I blame John F Kennedy. During his campaign for the US Presidency in 1960, he was forced to substantially repudiate his Catholic identity to reassure voters and opinion-formers that he would not be Rome’s man in the White House. “I am not the Catholic candidate for President,” he said to a meeting of newspaper editors in April 1960. “I do not speak for the Catholic Church on issues of public policy — and no one in that Church speaks for me.” JFK praised the separation of church and state and proclaimed his “total independence … from any form of ecclesiastical dictation.” The strong implication is that religious belief is a kind of personal eccentricity, indulged on Sundays and in the privacy of your own home, but kept strictly in the background when it comes to civic and national decision-making.
Ever since then, Catholic politicians who support legislation that runs counter to the Church’s core moral teachings have resorted to the Kennedy dodge, usually in conjunction with the slippery formula developed by Christian pro-choicers about how they are “personally opposed” to something but don’t feel they can “impose their beliefs” on everyone else. The idea is that they can operate with a kind of bifurcated conscience, and stay in the good graces of both their fellow Christians and the gatekeepers of acceptable secular opinion. This has been a fairly successful strategy for liberal British Catholics; for a variety of reasons, both good and bad, the leadership of the Church has been extremely reluctant to sanction prominent Catholic lawmakers who support, say, liberal abortion laws.
Once in a while, however, some cleric refers to play by the polite British rules and decides that he is, after all, going to Make A Fuss. The main sanction available to the Church is denial of participation in the Eucharist, and it emerged over the weekend that the Lib Dem MP for Dorking and Horley, Chris Coghlan, has been publicly instructed not to present himself for the sacrament after voting in favour of Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide Bill. Fr Ian Vane, the parish priest, warned Mr Coghlan beforehand that he would apply this sanction, and he has now done so. There is excellent Biblical support for this step; the New Testament warns Christians not to participate “unworthily” in Communion, i.e. if they are persisting in serious sin or are living or acting in a way that publicly contradicts the teaching of the Church. In the fourth century, the great Saint Ambrose forced the Roman emperor Theodosius to do public penance for a massacre committed by his troops before he was allowed to take part.
Mr Coghlan has immediately run to the national press, complaining that he feels extremely hard done by. On X, Mr Coghlan seemed highly indignant that what he called his “private religion” should be expected to have some influence on his decision-making as a legislator. His faith, he insisted, had “zero direct relevance” on his work as an MP. For him, being a Catholic seems somewhat akin to being a member of a Morris dancing side or an am dram society, a species of hobby or leisure activity. When someone asked him why he was a Catholic, he replied, tellingly, “mainly because I was born into it and thought there was a broad space for liberal catholics like myself”.
He has reposted numerous statements of support. Most of these, it must be said, appear to come from non-religious members of the Liberal Democrat party, which is rather significant in itself. In his eyes, the story here is of a brave martyr for individual conscience, fighting back against archaic religious doctrine.
But the Church has to guard the integrity and coherence of its own teachings. As any parent can tell you, an unenforced rule is no rule at all. If I warn my children that they are not to play Frisbee in the living room, but Frisbee in the living room leads to no meaningful punishment, then the supposed prohibition is a dead letter. In the same way, the Church has a coherent and clearly explained opposition to suicide, and to the enabling of suicide. It also sets out clearly the responsibilities of Catholic lawmakers when faced with legislation that clearly contravenes Church teaching. Quite rightly, it does not accept the “personally opposed, but” defence, because its founder, Jesus Christ, did not recognise such a distinction. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind”. Christianity demands transformation of the whole person and changes in every aspect of life.
Converts to Catholicism, like myself, are sometimes accused of being excessively zealous about the detail of Church teaching. Liberal-minded cradle Catholics urge us to accept that it’s really more about the vibes. The problem is that those of us who come from certain other Christian denominations have seen what happens when basic moral teachings are constantly up for discussion and amendment, and clergy and laity are allowed to advocate for almost anything they like without serious consequence. It doesn’t end well. One of the things that attracts converts to Catholicism is the stability and coherence of its public positions. Of course there are Catholic dissenters, and arguments within Catholicism, but these exist alongside authoritative documents setting out what the Church believes, and mechanisms for exercising discipline.
The Church, as a voluntary membership organisation, is simply making an internal decision about who may access its sacraments
Supporting Fr Ian Vane in his disciplining of Coghlan should not be seen as self-righteousness. Of course the Church is made up of all different kinds of people. That is the beauty of it. In any given congregation there are likely to be very saintly individuals and great sinners, as well as a huge mass of people somewhere in between, working out their salvation in what St Paul called fear and trembling. There is no such thing as perfection on this side of eternity. The problem with Coghlan is not that he’s a sinner like the rest of us; it’s that he is persisting in public wrongdoing, even though he has been warned that this is antithetical to his professed Christian beliefs. He wants to have his cake and eat it too; to enjoy the benefits of the Christianity community while rejecting the obligations and responsibilities that come with it.
There is no issue of religious liberty here. The Church opposes assisted suicide because it is contrary to human dignity and to the natural law. We are not talking about imposing specific religious obligations on non-believers, but about upholding fundamental moral norms. Mr Coghlan is not, after all, facing any legal or civic punishment. The Church, as a voluntary membership organisation, is simply making an internal decision about who may access its sacraments. The smokescreen about serving all his constituents, regardless of religious belief, is just that, a smokescreen. He is not denying anyone’s beliefs or liberties by making a principled decision of his own, that can in any case be judged at the ballot box. And for Christians, there are other judgments to consider, more serious even than those made by the good people of Dorking and Horley.
