert this sovereignty in evaluating the work of those charged with governing and also in replacing them when they do not fulfil their functions satisfactorily. Although this right is operative in every State and in every kind of political regime, a democratic form of government, due to its procedures for verification, allows and guarantees its fullest application. The mere consent of the people is not, however, sufficient for considering “just” the ways in which political authority is exercised.” (395)

Such authority derives power from morality directed towards the common good.

“Authority must be guided by the moral law. All of its dignity derives from its being exercised within the context of the moral order, “which in turn has God for its first source and final end”. Because of its necessary reference to the moral order, which precedes it and is its basis, and because of its purpose and the people to whom it is directed, authority cannot be understood as a power determined by criteria of a solely sociological or historical character. […] It is from the moral order that authority derives its power to impose obligations and its moral legitimacy, not from some arbitrary will or from the thirst for power, and it is to translate this order into concrete actions to achieve the common good.” (396)

For authority to avoid becoming a mere “pragmatic regulation of different and opposing interest” it must retain its roots in natural law.

“Authority must recognize, respect and promote essential human and moral values. These are innate and “flow from the very truth of the human being and express and safeguard the dignity of the person; values which no individual, no majority and no State can ever create, modify or destroy”. These values do not have their foundation in provisional and changeable “majority” opinions, but must simply be recognized, respected and promoted as elements of an objective moral law, the natural law written in the human heart (cf. Rom 2:15), and as the normative point of reference for civil law itself. If, as a result of the tragic clouding of the collective conscience, scepticism were to succeed in casting doubt on the basic principles of the moral law, the legal structure of the State itself would be shaken to its very foundations, being reduced to nothing more than a mechanism for the pragmatic regulation of different and opposing interests.” (397)

As a result, for authority to be and remain legitimate, it must enact just laws. As soon as unjust laws are pursued, they cease to be laws themselves (becoming violence) and delegitimize authority.

“Authority must enact just laws, that is, laws that correspond to the dignity of the human person and to what is required by right reason. “Human law is law insofar as it corresponds to right reason and therefore is derived from the eternal law. When, however, a law is contrary to reason, it is called an unjust law; in such a case it ceases to be law and becomes instead an act of violence”. Authority that governs according to reason places citizens in a relationship not so much of subjection to another person as of obedience to the moral order and, therefore, to God himself who is its ultimate source. Whoever refuses to obey an authority that is acting in accordance with the moral order “resists what God has appointed” (Rom 13:2). Analogously, whenever public authority — which has its foundation in human nature and belongs to the order pre-ordained by God — fails to seek the common good, it abandons its proper purpose and so delegitimizes itself.” (398)

Refusing to obey unjust laws is not only a right, but a duty and it can be overruled neither by arguments about the freedom of others nor by being required by civil law.

“Citizens are not obligated in conscience to follow the prescriptions of civil authorities if their precepts are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons or to the teachings of the Gospel. Unjust laws pose dramatic problems of conscience for morally upright people: when they are called to cooperate in morally evil acts they must refuse. Besides being a moral duty, such a refusal is also a basic human right which, precisely as such, civil law itself is obliged to recognize and protect. “Those who have recourse to conscientious objection must be protected not only from legal penalties but also from any negative effects on the legal, disciplinary, financial and professional plane”.

It is a grave duty of conscience not to cooperate, not even formally, in practices which, although permitted by civil legislation, are contrary to the Law of God. Such cooperation in fact can never be justified, not by invoking respect for the freedom of others nor by appealing to the fact that it is foreseen and required by civil law. No one can escape the moral responsibility for actions taken, and all will be judged by God himself based on this responsibility (cf. Rom 2:6; 14:12).” (399)

A direct consequence then is the legitimacy of resistance to civil (positive) law that is in contradiction with natural law (i.e., universal rationality), with the objective of change.

“Recognizing that natural law is the basis for and places limits on positive law means admitting that it is legitimate to resist authority should it violate in a serious or repeated manner the essential principles of natural law. Saint Thomas Aquinas writes that “one is obliged to obey ... insofar as it is required by the order of justice”. Natural law is therefore the basis of the right to resistance.

There can be many different concrete ways this right may be exercised; there are also many different ends that may be pursued. Resistance to authority is meant to attest to the validity of a different way of looking at things, whether the intent is to achieve partial change, for example, modifying certain laws, or to fight for a radical change in the situation.” (400)

Here there is a powerful preference for passive resistance and it is only under extreme, specific conditions (all applying simultaneously) that armed resistance could be deemed legitimate:

“The Church’s social doctrine indicates the criteria for exercising the right to resistance: “Armed resistance to oppression by political authority is not legitimate, unless all the following conditions are met: 1) there is certain, grave and prolonged violation of fundamental rights, 2) all other means of redress have been exhausted, 3) such resistance will not provoke worse disorders, 4) there is well-founded hope of success; and 5) it is impossible reasonably to foresee any better solution”. Recourse to arms is seen as an extreme remedy for putting an end to a “manifest, long-standing tyranny which would do great damage to fundamental personal rights and dangerous harm to the common good of the country”. The gravity of the danger that recourse to violence entails today makes it preferable in any case that passive resistance be practised, which is “a way more conformable to moral principles and having no less prospects for success”.” (401)

Having focused on circumstances where being at odds with political and juridical power is right and duty, it is important to also recognize the good they may represent, always in function of the people they serve:

“The Magisterium recognizes the importance of national sovereignty, understood above all as an expression of the freedom that must govern relations between States. Sovereignty represents the subjectivity of a nation, in the political, economic, social and even cultural sense. The cultural dimension takes on particular importance as a source of strength in resisting acts of aggression or forms of domination that have repercussions on a country’s freedom. Culture constitutes the guarantee for the preservation of the identity of a people and expresses and promotes its spiritual sovereignty.

National sovereignty is not, however, absolute. Nations can freely renounce the exercise of some of their rights in view of a common goal, in the awareness that they form a “family of nations” where mutual trust, support and respect must prevail. In this perspective, special attention should be given to the fact that there is still no international agreement that adequately addresses “the rights of nations”, the preparation of which could profitably deal with questions concerning justice and freedom in today’s world.” (435)

The Church also insists on the importance of negotiation and dialogue when tensions among political communities arise and denounces not only the use but even the threat of force.

“To resolve the tensions that arise among different political communities and can compromise the stability of nations and international security, it is indispensable to make use of common rules in a commitment to negotiation and to reject definitively the idea that justice can be sought through recourse to war. “If war can end without winners or losers in a suicide of humanity, then we must repudiate the logic which leads to it: the idea that the effort to destroy the enemy, confrontation and war itself are factors of progress and historical advancement”.

