Writing in the UK Christian magazine Premier Christianity, “Mary Wren” (a pseudonym chosen by the wife of an Anglican vicar-in-training) laments that the Church of England won’t teach on pressing moral issues of the day. Excerpts:

I am the wife of an Anglican vicar in training and, sometimes, I bitterly miss the Catholic Church. But it’s not for the reasons you might think; it’s got nothing to do with theology or cathedrals. It’s got everything to do with moral courage and spiritual leadership.

When I was asked where I stood on an issue (for example, abortion) I could explain that, as a Catholic, I followed the teachings of the Catholic Church. It did not excuse me from doing my own thinking, but it did mean that my views were not taken as personal. To an abortion advocate, their disagreement was not with me as an individual but with the teachings of the Catholic Church, a global institution with over 1.3 billion members. I was protected.

When I moved to the Church of England, my experience changed completely. I found that when these questions came up, the tone of the conversation was much more vicious and personal. It took me a while to figure out why, but I understand now. Where the Catholic Church teaches clearly on what it believes, the Church of England stays silent.

I bet the faithful Catholics left in Cardinal Marx’s diocese would like to have a word with Mary Wren:

More:

Well, the issue is no longer that I am a Catholic. Now the issue is me. I must be against abortion because I have internalised misogyny or some other personal bigotry that I’m using my religion to justify. The Church stays silent, protecting itself from attack, and I am expected to absorb the blows of culture. That is a heavy burden to place on one soul. I’m writing under a pseudonym precisely because I know this could compromise my husband’s career.

I want the Church to shield me, but instead it uses me as a human shield.

The Church of England refuses to teach me on the key moral and spiritual matters of today. I am begging you for guidance but you will not provide it. I am left fumbling on a thousand issues and I am frequently overwhelmed. I am trying my best but there are too many questions, and even if I did nothing but read for the rest of my life, I would still run out of time.

And as I am trying to learn about gender and sexuality and abortion and race and Anglicanism, I have the added pressure of knowing that I alone will be under attack if the position I come to doesn’t align with the world’s teaching. Because you, the Church, have provided no teaching, you cannot be blamed for where I’ve landed. It is a neat little circle. Very convenient for you.

Read it all. 

Maybe the truth is that the Church of England, as an institution, doesn’t teach what Mary Wren rightly wants them to teach because its leadership class no longer believes in Biblical truth. You mustn’t think that all Anglicans are so cowardly. I have friends, clergy and academic, in the C of E who are fighting for the faith, but struggle against clerical officials in their own Church who at best embarrassed by them, and at worst consider them to be menaces.

I am more pessimistic than Mary Wren is. It’s not just the C of E, or their American branch, the Episcopal Church. In my American experience, even churches that do have clear moral and doctrinal teaching rarely teach and disciple. I am thinking right now of my Catholic friend who has to deprogram his sons from the heretical teaching of their Catholic high school. I am thinking of Catholic and Orthodox friends who complain that their pastors avoid the difficult topics because they are afraid of being “divisive”. There is a good reason that the sociologist Christian Smith found that the overwhelming majority of American young people (who are now two decades older than when he first published this research) are actually believers in Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. Whereas the broader culture and its institutions know where it stands on issues like gender ideology, abortion, race, and so forth, and does not hesitate to catechize, far too many priests, pastors, and teachers either stay silent, or teach what the culture teaches (even when it contradicts authoritative Church teaching).

I remember a conversation nearly twenty years ago with a Catholic friend who considered himself to be conservative. He went to mass every Sunday, and voted Republican faithfully. When we talked one day about same-sex marriage, he told me he was in favor of it, and said so with startling vehemence. I asked him how he reconciled this stance with Catholic teaching, and he angrily told me that the Catholic Church had no right to tell him what to believe. He was not a stupid man; he genuinely believed that the Church in which he was baptized and confirmed, and whose liturgies he faithfully attended, had no moral authority over him.

In my experience, this is the norm, not the exception. Longtime readers will remember my story about the Catholic priest friend back in the year 2001 or thereabouts who told me and another Catholic layman who were griping about the failure of the Church to teach that yes, we were right about that, but we needed to understand that this was just how it is. Better to take the responsibility to teach yourselves and your children onto yourself, he counseled. His parents understood this truth back in the 1970s, amid the post-Vatican II collapse. Result: he became a priest, and his sister remained a faithful orthodox Catholic.

In my speech last week at the National Conservatism conference in Brussels (I’ll post the video when it’s available), I channeled that Brooklyn priest from 2001. I urged Europeans to embrace their ancestral Christian faith with all their hearts, and not to wait on their bishops, priests, pastors, and religious leaders to find the courage to lead. I appreciate Mary Wren calling out the spineless leadership of her own church, but I doubt there is a single church body (denomination, etc) in the West in which a majority of its clergy, especially the upper clergy, are doing what Mary Wren calls for. If I’m wrong about this, then please share the good news in the comments section.

