A new religious coalition?

5 Responses to “A new religious coalition?”

1. Patrick Says:
   April 22nd, 2005 at 12:30 pm

   But besides the danger of a direct mixture of Religion & civil Government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded agst in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations…

   The excessive wealth of ecclesiastical Corporations and the misuse of it in many Countries of Europe has long been a topic of complaint. In some of them the Church has amassed half perhaps the property of the nation. When the reformation took place, an event promoted if not caused, by that disordered state of things, how enormous were the treasures of religious societies, and how gross the corruptions engendered by them; so enormous & so gross as to produce in the Cabinets & Councils of the Protestant states a disregard, of all the pleas of the interested party drawn from the sanctions of the law, and the sacredness of property held in religious trust.

   —James Madison

2. Politickal Animal Says:
   April 22nd, 2005 at 2:29 pm

   As Vatican 2 did open a window of sorts between Roman Catholicism and the Protestant world,
   so perhaps it would be helpful for Protestants (and other non-Catholic Christians)
   to begin our own versions of Vatican 2, to open our closed windows and rigid pre-sups
   to some fresh ecumenical air.

3. xyz Says:
   April 22nd, 2005 at 9:06 pm

   Pieter writes:

   “With that in mind and the current demographic patterns it’s not hard to see why the ‘Europe and Islam’ question will be a central theme of Benedict XVI’s papacy as Arthur Chrenkoff explains. The papal approach to this issue however should be in shoring up the Christian base in Europe first, rather than setting the Vatican on a collision course with Islam.”

   Why? How will that be any more effective than it has with John Paul mouthing the same sorts of things?

   From what I read, the people of Europe are crying out for someone - anyone - to represent their negative feelings towards Muslims in general and Muslim immigration in particular. If not a majority movement yet, it’s damn near and very strongly felt. If Ratzinger wants Catholicism to be popular (and shored up), surely there is no greater way to positioning than through seizing onto a strongly felt, imminently popular and fundamentally compatible position with no current leadership. A certain other historical German leader comes to mind.

   Even ardent atheists would be tempted to attend mass if the Pope had the balls (and it appears he does) to say that Islam is incompatible with Europe and that there needs to be a stop to Muslim immigration. Following that, an encouragement for those in the West to sacrifice their lifestyles and match or exceed the Muslim birthrate would not go astray. He does not need to base it on religious grounds. He can use the greater good argument - that Western culture is superior, European and is worth preserving against the Muslim onslaught for its own sake. And if it’s worth preserving, the best way to do that is for all capable Westerners to suck it up and start having some kids.

   After Muslim immigration is stopped Benedict can start advocate Muslim expatriation from Europe.

4. SemiPundit Says:
   April 22nd, 2005 at 10:51 pm

   Will it be a good thing when Christian fundamentalists gain complete control of our government? Will Catholics and non-Christians have justification for fear?

5. joe Says:
   April 23rd, 2005 at 4:21 pm

   Father Greeley is a good first step to really understanding church and state.
   Andrew Greeley

   European secularism vastly overstated

   April 23, 2005

   BY ANDREW GREELEY SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

   ROME — There’s much talk around the Vatican and its satellites these days about the battle against “secularism” in Europe. It’s reinforced by media stories about the decline of religion in Western Europe. Pope Benedict’s principal battle, we hear, is against secularism. Or we hear that when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger he had accepted the possibility that Western Europe was already lost and that perhaps the church would be better off if it were smaller.

   When they can put an “ism” at the end of a word, ecclesiastics are delighted. Now they have an abstraction that explains every problem. One need not attempt detailed research nor consider the possibility that failures in the church’s ministerial activity might have contributed to and even created the problem. We sociologists who have studied religion in Europe are powerless to resist the appeal of an abstract shibboleth that has been turned into a reality.

   In fact there are three meanings that the word “secularization” has in contemporary usage. The first is that as societies have grown more complex, the church has given up in part to civil society many activities in which it had to engage in earlier years — law enforcement, welfare, health care, civil jurisdiction. As society has grown more complex, the church is no longer the only institution in society, but one of many and with more specified responsibilities than in the past. Catholic Charities is still an important component of care for those who need help in the archdiocese, but it is not the only institution with such responsibilities, as would have been true in a medieval city.

   France and faith

   The second and much more recent secularization is the loss of the power of the institutional church to directly influence the decisions of governmental and civil organizations. In Ireland, for example, the church had a virtual veto on government policy and decisions. Now it expresses its opinions quite humbly. In Chicago, the last archbishop who had civil and political clout was George William Mundelein, who died in 1940. Closely related to this change is the decline in the ability of the church to impose its teachings on the opinions and behavior of individual Catholics in political and social matters. Such independence of thought is the result of permitting Catholics to go to college and thus to think for themselves.

   The third form of “secularization” is the decline of religious faith. The example that both cardinals and journalists love to talk about is France. In fact, one has to ask how Catholic France ever was and whether the countryside was ever thoroughly converted to Catholicism — save in those areas in which Vincent DePaul did his missions. These areas are still steadfastly Catholic. One must go further and ask how Catholic Europe ever was, even in the so-called Age of Faith. Research back into the 1200s and 1300s leaves considerable doubt that the Catholicism of Europe was either very deep or very devout.

   More serious obstacle

   Catholicism is still strong — if changed — in countries such as Ireland, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Switzerland, and regions including Bavaria and Lombardia, to say nothing of Eastern European countries such as Slovakia and Poland. One would have added Austria until recently when the mistakes on sexual abuse problems (which is an American problem, remember?) made by the last two archbishops have driven hundreds of thousands to formally disaffiliate.

   OK, religion in the Netherlands has collapsed, and in France it has never been very strong. It doesn’t follow that there is no faith in Europe. Indeed, there was much more faith at the end of the second millennium than at the end of the first. Moreover, my own research shows that in 18 countries (including France and the Netherlands) belief in life after death has increased with every successive birth cohort since 1945. This, gentle souls, is not secularism.

   Pope Benedict and his allies in any attempt to preach the faith to Europe should realize that there is a lot of faith there. Moreover, the indifference and arrogance of church leaders to religious problems and needs of their people may well be a more serious obstacle than a platonic abstraction with an “ism” added to make it sound intelligent.

   Nor has the leadership’s obsession with its own privileges and prerogatives helped. Before you preach, listen humbly. Before you give answers, listen humbly to the questions. Indeed, listen, and then listen, and then listen once again, otherwise you will surely fail. And don’t blame the people (or “secularism”), because it will be your own fault.

   Joe again, so which secularism?

   Joe

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