Not only does the Charter of the United Nations ban recourse to force, but it rejects even the threat to use force. This provision arose from the tragic experience of the Second World War. During that conflict the Magisterium did not fail to identify certain indispensable factors for building a renewed international order: the freedom and territorial integrity of each nation, defence of the rights of minorities, an equitable sharing of the earth’s resources, the rejection of war and an effective plan of disarmament, fidelity to agreements undertaken and an end to religious persecution.” (438)

For conflicts at the level of nations to be resolved peacefully, “international law must ensure that the law of the more powerful does not prevail.”

“In order to consolidate the primacy of law, the principle of mutual confidence is of the utmost importance. In this perspective, normative instruments for the peaceful resolution of controversies must be reformulated so as to strengthen their scope and binding force. Processes of negotiation, mediation, conciliation and arbitration that are provided for in international law must be supported with the creation of “a totally effective juridical authority in a peaceful world”. Progress in this direction will allow the international community to be seen no longer as a simple aggregation of States in various moments of their existence, but as a structure in which conflicts can be peacefully resolved. “As in the internal life of individual States ... a system of private vendetta and reprisal has given way to the rule of law, so too a similar step forward is now urgently needed in the international community”. In short, “international law must ensure that the law of the more powerful does not prevail”.” (439)

Finally, the Church returns to denouncing the evil of violence yet again, and calls for a safeguarding of human rights, even at the cost of ridicule.

“Violence is never a proper response. With the conviction of her faith in Christ and with the awareness of her mission, the Church proclaims “that violence is evil, that violence is unacceptable as a solution to problems, that violence is unworthy of man. Violence is a lie, for it goes against the truth of our faith, the truth of our humanity. Violence destroys what it claims to defend: the dignity, the life, the freedom of human beings”.

The contemporary world too needs the witness of unarmed prophets, who are often the objects of ridicule. “Those who renounce violence and bloodshed and, in order to safeguard human rights, make use of those means of defence available to the weakest, bear witness to evangelical charity, provided they do so without harming the rights and obligations of other men and societies. They bear legitimate witness to the gravity of the physical and moral risk of recourse to violence, with all its destruction and death”.” (496)

I hope that following this thread through the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church has been of interest to you and that it has presented a useful framework for considering complex and challenging situations, like the one that is currently the case in Catalonia. It should be obvious that the Church does not push for one solution or another, but that she insists on the pursuit of the common good, on respecting the dignity and ultimate value of each person, on the application of universal rationality, on the posture of service instead of domination, on the denunciation of violence and on the need for dialogue and the protection of minorities.

Schönborn: towards a person’s possible good

5141 words, 26 min read

In July, at Mary Immaculate College’s Irish Institute for Pastoral Studies, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna gave a beautiful, commented reading of some passages of Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis’ encyclical on the family. A video of the whole event has been published recently and, as a sign of gratitude to Cardinal Schönborn, I would here like to share a lightly edited transcript of the majority of his talk. It radiates love and profound care for the family and, by extension, for all of humanity, and benefits from Cardinal Schönborn’s rich gifts and experiences - his having been editor of the current Catechism of the Catholic Church, his being archbishop of Vienna, his having been a student of Benedict XVI, his participation in both Synods that lead to Amoris Laetitia and his having been chosen to present Amoris Laetitia by Pope Francis when it was published.

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Moral Theology stands on two feet: the principles and then the prudential steps to application of the principles to reality. And this is the normal challenge that every parent faces when they have to educate their children. […] This is the classical field of the virtue of prudence. And in moral theology the treatise on prudence has been gravely neglected. There was a great insistence on principles, and that was right, and it’s necessary. Principles must be clear. But then the question is how to come to practical judgment and then practical action. That’s the task of the virtue of prudence. […] For Pope Francis the key question is discernment […] for the right handling of the relation between principles and concrete action.

AL: “325. The teaching of the Master (cf. Mt 22:30) and Saint Paul (cf. 1 Cor 7:29-31) on marriage is set – and not by chance – in the context of the ultimate and definitive dimension of our human existence. We urgently need to rediscover the richness of this teaching. By heeding it, married couples will come to see the deeper meaning of their journey through life.”

One of the key words of Pope Francis in the whole document is: marriage is a journey. It’s [a] classical Thomistic approach. It’s the existence “in via” - we are on the way, on the road. There is no family in a static way. Every family is “in via” as each of us is “in via” his whole life.

AL: “325. As this Exhortation has often noted, no family drops down from heaven perfectly formed; families need constantly to grow and mature in the ability to love. This is a never-ending vocation born of the full communion of the Trinity, the profound unity between Christ and his Church, the loving community which is the Holy Family of Nazareth, and the pure fraternity existing among the saints of heaven. Our contemplation of the fulfillment which we have yet to attain also allows us to see in proper perspective the historical journey which we make as families, and in this way to stop demanding of our interpersonal relationships a perfection, a purity of intentions and a consistency which we will only encounter in the Kingdom to come.”

Very often Pope Francis remembers that one of the main causes of [difficulties in] marriage is not that we ask too little from marriage, but too much. […]

AL: “325. It also keeps us from judging harshly those who live in situations of frailty. All of us are called to keep striving towards something greater than ourselves and our families, and every family must feel this constant impulse. Let us make this journey as families, let us keep walking together. What we have been promised is greater than we can imagine. May we never lose heart because of our limitations, or ever stop seeking that fullness of love and communion which God holds out before us.”

[This] helps us to see that we are all on a journey and imperfection is [an] essential part of our life. […]

AL: “320. There comes a point where a couple’s love attains the height of its freedom and becomes the basis of a healthy autonomy. This happens when each spouse realizes that the other is not his or her own, but has a much more important master, the one Lord. No one but God can presume to take over the deepest and most personal core of the loved one; he alone can be the ultimate centre of their life. At the same time, the principle of spiritual realism requires that one spouse not presume that the other can completely satisfy his or her needs. The spiritual journey of each – as Dietrich Bonhoeffer nicely put it – needs to help them to a certain “disillusionment” with regard to the other,382 to stop expecting from that person something which is proper to the love of God alone. This demands an interior divestment. The space which each of the spouses makes exclusively for their personal relationship with God not only helps heal the hurts of life in common, but also enables the spouses to find in the love of God the deepest source of meaning in their own lives. Each day we have to invoke the help of the Holy Spirit to make this interior freedom possible.”

