Two quite different items of news, indicating different approaches to putting Catholic faith into practice in political action, have come to my attention in the last day or two.
The death of Fr Edward Houghton in a road accident has led to Dolphinarium posting this appreciation of "Fr Ed" and his approach to his priestly life.
And the blogosphere's attention has been drawn to Resurgence, an explicitly Catholic political party.
I have to admit to being much more comfortable with the former than I am with the latter. I am not of the view that priests, by virtue of their ordination, are thereby condemned to silence on matters of political import. Their role and mission as a priest must be different than that that they might have previously had as a lay person - generally they need to allow the lay faithful the mediating role between Church and world that is properly theirs in the realm of politics and culture - but that does not rule out moments of witness for what is right and just, and this seems to be what Fr Houghton undertook.
But the pitfalls of a political party that claims to speak for the Catholic point of view seem myriad to me. I do really need to study their website further, but I suspect that Resurgence are more likely to be at the wrong side of the boundary of "appropriate secularity" , the mediating role of the lay person who stands between Church and world, than a priest of the style of Fr Houghton. Though, of course, not from the way round that one would normally expect!
2 comments:
"...he put a notice in the parish newsletter requesting donations to the DEC for Gaza. There were some who didn't approve of this, complaining that Father Edward was "imposing" his politics on the parish. Stuff and nonsense."
Stuff and nonsense? That's hardly a coherent knock-down arguement now is it? I think one could argue that it is an example of imposing one's politics upon a parish. However, this is only a blogger's interpretation or what may of happened I suppose.
I am unclear what you mean by 'wrong side of the bounary of "apropraite secularity"'.
Further, I think a political party can represent the Catholic position on certain issues such as the right to life and the family in society. Resurgence appear to be a predominantly pro-life issues party.
Daniel:
If I link to this address by Pope Benedict XVI - in which he discusses the concept secularity in its positive and negative aspects - then perhaps you will see what I was trying to refer to when I wrote of "appropriate secularity". You might also see why I suspect that Resurgence may be at odds with an idea of "appropriate secularity".
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/december/documents/hf_ben_xvi_spe_20061209_giuristi-cattolici_en.html
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