Catholic Tastes

Sometimes I really could despair of the Catholic community in this country, and not least of the pride that so many Catholics seem to take in their own or each other’s voting for anti-life, anti-family, anti-worker or pro-war politicians and parties, just because they can. Well, of course they can. So what? That certainly doesn’t mean that they should. They most certainly should not.

If they do, then they are undoubtedly in mortal sin, and there is a strong case that they are in schism, a case which is as good as unanswerable in respect of those who actually stand as, nominate, or advocate voting for anti-life, anti-family, anti-worker or pro-war candidates (or parties, where party lists are in use).

The extraordinary notion, peculiar to this country so far as I can tell, that it would somehow be wrong in principle for Catholics as such to take a collective view on such matters, is why Catholics are routinely treated in a way simply unimaginable in relation to any other group of remotely comparable size, never mind remotely comparable concentration in electorally key areas such as Scotland, the North, the Midlands, and the working and lower-middle-class parts of the South.

Successive governments’ attacks on the Catholic school system, on the Catholic adoption agencies, and on so much else besides – abetted and egged on in every case by the Opposition of the day – are the direct fault of the attitude that Catholics, as such, should never, ever act as a bloc in political life generally, and at the ballot box specifically. That attitude is directly contrary to the Teaching of the Church (as well as the history and culture of any Western country except France or the United States). In a word, it is heresy.

No one wants to end up like those American Catholics who, also at variance with the Church’s Teaching (although they do not seem to realise that), have brought about, among much else, two generations of abortion on demand even up to partial birth by insistently allying themselves to one of the two equally abortionist, family-destroying, poverty-spreading and warmongering parties.

They have done this on the entirely baseless proposition that that party is somehow against abortion really, but just never seems to feel the slightest urge to put that principle into practice. Nadir is about to be reached with the endorsement of a Presidential candidate who is not only an abortionist, family-destroying, poverty-spreading warmonger, but a lapsed Catholic abortionist, family-destroying, poverty-spreading warmonger at that.

Nor would a Catholic party, such as has at least existed into recent history in several European countries, work here. Indeed, such is the nature of British society that it really shouldn’t. For good or ill, Britain simply is not Italy, or Bavaria, or Poland.

Yes, it would be wrong and objectionable for British bishops to issue pastoral letters telling people how to vote, or for British priests to preach in such terms. No one would pay any attention, anyway; or, if they did, then they would make a point of voting for someone else. Such is the nature of Catholic culture in this country, and a good thing, too. Never let it be said that Catholicism is foreign here.

But if there were a pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker and anti-war party in British politics, then what excuse would Catholics have for failing to vote for it, to join it, or to play every kind of part in its life? And what excuse would the Catholic newspapers – especially the Catholic Herald, the Scottish Catholic Observer and even the Tablet (which, unlike the Catholic Times and the Universe, are not owned by the Church) – have for failing to urge their readers to vote for it, as any newspaper might do? No excuse that would convince the Pope. Or anybody else, for that matter.