It shows that great freedom that is the Christian vocation, which is not an impediment for the donation of each other but the condition of not demanding of each other what only God can give. And, nevertheless, he can affirm in the next point a word I love very much in this document:

AL: “321. “Christian couples are, for each other, for their children and for their relatives, cooperators of grace and witnesses of the faith”. God calls them to bestow life and to care for life. For this reason the family “has always been the nearest ‘hospital’”.”

It’s a beautiful metaphor! […] When my mother had to leave our home in ’45 as a refugee, with me on her arm as a baby, and my elder brother two years old, from Bohemia, from what’s today the Czech Republic, she had to leave the house in half an hour. Where did she go? She looked for the closest point at the Austrian border where she had relatives, family. The family is the nearest hospital. Where do you go? Where do these thousands and thousands of refugees who came through Austria and went all over Europe, where do they go? I have heard so many of them say, “I have family, relatives in Sweden, I want to go to Sweden. I have family in the Netherlands, I want to go there.” Family is the strongest hub, the most protected hub. It’s also the most vulnerable hub. […]

Pope Francis with Amoris Laetitia wants to tell us one key message. […] “Amoris Laetitia: marriage and family are possible.” […]

Before we enter this document, we must look at the Biblical foundations in the first chapter. […] There are some words that show how realistic Pope Francis’ approach is to the question of marriage and family. […]

AL: “19. The idyllic picture presented in Psalm 128 is not at odds with a bitter truth found throughout sacred Scripture, that is, the presence of pain, evil and violence that break up families and their communion of life and love. For good reason Christ’s teaching on marriage (cf. Mt 19:3-9) is inserted within a dispute about divorce. The word of God constantly testifies to that sombre dimension already present at the beginning, when, through sin, the relationship of love and purity between man and woman turns into domination: “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen 3:16).”

The approach is always realistic. Let’s speak of the families […] as they really are. […] This realism invites us to not idealize the family but to look mercifully on that reality. And I want to show you three methodological texts, numbers 35, 36 and 37, where Pope Francis indicates the main line of his approach.

AL: “35. As Christians, we can hardly stop advocating marriage simply to avoid countering contemporary sensibilities, or out of a desire to be fashionable or a sense of helplessness in the face of human and moral failings.”

Sometimes we really feel helpless. I had to speak to the German government and officials. Angela Merkel was sitting there at the front. She is a very impressive lady, and I said, listen, dear politicians, we in the Catholic Church we feel often like against a wall. Whatever difficult question arrises, we are accused of being retrograde, of being conservative, of being out of touch, and it is so hard for us to say that the ideal we present is viable, that it is not impossible. So, Pope Francis encourages us to stand up for the values we [stand] for, not to be ashamed.

AL: “35. We would be depriving the world of values that we can and must offer. It is true that there is no sense in simply decrying present-day evils, as if this could change things.”

During the Synod, a Synod Father, he was a cardinal, gave a talk - 3 minutes we were allowed to speak - it was a good decision - he began to describe all the evils of our time: consumerism, materialism, hedonism, “pansexualism” he said, and some other isms I have forgotten, and then I said: but, brethren, with a long list of isms, that we criticize, nobody will be motivated to choose Christian values. And that’s exactly what Pope Francis says:

AL: “35. Nor it is helpful to try to impose rules by sheer authority. What we need is a more responsible and generous effort to present the reasons and motivations for choosing marriage and the family, and in this way to help men and women better to respond to the grace that God offers them.”

[...] The word grace appears so often in this document. Trust in grace. Don’t only repeat the norms, but trust in grace. And the two words: reasons and motivations. We have reasons for our hope. We have reasons for our faith.

AL: “36. Nor have we always provided solid guidance to young married couples, understanding their timetables, their way of thinking and their concrete concerns. At times we have also proposed a far too abstract and almost artificial theological ideal of marriage, far removed from the concrete situations and practical possibilities of real families. This excessive idealization, especially when we have failed to inspire trust in God’s grace, has not helped to make marriage more desirable and attractive, but quite the opposite.”

AL: “37. We also find it hard to make room for the consciences of the faithful, who very often respond as best they can to the Gospel amid their limitations, and are capable of carrying out their own discernment in complex situations. We have been called to form consciences, not to replace them.”

I must say, I was deeply moved when I read this text: “We have been called to form consciences, not to replace them.” And do we really trust in the conscience of people who very often respond “as best they can.” The “bonum possibile” in moral theology that has been so neglected. What is the possible good a person can achieve, or a couple can achieve, in difficult circumstances? Often Pope Francis comes back to what he has said in Evangelii Gaudium: “A little step towards the good, done under difficult circumstances, can be more valuable than a moral, solid life under comfortable circumstances.” […] Do we really trust conscience? Of course, dialogue is necessary, deepening the awareness of conscience, but first of all we can trust.

And I want to read with you number 49, which is, as the theologians would say, the hermeneutic key, the key to understanding where Pope Francis comes from. What moves him in speaking as he does.

AL: “49. Here I would also like to mention the situation of families living in dire poverty and great limitations. The problems faced by poor households are often all the more trying.36 For example, if a single mother has to raise a child by herself and needs to leave the child alone at home while she goes to work, the child can grow up exposed to all kind of risks and obstacles to personal growth. In such difficult situations of need, the Church must be particularly concerned to offer understanding, comfort and acceptance, rather than imposing straightaway a set of rules that only lead people to feel judged and abandoned by the very Mother called to show them God’s mercy. Rather than offering the healing power of grace and the light of the Gospel message, some would “indoctrinate” that message, turning it into “dead stones to be hurled at others”.”

I have met Pope Francis for the first time when he was an auxiliary at Buenos Aires in ’97. […] I will never forget the barrio, the quarter where the sisters [I was visiting] were living. It was “un oceano de miseria” - an ocean of misery. Huts and huts and huts as far as you could see. And in the neighboring hut of the Little Sisters, there was a couple, who had a little daughter and a boy - the boy has become a criminal - and the daughter, Roxanne, now has two little children, two boys, and she showed me when I was there three years ago, the little hut she had built herself, with a little garden, all very very poor, but when I read this text I thought, Roxanne - the heroism of these women in such difficult situations. That is the existential place, where Pope Francis comes from and what matters to him. […]

AL: “123. After the love that unites us to God, conjugal love is the “greatest form of friendship”. It is a union possessing all the traits of a good friendship: concern for the good of the other, reciprocity, intimacy, warmth, stability and the resemblance born of a shared life. Marriage joins to all this an indissoluble exclusivity expressed in the stable commitment to share and shape together the whole of life. Let us be honest and acknowledge the signs that this is the case. Lovers do not see their relationship as merely temporary. Those who marry do not expect their excitement to fade. Those who witness the celebration of a loving union, however fragile, trust that it will pass the test of time. Children not only want their parents to love one another, but also to be faithful and remain together.”

