If you want Church to change core teachings to suit you, it might be time to look elsewhere
THE Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin is shrewd. He believes preaching the Christian message in contemporary culture has to be a balancing act.
He leads the Church in the most secularised part of the country – probably one of the most secularised parts of Europe.
Perhaps nowhere is the gap between Catholic teaching and contemporary thinking as evident as in Dublin. While most bishops are dealing with declining congregations, nowhere is that decline as acute as it is in the capital. This is one of the reasons why Pope Francis has chosen Dublin to celebrate the World Meeting of Families in August.
Many Church leaders hope it can be a time of renewal for Catholicism there. The problem is, if one wanted to pick a flashpoint to emphasise where contemporary Ireland and the Church have parted company, one could hardly pick a starker example than the family.
Take, for example, politicians and commentators who have been queuing up to tell the Church how it ought to celebrate the Dublin family event. The consensus is it must be open to everyone, regardless of what the Church actually teaches.
This is where Diarmuid Martin’s balancing act comes in. And he’ll need the wisdom of Solomon to pull it off. He says it will be open to everyone, but will remain an unashamedly Catholic event with, one presumes, an emphasis on Church teaching.
Speaking in Dublin’s Pro Cathedral on Holy Thursday, he said: “It is hard today to socially define what we call the traditional family. Every family has its own personal story and its own personal history.”
He went on to add: “Children are brought up in different settings, by married couples, by grandparents, by single parents, by non-married couples, by separated couples, by gay and lesbian couples. This is a statement of fact, not of ideology.
“The Church must work to help that all these children are loved and are introduced to an appreciation of the Gospel of love.” So far so good, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who disagrees with him.
But the archbishop went on to say the challenge for the Church is to “find new and robust ways to attract future generations to an integral understanding of the beauty of Christ’s unchanging teaching on marital love and fidelity”.
It’s a challenge indeed. The emphasis here is on “unchanging”. Catholicism will always teach that sex is for marriage and marriage is between one man and one woman, for life, and open to children.
This is a view no longer shared by many people in Ireland – including many Irish Catholics.
The problem in 21st-century Ireland is that while many people have either decided to walk away from the Church or discerned that Catholic morality no longer has anything to offer them, they endlessly want the Church to bend to accommodate them. Partly, this is because people still find spiritual sustenance in Catholicism. But, perhaps, if we were more honest as a society, some people would find other Christian denominations or ethical ways of living more in line with their revised thinking and accept the Catholic Church will always be the Catholic Church.
In the United States, it’s not uncommon to find within Anglicanism and other liberal Protestant traditions ex-Catholics who found the faith of their birth to be too rigid.
By contrast, in Ireland, people disgruntled with Catholicism hardly ever join another religious community. Instead, they tend to hang around on the fringes getting increasingly angrier that the
‘In the US, it’s not uncommon to find within liberal Protestant traditions ex-Catholics who found the faith of their birth to be too rigid’
Church is not becoming what they think it should be, or stay put as vocal critics of almost everything their Church stands for.
OF course, people will want to work for realistic reform from within the Church, but a Sinn Féin activist who finds themself suddenly convinced that Northern Ireland should remain an integral part of the United Kingdom will probably soon find themself looking for a new political home.
The Church is not a political party. Catholicism is – and should be – a big tent. But, there comes a time when people have to be grown-up enough to realise they’ve either outgrown it or it will never meet their expectations.
Bishops are right to emphasise the Church has to be a place of welcome. They are also right to insist on putting the focus firmly on acceptance, mercy and an unshakable belief that God loves everyone regardless of where in life they find themselves. But they need to also be straight about what their Church teaches.
As it stands, Ireland is so culturally Catholic that almost everyone still feels part of it and therefore part of the discussion – even if they never darken the door.
In reality, the Church’s teaching puts it firmly out of step with the march of progress in today’s Ireland. And neither side looks ready to blink.