the threat of a global agenda and the dangers of a pan-national church

8/8/2019 The Threat of a Global Agenda and the Dangers of a Pan-national Church

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THE THREAT OF A GLOBAL

AGENDA AND THE DANGERS OF

A PAN-

NATIONAL CHURCHThis is with reference to the article titled as above in the New Indian Express dated 21st October,2000 in which the writer emphasises the need to debate the idea of establishing nationalchurches in the context of but irrespective of of Shri Sudarshan’s exhortations to the Christiancommunity in India to do so. To this end, the author has described the origin and growth in historyof denominational and national churches in Europe and Africa. While he is right for the most partin tracing the course of the history of these national churches, I am not sure of the accuracy of hisdefinition of the term ‘concordat’ with respect to the Vatican particularly because he says, “Under the concordats, the national churches became independent of the Vatican.” And to substantiatehis claim he cites the examples of France (in 1905), Italy (in 1894), and Spain (in 1978). It is quitepossible that the writer may have misunderstood the significance of the events concerning theVatican and these countries in 1905, 1894 and 1978.

A concordat is an agreement which is negotiated and concluded by the Vatican with other nation-states to define the relationship of the Vatican and the catholic Hierarchy in that State with theGovernment and also to define the status of the catholic religion and its institutions in that State.Once the concordat is concluded, the Vatican sends its representative, usually of the rank of cardinal or even archbishop, as the papal nuncio to head the Hierarchy in that State and also todeal with the Government on issues relating to the interests of the catholic religion and itsadherents. When it is not possible to conclude a concordat, the nuncio strives to reach acompromise which becomes a modus vivendi.

Before I come to the countries specified by the writer in his article as having established nationalchurches through the signing of concordats, (which is not the case), I think it is pertinent topresent in brief the reasons behind Shri Sudarshan’s call to establish national catholic churches

in India independent of the Vatican.

The task of the papal representative is to further the diplomatic and political interests of theVatican and above all the spiritual interests of the Catholic Church as a religious institution. Hismission therefore serves a dual purpose. The papal representative has at his disposal not onlythe vast diplomatic machinery but also the religious machinery of the Vatican of both the countryto which he has been accredited as well as that outside it. He will have at his disposal theHierarchy of a given country – from cardinals, archbishops, and bishops down to the village priestor the local parish priest. Moreover, the Catholic organizations of a social, cultural or politicalcharacter would obey his instructions. The result is that a nuncio can exercise formidablepressure upon a government – pressure of a religious-political nature that is denied to any other diplomat. And it is this danger, which Shri Sudarshan perceives so clearly, and which caninterfere with and even impede sovereign decisions taken by our government with regard to our

social, political and religious arrangements, which probably caused him to call upon theChristians of our country to establish national churches.

The Catholic Church, more than any other denomination, does not confine itself merely to thereligious sphere. It has always held that with her and her alone is vested absolute power – bothroyal/temporal and sacerdotal with all the accompanying wealth, pomp and privileges such power implies. This has brought the Vatican directly in contact and conflict with monarchs and other Heads of State of the Christian nations of Europe on several occasions. A good catholic owesblind obedience to his Church and puts his Church’s interests before any social or political matter concerning his country. Since this body comprises millions of Catholics living all over the world



who are bound implicitly to follow the dictates of the Vatican and obediently honour every word of the pope, it is easy to see the long-range power that the catholic Church can exercise in theaffairs of these countries. The Catholic Church therefore cannot and will not avoid interfering inthe social and political affairs of these countries.

Thus it happens that in catholic countries where the affairs of the state are conducted accordingto the principles of the catholic Church, the State is in harmony with the Church or the Vatican.But when the Church is confronted by a hostile State or parliament (as has happened repeatedlyin the nations of Europe), then conflict becomes inevitable and the Church and State declare war on each other. The State may pass such legislation as it may deem necessary, regardless of theChurch. The Church, whenever this has happened (and it happened in Italy, France and Spainduring the years of republicanism, as also in the fledgling State of Yugoslavia which came intobeing after the dismantling of the Hapsburg empire), has ordered its clergy to preach againstsuch laws and advised Catholics to oppose them and the government that passed them. Allsections of the press owned by Catholics have always taken a stand against such governmentsand the war declared by the Church against the State is so relentless that individual catholicmembers of the government have even voted against the government on these issues. Allreligious, social and political organizations formed by Catholics publicly and unitedly oppose suchpolicies and boycott such laws. The Church then instructs her Hierarchy to use all the institutionalpower in its control to align with any force opposed to the hostile government, to bring it down and

bring in a government which would be in line and harmony with the Church and her policies (as ithappened in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Austria and Croatia in the years at the close of thenineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century and in the years between the Firstand Second World War).

