The Long Road Back for Rome: where next for the Catholic church in the West?

When I think about Ireland, I cannot separate that from thoughts of the Catholic church, a church which, though far from perfect, I love dearly.

I don’t often find, in that most Catholic of countries, more in-depth theological knowledge than that of Catholics elsewhere, or even full agreement with everything the church says and teaches, but a Catholicism routed in everyday lives, with religious references peppering many a conversation.

It’s ingrained, deep in the Irish consciousness. Or is it?
Last week, Ireland voted overwhelmingly to support the introduction of same-sex marriage.

Commentators of a Catholic persuasion have scrambled, ever since, to understand why.

Listening to RTÉ radio on the day of the vote, as constituency after constituency delivered its resounding “yes,” I first heard the argument that the No campaign had been under resourced. I always find that problematic: are people really blank canvases on to which the side that provides the rich media darlings can impose any perspective that they want? I’m sure we all say lots of things in the immediate bitterness of such a stinging defeat.

The more reflective discourse emerging is far more interesting.

It’s pretty simple really: the argument for gay marriage didn’t win the day, the Catholic church has lost its place in society. In essence, people voted yes because they wanted to say “no” to the Catholic church.

The narratives have got more polemical as the week has gone on: this isn’t about disagreement with the church’s position on gay marriage or homosexuality more generally, but Western society slamming the door in the church’s face altogether.

If that is true, the commentators are right to point out that the church’s challenge of “reconnecting” is absolutely enormous. If so many people find its doctrine unpalatable, how does it begin to do it?

I don’t know how such a hierarchical machinery puts the wheels in motion in practice to respond in a top-down way, but I do believe as parishes and as individual Catholics, we can take these principles and take up the fight to bring our church back to its people. Here they are:

1. We need to be assertive. The absolute demonization of the Catholic church makes it quite understandable that Catholics would feel timid about saying that our church is a true force for good in the world. We shouldn’t.

We shouldn’t say that it’s perfect: terrible and dark moments exist in its long history, not least in Catholic Ireland. However, it has been, and continues to be, a source for good in the world.

Hardly a Mass goes by when I don’t hear of fantastic work carried out by our visiting priests from across the world, our parishioners involved in projects making on-the-ground improvements to the lives of desperately impoverished communities in Africa and elsewhere, or, closer to home, the work of societies like the SVP (St Vincent de Paul), who carry out those undisputedly vital tasks of visiting the sick, imprisoned, marginalised and lonely.

“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40).

We have to be vocal and proud about the good work that our church does for our global family: humankind.

2. We need to acknowledge that this was a rejection. It might be comforting to convince ourselves that our culture is much more accepting of concepts such as gay marriage now, and so the result in Ireland, and popular support in other Western countries, is not a rejection of our church but an affirmation of a concept of equality that is now dominant.

I don’t deny for a second that people supported gay marriage because, in many cases, they genuinely believed that to not allow it would be to put a stumbling block to creating a fairer, more equal society.

The question is, could it be both rejection and affirmation? I think so, if you look at not just the results, but the debates. It’s been virtually impossible for the reasoned argument that gay marriage itself doesn’t give anyone any extra rights at all to be heard.

It’s simple enough: if marriage is defined as a union open to procreation, and consequently can only exist between a man and a woman, is it not possible, legally, to argue that even if you call a homosexual union by another name, in its legal implications it is every bit the same as a civil marriage?

It seemed lost on virtually everyone in Britain, that gay people gained not a single extra right when gay marriage was introduced. Indeed, as one of its most vocal gay opponents Andrew Pierce pointed out, it actually failed to address any of the continuing injustices which the introduction of civil partnerships didn’t remedy, for example retrospective backdating of pension payments to one’s spouse upon death.

That argument that no extra rights were being gained either way was simply not heard: I only heard it once at a fringe Conservative event, delivered by that great voice of Catholicism in Britain, Anne Widdecombe, who proclaimed it with messianic zeal.

Whether you accept that argument or not, it’s a reasonable one. Why didn’t church leaders advance it, rather than rely on theological underpinnings that fewer and fewer people accept anyway?

