There are those who try to persuade us all that gender is only a “social construct”; that it is independent of biological sexuality; that chromosomal variations mean there are more than two sexes; that there are genders in between male and female; that gender can be “fluid” and changeable, etc.. These claims are sometimes made for the well intentioned purpose of safeguarding the health and well-being of young people experiencing unease or dissatisfaction with their gender (dysphoria), and a praiseworthy desire to assure them that they are OK. In this sense, at least, these claims are agenda-driven.

But it can also be useful to look to what the human sciences are generally agreed on: that some young people do experience dysphoria; that this is more often temporary, and that, after puberty, most of them are comfortable identifying with their biological sex; that sexual differentiation is reinforced during growing-up years through the experience of male-female socialising; that a more deep-seated attachment to the same sex is also a reality for some; that this can result from genetic and hormonal factors even before birth, or from trauma (sometimes during very early childhood); that the first sexual experience can have a deep and lasting impact on one’s orientation; that there are other conditions that originate very early — even before birth — including heart defects, spina bifida, Down syndrome, brain damage (due to a mother’s drug or alcohol intake), dyslexia, autism, allergies, etc. It is a blessing that medical science is able to correct some of these, sometimes even while the child is still in the womb.

So, we can acknowledge that some conditions are “on a spectrum”, and that some conditions originate from genetic or hormonal variations. But it is not necessary to affirm that all these conditions are somehow equal in order to assure people they are OK — people are already OK because their dignity, worth and equality is based on the simple fact of being a human being, not on any other characteristics.

 Respect

An incident during a visit to the Vatican by the British comedian Stephen Amos illustrates the point. He had been concerned that the Pope might not accept him because he was gay. He said to Pope Francis: “So me coming on this pilgrimage, being non-religious and looking for answers and faith; but as a gay man I don’t feel really accepted.” The Pope responded that placing more importance on being gay than on being human was a mistake. “We are all human beings and have dignity. Whoever we are, and however we live, we don’t lose our dignity as human beings.” Amos said he was “blindsided” by the Pope’s response; “and so I was in full respect of the man”.

In other words, people are not defined by any of their characteristics or conditions or orientations. They are first and above all else human beings, and that is the basis of their worth and dignity — not the presence or absence of various conditions.

The real problem derives from society losing sight of this basis of human dignity and equality. Pre-natal screening is done often with a view to terminating the life of children who have disabilities or defects before they are born. A society that does that no longer regards the status of being a human being as paramount; it can be overridden by lesser considerations. Such a society robs itself of the very basis on which the absolute equality and worth of every person depends — regardless of other conditions and variations.

Consequently, because the paramount dignity of being human has been eclipsed, and, in order to establish the equal dignity and equality of people who happen to be LGBT, activists claim equality for the different sexual and gender variations. But that agenda can be self-defeating and lead to some very silly claims: for example. that “all are born perfect” (yeah, right); that binary gender is “an invention of recent years” — (so what were the male and female pronouns referring to all those hundreds of years before that, and probably for as long as there has been language?)  Do we honour what is properly distinctive of feminine identity (or male identity), by thinning identity out into something on a spectrum?

Respectful, intelligent discussion on this is often disrupted by confusion over what is “being judged”. It is not for us to judge other people, but we may, and sometimes must, judge others’ actions. For example, to say that “rape is wrong” is a judgement! Nor is it enough to say that sexual activities only need to be “consensual and safe”. After all, that could be true of promiscuity and marriage infidelity.

Purpose

Sooner or later, we need to look to sexuality’s purpose and meaning. This leads us to recognise two purposes that are entwined and come together uniquely in marriage: they are sexuality’s potential for deeply nurturing the love of two people, and in a way that is also designed to generate new life as the fruit of their love. And because new life needs to be protected and nurtured, the child’s parents need to be in a relationship that is stable, committed and faithful. Psychologists also speak of children’s need to experience both maternal and paternal love.

Removed from its context, sexuality is removed from its meaning, and removed from its meaning, ultimately anything goes.

We need not be naïve about attempts to give sexuality different meanings. There have been strong, organised and determined cultural movements whose agenda has been to “liberate” sexuality from all previous restraints. We look back incredulously to the 1960s through the 1990s, when some activists described themselves as “victims” of harsh laws aimed at preventing “man-boy love”; and children as “victims” because harsh parents didn’t want their children to have that kind of loving care!! “Inter-generational sex” and “man-boy love’ were euphemisms intended to make acceptable what society calls pederasty. Even though, by the 1990s, those movements had mostly lost their credibility,
the underlying ideologies have a way of re-surfacing.

