By DONALD DeMARCO
In his book, Principles of Catholic Theology, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Later Pope Benedict XVI), makes the comment that “labeling a person conservative is practically synonymous with social excommunication.” Ratzinger wrote these words in 1982, which means that this problem has been around for some time. “Conservatives” are routinely dismissed as not being in step with the times. Notions of “progress” and “change” in the secular world have a kind of religious aura about them. One who defends what is old, and presumably static, is not to be taken seriously. He is a sort of social outcast. By contrast, the “liberal,” who embraces “progress” and “change” is the one who will lead us into a world where peace and justice will flourish. From its infancy, Christianity demanded and achieved much change. But this change was essentially personal. The progress and change that that the world is enthusiastic about is largely social. Hence the faith people have in politics. Karl Marx and other social reformers lacked an appreciation of the individual. They were mainly concerned about changing structures not people. This combination of a preoccupation with social structures and a neglect of the important of the individual person, however, has proven to be disastrous. Man cannot live by bread alone.
Social change places few demands on the individual person. Christianity places upon the individual person huge demands. St. Paul urges us to “Put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth” (Ephesians 4:24). “Amen, amen,” said Christ, “I say to thee, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). The word change has a wide range of meaning from changing one’s clothes to changing one’s lifestyle. The kind of change that Christianity demands is a more complete one. It is best characterized as a “transformation”.
In his book, Transformation in Christ, Dietrich von Hildebrand speaks of the tepid Catholic who settles for small changes but is reluctant to undergo a transformation: “There are many religious Catholics whose readiness to change is merely a conditional one. They exert themselves to keep the Commandments and to get rid of such qualities as they have recognized to be sinful. But they lack the will and the readiness to become new men all in all, to break with all merely natural standards, to view all things in a supernatural light.”
In the seventies, Fr. James Kavanaugh wrote a controversial book entitled, A Modern Priest Looks at His Oudated Church. It was sufficiently controversial at that time to be reprinted in 1992.
Kavanaugh had not changed his view 25 years later. “When I wrote these words,” he remarked, “I felt betrayed and victimized. 25 years has taught me that the Church is only as trapped in fear as I have been and the rest of us, it still has a lot of ‘dying’ to do before it rises.”
For Kavanaugh, the laws of the Church (especially concerning contraception) attempt to enforce, an ideal of perfection which is simply beyond not only human effort but also human will. Should Christ then not have said, “Be perfect therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48)?
Kavanaugh is like many others who criticize the Church for being too rigid and unwilling to change. Furthermore, it is accused of being ‘outdated’ and is not ‘progressive”. The change the Church demands, however, is aimed at the Catholic who might find it easier to criticize theChurch than to transform himself. At this point the critics want the Church to be less itself and a little more like the secular world. In this regard, world becomes the reformer, not Christ.
Fr. Kavanaugh, who remained a priest, won the support of many readers and went on to publish several more books.
Changing the world for the better without changing one’s self for the better is a popular delusion. Politics will not save us. We will be saved only through the grace of God. A transformation in Christ will remain our goal, difficult as it may be. Saints are embodiments of God’s grace and should be the inspirations for all of us.
However much criticism has been heaped on the Catholic Church, far more has been heaped on the world, despite the fact that the world has fully embraced both progress and change.
“Everything that is not eternal is eternally out of date,” said C.S. Lewis. Truth, justice, goodness, and beauty are eternal values that never go out of date. The Church is their great defender. The world has always had a love affair with the passing moment in which the eternal verities were shelved in favor of a misguided fashion.
The Catholic who is identified as “conservative” is not only a proponent of change, but one that is a personal transformation. This transformation does not renounce the past nor is it a slave to it. It adopts the Gospel message and all the good things that tradition provides. Furthermore, it belongs to the Catholic to provide guidance when the world goes off its course. Life is an eternal verity; abortion belongs to a passing moment of history. Joy is a real possibility. Truth is, contrary to what the relativists think, a reality. Justice is for all. Forgiveness belongs to God alone.
When a Catholic is called a “conservative” he should take this accusation with a grain of salt, since he is the Salt of the Earth.
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