Opening Time or Closing Time?

Either way it's decision time

My first post on this site was called Divide and Conquer. In it I lamented that "official Catholicism lives on in Quebec only as a creature of the State, and the State itself lives on only in and as a State of Exception."  I argued, on grounds proper to the Church—christological and sacramental grounds—that "it is incumbent upon the Church and all the faithful to refuse to substitute a 'vaccination passport' for the baptismal certificate;" that the Church must receive, not turn away, anyone who is seeking Jesus; that it cannot derogate authority over this matter to the State, or permit the State to divide the body of Christ.

I encouraged the faithful not to capitulate to the State, though it was already evident that the bishops were capitulating. I subsequently clarified that I was not recommending the disruption of liturgies—as this officer in Perth is doing—or advocating that lawlessness, whether in the Church or in the State, be met with more lawlessness. I was recommending rather "refusal to behave lawlessly oneself by rendering to Caesar what Caesar, through lawless law, lawlessly demands."

The particular prudential judgments belonging to that refusal always require careful thought and prayer. Both priests and people are in a very difficult situation.  But the basic principle here is not difficult to grasp. Caesar has no right to determine who does or doesn't approach the altar of God, and the bishops here in Quebec have made a fundamental mistake in conceding such a right and then trying to work round it by some sort of "accommodation" of those the State has excluded. That, quite frankly, is a fool's game, even on the political level, to say nothing of the scientific or medical level, on which it is perfectly clear that the attempt to separate the vaccinated and the unvaccinated has exactly zero value.

Zero value? It reduces transmission not at all; nor is reducing transmission a reasonable goal. Moreover, Quebec hospitals (as official statistics show, when properly read) are not in general overrun, much less overrun by the unvaccinated minority. Rather they are understaffed, overwhelmed by absenteeism. Meanwhile, far away in jab heaven, despite the mildest version of covid yet, mortality is up not down. Go figure.  

Separating the vaccinated from the unvaccinated has indeed no value medically, as anyone who knows anything knows perfectly well. But separating has great value politically, as a punitive measure—just like those masks the officer is checking, which also serve no medical purpose—that reinforces earlier lessons in compliance. The State is asserting its power over the Church, and over the people through the Church. That's the whole story, or the only part of the story that matters.

While many jurisdictions are abandoning such measures, lest they be exposed as strictly political in nature, Quebec is retaining them, especially where houses of worship are concerned. And the bishops have just issued a brand new letter of capitulation. In it they indicate their joy over the reopening of their churches, which were closed without warning just before Christmas, right after their first letter of capitulation. Next they bravely insist on an exemption, for Catholics, from the passport stipulation that conditions the opening. Then they circle round to admitting that in fact they will not insist, but instead conform. Caesar locuta est; causa finita est. At least for now, anyway.

Anyone who is thinking at all can see that it is not "at least for now." The bishops are crossing a bright red line behind which they will not be able to retreat again, or not without great cost. The government could, in its paternal generosity, remove the stipulation within the next fortnight and it would make not a particle of difference. It will already have been established, and the bishops will already have conceded, that their churches are creatures of the State: that they meet when the State says they can meet; that only those meet whom the State permits to meet; that the identity of those who meet is discoverable by the State; that the State may even demand that they themselves do the work of separating sheep from goats.

Let us pause on this last point, which is the only point not conceded already in 2020. It is bad enough that the government has been lying to the people about the medical situation, and has been doing so from the very outset. It is worse that the bishops are still pretending not to know this. It is far worse yet that they are willing to set layman against layman by having one refuse another access to the altar; that they are setting up a den of coppers in the temple of God. The kapos at the door, being down-market cherubim, will have no sword in hand; instead they will ask you to flash your own sword in order to gain access to Eden's sacramental fruits. And if you don’t they will call for the coppers.

What integrity! What glory! What witness to the gospel of our redemption! Will they call the cops on the young people too? Do they know what the jabs are doing to them? Do they understand their own complicity in a culture of complicity that can only destroy what’s left of their church’s “reputation”?

Meanwhile in Manitoba, the proprietors of Monstrosity Burger have enough moral sense to insist that it is not their task to ask people to divulge protected personal information before entering their establishment. They ordered a scanner and invited customers to use it themselves if they wished to report voluntarily to the government. They've had the courage to fight massive fines in court. But the bishops of Quebec? They will hire bouncers or dragoon members of their flocks—some alas are perverse enough not to need dragooning—into the role of unpaid policeman. Thus do they make them party to the sin of schism. That truly is a monstrosity, but to quote the sometimes irreverent Leonard Cohen, "the holy spirit's crying, where's the beef?"

