Darwinian Selection

Over the weekend, Inside Catholic ran a little piece I once wrote called “Some Advice for Moderate Muslims“. Basically, I made the point that one of the things that makes the Catholic faith stronger is its capacity for self-criticism (summed up in the penitential rite). One reader took the umbrage at this in order to complain about John Paul II’s apologies screwing up the work of apologists:

Why on Earth should Muslims follow our example
March 20th, 2010 | 10:23am
First of all, I doubt that anybody has ever claimed to engage in pedophelia or pornography *because* he wishes to obey or advance the Catholic faith, so your analogy doesn’t hold. Nor was the sack of Constantinople (which directly violated papal orders) so motivated.

John Paul II’s apologies were the worst and stupidest thing he ever did. They were stupid because anyone should have known that they would not placate the liberals, but only cause them to escalate their demands. The apologies undermined the work of apologists arguing that the Church has been a force for good, that the Crusades were a necessary defensive measure, that the Christian patriarchal family is good and natural, etc. Our atheist, liberal enemies could say, “look, the Pope has admitted that, historically, we are right, and you are wrong.” Of course, one could say (as I was inclined to) that JPII’s ideas of history were distorted by a Whiggish lens. But here’s the thing: everybody laughs at you if they think you’re being “more Catholic than the Pope”. He may not want it this way, but the pope defines the traditionalist extreme of publicly acceptable opinion. He’s always the right end of the spectrum, wherever it is he wants to be. If he moves left, the entire line moves with him.

What’s more, JPIIs humiliation of the Church before our enemies was an act of cowardice and betrayal. After all, he wasn’t apologizing for his own sins. No, he was publicly castigating our ancestors and repudiating his pious duty to defend them. Nowhere was the element of betrayal more clear than in his disgusting apology to the Chinese communists for the sins of Chinese Catholics. Here we had a branch of the Church that had never done anything wrong and had endured horrible persecutions with Christlike heroism, and the pope himself publicly took the side of their tormentors.

So, to sum up: the apologies did us no good and much harm, and they were intrinsically contemptible. Liberals and Muslims never apologize, and I can’t see that this has ever hurt them. My advice to Muslims: when Catholics do one thing, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll do the opposite.

I replied:

He also told this parable to some who trusted in God’s mercy and did not understand that we live in a dog-eat-dog world: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Liberal and the other a Pope. The Liberal stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, weaklings;, losers, people who admit the slightest sin or error, or even like this cowardly Pope. I recycle, I support abortion and the culture of death–and I never admit wrongdoing.’ But the Pope, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner! As the psalmist says, ‘Harden not your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.’ I tell you, this man went down to his house covered in shame for his weakness and his betrayal of his ancestors rather than the other; for every one who exalts himself will win the Darwinian struggle for power, but he who humbles himself is a loser. What I say to you, I say to all: imitate the liberals and the Muslims, for since when has admitting sins or failures ever gotten you anywhere?”

And my correspondent, to my astonishment, replied:

I’m afraid you may have missed my point, Mr. Shea. I admit that my post was rather rambling, so I can hardly hold it against you. Here it is in short form:

The pope didn’t apologize for his own sins. He apologized for the sins of an unpopular institution that he was charged with defending. The former takes courage and humility; the latter does not.

Furthermore, the pope is responsible not only for his own salvation, but for promoting the faith to save other souls. If an action can be expected to impede the spread of the faith and to embolden its enemies, the pope has a duty not to perform this action.

My rejoinder:

If an action can be expected to impede the spread of the faith and to embolden its enemies, the pope has a duty not to perform this action.

A credo that has proven ever so effective for bishops in dealing with the question of whether to turn priest perverts over to the cops or just send them on to the next parish while keeping mum about “confessing the sins of others”.

Sorry, but I don’t see a thing wrong with an institutional leader making a clean breast of it by admitting where the institution has screwed up. If you think the Church would be better off imitating the impenitence of liberals and Muslims, then good luck with that. Personally, I think liberals and Muslims would be wise to imitate the Pope.

An example of what I mean turns up today courtesy of Irish columnist David Quinn, who describes the selective outrage of the European press in defense of… some… abused children. It reminds me of a headline a few years ago on The War on Some Drugs. What is transparently obvious is that that the people in the media who are outraged over Catholic child abuse regard abused children as useful, not as human beings who possess dignity for their own sake. Hence, the rush to pin bogus charges on Benedict and the yawns and laxity in dealing with the huge problem of child abuse in places that have the approval of Europe’s chattering classes.

I think of this because of some remarks made over at Rod Dreher’s blog by one Gerard Nadal, who has worked extensively with kids abused both in Catholic circles and elsewhere. He wrote, in part:

You’ll never hear me say that the attacks on children are not that bad. But as one who has worked with abused children, I DO ASK what about the other quarters where the problem is even worse, where the coverups by school boards and clergy are just as odious?

It’s been over twenty years since the filth in my Church has begun to surface in successive waves of revelation. Thanks to the exclusive focus on the Church, Catholic children may well be some of the safest on the planet. That works for me, as I have three small children. However, for over twenty years now we have heard that cleaning up the Catholic Church will somehow lead to others cleaning up their act as well. Collateral benefit.

The problem is that it’s been over a generation, and the problem in other quarters has grown worse, not better. A generation ago, male teachers may have been suspect, but women could be trusted. No more.

AGAIN, I don’t say lay off Rome. I say tie the abuse in other quarters to the outrage and momentum in the Catholic scandal as a means of protecting all children. This derivative benefit theory is a bunch of crap. An entire generation has passed. An entire generation to clean the filth across the board and no one cares to tackle the job. None of the thousands of kids I worked with was ever abused by a Catholic Priest. It is they who are left out in the cold as the media beats the Roman drum.

“I am somewhat puzzled by your constant refrain of “what about the children?” as if calling for a whole sale clean up of wretched criminal priests and wanting their boss to finally accept fully the responsibility that he and others have played in covering up what was done has nothing to do with the children.”

The exclusive beating of the Roman drum only protects Catholic children. Again, that works for me. But again, I must ask, what about all of the other children?

It’s been a generation with no derivative benefit to them in sight. But if that’s the world we are going to be content with, then fine, I’m with you. I’ll be parochial and praise God that MY Church is getting cleaned up, that MY children will be amongst the safest, that MY yard is getting a good decontamination.

You’ve convinced me. Good luck to the rest of you.

The Darwinian result of specially selecting the Catholic Church for opprobrium in a society-wide culture of filth will be that the Catholic Church will be (as indeed it is already rapidly becoming) a place acutely focused on the safety of kids (of course, it should have been all along, but I am speaking sociologically here, not morally or theologically). Meanwhile, the rest of our culture continues on toward the sewer because, as Quinn and Nadal point out, the chattering classes who pretend to care about The Children in fact care nothing for them and turn a blind eye to their safety (these are, after all, the people who are four square in favor of Abortion to the Max, so whadja expect?)

This is but one reason why, in a generation or so, we will simultaneously witness the bizarre spectacle of people condemning the Church for her failure to Keep the Children Safe way back in the early years of the 21st century while also condemning the Church for opposing things like the North American Man Boy Love Associationg and their cutting edge new ideas. Mark my words, the Church will one day be condemned for condemning what her bishops are now condemned for having permitted and covered up.