Whatever one’s sexual orientation or gender, chastity is for the protection of all. Chastity is the virtue that applies self-respect, restraint and respect for others, to sexuality. Unchastity and self-indulgence can lead to violence — whether inside or outside of marriage — as the expression of unrestrained determination to get what one wants.

Modesty is the virtue that protects chastity. It is an aspect of care and respect for others — which is not at the forefront of people’s minds who are concerned mostly about their own rights — real or perceived.

As the basis for affirming the dignity and equality of everyone, there is no substitute for the simple fact of being a human being. Anything else that one happens to be, or not be, is no match as a basis for affirming the dignity and equality of all. So, it is the fundamental dignity of being human that needs to be affirmed, and not subordinated to any other consideration.

Bishop Peter Cullinane is Bishop Emeritus of Palmerston North.

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People have told us often enough that “Church language” simply by-passes them. Of course, language is a two-way street:  the Church’s language (in all its forms, not just its words) is meant to form us; we in turn shape it for different times and cultures.  For both those reasons, we can ill-afford to ignore the disconnect people speak of. The issue here is not just translations: it involves the texts themselves – texts of the liturgy, texts of the catechisms, and texts of official communications. 

How is this not a problem if participation in the liturgy is intended to enable the prayer of the Church to become the prayer of the people in this gathering, when the language or imagery used is alien to them? 

How is the disconnect not a problem when language at odds with science is spoken into a scientifically-minded world? Or, if language borrowed from the days of empires and conquest continues in post-colonial times, especially when people know that Jesus’ “kingdom” is not of this world? Or, if language that belonged in feudal societies, and even in Christendom, does not resonate with people living in democracies? Or, if language that was characteristic of patriarchy now alienates?  Language that doesn’t connect is not life-giving, and becomes a big turn-off.  

How is it not a problem when some Catholics ignore the role of the local churches in interpreting messages from the Holy See?  In presenting the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1993), which St John Paul II issued for the universal Church, Cardinal Ratzinger said that catechism “cannot be considered the only possible way, or even the best way, of giving a catechetical re-expression of the Christian message”. He explained that it was to be absorbed, interpreted and then re-expressed in the idioms of the various local churches – in that sense “mediated” by the local churches. In our country we are blessed having people doing this for our religious education programmes.  

Just as important is Cardinal Ratzinger’s assurance that the same process of “mediating” is required for “Instructions” issued for the universal Church. It cannot be presumed that such Instructions apply in exactly the same way in all the local churches. To simply take them from the web, by-passing the mediating role of the local church, is not true to Catholic ecclesiology. “Mediating” involves the teaching role of bishops and, of course, in a synodal church, the exercise of that role will be more sensitive, more complex, and multi-directional.   

Language matters. Sharing the faith depends more on gifts like imagination, music, story-telling, and the witness of holy lives, than on the gift of reason. But reason, and how the faith is articulated, also matters. It matters that we use language that invites interest, and shun language that alienates, or isn’t properly inclusive. It matters when Church communications regarding matters of concern to all, engage only those who can manage the semi code-language of surveys and digital-speak. 

Of course, there is no language for speaking adequately of God. God is infinite, and our understanding is finite, which is why we need imagery, metaphor and hyperbole. St Thomas put it this way: we can know that God is good, but cannot know what goodness in God is like. And yet, it is because of the goodness we experience within creation and in people’s lives that we catch our first glimpses of God’s intentions for us. We know God more surely when we come more alive to God’s presence in nature and in history. 

Through the experience of beauty, goodness and truth, we are being drawn to God. God’s presence comes to us disguised in sunsets and other experiences of beauty, music, works of art, poetry, and smiles on children’s faces. There we catch glimpses of what we have been made for. Our spontaneous responses are our personal God-language.  It is homely language, yet deep, and foundational.  

