Would ‘Compulsion’ Be Hell?
There was once an epic struggle between Stalinist Communism and the Catholic Confessional State. When Khrushchev denounced Stalin in 1956, Hans Morgenthau wrote that Communism “lost the moral conviction of its own legitimacy.” Morgenthau was right, for Communism slowly but surely collapsed. Before the Second Vatican Council, it was common to refer to Catholicism as triumphalist and sure of itself. Since the Council, Catholicism has suffered a crisis of authority, as the Catholic Faith itself has come unraveled.
Then came the New Left in the late 1960s. Daniel Cohn-Bendit summed up the aspirations of the New Left: “One day we shall ourselves organize our own lives. We will not be doing it for our children — sacrifice is counter-revolutionary and comes from a Stalinist-Judeo-Christian humanism — but finally in order to have untrammeled enjoyment.” You know what happened: sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. Not sacrifice, not heroism, but pleasure — and liberal capitalism was happy to comply in whatever way it could.
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Bernanos has much to teach us about the clerical state, particularly that being a priest is not really about power, unless it is the power of self-sacrifice.
In the powerlessness of the Cross, José Luis found the power of love, the strength and courage to endure excruciating pain and to surrender his life for Christ.
A living bishop is the one who is ready to die confessing the faith. A mere bureaucrat, even if he be a bishop, does not give his life for anything.