I was asked one day in a school [… by a girl]: “Bishop, what was the most difficult day in your life?” I was surprised by this question and without reflecting, I said: “The moment when I heard that my parents divorced.” There was a great silence. That’s the experience of many young people, and I tried to repair what I had done and said: “But, listen, I can tell you, by experience, there is always a way.” But, this is such a deep truth, and we will see how important this experience is for Pope Francis, in Chapter 8. Before asking the question: are they allowed - yes or no - to receive communion, look at the situation of the family, the children, and so on.

AL: “123. These and similar signs show that it is in the very nature of conjugal love to be definitive. The lasting union expressed by the marriage vows is more than a formality or a traditional formula; it is rooted in the natural inclinations of the human person.”

We must not be desperate […]. Marriage will last because it is rooted in the deepest inclinations of human nature. The “inclinatio naturalis” was in Thomas Aquinas - this is typically Thomistic - so to say the guideline, the orientation that human nature, that the Creator, has given us. Therefore the best ally of our understanding of marriage and family is human nature. That will last and we shouldn’t be too afraid of the discussions of other forms of relations because fundamentally this natural inclination will always be stronger.

AL: “123. For believers, it is also a covenant before God that calls for fidelity.”

That’s what faith adds to this natural inclination. But all these arguments show that love in itself is inclined to be permanent and faithful and lasting. […]

[Now] we must read number 220 - it’s so funny - it shows the realism of Pope Francis. I think this should be read by a couple, because it is so true for a couple, it is also somewhat true for us who live in celibacy.

AL: “This process [the process of growth] occurs in various stages that call for generosity and sacrifice. The first powerful feelings of attraction give way to the realization that the other is now a part of my life. The pleasure of belonging to one another leads to seeing life as a common project, putting the other’s happiness ahead of my own, and realizing with joy that this marriage enriches society. As love matures, it also learns to “negotiate”. Far from anything selfish or calculating, such negotiation is an exercise of mutual love, an interplay of give and take, for the good of the family. At each new stage of married life, there is a need to sit down and renegotiate agreements, so that there will be no winners and losers, but rather two winners. In the home, decisions cannot be made unilaterally, since each spouse shares responsibility for the family; yet each home is unique and each marriage will find an arrangement that works best.”

There is no general rule. Every marriage synthesis is unique. […] Our former president of Austria, I am good friends with him and his wife, he is an agnostic and she is not baptized, of Jewish origin, but they are a very good couple. An exemplary couple. And one day they spoke about how they work, their strategies in conflicts and they said: we have an agreement that the one of us who more easily gives in does it. “So,” I asked, “but how do you know who of you can give in more easily than the other?” And they smiled and said: “That’s by experience.” No winner, no loser; negotiate.

AL: “221. Each marriage is a kind of “salvation history”, which from fragile beginnings – thanks to God’s gift and a creative and generous response on our part – grows over time into something precious and enduring. […] Love is thus a kind of craftsmanship.”

[… On homosexuals and homosexuality]

AL: “250. The Church makes her own the attitude of the Lord Jesus, who offers his boundless love to each person without exception.During the Synod, we discussed the situation of families whose members include persons who experience same-sex attraction, a situation not easy either for parents or for children. We would like before all else to reaffirm that every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration, while ‘every sign of unjust discrimination’ is to be carefully avoided, particularly any form of aggression and violence. Such families should be given respectful pastoral guidance, so that those who manifest a homosexual orientation can receive the assistance they need to understand and fully carry out God’s will in their lives.”

In all these discussions, it is known through the media that I have had the case of an elected parish councillor who lives in a same-sex union. He is a very fine young man, he works with handicapped children, he is fully engaged in the parish, he leads the parish choir, and he is highly respected by the parish and his friend, his partner, is a good and a fine young man and they are faithful to each other. I had the choice, when he was elected to the parish council - he had the most votes for the parish council - I was confronted with the question: have I to cancel this vote? In the same week we had the media full with a monk, a Benedictine monk, who had abused in the college of his abbey, probably about 100 boys. He ended in prison, but the abbot had covered … The media were full of this and I said, no, I can’t cancel this parish vote. It was not a protest vote against the Church’s teaching. It was for this young man, who is an honest and good Christian, a real believer, and I decided not to cancel that vote. It was discussed all over the globe, in the “blogosphere”, and I think these few words of Amoris Laetitia are sufficient. As we do for marriage crises, as we do for priests in crisis, we have to look at the person first, not the orientation. I have always said in these discussions: I have never met a homosexual, I have always met a person that has also had a homosexual orientation, but that is not all of the person and there are so many good things to look at. So, I think it is good that Pope Francis refused to have a long discussion about the question.

AL: “251. In discussing the dignity and mission of the family, the Synod Fathers observed that, “as for proposals to place unions between homosexual persons on the same level as marriage, there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family”. It is unacceptable “that local Churches should be subjected to pressure in this matter and that international bodies should make financial aid to poor countries dependent on the introduction of laws to establish ‘marriage’ between persons of the same sex”.“

[…] In Austria we have a law for same-sex partnership and this is a law with reasonable civil law dispositions for same-sex people living together, sharing their life. It’s questions of inheritance, of rights of visit, of sharing an apartment, and so on - all these legal questions. And from the Church’s side we have not at all objected to this law, because it’s helpful for civil situations which we have not to judge on the personal level. But then, we clearly said we are grateful to the government that they clearly distinguish the legislation on marriage and family from this kind of civil legislation. Of course, some groups were not satisfied, but I think it is a possible way and I think it is also an honest way. […]

Chapter 8. Let’s have a look at number 300. […]

AL: “300. If we consider the immense variety of concrete situations such as those I have mentioned, it is understandable that neither the Synod nor this Exhortation could be expected to provide a new set of general rules, canonical in nature and applicable to all cases.”

