Dissent Undermining Witness

There is a real blindspot in some conservative Catholic circles about the wrongs and sufferings caused by trying to enforce border policy more strictly, the injustices some employers inflict on workers, etc. This blindspot originates from the fact that conservative Catholics find themselves so under attack from the cultural and political left in other senses that they are too ready to ignore the wrongs associated with the right. This is not unlike, for instance, the blindness that many Catholic circles had to the real injustices suffered by the peasants and workers in pre-Civil War Spain.

In this regard, it would be a good thing if there was a faithful Catholic left, devoted to both the teachings of the Church and justice for the oppressed.

One of the things that fries me every time another Commonweal email shows up in my inbox is how determined they are not to be such a voice. Yes, they gesture at justice for the oppressed at times. But the key reason for being for the Catholic left (at least as represented by Commonweal) is very clearly dissent from Catholic doctrine.

Primarily this dissent is focused on practical morality, because we are a practical people and the average American cares far more about being able to marry without the Church saying that divorce and remarriage is impossible or that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, to be able to have sex when and how he desires without reference to any standard of morality other than his own preference or any concern that this might result in the inconvenience of new life, about his ability to purchase pornography, etc. than he does about the nature of the priesthood or the Eucharist or the Trinity or the relationship between the human and divine natures of Christ.

Over the past year, the particular focus of this dissent has been an ever-escalating crescendo of assaults on the encyclical Humanae Vitae and the moral prohibition against artificial birth control laid out therein.

Little does it seem to occur to their writers than every time the attack the ability of the Church to teach authoritatively, every time they assert that a doctrine must be "accepted" in order for it to be true, they are attacking their own ability to use that same Church authority to persuade fellow Catholics to break with their political allies and cultural tribes over issues such as treatment of migrants and workers.