Nature cannot tell us the whole story of our relationship with God, but it can deepen our desire to know more. In the gift of human freedom, nature takes a leap, leaving itself behind by raising more questions than it can answer. Human choices are what make history. That’s where God speaks through lives of faithfulness and unselfish love, through acts of forgiveness and compassion – but also through catastrophes and heartbreaks when healing and hope are never far behind, transforming our Good Fridays into Easter joy. These experiences give more depth to our God-language. The psalms ring out with cries of despair and joy, usually over the more dramatic ups and downs of life; mystics have not shied away from the language of erotic love. 

The central prayers of the liturgy tell us, in narrative form, the story of what God has done and is doing for our salvation. Through our participation in the feasts and seasons of the liturgical year, God’s story becomes our story; “salvation history” becomes our history. Our God-language takes on the character of an on-going narrative. 

The on-going narrative becomes an on-going dialogue when God speaks in the Person of the Word, known more intimately as Jesus of Nazareth. In their friendship with him, his first disciples found their surest way of knowing God. And because Jesus’ presence is as real among us as it was among them, it is in our relationship with him – in the experience of keeping his company – that we have our surest way of knowing what God is like, and our surest corrective to inherited fear-based images of God. 

Our union with the risen Christ is not a private or “interior” affair. It is embodied in our relationships. It is as one body that we share his life, death and Resurrection. Consequently, the language of liturgy necessarily takes on a community dimension. This community includes those who lived, prayed and died before us; in the Creeds we use language that they used. What we say and pray together necessarily has a formal character to it. 

But it does not need to be more formal than that. Reverent, yes. But reverence comes out of being alive to Christ’s real presence – in the congregation (“where two or three are gathered . . . ”), in the Word (where “Christ is speaking to his people” – present tense), in the ministry of the one ordained to act in persona Christi; and in the Sacrament; (Second Vatican Council, SC. 7). 

Awareness of being in God’s presence generates awe. When awe is obstructed – by triteness or routine, or just too many words – liturgy is less telling. Our relationship with God cannot be reduced to correctness, or having the right answers, or – much less – seeming to put God in our debt, as if God owes us our salvation in exchange for certain devotions. Walking away from that kind of “religion” won’t seem any big deal.  Religious practices “hold” us when they resonate with the sheer mystery of God’s freedom, the gratuitousness of our own existence and our salvation, and give us cause for sheer wonder.  Or, to adapt Rahner: Christians will either find themselves alive to God’s presence, or they just won’t be around at all. 

• Bishop Peter Cullinane is Bishop Emeritus of Palmerston North. This is the second part of a two-part reflection. 

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 Part IV     Where to start? 

 I referred to the increasing gap between the number of our parishes and the number of priests. Simply combining parishes, whether for the sake of having a parish priest in every parish, or out of due concern for future financial resourcing, does not resolve the problem because ultimately everything depends on pastoral effectiveness and enlivening.  

 An alternative to combining parishes is available where Church law allows for the pastoral care of parishes to be entrusted to lay people, with a priest appointed to provide general supervision (canon 517/2), usually from another parish. We already experience the insufficiency of suitable priests, which is what justifies recourse to this canon. Of course, where this happens, priests are still required for sacramental ministry. It is possible that some priests might even prefer that kind of role, leaving management of the parish to a team of qualified lay women and men. Lay leadership of parishes requires proper formation – of parish and leaders – and proper remuneration.  

 Yet another starting point for renewal can be found in the experience of small base communities pioneered by the Church in some countries in South America and Asia. Of course, we cannot simply transfer other local churches’ experience to our situation. But we, too, can establish smaller communities within parishes, where leadership can be shared by teams and on a voluntary basis.  

 Such gatherings would be lay-led, and need no official authorisation. They can happen already, and develop in home-spun ways. 

 The Christian Base Communities in South American countries grew out of lay people coming together to pray and reflect on the Scriptures and on their life situations, using the Catholic Action principle: “see, judge, act”.  Their aim was a more just society and more truly human life for everyone – “the route the Church must take”. If this were happening in our own country, we could ask the kind of questions they asked: what are the causes of poverty in our country, and what can we do about those causes? Indeed, this is an appropriate level at which to analyse whatever flaws in our culture leave us less able to deal with the epic issues of our time – those that degrade human life, human dignity, human rights, and the planet itself. 