When I received the draft for preparing my presentation in Rome, of course, I admit, I read first Chapter 8, which you shouldn’t do. And, when I read this sentence, I was relieved. I must say, I had a serious fear that the attempt of certain bishops, certain theologians, certain pressure groups, would lead Pope Francis to the attempt of formulating a new canonical disposition applicable for all cases of irregular situations. That’s what the Eastern Orthodox churches do with the canons of 692 where it is generally, canonically established that a second and a third union are possible. Not under certain conditions, but they are possible. And this is a canonical, general rule. Some people wanted such a kind of disposition in canon law for the Catholic Church and I was so relieved, so glad, that Pope Francis stood clear about this. The canonical disposition and the dogmatic grounds for this canonical disposition, are valid and need no supplement, no addition. Does it mean, as some people conclude, from this sentence, that nothing has changed? That nothing is possible? Therefore, lets’ read the second sentence:

AL: “300. What is possible is simply a renewed encouragement to undertake a responsible personal and pastoral discernment of particular cases.”

Now, you may say, that’s much too difficult. We need clear rules. How can a couple, a priest, a pastoral personnel, come to such a discernment? Pope John Paul II has said in Familiaris Consortio no 84. - a famous text on divorced remarried - he said “the pastors, the shepherds, by love for truth, are obliged to distinguish the cases, to distinguish the situations” - that’s John Paul! And if you turn back to number 298 you will find a series of quotes of St. John Paul about the distinction of cases, distinction of situations. Pope Francis has enlarged this chapter of 84 of Familiaris Consortio by adding some other cases. I give you just the first case:

AL: “298. The divorced who have entered a new union, for example, can find themselves in a variety of situations, which should not be pigeonholed or t into overly rigid classifications leaving no room for a suitable personal and pastoral discernment. One thing is a second union consolidated over time, with new children, proven fidelity, generous self giving, Christian commitment, a consciousness of its irregularity and of the great difficulty of going back without feeling in conscience that one would fall into new sins. The Church acknowledges situations “where, for serious reasons, such as the children’s upbringing, a man and woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate”.”

That’s a reality. We do not speak about communion here! We speak about the moral qualification of different situations. Pope Francis said once during the Synod: this question of the communion is a trap because you put away the consideration of the situation. You only want to have a casuistic approach: are they allowed, aren’t they allowed. But, first of all, discern the situations.

AL: “298. There are also the cases of those who made every effort to save their first marriage and were unjustly abandoned, or of “those who have entered into a second union for the sake of the children’s upbringing, and are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably broken marriage had never been valid”.“

When my parents divorced, they knew each other for three days before they got married. It was wartime, my father was at the front, came back to Prague, met my mother at a party, and asked her to marry him the first evening. And then he had to return to the front, they wrote letters, and during the second holiday from the front, they got married. My father then deserted the German army, he was very hostile to the Nazis, escaped and joined the British army. He came back with the British army when I was already born. And they began to live together practically four years after their wedding, and had to discover that they didn’t know each other. So, it’s great that my parents stood together 17 years and they really tried to bring us up but they knew that this marriage … So, as a child already, I had the feeling that if my mother said: “I cannot bring up four children alone,” working hard - she was in business - she brought us up alone, she is still alive - 97! Amazing! But, I would have understood if she had said, “I just can’t do it, bringing up four children alone.” And she had had the possibility for a second marriage, but she didn’t do it, and she always says until today, “He was my husband, yes, he is my husband.” Of course, this marriage could have been dissolved easily, because, they knew each other three days, but nevertheless, the situation addressed here is morally different from destroying an existing marriage through adultery. And we have finally a fifth [and sixth] case:

AL: “298. Another thing is a new union arising from a recent divorce, with all the suffering and confusion which this entails for children and entire families, or the case of someone who has consistently failed in his obligations to the family. It must remain clear that this is not the ideal which the Gospel proposes for marriage and the family. The Synod Fathers stated that the discernment of pastors must always take place “by adequately distinguishing”, with an approach which “carefully discerns situations”. We know that no “easy recipes” exist.””

We could say a lot about this discernment. I just want to add one point, which is made in number 300:

AL: “300. Priests have the duty to “accompany [the divorced and remarried] in helping them to understand their situation according to the teaching of the Church and the guidelines of the bishop.”

That’s what Pope Francis recommends in this situation, before asking the question of communion. Ask five questions:

AL: “300. Useful in this process is an examination of conscience through moments of reflection and repentance. The divorced and remarried should ask themselves: how did they act towards their children when the conjugal union entered into crisis; whether or not they made attempts at reconciliation; what has become of the abandoned party; what consequences the new relationship has on the rest of the family and the community of the faithful; and what example is being set for young people who are preparing for marriage. A sincere reflection can strengthen trust in the mercy of God which is not denied anyone”.”

This is for me the real program for how to accompany divorced remarried in their great variety of situations. These 5 points. And I end with number 245:

AL: “245. The Synod Fathers also pointed to “the consequences of separation or divorce on children, in every case the innocent victims of the situation”. Apart from every other consideration, the good of children should be the primary concern, and not overshadowed by any ulterior interest or objective. I make this appeal to parents who are separated: “Never ever, take your child hostage! You separated for many problems and reasons. Life gave you this trial,”

I find it very impressive. Pope Francis does not judge: “Life gave you this trial” of separation. But:

AL: “245. but your children should not have to bear the burden of this separation or be used as hostages against the other spouse. They should grow up hearing their mother speak well of their father, even though they are not together, and their father speak well of their mother”. It is irresponsible to disparage the other parent as a means of winning a child’s affection, or out of revenge or self-justification. Doing so will affect the child’s interior tranquillity and cause wounds hard to heal.”

This is the attitude of discernment Pope Francis is inviting us to exercise and practice and the question of communion can come after that, when he says: “There may be cases in which the help of the sacraments can be given.” But that needs discernment. And he gave us, and I tried to present in brief, some guidelines for this discernment.

Holy Saturday: the logic of freedom

1864 words, 10 min read

A highlight of the Easter Triduum has for me always been Holy Saturday, when the tabernacle’s emptiness, the stripped altar and the absence of the Eucharist are all stark reminders of what a world without God’s incarnation as a fellow human would be like. It is, for me, a day for being particularly close to atheists and agnostics and for reflecting on the gift of Jesus’ friendship, whose enormity is heightened by its apparent absence.

I have, for some years now, had a feeling that there is much more to Holy Saturday than I am aware of, that Jesus’ participation in death is saying more than I am hearing. Against this background, I have come across Hans Urs von Balthasar’s “Mysterium Paschale: The Mystery of Easter”, whose 4th chapter is dedicated to Holy Saturday, and I would here like to give you a sense of the beautiful line of thought he sets out there.

