Church and State

In Canada, as elsewhere in countries across the world that have accepted the necessity to govern in a secular democratic style, the importance of religion to many people is a noted given, while the place of government in legislating laws and administering the affairs of the country is placed without the sphere of religion. It's clear that most people adhere to one religion or another to varying degrees, and the course that society takes owes much to the behavioural dictates of religion, but to a degree.

The fabric of society in western democracies comprises an amalgam of society's prevailing values, values which are shaped by our experiences and our growing ability to recognize that changing times require a slight shift, from time to time, in our perceptions of what is permissible - and the great and clear moral and ethical expectations that religion places before us as givens. So while we're informed to a great extent by religious values, our society is not dominated by them.

Consequently there are occasional clashes between what becomes a societal norm of acceptance and what many religions will not permit their adherents to acquiesce to. The acceptability within most western democracies of the legitimacy of women's claims to ownership of their bodies and the need, should they so deem it, to dispose of a pregnancy is one such awkward, but almost universally recognized value that orthodox religion finds repugnant.

All human life has value, and most religions claim that life begins at conception. But most men and women accept that life begins at birth; an incipient human life of undifferentiated cells, coalescing and maturing to produce a viable human life, upon exiting the birth canal. It is upon birth that most secular societies recognize the emerging baby as a human life, in direct contrast to, for example, the position of the Catholic Church. Women fought long and hard for the right within their society to view abortion as a legal medical right.

And within countries such as Canada, there is both a tacit recognition of that right, and a legal one, however vague it seems at times, and however contested by some segments of society it remains. Canada's federal legislators have reached a consensus about the legality under the Constitution of women's rights to seek abortions, and that abortions are seen as a legal medical procedure, available upon request, despite ongoing dispute about the status of the foetus; the procedure seen by some as infanticide.

But while the Parliament of Canada has acceded to the reality of the present day and the equality under the law of women's rights and expectations, the Catholic Church in Canada remains in a state of denial, rigidly maintaining that abortion represents a crime against humanity. A position led by the Vatican and embraced by many of its followers. In Ottawa, the nation's capital, the new Catholic archbishop, like his predecessor, has declared sanctions against any federal members of parliament who support abortion.

Politicians who support access to abortion in Canada will, according to Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, be refused communion. This is not a new situation; it is a repeat of an earlier declaration, uttered years ago, by an earlier archbishop of the Ottawa diocese. That declaration did nothing years ago, to encourage members of parliament - including two Roman Catholic prime ministers - to evade their responsibilities to their constituents, half of them women.

Nor will it prove to be a successful ploy at interference in the affairs of governance this time around. Not that staunch supporters of women's right to obtain abortions haven't suffered repercussions as a result of their determination to support that right. There are some members of parliament who have quietly described horrific experiences with their local parishes. Some have also been denied communion within the Catholic Church for their support of same-sex marriage.

It isn't pleasant to feel ostracized because of an unpopular position, one that elected MPs take in fairness to their social-political obligations to those who cast ballots. Yet Catholic MPs who have responded to Archbishop Prendergast's demands that they respect their commitments to their church dogma, have been divided in opinion; some feeling it is incumbent upon them as practising and believing Catholics to honour the position of the Church; others naming it as a form of religious blackmail.

The church, devoted to millennia-respected and -honoured precepts of their orthodoxy, will do as their most elevated prelate instructs them to. Politicians have an obligation to those whom they serve to reflect their needs and their reasonable wishes, in accordance with the Canadian Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.