The willing Funktionshäftling, and the ordinary fear-filled parishioner who has believed the bureaucratic lies told on behalf of pharmaceutical companies with whom criminal business is being conducted, represent one side of the problem. The supine posture of priests and bishops who preach only compliance, who sacrifice the libertas ecclesiae for the sake of a false peace with the State—who thus encourage the people to abandon their own rights and freedoms, to say nothing of their spiritual birthright—represents the other side. But what of the goats? What of the challenge faced by all those who refuse, in the name of Christ, to cross the line that the bishops are crossing?

Suppose they stand out in the cold, both literally and metaphorically, and their clergy come out at the end of Mass to communicate them, as our bishop has done. Are they cooperating in the caste system that State and Church are together introducing? Perhaps not, at least not in any morally culpable sense. Rather they are adopting a Christ-like posture, standing with the outcast. But what will they do if the passport stipulation is for a time rescinded—will they return to their pews as if nothing had happened? Something has happened, and everybody knows.

Or suppose they stand outside in silent witness but either do not present themselves to the priest or are given no opportunity to do so. In the latter case, they are de facto excommunicate; in the former they are engaged in a eucharistic fast. Either way, they give testimony. But again, if and when the passport stipulation is lifted, what do they do? It will be said, if there is no corporate repentance, that they only punished themselves, unless indeed they were trying to make others feel awkward. They will now be inside again, but the caste attitude, if not the caste system, will remain. And when the stipulation is reimposed, shall they expect things to be any different?  They will not be different, unless they are worse.

Anyone who doubts that a church in which the caste system is imposed is a creature of the State, need only ponder the picture above. That Perth policeman is pointedly arresting the Divine Liturgy, the Holy Mass itself, while he inspects the faithful for full compliance with man rather than with God. Such sacrilege, which breaches both civil and canon law and every imaginable policy about sensitive policing, declares plainly who is in charge and what kind of charge they mean to have.

The State-catholicism that, with the blessing of the Vatican, is striving for supremacy in China has extended itself to Australia. And not only to Australia, for it is now establishing itself in Canada. I have even heard of upstanding Catholics saying they would happily call the police were they to spot any non-compliance.

The catechism instructs us, as the scriptures instruct us, to suffer indignities for Christ' sake. It also instructs church leaders "to voice their just criticisms of that which seems harmful to the dignity of persons and to the good of the community" (2238). The bishops have made a feeble attempt to do that. But they have evaded the question that arises with the twofold obligation—which must not be deserted—to "obey the established laws" while showing that "their way of life surpasses the laws" (Ad Diognetum 5). Like Francis, they have said next to nothing about the crucial matters treated at section 2242:

The citizen is obliged in conscience not to follow the directives of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons or the teachings of the Gospel. Refusing obedience to civil authorities, when their demands are contrary to those of an upright conscience, finds its justification in the distinction between serving God and serving the political community. "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." "We must obey God rather than men."

Or rather, they have tried, as he has tried, to defang this instruction by proclaiming at every opportunity that this distinction is unnecessary in the present case. That even deadly lockdowns and abortion-tainted experimental injections—injections that are proving, on balance, worse than useless and are plainly implicated in diabolical schemes absolutely opposed to life—are somehow consistent with the demands of the moral order and appropriately mandated even in violation of fundamental rights. All of which they try to justify by a false, indeed perverse, appeal to neighbour-love.

Everything hinges, or should hinge, on sound application of what follows next in this section, which is a quotation from Gaudium et Spes 74:

When citizens are under the oppression of a public authority which oversteps its competence, they should still not refuse to give or to do what is objectively demanded of them by the common good; but it is legitimate for them to defend their own rights and those of their fellow citizens against the abuse of this authority within the limits of the natural law and the Law of the Gospel.

But this dialectical hinge has rusted and seized. The bishops appear to have some inkling that the public authority has overstepped its competence, but no inkling at all of the difference between what the State demands of them in the name of the common good and what is objectively required of them by the common good. So, to borrow from Cohen again, "we struggle and we stagger, down the snakes and up the ladder, to the tower where the blessed hours chime"—only to find the State in full charge of the bell-ringers. Is it opening time, or closing time? Who but the State knows?