Von Balthasar starts by tracing the origins of the idea of Jesus’ participation in death to the New Testament and argues for this being a consequence of redemption’s scope extending beyond the living. Jesus’ death here is a “being with” a “solidarity” with death as a human condition:

“‘[G]oing to the dead’, an expression justified, in our opinion, by I Peter 3, 19: ‘he went, poreutheis, and preached to the spirits in prison’—preached, that is, the ‘good news’ as I Peter 4, 6 adds by way of a self-evident clarification. […]

There is no difficulty about understanding this ‘going to the souls in prison’ as, first and foremost, a ‘being with’, and the ‘preaching’ in the same primary fashion as the publication of the ‘redemption’, actively suffered, and brought about by the Cross of the living Jesus—and not as a new activity, distinct from the first. For then the solidarity with the condition of the dead would be the prior condition for the work of redemption, whose effects would be deployed and exercised in the ‘realm’ of the dead, though that work itself would remain fundamentally finished (consummatum est!) on the Cross. In this sense the actively formulated term ‘preaching’ (I Peter 3, 19; in 4, 6 it is passive, evēngelisthē) should be conceived as the efficacious outworking in the world beyond of what was accomplished in the temporality of history.”

More important even than his descent and the being with the departed, is Jesus’ ascent from the dead, as a paving of the way for the resurrection of all:

“It is not the going to the dead which is important here—that is taken for granted, and identified, simply, with what it is to be genuinely dead—but rather the return from that bourn. God has not ‘left’ (or ‘abandoned’) Jesus ‘in Hades’ where he tarried; he has not let his Holy One see corruption. The accent is placed on the whence—the phrase ek nekrōn occurs some fifty times in the New Testament—a whence which implies a point of departure, namely, being with the dead. Death here is characterised by ‘pangs’, by ‘pains’ (?dines), and by its lust to seize and hold (krateisthai): but God is stronger than death. The only thing that matters is the facticity of the ‘being’ of the one who is dead in ‘death’ or—for this amounts to the same thing—in Hades, whose character is (objectively) referred to by the term ‘pains’. It is from thence that Jesus is ‘awoken’. […]

[I]n the Cross the power of Hell is already broken (down), the locked door of the grave is already burst open, yet Christ’s own laying in the tomb and his ‘being with the dead’ is still necessary, so that, on Easter Day, the common resurrection ek tōn nekrōn—with ‘Christ the first-fruits’—can follow.”

Von Balthasar then turns to the motivation for Jesus’ descent and again ascribes it to solidarity with the “unredeemed dead”, relying on St. Augustine who insists that Christ’s descent extended not only to the as-yet-unredeemed, but redemption-worthy, but also to those considered unworthy:

“The fact of being with the unredeemed dead, in the Sheol of the Old Testament, signifies a solidarity in whose absence the condition of standing for sinful man before God would not be complete. This is why Sheol must be understood in the classic Old Testament sense […]

Augustine distinguishes between a lower infernum (where the ‘rich man’ lives) and a higher (where Lazarus dwells, in the bosom of Abraham). The two are separated by a chaos magnum, yet both belong equally to Hades. That Christ descended even to the lower infernum, in order to ‘deliver from their sufferings tortured souls, that is, sinners’ (salvos facere a doloribus) Augustine regards as certain (non dubito). The grace of Christ redeemed all those who tarried there: adhuc requiro¹. […]

This ultimate solidarity is the final point and the goal of that first ‘descent’, so clearly described in the Scriptures, into a ‘lower world’.

Looking at what the Early Fathers of the Church have written about Holy Saturday, von Balthasar presents the descent into hell as a matter of logical necessity, following from the incarnation. To become fully human, Christ had to participate in death too. Without this, his incarnation would have been incomplete, as would his redemptive action:

“And so, in order to assume the entire penalty imposed upon sinners, Christ willed not only to die, but to go down, in his soul, ad infernum. As early as the Fathers of the second century, this act of sharing constituted the term and aim of the Incarnation. The ‘terrors of death’ into which Jesus himself falls are only dispelled when the Father raises him again. According to Tertullian, the Son of God adapted himself to the whole law of human death: Huic quoque legi satisfecit, forma humanae mortis apud inferos functus². The same affirmation is found in Irenaeus: Dominus legem mortuorum servavit, ut fieret primogenitus a mortuis.³ He insists on his own grounding principle, namely, that only what has been endured is healed and saved. Since above all this is a matter of penetrating into the realm of the inferi, so for Ambrosiaster in the Quaestiones ex Novo Testamento, Christ had to die so as to be capable of this step. Christ willed to be like us, says Andrew of Crete, in ‘walking amidst the shadows of death, in that place where souls had been bound with chains unbreakable’. All that only expresses the law of human death, thought through to its logical conclusion.”

Von Balthasar then draws our attention to a seemingly paradoxical aspect of Christ’s being among the dead - i.e., that is was a “solitary [being] with others” that did not come with a subjective experience:

“To the extent that the experience of death was objectively capable of containing an interior victory and thus a triumph over hostile powers, to that extent it was in no way necessary that this triumph be subjectively experienced. For precisely that would have abolished the law of solidarity. Let it not be forgotten: among the dead, there is no living communication. Here solidarity means: being solitary like, and with, the others.”

A further aspect of Christ’s being with the dead is that it is both an act of ultimate obedience and an act of the Trinity, where the self-noughting of its persons is enacted here in creation. This is also reminiscent of Slavoj Žižek’s concept of God taking into himself the gap that may otherwise be between Him and humanity:

“His being with the dead is an existence at the utmost pitch of obedience, and because the One thus obedient is the dead Christ, it constitutes the ‘obedience of a corpse’ (the phrase is Francis of Assisi’s)⁴ of a theologically unique kind. By it Christ takes the existential measure of everything that is sheerly contrary to God, of the entire object of the divine eschatological judgment, which here is grasped in that event in which it is ‘cast down’ (hormēmati blēthēsetai, Apocalypse 18, 21; John 12, 31; Matthew 22, 13). But at the same time, this happening gives the measure of the Father’s mission in all its amplitude: the ‘exploration’ of Hell is an event of the (economic) Trinity.”

Finally, von Balthasar brings his line of thought to its pinnacle, by presenting Jesus’ being among the dead as a logical consequence of his having received the power to judge from the Father and from Hell being the “supreme entailment of human liberty”. Without participating in it, and to do so as a human entails death, the transformation he brought about by his resurrection would have been incomplete.

