Tim Stanley on his blog yesterday has a post on a talk given by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor on the decline of tolerance for Christianity in Great Britain. Here is the link.
If you do not follow Dr. Stanley's blog, I recommend it. Part of the post states,
What (Cardinal) Murphy-O’Connor is really talking about is the decline of Christianity as an institution. His list of complaints are linked to the special privileges that Protestant and Catholic churches have hitherto enjoyed: gay marriage removes the Church’s right to define unions as a sacrament, gay rights subverts its authority in the moral education of children, rules against the wearing of the cross at work undermines the Church as a visible presence. As a Roman Catholic, I’m sympathetic to Murphy-O’Connor’s concerns. But it’s perfectly possible to be a Christian within a society that regulates or proscribes religious practices. The Christians in classical Rome or the Catholics in communist Poland proved that.
Now, I do not always agree with Dr. Stanley, but his points are good and based on an understanding of Catholicism, at least from a historian's point of view.
Here is more: Our society is intolerant towards faith because it seeks to create an artificial, neutral public sphere that doesn’t preach to individuals about how to lead their lives. The problem is that in rejecting the authoritarian strictures of the established church it also rejects the utilitarian benefits of the Christian message. A society that has no moral point of reference beyond the reason of the individual (and who, in their right mind, would trust that?), or the ever shifting law of the land, is bound towards selfishness and tyranny. With its sexualisation of children, disregard for the sanctity of life and its confusion of desire and happiness, Britain isn’t just squeezing Christianity out of everyday life. It’s also killing itself.
Of course, for those of you who follow my blog, I blame the capitulation of Catholics themselves, who have voted socialist, voted money over morals, and have become soft in the head regarding religion. As I have noted here over and over, British Catholics are increasingly anti-intellectual and therefore, lose the battle of wits and argument in the public sphere. It seems to me that the country needs moral and intellectual Catholic leaders NOW. Of course, His Eminence is right.