The Church will survive

The Pope is coming. Quick, hide the guidebooks to liberal ecumenism, say that you really do approve of the reform of the reform and pretend that however much it looks otherwise you honestly do want your nice Anglican friends who serve such quality sherry to convert to Roman Catholicism.

Ah, the English Catholic Church at play. My home, my comfort zone, the city and country that made me who I am. I was received into the Church in a grand old building by a grand old priest in 1985. As I was a journalist he warned me to “keep clear of Catholic media.” Alas I didn’t listen and was made television critic of The Tablet within the month. Known as “The Bitter Pill,” this weekly Catholic magazine has hardly any public voice at all but does still hold some — albeit rapidly declining — influence within Christianity. Faithful Roman Catholics often despise it, the ever-diminishing breed of older liberal Catholics still cling on to it like some sort of theological and nostalgic lifejacket and Anglicans adore the thing. Problem is, it rather embodies the conundrum of the contemporary English Church.

The country is aggressively secular and traditionally anti-Catholic yet some of the flock would rather have a quiet life and be accepted at fashionable dinner and launch parties than rock the boat Britannia and be dismissed as a puritan or extremist. For that matter, we have many such people here in Canada. I bet you could name them just as I could!

If you doubt my word about the United Kingdom, one of Britain’s most senior Catholics has just accused the BBC of an “institutional bias” against Christianity. According to The Times, “Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, claims that a radically secular and liberal outlook is tainting the corporation’s news and current affairs output which is ‘utterly lacking’ in professionalism and balance. O’Brien believes that disproportionate airtime is given to atheists while mainstream Christian views have been marginalized.

“He is also alarmed by a reduction in religious programming on the BBC and its failure to appoint a religion editor to mirror similar roles for the arts, science and business. ‘Our detailed research into BBC news coverage of Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular, together with a systematic analysis of output by the Catholic Church, has revealed a consistent anti-Christian institutional bias,’ he said.”

And he’s right. One of the few Church leaders prepared to risk the assaults of media and even fellow Catholics, his stance is so brave that it seems to have achieved results. BBC director-general Mark Thompson openly stated recently the corporation had displayed “massive bias” and that “senior news managers have admitted to the Catholic Church that a radically secular and socially liberal mindset pervades their newsrooms.”

Where the BBC goes the country tends to follow. Mock a Muslim and you lose a television show, a book deal or even suffer physical assault. Abuse a Catholic and the usual types make the usual sounds of approval and support.

Not that it’s all Roman gloom and there are plenty of reasons to rejoice. The Brompton Oratory is thriving and its Oxford counterpart is building new accommodation to deal with increased vocations. The Dominicans in Oxford are also doing extremely well. Then there is journalist Damian Thompson of The Catholic Herald and Daily Telegraph and his insightful, sometimes exquisitely naughty blog. Another blog is the great Fr. Tim Finnigan’s The Hermeneutics of Continuity. The superlative Newman scholar Fr. Ian Ker is here, as is my dear friend Walter Hooper, C.S. Lewis’s last secretary, who came into the Church some years ago. There are legions of good, faithful Catholics, there is the Evangelium movement and Opus Dei, author Piers Paul Reid, some beautiful churches, the legacy of Waugh, Knox, Belloc, Newman, More, Fisher, etc.

Will it, though, get better for Catholicism in general? Almost certainly yes. But as with Canada and the United States, it may have to get even worse before it does so. Mind you, we all remember St. Thomas More but few can name the Catholic leaders who gave in and sided with King Henry.