“If the Father must be considered as the Creator of human freedom—with all its foreseeable consequences—then judgment belongs primordially to him, and thereby Hell also; and when he sends the Son into the world to save it instead of judging it, and, to equip him for this function, gives ‘all judgment to the Son’ (John 5, 22), then he must also introduce the Son made man into ‘Hell’ (as the supreme entailment of human liberty). But the Son cannot really be introduced into Hell save as a dead man, on Holy Saturday. This introducing is needful since the dead must ‘hear the voice of the Son of God’, and hearing that voice, ‘live’ (John 5, 15). The Son must ‘take in with his own eyes what in the realm of creation is imperfect, unformed, chaotic’ so as to make it pass over into his own domain as the Redeemer.”

To my mind, von Balthasar presents a beautiful insight into the events of Holy Saturday, whose coverage in Scripture is scant, by returning to a close reading of those passages, by understanding what the Early Church and the saints have written about it and by connecting it with the drama of salvation, which entails a transformation of creation as a whole. Only by being with the dead could Christ’s incarnation be complete and his redeeming power extend to the full scale of the consequences of human freedom.

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¹ “I yet enquire.”
² “He also satisfied this law, enduring the form of human death in Hell.” De Anima, Chapter LIV.
³ “The Lord observed the law of the dead, that he would be the first-born from the dead.”
⁴ This is a reference to the following passage from St. Francis’ The Mirror of Perfection:

““Tell us, Father, what is perfect obedience?” To which he answered, speaking of true and perfect obedience under the figure of a corpse, “ Take a dead body and place it anywhere you please, it will not murmur at being moved, it will not change its position or cry out if you let it go. If you seat it on a throne it will not look up but down, and to clothe it in purple but makes it more pale. This is the type of perfect obedience, that asks not why he is moved, minds not where he is placed, nor insists upon being sent elsewhere. If he be promoted to office he still keeps humble, and the more he is honoured the more he counts himself unworthy.”

I’m with Fr. Martin: respect, compassion, and sensitivity for LGBTs

2413 words, 12 min read

Jesus’ last will and testament, which he passed on to the apostles at the Last Supper, contains the following exhortation: “that they may all be one” (John 17:21). Here, Jesus explains in the same verse that “one” means to relate to each other “as you, Father, are in me and I in you.” And since “all” means “all,” it falls to every Christian to strive towards building relationships with everyone like those among the persons of the Trinity - i.e., relationships of loving self-noughting and self-othering. This means that there is no more us versus them, only an all-encompassing us.

Now, this “us” undoubtedly also includes those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender, and indeed anyone else too, regardless of their sexual orientation. It is therefore essential that we, Christians make everyone, regardless of their sexuality, feel not only welcome but loved and since this has often not been the case, there is a need for a deliberate effort to reach out, which has also been apparent in many things Pope Francis, and many other representatives of the Catholic Church, have said and done recently.

In this context, an important contribution has recently been made by Fr. James Martin SJ, who has for many years ministered to the LGBT community and who has now written an excellent book on how to bring it and the institutional Church closer together. The book is entitled “Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity” and contains four parts. The first two are built on the metaphor of a bridge between the institutional Church and the LGBT community, where Fr. Martin’s advice for traversing it in both directions is based on what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches with regard to LGBT people, which is to treat them with “respect, compassion, and sensitivity” (§2358). The third part comprises a series of scriptural passages that Fr. Martin found helpful in his ministry, each with an introduction and followed by questions suitable for reflection. Finally, the book concludes with a beautiful prayer - “A prayer for when I feel rejected”.

When I first read this book, I found it to be a pure expression of the Gospel desire to share the Good News that Jesus brought to humanity - an invitation to mutual love, to dialogue and to closeness. I also thought that it was highly non-controversial and entirely consistent with the Catholic Church’s teaching and I thought no more about it. During the course of recent days, things have changed though and I have seen a savage and persistent campaign of hate directed at Fr. Martin, who is now being accused of heresy and whose name is being dragged through the mud of social media echo chambers. I am no censor or even theologian, but as a member of the Church’s laity, I have a right and duty to support and defend those who uphold the Gospel, and Fr. Martin certainly does that in spades.

Instead of engaging in a futile rebuttal of his critics, I would just like to share with you some of my favorite passages mostly from the first part of “Building a Bridge,” since it is there that I have most felt spoken to myself.

In the opening pages of the book Fr. Martin sets out the rationale for writing it, which is about breaking down us v. them barriers:

“[T]he work of the Gospel cannot be accomplished if one part of the church is essentially separated from any other part. [...] In these times, the church should be a sign of unity. Frankly, in all times. Yet many people see the church as contributing to division, as some Christian leaders and their congregations mark off boundaries of “us” and “them.” But the church works best when it embodies the virtues of respect, compassion, and sensitivity.”

Next, he looks at each of respect, compasion and sensitivity in turn, as they apply to the institutional Church’s relationship with LGBT Catholics and the LGBT community in general. Thinking about respect first, Fr. Martin highlights three consequences of it, the first of which is recognition:

“[R]ecognizing that the LGBT community exists, and extending to it the same recognition that any community desires and deserves because of its presence. [...] Jesus recognizes all people, even those who seem invisible in the greater community.”

Throughout the book, Fr. Martin also presents and engages with potential reservations about his proposals. For example, in the case of recognition being misconstrued as blanket approval, he writes:

“Some Catholics have objected to this approach, saying that any outreach implies a tacit agreement with everything that anyone in the LGBT community says or does. This seems an unfair objection, because it is raised with virtually no other group. If a diocese sponsors, for example, an outreach group for Catholic business leaders, it does not mean that the diocese agrees with every value of corporate America.”

The second aspect of respect then is “calling a group what it asks to be called.”:

“[P]eople have a right to name themselves. Using those names is part of respect. And if Pope Francis and several of his cardinals and bishops can use the word gay, as they have done several times during his papacy, so can the rest of the church.”

The third side of respect is to recognise that LGBT Catholics bring many gifts to the Church:

“Respect also means acknowledging that LGBT Catholics bring unique gifts to the church—both as individuals and as a community. [...] Many, if not most, LGBT people have endured, from an early age, misunderstanding, prejudice, hatred, persecution, and even violence, and therefore often feel a natural compassion toward the marginalized. Compassion is a gift. They have often been made to feel unwelcome in their parishes and in their church, but they persevere because of their vigorous faith. Perseverance is a gift. They are often forgiving of clergy and other church employees who treat them like damaged goods. Forgiveness is a gift. Compassion, perseverance, and forgiveness are all gifts.”

