This Time We Have a Farce

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. 

—Karl Marx^†. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.

Whatever the reader thinks of the results, after all the yelling and shouting is done, we have a new President, installed on January 20^th. The 22^nd brought us the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and the March for Life (rendered virtual by the coronavirus). Watching the usual two factions squaring off once again, I am reminded by the quote of Karl Marx. We are seeing history happening twice. The first was tragedy. This is farce.

The tragedy was watching a certain faction of American Catholics deny the authority of the bishops when they spoke out on the injustice of immigration policies and the application of the death penalty. They accused the bishops of supporting the Democratic Party. The other major faction of American Catholics pointed to this defiance as a proof that the first faction was committing political idolatry by rejecting or downplaying those teachings.

The farce came when we had a change of Presidential administrations. Then, Catholics of that second faction did everything they denounced the first faction of doing. Though instead of downplaying or rejecting Church teaching on immigration policies, they downplayed the Church teaching on abortion and the need to end it legally. They accused the bishops of supporting the Republican Party. Meanwhile the first faction pointed out their own double standards.

If both factions can point out the fact that their opponents were doing wrong, it testifies to the fact that they both know right from wrong. And, if they both know this right and wrong, they are without excuse when they do what they condemned in others. What they are doing is causing scandal by leading those outside of the Church to think that Church teaching is whatever we want to be. They will not take us seriously and not believe our claims of Apostolic succession and the binding authority when, at any one time, half of the American Church is condemning and refusing obedience to the bishops when they teach.

These people will not listen to correction. If you point out that the Church has taught contrary to their assertions, they will accuse the Church and you of being in error or being a political shill for their enemies while they claim they are being faithful to the Pope (they are not) or Sacred Tradition (again, they are not) as a higher loyalty of obedience. Of course, it is always their owninterpretation of these things. Using the No True Scotsman fallacy, they insist that whatever contradicts their own interpretation is not truly Catholic, regardless of who taught it. 

It is too late to undo the original tragedy. I do not see any evidence that participants in the farce will change their views to obedience either. So, all we can do is work to engage people of good will and help them understand that our beliefs are not only reasonable, but the only way to live rightly.

Unfortunately, we will run into a lot of trolls out there in the process. We will run into people who calumniate us as giving “comfort to the enemy.” On the Left, we will see claims that standing up for the right to life against abortion makes one guilty of every wrong an anti-abortion politician should commit. On the Right, we will see the same thing directed against those who remind us of the Church teaching on the death penalty and immigration. We will see lots of spurious logic and special pleading as people try to explain why their own failings are “different.”

We will have to stay consistent. If a person is tempted to say, “You’re not pro-life, you’re only anti-abortion,” that person claims he has knowledge about the full teaching on the Right to Life. The Church has taught enough about the evil of abortion that someone claiming to be knowledgeable about what the Right to Life really means. And, when the Church makes clear how to apply the timeless teaching for the conditions of today on the death penalty and immigration, we cannot claim to be faithfulCatholics if we refuse obedience.

Since both sides are claiming to be faithful Catholics, they have an obligation to obey when taught. And if they do not understand the teaching, they have an obligation to seek out the meaning. If they do not, they contribute both to tragedy and farce.

 

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(†) Of course, I do not approve of Marx in any way. But this quote does seem to effectively describe the situation that partisan Catholics put the Church in.