On Damnation

My orthodoxy monitor (Craig) has returned; he delivered a lengthy disapproving comment to yesterday’s post. Welcome back, Craig, I know the bishops are proud of your stalwart support, and your efforts to eradicate error.

Craig was especially scandalized that I approvingly quoted an article that ended with the words: “the bishops be damned.” Strong stuff, indeed.

Or… maybe not.

In a way, this business of damnation versus salvation was the entire point of my post. The issue that Joe Feuer was writing about arose out of the fact that the US Catholic bishops have ventured to declare that, for voters, only one moral issue (abortion) is really pertinent, and it is so terribly pertinent that, if you vote for a candidate who does not pass muster on that issue, you are (or may be) risking your “eternal salvation.” In other words, you may be “damned,” and forever so.

Now I must admit that (despite strenuous efforts by professors and priests and sisters and bishops and spiritual directors and the authors of spiritual and scholarly books, and I have availed myself of all of them), I do not know what this business of salvation means, nor damnation. I do know (or at least strongly believe) what it cannot mean: It cannot mean that, upon the death of each human being, that person will continue to exist either in bliss or in torment, depending on how closely s/he has believed and followed the doctrines and dogma of the Roman Catholic Church.

The appallingly primitive and obviously unjust nature of such a caricature of the meaning of human life, death, and morality is striking. Such a concept could find a home only within a childish mind, the mind of one who is so in need of structure and reassurance as to be unable to think for himself or herself. And many humans do exist in such a childish state, some of them out of ignorance, some out of fear, and some because they simply have not matured sufficiently to leave such concepts behind.

Human beings exist in a world of suffering mingled with joy, a world plagued by complex moral dilemmas. We face a variety of evils on a daily basis, most of them arising from within our own hearts. If there be any salvation, of any sort, surely it must arise out of an approach to life that is based not on the rigid formulation and enforcement of rules of conduct (and hierarchies thereof), but rather out of compassion and clarity; from all that I have studied about these matters, such was the approach that was taught (and lived out) by Jesus, and by the Buddha. [And it continues to be taught, and lived out, by many holy individuals both within and outside the Catholic Church... these people are not necessarily bishops, of course.]

And so I cannot get overly exercised by the idea that Joe Feuer said a bad thing when he said, “the bishops be damned.” I think he was making the point that neither the bishops, nor he, nor anybody else can truthfully or authoritatively declare that we are either “saved” or “damned.” To offer threats of eternal damnation was (maybe) at one time thought to be an effective method for the church to use to keep people under control. At one time, the Catholic laity attributed great wisdom, holiness, and moral authority to their bishops (solely because they were bishops), so that their threats and promises were highly effective. That day is gone, for most lay Catholics, and it is time for it to be gone.