Demands on religious leaders today.

One day I decided to sit through an episode of Dr. Phil, for I had to see whether he had the patience to keep himself from murdering the mother of a young thirteen-year-old girl who would, with her mother's permission, throw drinking parties for her friends. They would consume beer and wine spritzers and smoke pot, and the daughter admitted to regularly engaging in oral sex with her eighteen-year-old boyfriend, who would sometimes spend the night in her bed. The mother would, on occasion, provide the alcohol for her daughter's parties.

Dr. Phil originally thought that this particular case was a prank. Not so. The mother was aware something was wrong, but just not exactly what, and she was at a loss for what to do. Her fears were that if she were to come down hard, her daughter would end up hating her and would rebel. Indeed, Dr. Phil assured the mother, the daughter will eventually hate her, especially when she has a baby strapped to each leg and is in drug rehab. She will hate her mother for not having had the courage and strength of character to come down hard on her, draw clear boundary lines, and provide her with some moral direction, all because she had a need to win the neighbourhood parental popularity contest and be universally regarded as "the cool mom."

Then Dr. Phil posed a very simple and straightforward question: "You said you fear that if you were to begin drawing boundary lines, your daughter would rebel. But let me ask you: isn't that what she's doing already? She's thirteen years old, she drinks, smokes pot, is sexually active with an eighteen-year-old boy, etc.; isn't she already in rebellion?"

Parallels in the Church

The mother's strategy for preventing the realization of her fears has turned out to be the very means to their complete realization. Is it me, or does this style of leadership have a parallel in some parts of the Church today? Many priests and bishops have made the decision never to address moral issues from the pulpit, since doing so would cause some people to feel uncomfortable, and making people feel uncomfortable is considered by many to be "unpastoral." The need for confession is rarely preached, if preached at all, and in some parishes throughout the country one has to make an appointment for confession, since there are no established times for it throughout the week.

What is it that some of our religious leaders are afraid of? The same thing, it seems, that our young mother on Dr. Phil is afraid of, namely, that coming down hard will only encourage rebellion. And yet we have been told that approximately 75% of married Catholics use contraceptives, and it is obvious that Catholics have ignored guidelines given by the Canadian hierarchy on how to vote responsibly and that a large portion of Catholics have no problem voting for an anti-life political party or candidate. Our Catholic politicians are quite candidly pro-choice and profess that two people of the same sex have a basic right to be married, implying that marriage has nothing essentially to do with children. We need only ask the question: isn't this already a case of mass rebellion? Like our mother on Dr. Phil, the strategy our religious leaders have employed for preventing the realization of their fears has turned out to be the very means to their complete realization. A new strategy is in order.

Dieting

Since my final week of chemotherapy, I have paid much closer attention to diet than I know I otherwise would have. What I have noticed is how great are the demands made on people in general with respect to what foods we are to eat and which are to be avoided. Those with gout are to avoid a diet high in purines and protein, and the new South Beach Diet exhorts us to rely on the right carbs and fats so as to reduce the risk of heart disease and diabetes. Subway is doing well, and one can now go to a fast food restaurant and actually purchase a relatively healthy lunch. In other words, demands were made on the public, and a good number of us seem to have risen to the occasion. People with gout are abstaining from red wine, beer, and red meat; more people are avoiding deep-fried foods and reducing the amount of fat in their daily diet; and more people are drinking high-priced bottled water than ever before. Cancer societies recommend that men over 50 submit to an uncomfortable colonoscopy every five years, as well as a very uncomfortable digital rectal examination yearly in order to more readily detect the onset of prostate cancer.

But when it comes to spiritual and moral health, we are afraid to make similar demands on the faithful that require sacrifice or cause discomfort, all in the name of being "pastoral." If the medical profession and the American Cancer Society were just as "pastoral" to the general public, more people would be dying of cancer, heart disease, and suffering strokes than they are currently. The irony of course is that the body is destined for the ground, while the soul is indestructible. The sad fact in all of this is that people will rise to the occasion if they are challenged.

Need for fortitude 

Fortitude is the virtue that moderates the emotions of fear and daring according to the demands of reason, binding the will to the good in the face of the greatest bodily evil, namely death. The very idea of fortitude thus presupposes that there are certain things that we should love more than our own lives, certain things we ought to be willing to die for, such as truth, the common good, the unborn, the kingdom of God, and the spiritual welfare of the faithful.

Fortitude is thus the willingness to fall in battle, but such willingness is not limited to the context of an actual war between nations. There are, as Aquinas puts it, "private battles" that render fortitude a possibility, such as "when a judge or even private individual does not refrain from giving a just judgment through fear of the impending sword, or any other danger though it threaten death" (Summa II-II Q. 123, a. 5). John the Baptist is a perfect example of fortitude with respect to "private combat," for he did not refrain from speaking out against Herod for repudiating his first wife and marrying his brother's wife while Philip was still alive. This is how the shepherd loses his life for the flock of Christ entrusted to him, by boldly professing the truth when his silence will only injure his flock.

Bolder leadership

The dangers to the spiritual life are much greater today than they were a decade ago. If one has satellite cable, soft and hardcore pornography are only a few hundred channels away. They are available at the click of a mouse if one has Internet, and addiction to online pornography is on the rise. People have more exposure to pseudo-scholars like Tom Harpur and Dan Brown than to the great doctors of the Church and the ideas contained in the latest encyclicals.

It is simply much more difficult to be a Catholic today than it was half a century ago, but things are not as they were in sixteenth-century England, for example. Bishops do not have to worry about being hanged, drawn, and quartered. If they could muster the courage to join a Life Chain or March for Life, all they can reasonably expect is an occasional middle finger and a few obscenities, but not much more. It will certainly not mean an emptying out of our churches. On the contrary, there is enough evidence to strongly suggest that a bolder and more consistent leadership grounded in real faith will only mean an increase in Church attendance along with increasing revenues, not to mention more vocations.

A last-minute letter, from Fr. Leo Boyd, O.M.I., re the election message from the bishops of Canada

In the Tuesday Fax from the diocese this week [Dec. 6/05] we received the text of a message from the Permanent Council of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops on the 2006 federal election. It is really disappointing.

I searched in vain for the word "morality," which like sin, seems to be a word no one uses these days. I saw "political," "social," "ethical" and "economic," but no mention of morals or morality.

As for the issues that the bishops think are "key to the lives of men and women of our country--these are the needy, the poor, families and children." No, mention whatsoever of same-sex "marriage:" no mention of euthanasia: no mention of the wholesale and general doing away with all aspects of Christianity in our country!

When will someone have the courage to simply stand up and tell us that any candidate or party that embraces and tries to put into law same-sex "marriage," euthanasia or abortion, is not worthy of our vote. On January 23rd make your voice heard: seek out the views of your candidates before that date: be clear what you want for our country and our children--and then vote.

St. Joseph's Church

Armstrong, BC