It was to neutralize the Church and stop her Hierarchy from interfering in social and politicalaffairs of a nation, that several countries of Europe, despite the fact that they have always beennominally ‘catholic’ countries, had shorn the catholic Church of her power and the catholic religionof its privileged position as the State religion and also confiscated her wealth and property. TheEnlightenment, which gave to Europe the philosophies and ideologies of socialism, liberalism,republicanism, democracy, and communism, had severely eroded the moral authority and thetemporal and religious power of the Catholic Church beginning with the era of the FrenchRevolution and this erosion touched the nadir in the closing years of the nineteenth century and

lasted well into the middle of the twentieth century when the Church lost six-sevenths of her adherents first to liberalism and then to socialism and communism.

I will now very briefly narrate the history of the relationship of the Catholic Church with thecountries that the writer has cited as examples of concordats, which supposedly establishednational churches in these countries. My point is, a concordat does exactly the opposite of what isclaimed. A concordat between the Vatican and a country establishes whenever possible, thesupremacy of the catholic religion in that country and accords the Church and her Hierarchy highstatus within that country. Implicitly, and more importantly, this means that the catholic Church of the country which signs a concordat with the Vatican, shares umbilical ties with the Vatican.There would be no point in the Vatican signing a concordat with a country if the Catholic Churchof that country were to sever its ties with the Vatican and establish a national Church. This hasnever been known to happen and it is inconceivable that Italy, France and Spain, which have

always been ‘catholic nations’ would ever sign a concordat with the Vatican to establish nationalchurches, which would be independent of the Vatican. Let us start with France.

The Catholic Church in France had always exercised an enormous influence on the social andpolitical life of France. The Church had always supported the monarchy and the monarchs in turnhad conferred high honour and privileges on the Church. But all this came to an end with theFrench Revolution. Church and State separated, the status of the clergy disappeared and Churchlands were declared to be national property. But the Church recovered from this setback to regainsome of her former privileges when she concluded a concordat with Napoleon Bonaparte, astaunch critic of the Revolution and as much of a dictator as the pope or any other monarch. But



once again, after the fall of Bonaparte, the Church began to lose ground and never recovered itsposition until the years between the first and second world wars. The Third Republic wasestablished in France in 1870 and this was the beginning of the protracted war that the CatholicChurch would wage against all popular movements inspired by the ideologies of republicanism,socialism and communism. Indeed from then on, successive popes (popes Leo XIII, Pius XI andPius XII) wrote blistering encyclicals roundly condemning liberalism, socialism, republicanism andcommunism. The Church proclaimed “a holy crusade against the godless Republic” and bitterlyopposed the ‘atheist government’ for seeking to deprive the Church of her inalienable rights. Atevery hostile measure, the Church and the Vatican invoked the curse of God and called upon allCatholics to do everything to destroy the Republic for daring to give free education to the people,for insisting on civil marriage and for confining the teaching in State schools to State-classifiedteachers. Things grew from bad to worse and finally in July 1904, diplomatic relations betweenFrance and the Vatican were finally broken and the Act of Separation in 1905 brought the conflictto a climax. The Act guaranteed freedom of conscience and the exercise of public worship butreligion was not to be recognized by, nor to receive financial support from the State. The Vaticanpronounced anathema on the Republic for denying supremacy to the catholic religion and for putting all religions on an equal footing. It called upon all Catholics in France and the Hierarchy todo everything in their power to destroy the Republic. The Church regained much of its lost groundwhen the Republic surrendered to Germany and when a catholic dictator, General Petainassumed control of France with the active support of the Vatican, Hitler and Mussolini – all of

