Catholics in public life.

"For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come" Hebrews 13:14.

At various times in its history, the Church has been vividly reminded of the truth of this text from the Letter to the Hebrews, itself written when Christians were beginning to experience hostility from both Jews and gentiles. It was the Christian rejection of pagan civilization--"the world" of Saint John's Gospel (15:18-19)--that led to persecutions, now sporadic, now systematic, during the first 300 years of the Church's existence.

Attitude towards public life

More was involved than a refusal to worship false gods, in particular the deified emperor. In general, Christians eschewed careers in the army, the civil service, or the theatre, all of which were contaminated by a public and ceremonial recognition of polytheism. The last of this trio, the theatre, was further polluted by the immorality of the dramas and of the actors. Equally corrupt was the circus and its performers.

The result was that Christianity became an object of disgust to Romans who characterized it, in the words of the historian Tacitus, as a "pernicious superstition." He would have been surprised if the oracle Sybil could have foretold that this obscure and despised sect was one day to determine the ethos of the Roman Empire and then to create its successor, mediaeval Europe.

The greatness of Christianity showed itself, among other things, in its ability to transform society; the opportunity once presented, the Church rose to the occasion and expanded what had been a way of life into a civilization or, rather, into civilizations. But both phases of Christianity--as a society of outcasts and as a society coterminous with the political realm--exhibit the uncompromising principles of the Church. The conclusion is apparent: Christianity forms society or, to a greater or lesser extent, withdraws from it.

The glorious tragedy of Saint Thomas More, martyred by Henry VIII in 1535, points to a period when social and religious changes imposed in a radical way abstention of a Catholic from public life. Other such times were the French Revolution and, to Pius IX at least, the political liberalism of the nineteenth century that led to the unification of Italy and to the Pope's being "the prisoner of the Vatican." Nor is our day without its challenges to the practising Catholic, as the communist regimes of China, Cuba and, until recently the Soviet empire, demonstrate.

The Christian in today's world

The critical principle established, it remains to examine today's society in an effort to determine which professions a Catholic must abjure or even which he may expect to be debarred from. The question is not idle, for as Christianity was first despised and then persecuted in the paganism of Rome, so could it well be in the renewed paganism of the twenty-first century. And pagan it is. Take suicide. A Cleopatra or a Cicero simply killed himself when life became difficult or unbearable; they have their contemporary imitators. The licentious violence of the theatre and circus that amused the ancient Greeks and Romans also has an obvious counterpart today. The old disregard for human life in laws and medicine invites the modern pagan to like brutality. And political savvy, now as then, is often at odds with Christian principles.

Can it be that the "right" to abortion and the "benefits" of genetic research will eventually make acceptance into medical school impossible for anyone who ascribes to the once universally accepted principles of the sanctity of human life? A Catholic politician faces a similar difficulty when informed by the party whip of the policies the member must or must not support. The fact that the abolition of the rights of the unborn in Canada was effected and has been maintained by Catholic politicians is a sobering indication of the well-nigh inevitable compromises required of public servants in a secular state. Quislings are nothing new, in the Church or in society at large; alone among the bishops of England, Saint John Fisher objected, at the cost of his life, to the attacks on the Church perpetrated by Henry VIII.

Anti-Catholicism has become a secular virtue because the Church is the only institution still willing publicly to condemn the sins of society, all of which Saint Paul traces back to greed: "the love of money is the root of all evils" (1 Tim 6:10). This greed has been institutionalized in capitalism which in its obsession with profits produces not only moral decay in North America but also exploitation, frequently condemned by the Pope, of the Third World. It seems to me that the pressure for profit will ultimately force a choice upon serious Catholics. When agro-business becomes synonymous with good business, that noble thing, the family farm, becomes a sentimental, i.e., a financially indefensible indulgence. Contraceptives and pornography sell. A Catholic pharmacist who refuses to stock them will be blackballed by his suppliers.

Third-world sweatshops produce goods cheaply. What can a haberdasher do to safeguard the rights of workers?

Abortions make money and so do lawsuits. How can a nurse or doctor, how can the junior partner in a law firm, form or follow an educated conscience? Old people are unproductive and expensive to keep. Suicide, assisted or imposed, is the obvious response of a society that denies God's providential ordering of life and death.

Movies are as popular as television, and an "R" rating aids the box office. An actor or actress with moral qualms will not easily find work in either medium. High technology produces weapons that win wars and so preserve the "American way of life." No scientist who worries about mass destruction need apply for government posts, and no soldier without a streak of terrorism in him--or, today, in her--need enlist. Lawyers and doctors command large salaries. They earn them by doing what they're told, just as a politician votes as he's told. There's no success for a man who puts his conscience ahead of his career.

Cooperate or not?

As you read, you are probably saying to yourself, "He exaggerates the difficulties of those who act in the public or commercial spheres. Worse, he is effectively recommending an abdication of moral responsibility." To some extent, I admit the validity of these objections. We are not yet at the barricades and where would we be without the involvement of principled men in the professions? Nevertheless, the question remains: are there situations with which a Catholic must refuse complicity? Nazi Germany, a regime still synonymous with evil, should not have received even the passive support of a Christian, as the persistent accusations levelled against Pius XII show; in short, such situations can exist. What is worrisome is the small degree of exaggeration in my description of the difficulties facing a moral agent in any sector of contemporary society.

The Church is virtually the only institution that consistently challenges the principles of unfettered capitalism. It is no wonder that pundits, brandishing the scandalous behaviour of a number of priests, feel entitled to call into question the principles of Catholicism. What better way to mute the voice of criticism than to destroy the credibility of the speaker? As things now stand, I am convinced that an era, if not of persecution, at least of harassment is beginning for Catholics in which any role in public life will be difficult if not impossible for a committed Catholic, or for anyone else unwilling to evade moral responsibility by saying, "I'm personally opposed to _____, but I would never dream of imposing my views on society." (Fill in the blank with any of the categories mentioned above.)

Venerable John Henry Newman saw in the religious respectability of nineteenth-century England an ugly conformity to secular, irreligious ideals. His call to his fellow Anglicans in 1833 at the beginning of the Oxford Movement, as stirring as it was startling, still speaks to serious Christians:

"Is it not our very office to oppose the world? can we then allow ourselves to court it? to preach smooth things and prophesy deceits? to make the way of life easy to the rich and indolent, and to bribe the humbler classes by excitements and strong intoxicating doctrine? ... on what are we to rest our authority, when the State deserts us? ... CHOOSE YOUR SIDE. To remain neutral much longer will be itself to take a part. Choose your side; since side you shortly must, with one or other party, even though you do nothing. Fear to be of those, whose line is decided for them by chance circumstances, and who may perchance find themselves with the enemies of Christ. (Tracts for the Times, number 1).

His call had its effect, although the conflict he half feared, half sought was averted by the eager conformity of many of his co-religionists to the ethos of his day. The long-term result of such compromise has been the removal of religion as a significant element in British society. Has human nature changed since 1833? Our placid pragmatism seems to make it inevitable that Canada will unresistingly follow the path taken by nineteenth-century England and so end up with a public morality uninfluenced by Christian principles. "CHOOSE YOUR SIDE."

Father Callam, a contributing editor of Catholic Insight, is associate professor of theology at the University of Saint Thomas in Houston, TX, U.S.A. He was for many years in the Department of Religious Studies at Saint Thomas More College, Saskatoon.