 Addressing those issues – through the lenses of divine revelation – is itself a way of participating in the mission of the Church. It is a good place to start because it is already do-able; it can be inclusive of those who feel unable to participate in other aspects of the Church’s life; it does not need clerical leadership or control, but makes room for ordained priesthood to present itself as a supporting ministry; it can model shared leadership, and lead to whatever forms of ministry might need to come next.   

 It is also a way of being Church that is “synodal”, (being “on the road together”).  The larger gatherings that we call “synods” presuppose the experience of walking and working together before we are ready for the decisions we gather to make at synods. It also gives scope and opportunity for the participation of many who will not be at the synods. 

Part V    What More?  

 Pope Francis has rightly said: “The Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures all need to be channelled for what best serves the Church’s mission of evangelising the world”; (Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel, 27).  

To act on that would make big differences. Yet, even these changes are “small change” compared with where the Church has already been, and can yet go. Bigger changes rightly need wider consultation. And synodality is pointless if it isn’t about the road ahead and exploring what might yet be. 

Ministry that is authorised to speak and act in Christ’s name has its origin in Christ’s historical intentions. But its structure and concrete forms were determined by the Church during the apostolic period and after, continuing until late in the second century. What the Church gave shape to after the apostolic period, it can give different shape to now. Being faithful to the Tradition involves more than just receiving what the early Church did; it involves doing what the early Church did: it shaped its ministries to meet the needs of its mission.  

So long as the fullness of ordained responsibility remains intact – as in the college of bishops with and under the bishop of Rome – lesser participations in ordained ministry can be redistributed. The “powers” presently distributed within the three ministries of bishop, presbyter and deacon would live on, but enshrined within a wider variety of ordained ministries. This would open up significant new pastoral opportunities, and incorporate a wider range of charisms into ordained ministry. 

Whatever about that, 50 years ago, the International Theological Commission said  “It is urgent to create much more diversified structures of the Church’s pastoral action as regards both its ministries and its members, if the Church is to be faithful to its missionary and apostolic vocation.”  (The Priestly Ministry, pp 99,100). 

• Bishop Peter Cullinane is Bishop Emeritus of Palmerston North 

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By PETER CULLINANE 

The front line of the Church’s work is the Christian people whose lives are leaven in the dough of all the ordinary circumstances of ordinary life. The purpose of ministries within the Church is to provide nurture and formation for that mission. It is the mission that matters.   

Part I   Ministries 

For some years, we have all been aware of a growing gap between the number of parishes and the number of priests available to serve in them. This reality serves as a wake-up call, but it is not the basis for greater lay involvement. That involvement has its roots in Baptism and the very nature of the Church. Through Baptism, we are all united to the priestly and prophetic mission of Christ. This is the basis for our shared responsibility for what the Church is and what it does:  

“Co-responsibility requires a change in mentality, particularly with regard to the role of the laity in the Church, who should be considered not as ‘collaborators’ with the clergy, but as persons truly ‘co-responsible’ for the being and the activity of the Church . . . ” (Pope Benedict XVI, 10 August 2012). 

This is more than just a matter of management, or meeting an emergency. It, too, is rooted in Baptism and the nature of the Church. So why does this require a “change in mentality” if it already belongs to the nature of the Church?  History gives the answer.  During the first four centuries of the Church, lay people had roles in the liturgy, preached, had a say in the election of bishops and nomination of priests; contributed to the framing of Church laws and customs, prepared matters for, and participated in, Church councils, administered Church properties, etc. 

Then, after the conversion of the emperor Constantine and the mass conversions that followed, responsibility shifted one-sidedly into the hands of the clergy. And following the barbarian invasions, responsibility for public order also fell to them. Over following centuries, society came to see priesthood as a profession, with social privilege. During earlier centuries, it had been a point of honour for ministers of the Church to live and look like everyone else. 

Perception changed also within the Church. This is perhaps symbolised by the altar being pushed back to the apse of the church, where liturgy became mainly a clerical affair, with diminishing involvement of the laity. Scholarship and better understanding of the early Church would eventually return the liturgy to the whole body of the faithful, and restore roles of pastoral care and administration to lay women and men.   

Most see our own day as a time of privileged opportunity for renewal. It is challenging because it involves the need for more personal responsibility, and moving away from the forms of tutelage and guardianship that shaped Church practices right up till the time of Pope Pius XII.  Others feel safer clinging to that recent past, often misunderstanding the meaning of “Tradition”.  

