What would Saint Maximilian Kolbe say to the Synodal Church? Not this.

The Church in a conflict of values

The Vatican's No to the blessing of homosexual couples once again shows the gap between doctrine and the world of life.

The Church is steadily losing ground, says Catholic pastoral theologian Regina Polak in a guest commentary (2021). The survival of the Christian message has long been at stake.

It is a paradox: while religiosity is steadily declining across Europe, religion is receiving intense attention in political discourses. According to the latest European Values Study, lived religiosity is eroding, especially among young people and now also in highly religious countries like Poland, Romania and Austria. At the same time, secularised societies are confronted with new challenges as a result of religious plurality. Religious lifestyles of migrants - Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox - irritate the secular understanding of religion. More culturally embedded and with the claim to visible participation, they question those normative ideas of order that regard religion as a private worldview that should remain as invisible as possible. This leads to tensions and conflicts that focus on the question of how public and political religion is allowed to be.

In this context, the Muslim population in particular is the focus of attention. Following the refugee crisis in 2015, "religion" became a marker of distinction: conflicts around culture, values, norms, rights, education or the distribution of power and resources are often "religionised". Above all, "Islam" is seen as the cause of social problems. In contrast, empirical studies show the heterogeneous influence of religiosity: only in combination with authoritarianism does it strengthen anti-democratic attitudes, while in combination with social practice it promotes solidarity - and this regardless of denominational affiliation.

Clear reversal

Progressive secularisation, religious plurality, the problematisation of Islam and the conflicts over public and political claims of religion also have an impact on the churches, because religion as such becomes the object of criticism. In the conflicts over social or migration policy positions of the churches, it is evident that even the Catholic Church in Austria has become accountable. This dynamic is not new. Modernity marks the beginning of a now clearly recognisable reversal: it is not people without a religious self-understanding who have to justify themselves, but religious people who have to justify their values and their practice of faith.

The dynamic is accelerating a challenge that the Catholic Church in particular has been facing for a long time: dealing with the tension between modern life worlds and a Christian-church way of life. The conflicts over the role of women in the church or the silent exodus of youth are the clearest evidence of this. Above all, the changing values of attitudes to gender and sexuality form the focal point. According to the latest World Values Study, the treatment of homosexuals is the main reason for a worldwide distancing of young people from all religions. Thus, the recent debate on the blessing of homosexuals is hardly comprehensible for a majority of young people.

"The erosion of ecclesiastical religiosity will continue apace."

If the Catholic Church does not succeed in the foreseeable future in dealing with these conflicts of values - which have long since arrived internally, as the criticism of believers and bishops of the Vatican's no to blessings for homosexual couples shows - in such a way that it continues to develop its tradition in the horizon of this change in values and on the basis of scientific expertise, the erosion of church religiosity will proceed rapidly.

No less than the survival of the Christian message is at stake. For a de-institutionalised religiosity will become socially and politically meaningless. Essential Christian contents evaporate. These include standing up for the protection of the transcendence of the human beings: their inviolable dignity, which is promised by God and protected from the grasp of worldly interests. Large corporations that reduce human beings to their labour power, the fragile legal protection of vulnerable groups such as refugees at Europe's borders, unborn and handicapped children or the dying, anti-Semitism and racism, and many more reveal the threat to humanity. In order to name these developments, the voice of the Catholic Church is indispensable.

Human dignity

But weakened by permanent conflicts around questions of gender and sexuality, exacerbated by the abuse scandals, it is losing credibility and thus itself contributing to the erosion of its own significance. Even if it is not the only one standing up for human dignity, this is fatal. For with its loss of significance, society loses an institution that provides sources of motivation and spaces to stand up for the dignity and protection of human life.

The churches are currently struggling with their place in society and with the question of what they need to learn from modern life worlds in order to convey their message.

"Dialogue with modern life worlds is indispensable."

This by no means means complete adaptation or uncritical silencing. But in societies where religion is under massive scrutiny, dialogue with modern life worlds is indispensable. The doors to this would be open, as currently some countries in Europe are promoting cooperation with religious communities as civil society partners in the cause of human rights and peaceful coexistence. Ambivalent positions on homosexuals and women irritate this rapprochement. Tensions and conflicts between religion and modernity will remain. But on the basis of respect and self-criticism, these would then be "normal" and necessary for the further development of both. 

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