"How can it possibly be," any rational Canadian might have asked this month, "that Prime Minister Paul Martin hasn't been excommunicated by the Catholic Church?"
The fact that this question never did arise was not so much due to shortage of rationality in the Canadian psyche, however, as to an apparent surfeit of respectability. It seems that Canadians are too polite to raise such an awkward point. But it is a fair and pertinent question nonetheless. Here's why.
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Charlie Angus, the NDP (i.e., socialist) member of Parliament for the Northern Ontario mining town of Timmins, was refused communion by his parish priest earlier this month. Despite warnings that Catholic tradition forbids such things as Canada's contentious homosexual marriage law, he voted for it anyway, complying with urgent party orders.
With his church telling him one thing and his political party another, Charlie Angus decided to go with the party, though the media described him as a "devout Catholic." Presumably, he is an even more devout socialist. But when he protested his excommunication to the bishop, the bishop upheld the parish priest.
Meanwhile, in the Southern Ontario city of Windsor, across the river from Detroit, another NDP member of Parliament, Joe Comartin, encountered Episcopal censure. Having likewise defied the church and obeyed the party, he was forbidden by his bishop to play any further part in the diocesan marriage-preparation course, a prohibition that was publicly announced. By his vote, Comartin had made it clear his view of marriage was somewhat at odds with that of the Roman Catholic Church. Whether he, too, would be denied communion was not clear.
"I have to be frank," said Comartin. "I'm quite firm in my spiritual faith. But my criticisms are of the hierarchy of the church. It's some of those crises of conscience that you struggle with."
However, if merely voting for the homosexual marriage legislation gets a backbench MP thrown out of the church, what ought in fairness to happen to the man who sponsored the bill, ordered his cabinet to vote for it whatever their own convictions, and shut off the debate so that its passage could not become an issue in the next election? If poor Charlie Angus is out, why is Paul Martin still in? Does the church provide special dispensation for prime ministers?
Unlikely as this may seem, perhaps it does. A similar situation arose five years ago at the death of Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, another Catholic whose devotion to the faith was frequently noted by an admiring media. Catholic Church rules specify that anyone who plays a role in an abortion commits a dire sin – and Trudeau, it can be argued, played a pivotal role in countless abortions. He was responsible for the legislation that eventually left Canada with no legal restrictions whatsoever on abortion. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church buried Pierre Trudeau with full honors.
All of which makes concerned onlookers ponder deeply. Suppose the church had actually refused to bury Trudeau. Suppose it treated Paul Martin and the dozen or more members of his cabinet who profess Catholicism the same way it treated Charlie Angus. What would be the result?
Outrage and consternation in the Canadian media would naturally ensue, and it the story would doubtless go worldwide: "Catholic Church excommunicates Canadian PM over gay marriage." Wow!
What consequences would there be of the sort that should chiefly concern the church? Would this action strengthen the faithful? Would it bolster the faith of those who continue take the church's rules seriously and change their lives accordingly? The answer is absolutely yes. It would underline, as nothing else could, the fact that the church believes what it preaches.
What about the liberally minded? Would it further alienate them? Of course, but most of them left the church years ago.
What about youth? Don't they favor homosexual marriage? Whether they favor it or not, I don't know. One thing, however, they most emphatically do not favor, namely what they discern as the hypocrisies of "institutional religion." And when they see that the church has one rule for Charlie Angus and another one for Paul Martin, they are confirmed in their disgust.
Finally, what would it do for Paul Martin? I suspect it would make him think about his faith, perhaps as he has never thought of it before. Just as Charlie Angus and Joe Comartin must now thinking about theirs. They're asking: Which matters more? The party or the faith? This world or the next? It's a good question for all of us.