Part II   Mission 

In Christ, God became immersed in human life; showed us how to live it, destined us to its fullness, and sent the Holy Spirit to draw us into what Christ did for us. That is God’s purpose, and the Church can have no other – “Humanity is the route the Church must take” (Pope John Paul II).   

How we do this comes down to how we “do” love. There is a loving that does not go deep enough to transform society. It works at the level of what seems fair and reasonable and deserving.  This is what governments are properly concerned with.  Society must do better, and the Church’s mission is to be the leaven in society. It deals with a deeper kind of loving – love that is not limited to what seems fair and reasonable and deserved.  

As Church, we are uniquely placed to do this because, in the person, life, death and Resurrection of Jesus, we see love that is unconditional, undeserved, and unstinting. When we love as we have been loved, our love becomes a circuit breaker – precisely because it is not calculating and limited to what seems fair and reasonable and deserved. Running through family life, civic life, industrial, commercial and political life, this kind of love “changes everything”.  It brings about a way of living – of being human – that is true to what God made us for.  

But, note, it starts with seeing God’s love for us – contemplative seeing! Christians have the least excuse for not recognising the intrinsic link between contemplation and working for social justice because, in celebrating Eucharist, they move from contemplating God’s extraordinary love for us to receiving and becoming the body broken for others and the blood (life) poured out for others.  

This is how faith makes a decisive difference to all of human life, while fully respecting the rightful autonomy of everything that is properly secular. In the midst of life, God is drawing us towards the fulfilment of our own deepest yearnings, and wonderfully more, involving God’s purpose for the whole of creation. 

On that understanding of “the route the Church must take”, we come to know what ministries are needed to nurture us for that mission, and what kind of formation is needed for those ministries. 

Part III   Formation 

To be involved in the processes of making our lives more truly human is a wonderful mission. So what kind of formation is needed for ministries that serve that mission? 

Writing about the formation needed for priests, Pope John Paul II said it needs to be “human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral”, and went on to say that continuing formation was a matter of a priest’s faithfulness to his ministry, of love for the people, and in the proper sense a matter of justice, given the people’s rights (Pastores Dabo Vobis, 70). 

Commenting on some of the characteristics of human formation, the Congregation for the Clergy explicitly singled out the specific contribution of women, “not only for the seminarians’ personal life, but also with a view to their future pastoral activity” (Ratio Fundamentalis, 95). The congregation’s reference was to Pope John Paul’s emphasis on “what it means to speak of the ‘genius of women’, not only in order to be able to see in this phrase a specific part of God’s plan which needs to be accepted and appreciated, but also in order to let this genius be more fully expressed in the life of society as a whole, as well as in the life of the Church; (Letter to Women, 1995, 10). 

In our country, women have been carrying out significant roles at both Holy Cross Seminary and Good Shepherd College for some years. What still needs to be developed, however, are ways of allowing parishioners generally to play a bigger part, both in seminarians’ formation and in the discernment of their vocation. Those who will live with the results of formation, for better or for worse, should have a say in that formation and the selection of candidates. 

Programmes for the formation of lay women and men for parish ministries already exist, and I leave it to others to comment on them. My concern here is with a very specific feature needed in Church leadership – both lay and ordained. It is needed all the more because general education in our country has been gradually reduced to learning mainly practical skills. Skills, both human/relational and technological, properly belong within education, but not more so than the deeper aspects of what it means to be human. Even when we know how to do the things necessary for successful living, we still need to know what ultimately gives meaning to it all. 

Knowing that one’s life has a purpose can make the difference between surviving, or not surviving, life’s toughest times. The will to live needs a reason to live. The need I am pointing to is the need for leaders who are “in the service of meaning” (Ratcliffe). This is what it means, in practice, to be ministers of God’s Word. Knowing how much we mean to God is the most important thing we can know about ourselves, and is truly life-giving. 

Within a culture that has become superficial, reductionist and utilitarian, one of the ways we are in the service of meaning is by knowing how to identify flaws within that culture, especially where important aspects of daily life are devalued by becoming disconnected from what gives them their meaning, or at least their full meaning. Formation will be incomplete unless it is formation “in the service of meaning”. 

• Bishop Peter Cullinane is Bishop Emeritus of Palmerston North diocese. This is the first part of a two-part article. The second part will be published in the next edition of NZ Catholic.  

