Democracy, Culture, Catholicism Edited by Michael Schuck and John Crowley-Buck
Fordham, £25
During the Soviet era, Lithuania’s Catholic churches were turned into cinemas and museums, priests were deported and religious symbols were banished from the public sphere. The faithful were left with a perilously “narrow space”. And yet Catholicism remained the “main social resource for preserving the memory of a Lithuania not affected by Soviet domination”. It was a focus of resistance and a conduit through which Lithuanian history, culture and religion were preserved. The cost was, nonetheless, mighty. Combine all this with the scars inflicted during the Nazi occupation and a word like “trauma”, deployed by the authors in these pages, seems wholly appropriate.
Recovery has not been easy. On the one hand, faith and spirituality are remembered as anchors of survival during the dark days and Catholicism’s moral compass might offer “normative standards” for political and cultural life in the new Lithuania. At the same time, it has proven difficult to rebuild social trust and many see an “incongruity” between private and public morality.
Lithuania’s journey raises many important questions. How should the Church reflect upon and learn from its past? What role should Catholicism play in political life? How well can Catholicism and democracy be expected to get along? The same issues confront the other countries discussed in this book. The well-chosen case studies reveal the diversity of Catholicism’s encounter with political change around the globe.
Indonesia’s Catholics may be members of a minority faith, but they “have often found themselves at the table of political and civil discourse”, most recently following the end of authoritarian rule in 1998. These days, we’re told, direct political participation has tapered off but the impact of Catholic social teaching remains vibrant. Potential links between Catholicism and indigenous forms of political engagement also capture the book’s attention, notably the performing art known as kethoprak. This tradition holds public figures up to satirical scrutiny but also cultivates a person’s “inner orientation”. This latter quality leads one contributor to draw comparisons with the goals of Ignatian spirituality – an interpretative stretch, but an inventive one.
Over in Peru, the relationship between the Church and the state is still “tinged” with the legacy of the country’s turbulent 20th century. An excellent chapter on Peru’s truth and reconciliation commission demonstrates how crucial it is to confront the past. New challenges include the struggle between Amazonian bishops who seek to uphold the rights of the indigenous population and their episcopal colleagues elsewhere in the country who have qualms about such activism.
The book doles out both criticism and praise to Catholics in the United States. We are informed that the Church’s refusal to adjust its inner workings compromises Catholic attempts to promote transparency in the broader culture. Then again, the Church’s social teaching receives warm reviews, especially with regard to the role it can play in moving from retributive to restorative justice.
In his epilogue, editor Michael Schuck writes that “democracy comes from the luminous side of imagination, the place where humans yearn for social respect, for a chance to have a say, to have standing.” The hierarchical nature of Catholicism’s ecclesiastical structures has never precluded passionate engagement with such a mission. Indeed if, as has been written, democracy is “first of all a moral event” entailing “primordial recognition of the equal dignity of all men”, then few faiths are better suited to the cause.
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