One would think that, having lived for some time now in a society that no longer acknowledges "man's origin and destiny in God," the bishops would not be taken by surprise to learn that those who address us with paternalistic affection as Votre Gouvernement formulate their goals and plan without reference to any "objective criterion of good and evil;" that, just so, they tend to arrogate to themselves "an explicit or implicit totalitarian power" (2244).

One would hope that the bishops would be quick to defend, in deed as in word, "the transcendent character of the human person," and hence “the political freedom” of the citizen as well as his political responsibility. In view of past mistakes, one would expect them to be alert to the fact that the ecclesial community is not to be confused with the political community "in any way" (2245). And that, having been thrust aside from any role in guiding the State, they would be all the more diligent in guiding the Church.

One would be mistaken. They steer their churches as near the State as possible, moving in convoy, taking great care to avoid conflict. They would rather divide the former than collide with the latter. It’s almost as if they regard all conflict with the State as armed conflict, in the literal sense of section 2243, conflict that must do more harm than good.

Opening time, or closing time? A few more lines from Cohen, who hailed from this fair city, the city of the sainted Brother André, come to mind:

Yeah I missed you since the place got wrecked
By the winds of change and the weeds of sex
Looks like freedom but it feels like death
It's something in between, I guess
It's closing time...

And the whole damn place goes crazy twice
And it's once for the Devil and it's once for Christ
But the boss don't like these dizzy heights
We're busted in the blinding lights
Of closing time.

Cohen was no saint, but he was something of a prophet. Let us hear this, however, in its original version, in the holy and wholly reliable words of Jesus spoken through John to the church in Laodicaea:

I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. For you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.’ You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich; and white robes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen; and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.  I reprove and discipline those whom I love. Be earnest, therefore, and repent. Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me. To the one who conquers I will give a place with me on my throne, just as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

It's been a long while since the Quiet Revolution and perhaps we don't any longer fancy ourselves altogether prosperous and in need of nothing. The winds of change have grown fierce, and the weeds of sex tall. Sex scandals have depleted the budget for fighting fines. Yet the churches seem chastened in all the wrong ways. They seem very much in-between, undecided, lukewarm. And it's surely closing time in some sense.

What does that mean, however, but the opening of something better? For the Church grows younger even as it grows older. It is refined. It is painfully but lovingly purified, that it might be ready for Closing Time.

Before that, it shall be divided by the sword of the Word, which cuts to the bone and exposes the marrow. Bishop will be divided against bishop, just as St Cyril warned. Toward the end of time, said he, “there shall be the evil inducement both of fear and of deceit, ‘so that if it be possible the very elect shall be deceived.’”

Guard yourself then, O man. You have the signs of Antichrist. And remember them not only yourself, but impart them also freely to all. If you have a child according to the flesh, admonish him of this now. If you have begotten one through catechizing, put him also on his guard, lest he receive the false one as the True. ‘For the mystery of iniquity does already work.’ I fear these wars of the nations. I fear the schisms of the Churches. I fear the mutual hatred of the brethren... God forbid that it should be fulfilled in our days; nevertheless, let us be on our guard.

These times were foreshadowed in his own century. They began again in earnest half a millennium ago. Yet they are not behind us, not altogether; they are still ahead of us. And the mutual hatred of the brethren, against which Jesus himself warned, is that behind us?

By God's grace, the Church itself will never be closed, though all its houses of worship be shut by the State, as some day they will be, and in our day they have been. For all its struggles and stains, it rests on a firm and impregnable foundation. Even the gates of death and hell will not prevail against it, and no one who desires salvation can abandon it. We return, then, to the question of what the faithful should do, if what they will not do is accept the schismatic, passport assemblies.

Absent any response to their call for corporate repentance, I do not myself see what they can do except join one of those few parishes, whether Latin rite or Eastern, whose bishops or priests decide not to divide their flock and not to conform to the government's demands.

If that option is not available, which for some will be the case, then underground churches must be explored, house churches served in clandestine fashion by faithful priests. Read Sigrid Undset's Stages on the Way. Build a priest hole if necessary. You will be nearer the heart of the Church in doing so than in a parish that is passing over to the religion of the State. As the author of Ad Diognetum says:

They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners... They are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are ill-spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless.