First, a little story, a true one.
A few years ago, when I was working for a homelessness
charity In London, a young pregnant client asked me to help her get an
abortion.
When I replied that, as a Roman Catholic, I could not
help with an abortion, but suggested charities which could help her with
preparing for the baby and finding a flat, she complained to the manager, who
told me I could not continue to work for the organization, which was
multicultural, and so valued and promoted all cultures. I was not open to the
client’s culture.
I asked her if the organization practised religious
discrimination, and reminded her that my application for the job had been
supported by a reference from an openly Catholic priest.
She asked me if my anti-abortion stance was part of my
“culture”. I replied, “No, part of my religion.” She relaxed at this, and said,
”We value and respect all cultures here, including yours.”
And so the conversation ended and I kept my job, on
the understanding that my religion was just a part of my “culture”, like
enjoying poetry, or alcohol, or jazz, or wearing a tie - quite acceptable as a
lifestyle choice, as long as it poses no threat to the social cohesion demanded
by governments from the disparate people they govern.
Culture and religion are not the same. For seriously
religious people, their co-religionist
are their tribe, their nation. Whoever
shares my religion, whatever her or his ethnicity, colour, social class,
personal hygiene, taste in music, shirts, or food, is someone I can understand: a sister or a
brother.
The creation of a cohesive, easily malleable group of
people is the aim of governments. To
reach this goal, the divisive stony Decalogue of monotheistic religion must
give way to the inclusive soggy ukase of the nanny state, of adamantine hardness.
The governmental insistence on “diversity” is
interesting, because it is self-contradictory. The diversity of a Muslim, or a
Catholic does not accept the diversity of someone who practises homosexual sex.
The diversity of a practising homosexual does not accept the diversity of a
someone who states that such acts are against the natural law. Clearly
diversity must pertain only to the cultural, not ethical, because ethical
diversity raises too many problems. It must therefore be eliminated.
So what is the solution for those in authority?
Among the methods used
to erode ethical or religious diversity is ambiguity or imprecision.
Nothing is right or wrong, but simply acceptable or unacceptable – but to whom?
They word “culture” is used to cover religion, morality, dress, the arts, food
– the list is long. This recourse to ambiguity is used not only by civil
governments, but sometimes also by religious authorities. The ARCIC documents
are an example. The old I.C.E.L. translation of the Mass, for example, used the
phrase (of the bread before consecration) “it will become for us the
Body of Christ”.
What do these words mean? Does “for us” mean “for our
sake”, as in “my parents did a lot for me?”, or “in our opinion”, as in “for
me, music is the greatest of the arts” - only for us, not for everyone? There
is no ambiguity in the Latin, but I am not so sure that there was no vagueness
in the minds of the translators. The books used twenty years ago in the
preparation of my children for first Holy Communion avoided the divisive
doctrine of Transubstantiation altogether. My parish priest in England when I
asked him about this told me that my understanding of the Sacrament was too
crude. “We have moved forward from all that”. Another weasel phrase – why do we
always move forward, never sideways or backwards? Is theology also subject to
Darwinian evolution, so that later is always better?
And what have we moved forward from? From plain
speaking to anodyne obfuscation.
VERITAS IN CARITATE - truth in charity - is a fine
motto. Truth curtailed by a desire to be tactful, or accepted, is not so fine.
If no one knows what anyone means, no reasonable discourse is possible. Terms
cannot be defined and no one can agree or disagree.
