Scheer ties self in knots to avoid l-word

History, you know, does offer Catholic politicians a deathless riposte to awkward questions about their ability to participate in public life. In 1906 a Liberal candidate was giving an address to electors in the Manchester suburbs when someone in the audience shouted “Papist!” at him. He coolly took an item from his pocket and said: “Gentlemen, I am a Catholic. As far as possible I go to Mass every day. This is a rosary. As far as possible I kneel down and tell these beads each night. If that offends you, then I pray God may spare me the indignity of representing you in Parliament.” The crowd cheered rapturously, and the speaker was, in due course, elected.

He was the poet, critic, and historian Hilaire Belloc, remembered now most clearly for being a fellow- traveller and friend of G. K. Chesterton. And the incident, as Andrew Scheer’s advisers know well, really happened.

Unfortunately, it is probably not of much practical use to Scheer as a political strategy: if anything the story emphasizes the depth of the predicament he finds himself in as a Conservative leader facing scrutiny for his beliefs. Belloc was facing an audience in Salford, where there must have been many Catholic voters attracted to Mancunian industry. He could assume with safety that those in the audience who were not Catholics were mostly fellow Christians: his message to the crowd was that he worshipped the same God they did by means of different formalities.

And, of course, he was not running with the idea of becoming prime minister; such a thing would have been impossible. In that case he would still have faced the traditional questions about his loyalty to a Protestant Crown and state. And, honestly, it would be pretty strange to use Belloc — who became a great genius of rabidly chauvinist Catholic polemic — as an example of how wrong such suspicions can be.

Andrew Scheer is being pursued by journalists and criticized by Conservative colleagues because he will not give a straight answer when asked if he thinks homosexuality is a sin. There is something truly, obviously comic about this, which is that the official answer of the Catholic faith to this question, one Scheer would be perfectly safe in giving without appearing to enter into an argument with his bishop, is “No.”

I realize that the Catechism’s position on homosexuality does not cut much ice with anybody who is even slightly liberal. It speaks in an old-fashioned way of “tendencies” and “inclination,” makes it clear that same-sex attraction is a “disorder” in a fallen world, characterizes gay sexual acts as very sinful, and recommends complete chastity to gays and lesbians.

But the gay and lesbian sexual identity, as distinguished from sexual activities, is not itself condemned. The Church, with a logic that is easy to misunderstand, embraces the existence of gays and lesbians as universal and inevitable, though not in the metaphysical sense “natural.” It adds, in words that must be deemed to have the same awful weight as any others in the Catechism, that gay and lesbian persons “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity” and that “Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.” There is, in truth, considerable leeway for a good, perfectly obedient Roman Catholic to ride a convertible in a Pride parade.

Catholic doctrine has the advantage of being expounded, for the faithful and for inquirers outside the communion, in a single authoritative form. If reporters want to know what Catholics are supposed to believe about gayness, or if they want to know what premises a devout Catholic might act on privately, they don’t have to cross- examine Andrew Scheer. The real goal of the questions is to see if Scheer disagrees personally with what people imagine his religion to be.

IF THAT OFFENDS YOU, THEN I PRAY GOD MAY SPARE ME THE INDIGNITY OF REPRESENTING YOU IN PARLIAMENT.

We ought to be able to understand why he has resisted the question, even though he could give the same short answer that the other party leaders have given. For Scheer, a brusque answer would not end the inquiries: it would lead to even more bad-faith theological interrogation, in quantities that Jagmeet Singh or aspiring priest Elizabeth May are at no serious risk of facing. (Singh, of course, does face an added political burden, as opposed to a theological one, because of the history of his religion.)

The real answer Scheer ought to give is that he aspires to lead a secular state in a religiously plural society — one, he might even add, with a large number of unbelievers. A Catholic statesman, no less than an Anglican or a Sikh, must run Canadian government on religiously neutral principles. But when you put it in these terms, you notice that the accepted term for this position is “liberalism.”

You also notice, however, that it is the answer Scheer has more or less been trying to give without invoking the l- word. When he rambles about how his “personal commitment to Canadians is to always fight for the rights of all Canadians, including LGBTQ Canadians,” he is really saying “I’m a classical liberal.” If there were such a thing as a Conservative catechism, we could go ahead and ask him what parts of that he liked, or didn’t.