Liberalism and the Last Chance Saloon

University College London

Life Site News today carries a report that 3/4 of British Christians believe that anti-Christian discrimination, though perhaps a better word is 'sentiment', is on the rise in the United Kingdom.

The same site informs us that the University College of London is to force the UCLU Catholic Society to invite pro-abortion speakers should any pro-lifer give a talk to their Society.

The same site carries a report that in Barcelona, peaceful pro-life demonstrators had insults, food and then rocks thrown at them for demonstrating against abortions being carried out in Catholic hospitals.  In the US, we have news that President Obama is doing all that he can to force the Catholic Church to burn incense to the emperor in a new and more open phase of his administration's desire to silence, divide and then rule the ability of the Catholic Church to proclaim Her faith in Her hospitals and institutions.

We are beginning to see that liberalism's true colours are anything but liberal, but it is also likely that 'we ain't seen nothing yet'. The ongoing spread and rise of liberalism coupled with the State's dominance and frightening control over every sphere of human activity is a one-way road to firstly dividing the Church and then, if She is not pliant, or indeed compliant, crushing Her freedom.

In the US, only an orthodox-believing Catholic president will be able to reverse the tide. It is unlikely the Republican party will elect Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich. In continental Europe, hopes that traditionally Catholic nations would defend the institution of the family and marriage, or defend the unborn child and the freedom of the Church are proving ill-founded, aside from Eastern European states such as Poland and, as Fr Tim Finigan reports, Hungary. 

And without wishing to state the blatantly obvious, liberalism's dictatorship is grotesquely unjust. This is not least because the Catholic Church has, in Europe and the United States, as well as the United Kingdom, been the 'salt of the earth' for those nations. In all of these nations, the Catholic Church has provided for those countries relief to the poor in terms of soup runs, soup kitchens and organisations working within communities, doing the kinds of things the State would never dream of doing.

The Church has also provided schools which give education to children - and not all of these children, as we know, are Catholics. The Church has provided hospitals and hospices which have cared for and treated hundreds of thousands of people. Yet, the huge benefit that Church-owned institutions have brought to the Western states is not the only reason why forcing them to go against the Church's own teachings is unjust.

After all, here in the United Kingdom, the Catholic Church continues to be relatively mute concerning the raft of legislative insults to the Christian Faith that this country has seen, even to the point of allowing the State to bring its own liberal ideology into Catholic schools.

In the UK, the Church has been worryingly compliant with Government. Dr John Senatmu's recent defense of marriage was more impressive than anything we have yet heard from the Hierarchy of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. How refreshing it was to hear that he believes that the truth about natural marriage is more important than wanting to be 'popular'. We hear little from the Hierarchy in terms of defending the unborn or against human embryonic research. We hear a lot about the danger of cuts to welfare, but little on the right to life. Bishops here are not in the habit of speaking out in ways which embarrass the Government and even when they do, it might have been from a speech from Ed Miliband. In the US, more Bishops are becoming bolder but that is because the Government is removing freedom and liberty from Catholic institutions.

By and large, although liberalism has become the adopted, default position of most Western states, the Church has tried to maintain moral standards in Her own institutions, but has by no means given the Governments of the West a particularly difficult time over its immoral decisions concerning human society.

This is because although the Church has authority over its own institutions, She cannot force adherence to the moral law upon the rest of society. The Church shows a great deal of tolerance, even towards those things which are morally evil. The Church does not, nor cannot, force societies or Governments to accept the Gospel. The Church also understands that her own members too are in need of forgiveness and purification and that there is plenty of sin to be found in the Church itself.

Yet, in the US, and surely over the next few years in Europe and the UK as well, the Church will come under renewed pressure to accept in Her own institutions that which goes against what She believes in terms of both the natural law and the law of Almighty God. The Church forces nobody to believe. Like God, She leaves to men and women within and without the Church free will in choosing God and true freedom, or sin and slavery. The liberal State, however, cannot tolerate those who contradict liberalism. Liberalism, by its very nature, is aggressive. It cannot tolerate 'dissent'. It cannot abide the opposing viewpoint and it sure as heck cannot tolerate Christianity for long. Eventually, it throttles those who are not convinced by its own very arbitrary and narrow definition of freedom.

While in Spain (and England, we are told) Catholic hospitals are only too willing to forget their founders' moral convictions and provide abortions, abortion referrals and abortifacients, in the United States, the power of the Executive arm of Government is forcing Catholic hospitals to go against the conscience of its own workers, benefactors and the Church which laid those hospitals foundations and maintains them. How long before that becomes the situation in Europe and the United Kingdom? How would our Bishops react when, after all the back-room negotiations, consultations and social gatherings, the State decided that the drinks were nice, the chats were friendly, but it is now time to force the Church to do those things that She does not want to? We still have conscience clauses, I believe, for health workers in the United Kingdom. These clauses are, I believe, on their last legs.

Since liberalism began its open assault on the Church in the 1960s, the Church has been nothing but kind to the State and to those who really are Her sworn enemies. Undoubtedly, in some countries, such as ours, the Church has been 'too kind' to these enemies. In the United States, we are beginning to see that co-operation and kindness means nothing to those who seek to destroy the Church. To liberals, kindness is a weakness of which to be taken advantage. Sadly, it will not take too long for the doctrinaire liberalism, the inquisitorial liberalism of President Obama, to be adopted in Europe and the United Kingdom as well. Freedom to worship means nothing if Catholics do not have the freedom to live according to our consciences. I hope and pray that the Bishops do not discover too late that the niceties of dialogue with liberal Governments means nothing and that your freedom to worship means little, when the State removes your right to live according to your sacred Conscience.