Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog: A simple, effective, and disgusting strategy

Over on the Huff-and-Puff Post, a Marine Biologist, Former Clinton White House Science Advisor, and political hack by the name of Jeff Schweitzer outlines, perhaps unwittingly (there is a lot of "unwittingly" going on at the Huff-and-Puff Post), the increasingly successful strategy that some progressives, ultra-left Democrats, and Catholic haters are employing to undermine and silence the Church. Stripped of smoke, mirrors, and misdirecting rhetoric, it is this simple:

1. Deem everything to be political. Everything from womb to tomb: life, death, education, marriage, procreation, health care, footwear, underwear—you name it.

2. Criticize the Church for taking a stance on matters that are essentially moral in nature, but are now said to be completely political and secular. Write absurd things such as, "Have no doubt that the Catholic Church has dropped all pretense of being a religious organization. Cathedrals are nothing but a gathering place for constituents to organize lobbying campaigns, support favored candidates and influence state and federal legislation. The Catholic Church is now officially the third major political party in the United States."

3. Pretend to be balanced and astutely moderate in taking such a ridiculous stance: "I strongly encourage bishops to speak their minds, and to work in broad daylight to influence legislation consistent with their beliefs. But if bishops and other religious leaders wish to exercise their right to free speech to push a specific political agenda, the Catholic Church should no longer be considered a religious organization." Note that abortion is not, in the eyes of Schweitzer and Co., a matter first of morality and ethics, but of politics. Thus, opposition to abortion and to federal funds for abortion is now a "specific political agenda."

4. Demand the Church lose tax exempt status, which in turn completely changes the relationship between Church and State, and further puts the Church under the boot of the State: "Nobody can claim with a straight face that such church activity complies with either the spirit or the letter of the codes allowing for exemption status, or that such actions are compatible with the First Amendment. The Catholic Church must decide: religious organization or political party. It cannot be both. Unless we value Iran as a role model for governance." Religion, you see, should be completely private in nature, while politics engulfs the public square. In the end, politics are the religion that trumps religion. The manipulative remark about Iran has it completely upside down: far from being in danger of becoming a rigid theocratic stronghold, the United States is, to borrow directly from James Kalb, learning what it is like to live under the rule of administered freedom, inquisitorial tolerance, and equality by command.

I quoted some of this 2006 papal address recently, but it is worth reading again in light of Schwietzer's hit piece:

Indeed, secularity is commonly perceived today as the exclusion of religion from social contexts and as the boundary of the individual conscience.

Secularity would be expressed in the total separation between the State and the Church, since the latter is in no way entitled to intervene in areas that concern the life and conduct of citizens; secularity would even entail the exclusion of religious symbols from public places designated for the proper functions of the political community: offices, schools, courts, hospitals, prisons, etc.

On the basis of these different ways of conceiving secularity, people today speak of secular thought, secular morals, secular knowledge and secular politics. Indeed, on the basis of such concepts, an a-religious vision of life, thought and morals exists: a vision in which there is no room for God, for a Mystery that transcends pure reason, for a moral law of absolute worth, in force in every time and every situation.

Only if we realize this can we assess the consequences of the problems inherent in a term such as "secularity", which seems almost to have become the qualifying emblem of post-modernity and especially of modern democracy.

It is therefore the task of all believers, particularly believers in Christ, to help formulate a concept of secularity which, on the one hand, acknowledges the place that is due to God and his moral law, to Christ and to his Church in human life, both individual and social; and on the other, affirms and respects the "rightful autonomy of earthly affairs", if by this phrase, as the Second Vatican Council reaffirms, is meant man's "gradual discovery, exploitation and ordering of the laws and values of matter and society" (Gaudium et Spes, n. 36). Such autonomy is "perfectly in order: it is at once the claim of modern man and the desire of the Creator. By the very nature of creation, material being is endowed with its own stability, truth and excellence, its own order and laws. These man must respect as he recognizes the methods proper to every science and technique" (ibid.).

If, instead, the words "rightful autonomy of earthly affairs" mean that "material being does not depend on God and that man can use it as if it had no relation to its Creator", then the fallacy of such a claim will be obvious to anyone who believes in God and his transcendent presence in the world he created (cf. ibid.).

This conciliar assertion constitutes the doctrinal basis for that "healthy secularity" which involves the effective autonomy of earthly realities, not indeed from the moral order but from the ecclesiastical sphere. Thus, the Church cannot point out the preferred political and social order; it is the people who must freely decide on the best and most suitable ways to organize political life.

Any direct intervention from the Church in this area would be undue interference. Moreover, "healthy secularism" implies that the State does not consider religion merely as an individual sentiment that may be confined to the private sphere alone. (Pope Benedict XVI, December 9, 2006)

Fr. Schall, in reflecting on that address, wrote:

There is something else that bothers the Pope about this exclusive secular autonomy. "To refuse the Christian community and its legitimate representatives the right to speak on the moral problems that challenge all human consciences today, and especially those of legislators and jurists, is not a sign of healthy secularity." Obviously, Benedict here refers to the right of Church officials to present their views about public issues that concern truth and morality without fear of being accused of interfering with the "internal autonomy" of the secular or religious order. It is delicately put, that the Church does intend and has an obligation to speak to its own members and to the world about truth and morality in public issues that are of transcendent importance.

Isn't this view just another view of typical Church "interference?" The Pope does not back down. It is not "meddling" in affairs of State but "the affirmation and defense of important values that give meaning to the person's life and safeguard his or her dignity." It is noteworthy that the Pope states, "these values are human before being Christian, such that they cannot leave the Church silent and indifferent." This statement goes back to the notion of a legitimate intellectual and human autonomy that believers also are witness to and have an obligation to address themselves to. This is a defense of philosophy and politics as such. The Church sees it as a duty "to firmly proclaim the truth about man and his destiny." Who else, we wonder, is proclaiming this when the very questions of the truth of man and his destiny are excluded from serious public consideration?

Read Fr. Schall's entire piece, "Secularity: On Benedict XVI and the Role of Religion in Society."