Why, indeed, did they not use another one of Pierce’s points, namely that in civil partnerships gay people had something for their own, rather than a second-rate equivalent of what the heterosexual population gets?

The truth is, opponents of gay marriage felt the need to embody their arguments in a rigorous defence of their Christian theology, and when they didn’t do that, they groaned bitterly that this heralded in an era of Christian persecution.

They argued that they were under threat, and the fact that the no camp’s position didn’t seem to get any credibility whatsoever shows clearly that they were not only incapable of advancing a societal critique over a self-interested one, but that their angle of focus chimed not one bit with the priorities of public consciousness. The arguments against simply fell away.

3. So we need a new message. Pope Francis is the best thing to happen to the Catholic church in years. He knows we need a new message, and a new way of doing things. He is, of course, a controversial figure, but a popular one.

He has not garnered anything like the same level of criticism for his views as previous popes of the late 20th and early 21st century, even though there’s no evidence he’s any less socially conservative. Why? Because he’s not endlessly prattling on in an intellectual arrogance about “the dictatorship of Relativism” like his predecessor, but acknowledging a truth that for too long the church has ducked: we have difficult doctrines.

Yes, that’s right, we have some pretty difficult doctrines. The pope’s compassionate statements to homosexuals and others typically marginalised by the church, signals his clear understanding that there is a gap between a strict and difficult set of moral teachings, and how the flock actually live.

He isn’t going to change doctrine, but he’s emphasising it less, in favour of a message of welcome, love and compassion for everyone, and for that I applaud him.

Some people may be alarmed: are we heading down a slippery slope?

Look at the Anglican church: it’s trying too hard to be conciliatory and embrace everyone and it’s pleasing no-one, with church attendance in steady decline. That’s because nominal Christians by default will be Christened there, and with 25 million members in Britain, compared with around 4 million Catholics, it’s hardly surprising really, or a reasonable comparison.

There is a middle ground, between relativistic denial of the existence of any objective truth, and the kind of uncompromising approach, void of any compassion, previously shown to those whose choices (if that’s what they are) the church disagrees with.

It’s a start: “Our love for you as a member of the human family, and our wish to welcome you, matters far more than the lifestyle choices we don’t approve of.” Isn’t that nice?

Of course I hope it will go further. I hope, like the Anglican church, we might be given the freedom to debate the meaning of complex theological issues. I hope one day, I’ll be able to stand up in church and express my view that statements in the Bible that are used as the basis for condemning homosexuality and other sexual practices as mortally sinful, do not, if properly understood, support those positions at all.

I hope we as a society can have a debate about gay marriage, without the church’s view being side-lined because, forgetting the marriage part, people dislike how we view and treat gay people altogether.

If, however, in the meantime we switch our emphasis to emphasising our theological virtues of faith, hope and charity, and make it absolutely clear that these are offered to everyone, we will go along way to play an integral role in our local communities and be an example to inspire, not repel people.

4. Finally, we simply need to be involved in our own parishes and communities.

Pope Francis’s Evangeli Gaudiem stands out amongst papal documents because it encourages us throughout the work to think about applicability of its principles in our own areas. Catholics need to take an active role, understanding their local communities, what their needs are, and being creative and proactive in finding ways the church can help, and ways that all members, young and old, can be engaged in activities that bring our message of hope to our communities.

Our witness is much more powerful when given through deed rather than word. Simply living our call to serve one another, opens eyes and ears, if not to the details of our religious belief, than to the values and beliefs which make us the people we are.

We meaningfully witness by hard slog, by being an example, by making our example leave a more powerful impression than the detractors who wait eagerly to fill any vacuum we leave unfilled by retreating to narratives that draw on points of theology to rail angrily against social change.

In none of these recommendations do I suggest the church should be forced to abandon its view of gay marriage, nor do I suggest that legislative changes in Western countries legalising it would have been avoided, but simply that, if the church had simply faced up to and addressed its fundamental rejection by society, it would have got a fair hearing.

It might even have been unable to put on a united front in support of either side of the argument, but it would have been a credible voice in the debate, not a marginalised, bitter one, whose contributions could so easily be dismissed (if heard at all) as intolerant and bigoted.