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But we know there are also darker forces at work in the world. So, just as we need to notice the signs of God’s creative and saving love, so too, we need to be alert to what is evil — also fermenting within “ordinary” life. It is a matter of sharpening our moral awareness, and standing up for what is right — all the more because it is not the state’s role to criminalise all forms of wrongdoing. So, what is involved when we talk about evil in today’s world?

In many ways, sin brings its own punishment. But Jesus taught us not to make a simplistic connection between suffering and supposed sins. Nor may we scapegoat, by simply blaming evil forces for unwanted human behaviour and natural events. To take responsibility is part of what it means to be human, and to be fully human and alive is God’s agenda for us — and is how we honour God. But it would be naïve not to call out the sources of evil, wherever in ordinary life they show up.

Not wanting to know

It hardly matters that Jesus and his contemporaries did not have our scientific understanding of illnesses. Relieving suffering humanity, whatever the source of suffering, including malign spiritual activity, was a sign of Jesus’ mission.

It doesn’t occur to us to blame people who lived in pre-scientific times for not having scientific answers. They assumed the sun revolved around planet earth, and that the world was flat. Their scholarship was also pre-scientific, so they assumed the Genesis account of creation over seven days was historical narrative.

But it is one thing to have pre-scientific understanding in pre-scientific times. It is quite another to benefit by today’s sciences, but then turn a blind eye because the scientific facts don’t suit some agenda or match someone’s slogans. Scientists could have explained that it really was snow that blanketed Texas, and not some other substance sent by President Biden and Google! And scientists worldwide testify to the reality of Covid-19 and the need for hygienic measures against it; no need to misrepresent and mock Pope Francis’ teachings!

It seems that conspiracy theories have always been around, mainly on the fringes. And it seems that social media now helps to mainstream them, just by making them available to people who often feel alienated in some way and suspicious of official explanations, and are looking for alternative explanations.

Again, we need not attribute blame. Nevertheless, there is an element of irrationality in preferring theories that are greatly more implausible and bizarre than anything the sciences propose; in fact, closer to the explanations of soothsayers and witchdoctors of pre-scientific times. There is also an element of bondage in the way such theories can take hold, and sometimes a certain aggressiveness and hankering for confrontation. Something more than just misunderstanding is involved here.

Something more

Perhaps there is a clue to this “something more” in what the Book of Revelation says about Satan’s involvement in human affairs and his being “in a rage because he knows that his time is short” (Revelation 12:12).

The origin of moral evil is ultimately mysterious. It doesn’t properly belong within a creation that “God saw was good”, indeed, “very good”. Hebrew faith’s attempt to explain pointed to a source outside of human nature, that is capable of deceiving us, and to human free will. In the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, Satan is depicted as
“a murderer and liar”, indeed “the father of lies”, “deceiver”, “prince of darkness” and “enemy of humanity”, which is what the name “Satan” means. And anti-human is still his trademark. (Is it possible to watch a 1930s film of Hitler addressing the crowds and their being taken in by him, without thinking of a satanic power at work — in ways that looked ordinary?) In the prayer Jesus taught us, we ask to be delivered from the power of the evil one.

A more recent example of the misuse of power showed itself in shameless lies, vilification and vengeful retaliation against critics, officials and commentators, tacit incitement to violence, corruption and self-glorification — and crowds being taken in. These characteristics, singly and together, are anti-human just by being divisive and destructive of human relationships.

 Deeper than politics – culture

When a leader is a catalyst for such anti-human activities, it is likely that he is also the product of a culture that has made it easy for him to be and act like that, with impunity. We might feel that kind of politics is “not us”. But what about the cultural chaos out of which it emerges — when the underlying planks of human decency and requirements of civilised life are being eroded? For example: When it becomes acceptable to deny facts — scientific facts (“the pandemic isn’t happening”); or historical facts (“the Holocaust didn’t happen”), and acceptable to speak blithely of falsehoods as “alternative facts”, it is reality that is not being accepted. How can there be genuine dialogue if facts don’t matter? How can there be education? What would be the point of historical records?

When truth means whatever the individual wants it to mean, the result is shallow thinking and the kind of gullibility that will believe anything. And those who relativise truth in this way leave us without grounds to regard them as reliable and credible.

Ideological clamouring for “my rights” without similar commitment to, or even mention of, “my responsibilities” can be a self-centred disregard for the common good.

