Homily: Good Friday: 2007

Today's little homily is just a tiny snippet of one given by Ronald Knox on this date many years ago. "[Our Lord] had come into the world, so he told Pilate, to bear witness to the truth. And truth has a right to be told; that is its nature; it has that compelling power over minds. . . . [T]he Church is sometimes criticized for her want of courage, because she does not seek a direct issue with the tyrannical rulers of the modern age; force a conflict with them by forbidding their Catholic subjects to take any part as citizens in states so misgoverned. Curiously, another charge is often launched against the Church, which is exactly the opposite . . . that the Church is always interfering in secular matters which are beyond her province. If that is not so, men ask us, how is it that she is continually getting into trouble with the secular power, all over Europe, all over the world? Surely it cannot be an accident that your Church is always reckoned as a political force, whereas other religious bodies are allowed to go their own way, unmolested by the civil authorities? . . . 'Why cannot you be content to be a purely spiritual body? Why is it that you always interfere?' . . . [I]t is true that the Church could live much more quietly, avoid an infinity of clashes and persecutions, if she would consent to abate her claim on one or two points, constant sources of friction with unsympathetic governments. If only we would be content, for example, to hand over the teaching of children to the State, so far as their general education is concerned, and instil religious knowledge into them somehow else. If only the Church would be content to have her own laws about marriage and various moral questions, for her own loyal adherents, and not expect them to be adopted as the laws of the country! If only she would keep out of the way, live her own life and let other people live theirs! . . . Is she justified, we feel inclined to ask, in going out of her way to arouse prejudice by sticking so obstinately to her rights, when that involves peril to the immortal souls of her less docile subjects, who fall away from her membership and give up the practice of religion because they cannot live at peace with her? She knows that; it is part of the sacrifice she has to make; as it was part of our Lord's sacrifice, when he knelt there in the garden, to see Judas and Caiphas losing their souls because of him. But for her, too, truth is truth, and has a right to be told. She cannot alter the conditions of her witness."