Pope: "I follow Natural Law" shocker

Pope: “I follow Natural Law” shocker

Apologies in advance: this is yet another religious-themed blog post, rather than my usual inane ramblings on politics.

I was distressed, saddened and angry last night, when I read about the Pope and his criticising of the Equality Bill. Then I stopped myself, and tried to think rationally.

First, one point that needs to be addressed. We won’t like hearing it. Us liberals don’t like hearing about the positives of religion – especially Catholicism – after all. The salacious claims going around that the Catholic Church has been an oppressive institution “for over 2,000 years” need to be challenged.

Nothing is that simple.

Remember how people say “Liberal Democrats play dirty”? Or “Liberal Democrats always sit on the fence”? Or that golden classic, “Liberal Democrats don’t have any policies”? Well, those are three stereotypical (and incorrect) views of our Party. Just like the straightforward view that Catholicism is a collection of bigoted, anti-gay, misogynist shits in robes pretending to be saintly.

Let’s go back to history ancient enough to be almost meaningless.

If anyone is familiar with Wicca, and the Celtic traditions they are (purported to be) based on, they will know by now with a certainty engrained on their consciousness, that Celtic society was a fair, wonderful utopia, when men and women were equally valued, when the feminine was worshipped with equal abandon as the masculine, where (in Ireland) codices existed that protected women in law – an unheard of level of cultural advancement, for that time.

All too often (and quite rightly) this “liberal” utopia of Celtic spirituality and the offshoot of Wicca is used as a direct counterpoint to Catholicism. Catholicism to many people, represents the ultimate in patriarchy, in oppression, in narrow-minded isolation from modernity.

Yet again, we must scratch the surface. Let’s look at the ancient Celtic society. Which was for women, much more liberated than anything that came after. Only, that’s not actually strictly true. For in ancient Celtic society, it was only the top 5% (or so) of their stratified culture that had access to the “utopian” attitudes often attributed to them. The other 95% lived in abject poverty, as slaves to an often cruel society which lived only to provide further glory and wealth to that indulged 5%.

We are told constantly that the early Church missionaries to the British Isles “stamped out” the indigenous religions with cruelty. That may be true of the later, imperialist Church of the Medieval period and beyond. However, when Christian missionaries first arrived on British shores, they offered a voice of radicalism almost unheard of in that time. This voice of radicalism had already swept through mainland Europe.

Imagine it. You are a Roman woman, or a Celtic slave, or a Hellenist, or whatever you want to be. Wherever you live in that ancient world, you are answerable to someone higher. Your life and station is one of misery and want. And then, a Christian comes. And he (or she, because women preachers were common) tells to you a message of wonderful hope. “Gentile or Jew, woman or man, servant or free, no more.” They tell you a message that, whoever you are, wherever you are from, whatever you do, you are loved. Religion ceased, in that moment, to be the province of the narrow elite, and became something fresh, something open, something radically changed.

The Church is like any institution. Institutions are inherently flawed, because by their very nature they have to fight to protect their own power, and end up corrupting themselves more than the very evil they were built to prevent. It is why we are liberals, surely? Because we believe that such behemoths of orthodoxy are bad. That they inhibit our freedoms and hold us back.

Like any institution, the Church has a troubled history. But we still have the wonderful liberation theology and base communities, working in South America to end poverty and suffering. We have the incredible Oscar Romero, standing up to a corrupt regime’s excesses in El Salvador. We have thousands upon thousands of individual stories of inspiration. We have hundreds of Catholic charities, working to better the lives of their fellows. We have people who give generously every week to end the suffering of those worse off. We have inspirational leaders like Pope Benedict, speaking out for peace in the Middle East, speaking out for an end to corruption in many African governments. Truly, the world without the Catholic Church would be a terrible place.

No, I’m not saying that only Catholics do good work. That would be intolerably smug, self-satisfied and arrogant.

But the work the Church does cannot and should not be brushed under the carpet and ignored. We’re liberals, aren’t we? Before leaping to hysterical judgements and screaming about the evil of the Pope, shouldn’t we try and appreciate some of the good things that religion does? But then, hatred of the religious by the irreligious is in vogue, as is hatred of the irreligious by the religious. And I refuse to be drawn into that. I don’t hate atheists, Muslims, Jews, gays, pagans, Wiccans, Zoroastrians, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, or even followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I strongly, absolutely believe that there is room in the world for all of us.

Now, this is where I probably get controversial.

The Pope has praised Britain’s commitment to equality. Isn’t that good? I mean, it means the Pope has stressed his commitment to equality. That is a moment of triumph, surely? Not a cause for hatred and recrimination?

Ah... but then there is his attitude to homosexuality.

Now, this is a difficult one. My beliefs on homosexuality (and for that matter, on women priests) is so far deviant from the Church’s teachings that I could be dismissed as a heretic. It upsets me greatly, that many of the wonderful, loving Catholics I spend my time with, who give so much of their health and time, are so ready to dismiss homosexuality as a sin.

But here’s some news. None of those people I meet are horrible about it. They would never go on a march calling for gays to be killed, beaten up, or bullied. They are polite, friendly and caring to anyone they meet. It is just that deep down in their heart, they think that homosexuality is wrong. And – oh, God, here it comes – is that wrong?

The Pope was not writing a letter denouncing homosexuality. He was praising equality. As far as I can tell, his only crime according to our liberal viewpoint was to express concerns that equality was infringing religious freedom, as well. And that, surely, is not a problem? If we forget he is a Catholic for a moment, he could just be making a political philosophical point about the complexity of balancing equality with liberty.

Equality is equality for all, not just equality for those we like and agree with.
My views on the Equality Bill are plain, and set out in a blog post from last week. I support it fully, and decry the influence of the Church to get it changed. But why is it wrong for the Pope of a massive Church spanning the globe, to worry that religious voices are being drowned?

Let’s say for a moment that I am a Catholic that hates gays (I’m not, for the record). Let’s say that I am an extremely strict Catholic. That means I follow the Catholic teaching that homosexuals are to be treated with respect and love, and not suffer attacks or bullying. Deep down, it just means I follow Natural Law (I don’t, for the record) and respect the teachings of the Church.

We are so quick to denounce religion, these days. It has become an evil, for some reason. But I ask you: isn’t it just another evil that society seeks to enforce not tolerance, but the embracing of things we might dislike. I tolerate the BNP. I don’t embrace their racism. People tolerate the Church, but don’t embrace their homophobia. Can’t we allow the Church to tolerate what they call the “permissive society” (a view I disagree with), but not to have to embrace it? That sort of change will take years, as much as we would wish otherwise.

And no, I am not likening homosexuality to the BNP or Church-going, both of which are choices, which homosexuality patently is not.

In a hundred years, I am confident the Church will embrace homosexuality as the life-affirming, loving thing it clearly is. But if we force them to accept it, and as a result destroy the freedoms of religion just to protect the freedoms of another group... that change will never happen. Because then it becomes a battleground. Gays against Catholics, Christians against Muslims, atheists against the religious.

I don’t want to live in a world like that.

The only way to stop it is for all sides to show respect to each other, and to accept that not everyone accepts change at the same pace. If Catholics want to moan about gays instead of poverty? Let them. Eventually, the Pope, or the next one, or the next one, will remember what Jesus really stood for. And then that’s the day when (hopefully) the religion I feel I know and love, will be revealed to the rest of the world.

And conversely, maybe then the rest of the world I know and love will be accepted by the Church.