Recently, on Mission Sunday, I was asked to preach in our parish church – this was mainly because I am a priest and spent 30 years in the Philippines. However, I tried to impress upon my listeners that mission is not the sole prerogative of priests and nuns, but that it involves us all. And it is not limited to “converting the pagans” in distant countries, but is a challenge everywhere, in whatever way, to live the gospel – and one of the central tenets of the gospel message is care for the weaker among us. Defending the weak and vulnerable was one of the main goals of Jesus. In his inaugural sermon in the synagogue in Nazareth, he quoted the prophet Isaiah: “He [God] has sent me to preach the good news to the poor…to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4: 18).
As a contemporary example of someone on a mission, I told the story behind the book “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”. It tells of a man (Jean-Dominique Bauby) who, without any warning, found himself in what’s called “locked-in syndrome”. It has all the hallmarks of a coma, but the person is quite conscious and aware of what’s going on, but is incapable of any response. In this case, the only part of the body responding to any stimulus was the left eyelash. The doctors had done all in their power and were now simply waiting for what might happen next. A nurse, however, looked at the patient and saw some potential. Going way beyond her normal duties as a nurse, she got the help of another therapist; and via a painstaking process of calling out the letters of the French alphabet and the patient responding to the desired letter with a blink of his eye, they were able to compose his memoirs. A truly amazing achievement. The average word took two minutes to compose, the entire book took 200,000 blinks!
Whatever about the perseverance of the patient, I see the nurse as the one with the primary mission. No matter about her private religious beliefs (or lack thereof, of which I know nothing), when she looked at the patient, she did not see somebody who was a strain on the medical resources of the country. She did not see someone who was simply a “waste”, and who would be better off quit of his miserable existence. No, she looked upon that man with reverence; even in his brokenness she could divine something worthy of awe and veneration.
And who are the other vulnerable people in our society? And who are those vulnerable groups who have powerful forces arrayed against them? The example of Jean-Dominique Bauby highlights those in terminal conditions. At the other end of the scale, I see the unborn and children as equally vulnerable and innocent. Children need protection, not manipulation. They deserve our reverence as God-given gifts, not the prying interference of NGOs. The quintessential biblical list of the vulnerable is “the widow, the orphan and the stranger” – it’s all over the Old Testament. A contemporary classification would include the terminally ill and children. It’s difficult to think of more vulnerable categories. “If anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better for them to have a millstone tied around their necks and be drowned in the sea” (Matt. 18:6). The Lord Jesus most certainly did not think that interfering with young children was a good thing. He looked upon it as monstrous.
Take, for instance, Irish department of education videos advising teachers of young children how to broach topics of (what used to be) a sensitive nature: gender “choice”; same-sex relationships and marriage; and the like. The blurb announces: “Teaching children about LGBT+ identities allows us to combat bullying and ignorance. It allows our children to be well informed and educated”. Aimed at pupils in primary schools, the coaxing, seductive voice in the video comes across as most reasonable, speaking for the good of any student who may be in a minority, as far as gender is concerned. But that’s exactly the point: those in our society who are in non-traditional categories regarding sex or gender are a tiny few. That they should not be discriminated against is hardly more than common decency: but that we should rewrite the rules of society, and mandate that every sector (Gardai, army, civil service, and so on) must now be patrolled to ensure that a fair percentage of such minorities are consequently employed – well this is just the “new normal”.
Still, I wonder how many teachers are really supportive of teaching such potentially confusing and destabilising doctrines to their pupils – that, at the age of 7 or 8, they can now decide their gender, and plan for whatever kind of relationship may happen in the future? I certainly hope few enough – unless the indoctrination has been under way for some time now in the country’s training colleges. If the department of education really had the children’s welfare in mind, they would not be presenting this very minority agenda so forcefully. But, after all, this is the Ireland of the 21st century and the powers-that-be are busy constructing the “new normal”. And, as usual, whatever new fad is introduced in the USA or the UK, will soon have the backing of a few NGOs here, before you could even say “copycat”.
[The American Medical Association (AMA), has advised that gender should not be included on birth certificates. Of the 50 States, 48 allow for a person to later amend their gender, to adjust what’s written on their birth cert (the two exceptions are Tennessee & Ohio). As of now, only 10 States allow for an “X” neutral designation on the birth certificate. At an AMA symposium Dr. Sarah Mae Smith, said: “We need to recognize gender is not a binary but a spectrum”. Well, yes, there is a variety in sexual identity and practice, but why deny the over-whelming reality: that most people are heterosexual?]
The first book of the bible, Genesis, solemnly proclaims that God created humankind in God’s image, “in his own image he created them, male and female” (Genesis 1:31). Does this mean that these ancient authors thought that there were only heterosexual men and women on this planet? Well of course not. They knew about other sexual proclivities and practices; in fact, in other places in the Old Testament, they explicitly recognize such orientations and practices – and go on to condemn them! These documents reflect a patriarchal society, and most, if not all, of the authors were men. And therefore, the books surely reflect their biases. But the essential reason for the condemnation of some of the practices was because they were associated with the pagan cults of surrounding nations: other cultures encouraged temple prostitution as a way of manipulating the gods, so as to guarantee a certain result: victory in a battle, a good harvest and so forth. The people of Israel never consented to this train of thought, because for them, their God, Yahweh, could not be manipulated in any way. In other words, although the biblical writers knew of a variety of sexual orientations, for them the basic (i.e., majority) members of society were men and women, who were then attracted to one another. The most exquisite and sensual celebration of such attraction in the Old Testament is, of course, The Song of Songs. But obviously, other minorities were to be respected. St. Paul wrote: “The whole law is fulfilled in one word, ‘you shall love your neighbour as yourself'” (Galatians 5:14), and discriminating against those of different sexual orientations or practices is hardly an expression of love.
But now, we live in decidedly dystopian times, when many of our long-held principles (about, for example, gender) are being, not only questioned, but summarily rejected, with hardly an echo of a debate or discussion. All is either approved peremptorily in a shrill manner (no counter-argument welcome), or is calmly asserted as the new orthodoxy. In either case, no questions are welcome. And when no questions are welcome, you know that you are in especially weird territory. Your opponents are on thin ice, they represent a tiny minority (but are quite powerful), and so they will use any tactic to win the day.