In summary, Fr. Martin argues that respect translates to participation in God’s love:

“Seeing, naming, and honoring all these gifts are components of respecting our LGBT brothers and sisters and siblings. So also is accepting them as beloved children of God and letting them know that they are beloved children of God. The church has a special call to proclaim God’s love for a people who are often made to feel, whether by their families, neighbors, or religious leaders, as though they were damaged goods, unworthy of ministry, and even subhuman. The church is invited to both proclaim and demonstrate that LGBT people are beloved children of God.”

Turning to compassion, the model is Jesus’ incarnation itself and the need for listening to and living alongside others:

“The word compassion (from the Greek paschō, “to suffer”) means “to experience with, to suffer with.” So what would it mean for the institutional church not only to respect LGBT Catholics, but to be with them, to experience life with them, and even to suffer with them? [...]

The first and most essential requirement is listening. It is impossible to experience a person’s life, or to be compassionate, if you do not listen to the person or if you do not ask questions. [...]

We need not look far for a model for this. God did this for all of us—in Jesus. The opening lines of the Gospel of John tell us, “The Word became flesh and lived among us” (1: 14). The original Greek is more vivid: “The Word became flesh and pitched its tent among us” (eskēnōsen en hēmin). Isn’t that a beautiful phrase? God entered our world to live among us. This is what Jesus did. He lived alongside us, took our side, even died like us.

We can celebrate and treasure more than simply their gifts. We can celebrate and treasure them. This is a kind of compassion too—to share in the experience of Christian joy that LGBT men and women, young and old, bring to the church.”

Next, sensitivity is presented as a call to closeness, along Pope Francis’ lines of encountering and accompanying and in imitation of Jesus’ reaching out also to those considered on the margins of the People of Israel, in an outside-in motion:

“Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines sensitivity as “an awareness or understanding of the feelings of other people.” That’s related to Pope Francis’s call for the church to be a church of “encounter” and “accompaniment.” To begin with, it is nearly impossible to know another person’s feelings at a distance. You cannot understand the feelings of a community if you don’t know the community. You can’t be sensitive to the LGBT community if you only issue documents about them, preach about them, or tweet about them, without knowing them.[...]

In this, as in all things, Jesus is our model. When Jesus encountered people on the margins, he saw not categories but individuals. To be clear, I am not saying that the LGBT community should be, or should feel, marginalized. Rather, I am saying that within the church many of them do find themselves marginalized. They are seen as “other.” But for Jesus there was no “other.” Jesus saw beyond categories; he met people where they were and accompanied them. The Gospel of Matthew, for example, tells the story of Jesus meeting a Roman centurion who asked for healing for his servant (8: 5–13). Although the man was not Jewish, Jesus saw a man in need and responded to his need. [...]

The movement for Jesus was always from the outside in. His message was always one of inclusion, communicated through speaking to people, healing them, and offering them what biblical scholars call “table fellowship,” that is, dining with them, a sign of welcome and acceptance in first-century Palestine. In fact, Jesus was often criticized for this practice. But Jesus’s movement was about inclusion. He was creating a sense of “us.” For with Jesus, there is no us and them. There is only us.

In this context, Fr. Martin also addresses the potential objection that Jesus also admonished sinners not to sin, arguing that his approach was one of inclusion first and conversion second (a conversion we are all called to and in need of):

“One common objection here is to say, “No, Jesus always told them, first of all, not to sin!” We cannot meet LGBT people because they are sinning, goes the argument, and when we do meet them, the first thing we must say is, “Stop sinning!” But more often than not, this is not Jesus’s way. In the story of the Roman centurion, Jesus doesn’t shout “Pagan!” or scold him for not being Jewish. Instead, he professes amazement at the man’s faith and then heals his servant. Likewise, in the story of Zacchaeus, after spying the tax collector perched in the tree, he doesn’t point to him and shout, “Sinner!” Instead, Jesus says that he will dine at Zacchaeus’s house, a public sign of openness and welcome, before Zacchaeus has said or done anything. Only after Jesus offers him welcome is Zacchaeus moved to conversion, promising to pay back anyone he might have defrauded. For Jesus it is most often community first—meeting, encountering, including—and conversion second. Here I’m talking about the conversion that all of us need, not simply LGBT people (and, incidently, not “conversion therapy”). Pope Francis echoed this approach in an inflight press conference in 2016, on his return to Rome from the countries of Georgia and Azerbaijan. “People must be accompanied, as Jesus accompanied,” he said. “When a person who has this situation comes before Jesus, Jesus will surely not say: ‘Go away because you’re homosexual.’””

At the conclusion of the first half of the book, Fr. Martin spells out a point that forms the bedrock of his approach, which is that:

“[w]e are all on the bridge together. For that bridge is the church. And, ultimately, on the other side of the bridge for each group is welcome, community, and love.”

And, finally, he draws our attention to the sustaining power of the Holy Sprit, to the need of our, universal brotherhood and sisterhood, and to God’s constant accompanying of humanity:

In difficult times you might ask: “What keeps the bridge standing? What keeps it from collapsing onto the sharp rocks? What keeps us from plunging into the dangerous waters below?” The answer is: the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, which is supporting the church, is supporting you, for you are beloved children of God who, by virtue of your baptism, have as much right to be in the church as the pope, your local bishop, and me. Of course, that bridge has some loose stones, big bumps, and deep potholes, because the people in our church are not perfect. We never have been—just ask St. Peter. And we never will be. We are all imperfect people, struggling to do our best in the light of our individual vocations. We are all pilgrims on the way, loved sinners following the call we first heard at our baptism and that we continue to hear every day of our lives. In short, you are not alone. Millions of your Catholic brothers and sisters accompany you, as do your bishops, as we journey imperfectly together on this bridge. More important, we are accompanied by God, the reconciler of all men and women as well as the architect, the builder, and the foundation of that bridge.

To my mind, Fr. Martin has written a beautiful treatise on dialogue, openness and love that could just as well be applied to any other group of people who are and/or feel marginalised by the Church. The text could easily be transposed to refugees or atheists or to other groups and communities, whom parts of the Church may not be as welcoming towards as they should¹ and I highly recommend the book in its entirety.

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¹ E.g., see Pope Francis’ words from the press conference during his return from Armenia in June 2016: “I think that the Church not only should apologise … to a gay person whom it offended but it must also apologise to the poor as well, to the women who have been exploited, to children who have been exploited by (being forced to) work. It must apologise for having blessed so many weapons.”