Note well that simply having strong teaching written down on paper doesn’t really matter. I was a Catholic for thirteen years, and only heard one sermon in which Catholic teaching on sex and chastity was proclaimed and explained. The general teaching I’ve heard in Orthodox parishes in the sixteen years I’ve been Orthodox is much stronger than what I had in Catholic parishes, but still I rarely hear the church’s teaching proclaimed about specific issues, like gender ideology, which is tearing through society and families. Decades ago, I asked a conservative Episcopal priest I knew if he ever preached on abortion. No, he said, because it was important not to divide the congregation before communion. I thought then that he was simply afraid of being judged by his congregation, and came up with a rationalization to avoid having to say hard things.

After some private conversations I had in Brussels, especially with European lawyers who explained to me the next moves against “hate speech” (which, if implemented, will lay the groundwork across the EU for persecution of Christians who dissent from the progressive party line), I am more convinced than ever that we are in a Live Not By Lies moment, and that now is the time for courage. We need courage to say what we mean and mean what we say. We need courage to withstand the hatred of others for the sake of the truth. And we need the courage to stand up to ourselves, to the compromiser within, to the coward who tells himself that everything will come right again if only we sit still and wait.

We who are in a stronger position to speak the truth without having to worry about our jobs have a greater responsibility to do so. If you are a priest, pastor, or religious teacher, and you are afraid to do this, what is the point of your vocation? To be sure, prudence has to factor into our decisions; it is not wise to rush forward at every opportunity to say what you think. But if you are theologically orthodox/conservative, and rarely if ever take a stand that could be called controversial, why don’t you? Liberals don’t hold back, because they know they’ve got the Zeitgeist filling their sails. What’s your excuse?

UPDATE: I want to add a link to this anonymously authored memo going around Vatican circles, according to the Vatican journalist Sandro Magister, expressing concerns about the next papal conclave. Magister speculates that the author is a cardinal. Excerpts:

Commentators of every school, if for different reasons, with the possible exception of Father Spadaro, SJ, agree that this pontificate is a disaster in many or most respects; a catastrophe.

1. The Successor of St. Peter is the rock on which the Church is built, a major source and cause of worldwide unity. Historically (St. Irenaeus), the Pope and the Church of Rome have a unique role in preserving the apostolic tradition, the rule of faith, in ensuring that the Churches continue to teach what Christ and the apostles taught. Previously it was: “Roma locuta. Causa finita est.” Today it is: “Roma loquitur. Confusio augetur.”

(A)    The German synod speaks on homosexuality, women priests, communion for the divorced. The Papacy is silent.

(B)    Cardinal Hollerich rejects the Christian teaching on sexuality. The Papacy is silent. This is doubly significant because the Cardinal is explicitly heretical; he does not use code or hints. If the Cardinal were to continue without Roman correction, this would represent another deeper breakdown of discipline, with few (any?) precedents in history. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith must act and speak.

(C)    The silence is emphasised when contrasted with the active persecution of the Traditionalists and the contemplative convents.

2. The Christo-centricity of teaching is being weakened; Christ is being moved from the centre. Sometimes Rome even seems to be confused about the importance of a strict monotheism, hinting at some wider concept of divinity; not quite pantheism, but like a Hindu panentheism variant.

(A)    Pachamama is idolatrous; perhaps it was not intended as such initially.

(B)    The contemplative nuns are being persecuted and attempts are being made to change the teachings of the charismatics.

(C)    The Christo-centric legacy of St. John Paul II in faith and morals is under systematic attack. Many of the staff of the Roman Institute for the Family have been dismissed; most students have left. The Academy for Life is gravely damaged, e.g., some members recently supported assisted suicide. The Pontifical Academies have members and visiting speakers who support abortion.

More:

The Next Conclave

1. The College of Cardinals has been weakened by eccentric nominations and has not been reconvened after the rejection of Cardinal Kasper’s views in the 2014 consistory. Many Cardinals are unknown to one another, adding a new dimension of unpredictability to the next conclave.

2. After Vatican II, Catholic authorities often underestimated the hostile power of secularization, the world, flesh, and the devil, especially in the Western world and overestimated the influence and strength of the Catholic Church.

We are weaker than 50 years ago and many factors are beyond our control, in the short term at least, e.g. the decline in the number of believers, the frequency of Mass attendance, the demise or extinction of many religious orders.

3. The Pope does not need to be the world’s best evangelist, nor a political force. The successor of Peter, as head of the College of Bishops, also successors of the Apostles, has a foundational role for unity and doctrine. The new pope must understand that the secret of Christian and Catholic vitality comes from fidelity to the teachings of Christ and Catholic practices. It does not come from adapting to the world or from money.

4. The first tasks of the new pope will be to restore normality, restore doctrinal clarity in faith and morals, restore a proper respect for the law and ensure that the first criterion for the nomination of bishops is acceptance of the apostolic tradition. Theological expertise and learning are an advantage, not a hinderance for all bishops and especially archbishops.

These are necessary foundations for living and preaching the Gospel.

Read it all.