Freedom of speech is sometimes spoken of as if it has no boundaries, not even respect for the innate dignity of other persons. Unfettered discussion of ideas, yes; trashing persons, no. Otherwise, what is wrong with deception, cyber-bullying, and even violence?

The best way of countering misinformation and people’s fears is by trustworthy reporting and reliable information. A weakness within Kiwi culture is the general public’s low expectations regarding news coverage and analysis. TV coverage is “lite”, as any comparison with the BBC or Al Jazeera shows. Years of getting less leads to expecting less — a gradual process of dumbing down. The situation worsens as TV channels increasingly resort to the techniques of entertainment as the way they present their news “shows”.

A culture erodes when self-indulgence is not matched by self-control; the sheer extent of physical and sexual abuse against women, both in New Zealand and worldwide, and the circumstances in which that violence spikes (for example, during pandemic lockdowns), strongly indicate that the missing factor in many men is the virtue of self-control. Virtue, by definition, is difficult choices made easier through practice. We practise self-control whenever we choose not to do something we would like to do. If self-control isn’t practised during growing-up years, expect violence later. A society that belittles the practice of chastity cannot expect its rates of violence against women to go down. Violence served up as entertainment “normalises” violence; trivialising sexuality “normalises” its misuse.

Other forms of anti-human behaviour

Anti-human behaviour, though sometimes strident, is not always carried out with bluster. Sometimes it just quietly ignores the findings of science. For example: the slogan “it’s my body” is intended to direct attention away from the scientific fact that the newly-conceived is actually someone else’s body; scientifically speaking, it is a “microscopic human being” with its own identity, even before implantation in the womb. It needs only to develop, and for this it needs its mother’s body. But it is not just a part of her body, and so the slogan is deceitful.

Anti-human behaviour is not limited to where it kills relationships and lives. On the spectrum of “ordinary” life, people’s commercial and business activities can also be blighted by the anti-human virus. Systems that widen the gap between a wealthy class and homelessness are ultimately anti-human.

An example is where, in the housing market, de facto priority is given to investors and speculators, for whom houses are commodities more than they are homes. Newsreaders speak in glowing terms of a “strong” market and of “growth”, always from the perspective of those who profit by higher prices, to the disadvantage of those who are struggling to get a home, many squeezed between homelessness and high rents. Banks continue to refine their methods of making financial transactions, not just by installing more sophisticated systems that reduce their workforce, but also by removing simpler, customer-friendly systems. Like it or not, technocracy leads to elitism and exclusion.

Anti-human activity and anti-science ideology reach fever pitch when promoted in the name of “religion”. This is hardly surprising because “religion” of this kind is at war with itself, given that religion, properly understood, is pro-human and pro-science. ISIS carries out atrocities and murders in the name of Islam, which it grossly misrepresents.

Catholics who grossly misunderstand their faith also conduct attacks that are venomous. Fellow Catholics find themselves being vilified, subjected to name-calling and mockery, slandered by the misrepresentation of their intentions and their actions. Significantly, some of those who indulge in this kind of abuse seem to get most satisfaction when their targets are authority figures. It is as if
to pull themselves up, they need to pull others down.

Even here, there is no need to apportion blame; many act out of various kinds of insecurity and especially fear, and in some cases trauma and mental health issues. But it is necessary to judge their actions. How do their actions measure up to Christian norms of behaviour? According to St Paul, Christians are to avoid all “bitterness, hard words, slander and malice” (Ephesians 4:31), and stop “biting and tearing one another to pieces” (Galatians 5:15). Websites devoid of love don’t make the cut.

Ordinary but not normal

It is an ancient teaching that “you shall not allege the example of the many as an excuse for doing wrong”. (Exodus 23:2).

Many other evils, some much worse, could have been named in this essay. But this sample suffices to make the point that anti-human activities, unchallenged, are gradually deemed “normal” and socially acceptable — and even legally-sanctioned. Tracking that trajectory, especially the progression from cultural erosion to social, political and economic disorders and personal tragedies, could be a useful exercise in critical thinking for senior college students — the formation of future leaders.

Bishop Cullinane is Bishop Emeritus of Palmerston North.