whom had collaborated to destroy the Republic and to install a fascist dictatorship in France as inGermany, Italy, Spain and Austria. These dictatorships through concordats signed with theVatican, granted the Vatican special privileges, restored the catholic religion and the Church totheir former status of supremacy because the Vatican pledged its considerable strength andpower to support these dictators, all of whom had one goal – to wipe out communism and toestablish catholic nation-states in all of Europe.* It is probably to this Act of Separation in France,in 1905, that the writer is referring to. Far from being a concordat, which is an agreement or atreaty, it was an estrangement of the Church from the State, and while the Church suffered aterrible blow to its status, France still did not establish a national catholic church that year, as isbeing claimed in the article. The catholic establishment as I have just illustrated, was firmly under the control of the Vatican and the Vatican was doing everything in its power to destroy theRepublic. The same is true of Italy and Spain. Liberalism, republicanism and communism beganto spread fast in these countries and the Vatican supported and brought into government terrible

dictators like Dolfuss in Austria, Hitler in Germany, Gen. Miguel de Rivera and later Gen. Francoin Spain and Mussolini in Italy. The Church suffered great erosion in numbers in all thesecountries from about the last three decades in the nineteenth century until the First World War, aperiod during which the Catholic Church was greatly debilitated in power and influence. But in theyears between the two world wars, Popes Pius XI and XII encouraged and even actively co-operated with these dictators to violently overthrow popular governments in their respectivecountries to assume power. As in France, so too in Italy and Spain, some governments deniedsupremacy to the Catholic Church during this period. But in a few years, in post-world war Europe, the Vatican had no problems shrugging off any sense of guilt or shame for havingcolluded with fascist dictators and established concordats with democratic governments inEurope which allowed the Church total control of the catholic establishment in these countries.Fear of a total take-over of Europe by communism bound together the Vatican and these westerngovernments all of whom now had only one stated objective – to destroy communism (and the

Orthodox Church of the Soviet bloc, in the process). The Vatican lost its privileged position inSpain after the death of Gen. Franco but the Vatican came to terms with the democraticgovernment in Spain as it had elsewhere in Europe. The State in Spain refused patronage to theCatholic Church. Spain had a new constitution in 1978 and as per that constitution, far fromestablishing a national Church, the government signed a concordat with the Vatican, anagreement by which not only did the Spanish government come to some financial arrangementswith the Vatican, but by which the Vatican was also allowed to retain control of all catholiceducational institutions in Spain and the Church was allowed total freedom in administering her affairs and institutions. Except for the national catholic Church in China and the catholic church inEngland which comes under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Church, all other catholic churches, in



India as in the rest of Asia, Mexico and in Europe, are still under the direct control of the Vaticanand adopt the Vatican’s agenda as their own even if the agenda causes social, political andreligious friction and even turmoil in these countries. The Vatican’s agenda has never changednor has it metamorphosed into anything else. The Catholic Church has always declared that sheis missionary by her very nature and as such her task, indeed her religious mandate is toevangelize, and plant the cross in every part of the world. The Vatican, indeed all Christiandenominations have set themselves the task of converting to Christianity, those professing non-Abrahamic, non-aggressive religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism, Confucianism andother great faiths of South and South-east Asia. To this end she now speaks intensely of the rightto freedom of worship and conscience – a right that she opposed barely a 100 years ago. Then itwas because she did not want other religions to be given a standing equal to the catholic faith.But today she wants the right to freedom of religion and worship because she wants the right toplant the cross among people who worship other Gods. The Vatican insists on political pluralismwherever Christians are in the minority, which gives her the right to exist along with other religionsto operate her agenda. But she denies religious pluralism and insists that in the end only theCatholic faith ought to prevail because only the Vatican is the sole repository of the UltimateReligious Truth. And Christians in India and the establishment intellectuals and vote bankpoliticians, while they are adamantly and deafeningly silent about what the pope said on our ownsoil last November and want to pretend that the Vatican declaration ‘Dominus Jesus’ never happened, yet are raucous in their protests against Shri Sudarshan’s call for establishing national

churches.

the threat of a global agenda and the dangers of a pan-national church

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