Letters to Editor. Irish News. Belfast. Published Monday, June 3, 2019
I always read Patrick Murphy’s column. He is a very clever writer but
in some instances, he may be ‘too clever by half’ which could be
the occupational hazard of clever writers.
I refer to his column ‘Time to decide if we want religious belief to take
precedence over democracy’ (May 25). He begins with “I blame
the Bible” and ends with “But would anyone seriously suggest that
religious belief, however genuinely held, should take precedence over
democracy?” Clever, eh? Well, let’s rephrase that a bit and see what
happens: “Can anyone suggest that justice should take precedence over
democracy.”
One of my favourite quotes is from the American Protestant
scripture scholar Walter Brueggemann: “In Biblical faith, the doing
of justice is the primary expectation of God.”
Why, then, is it that in some of the most Christian fundamentalist areas
– Alabama/Mississippi, South Africa, Northern Ireland – social
justice did not seem to be the norm? Indeed, state-sponsored
discrimination was the norm.
And there’s the key term in all of this, that is often not acknowledged
regarding racism and sectarianism – “state-sponsored.”
It is much easier for those in power to present the issue as one
of individual failure – that individuals lack tolerance, respect
and good-neighbourliness.
Individuals, of course, can be anti-black, anti-Catholic, or anti-Semitic,
and some will always be, I guess, as in America. That
is personal failure, a sin against the virtue
of charity/love.
However, there is a world of difference between personal sin and
state-sponsored racism and sectarianism – the “structures of sin,” as
Pope John Paul II brilliantly terms it in his 1988 Encyclical
Sollicitudo rei socialis (Solicitude for social concerns). Furthermore,
that is also the first Papal Encyclical to dedicate the Catholic
Church to a “preferential option for the poor.” Not too shabby for
a “conservative” pope.
What does that do to the sectarian slogan, ‘no pope here’? – which,
anyway, was always more about insulting local Catholics and
keeping them in their place than it was about theology. It never
affected the pope but always effectively showed contempt for local
Catholics – the very function of sectarianism.
The fundamental (not to be confused with fundamentalist) issue in
any country must be justice, which pulls down the structures of sin
and abolishes state-sponsored sectarianism/racism – the twin evils of
the world. Justice transcends ideology and party politics. It is the
acid test of all political systems. It is also the ultimate test of
religious faith, because without justice there is no love: “If
anyone says, ‘I love God and hates his brother,’ he is a liar. For he
who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom
he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20). Let Patrick Murphy blame the Bible
for that too.
Fr Sean McManus
President, Irish National Caucus
Washington DC
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