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It’s interesting that the virus has thrived so much in the nation most committed to free market ideology and least committed to the common good. Predictably, such a high number of deaths has been in the USA, which has nothing even resembling a social security system. As someone else has said:  health security (for the wealthy) via insurance is about “me”; social security is about “us”. Comparisons are being made with nations such as Japan that are culturally more self–disciplined and less given to self-indulgence (more “we” and less “me”) which have had more success getting the virus under control.  One doesn’t need an apocalyptic imagination to see how lifestyles are connected to spreading the virus and recovering from it. It is enough just to look at the facts. 

What I am proposing here mainly translates into simpler language what is being said more technically by some economists and social commentators. It does indeed propose an on-going redistribution of wealth, but it does not neglect to look at where that wealth needs to come from. 

Discerning commentators are calling for a new economic order in which governments would get a proper return for what they have invested in wealth-creating initiatives – instead of those returns being hoarded in tax-havens. In this way, those returns would become part of the revenue from which governments can continue to invest in services and initiatives that put people first, including small businesses. 

Many of today’s best known corporations have all been helped by government contributions, but then they became the biggest tax-evaders. One more than half suspects that government contributions for the development of anti-coronavirus vaccines will eventually end up with corporations’ brand names, and with no financial return to those governments. 

These aberrations are part and parcel of neo-liberal ideology. That ideology would privatise everything that can be turned into a marketable commodity. The state is expected merely to create the conditions in which private enterprise can operate without constraint and harvest all the takings. In the USA, even war has been, in a real sense, privatised, and now the military industry requires that there be wars (off-shore) to feed its profit-making agenda. 

Environment 

Breaking with this ideology, and with its assumptions that everything has a market value, is also the key to preserving a sustainable environment. The material world isn’t just a quarry providing raw materials for conversion to profits. It is also, and above all, our home. “Home” is where we can be with and for one another in life-giving ways – not the life-sapping ways of a grasping and exhausting economic rat-race which benefits the few and disadvantages the many. Greed and exploitation are at the root of terrible inequalities and terrible suffering of people, families and nations.   

A root problem requires root surgery: without a vision, we are only tinkering. Something other than just tweaking the present system is needed.  

As Pope Benedict XVI has said: “Our world has grown weary of greed, exploitation and division, of the tedium of false idols and piecemeal responses, and the pain of false promises. Our hearts and minds are yearning for a vision of life where love endures, where gifts are shared, where unity is built, where freedom finds meaning in truth, and where identity is found in respectful communion. This is the work of the Holy Spirit.” (To young people, Sydney, 2008). 

A country’s economy needs to be strong, and there is a proper place for self-interest. But concern for others, expressed through solidarity and commitment to the common good, also properly belongs. Our concern for others needs to mean so much to us that it becomes a further incentive, and not a disincentive, to creating a successful economy. The needs of weaker members of society need to be factored into economic planning. That is different from giving market forces free reign and then trying to redress imbalances afterwards. 

Persons 

A different way of economic planning starts with what it means to be persons. For example: a key assumption of capitalist thinking is that the fruits of industry and commerce belong to those who provide the finance, and not to those who provide the human labour. In that way, workers and their jobs are perceived mainly as cost items – and costs are to be minimised or eliminated for the sake of maximising profits. This leaves workers, their families and livelihoods very vulnerable. 

An alternative system, based on what it means to be persons, recognises that by providing their personal labour, workers contribute even more significantly to the enterprise than do those who provide finance, which is impersonal. And so the fruits of the enterprise/industry/business properly belong to the workers as well. More equitable ways of sharing those fruits need to be worked out.  

Similarly, trading relationships, industrial law and commercial practices would make room for what Pope Benedict called “gratuitousness”. In other words, compassion, giving, and forgiving are factored into these relationships and practices. National policies and international law would include the needs of the world’s poor, and migrants and refugees as a matter of right, not just of charity or goodwill. This is a radically different way of thinking and of relating to one another.  

Ultimately, every economic order is a humanly–devised construct, and the difference between them is a matter of choices. The model given us by neo-liberal ideology is based on the premise that “the business of business is business”. That has produced the social and economic distortions we are familiar with. In a model that gives highest priority to people – their dignity, their lives and well-being –  “the business of business is people”. As the Maori proverb has it: he aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata! (What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, people, people.) 

• Bishop Peter Cullinane is Bishop Emeritus of Palmerston North 

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