23:45:20jOver two weekends an Australian national newspaper (the Weekend Australian of 12-13 and 19-20 August 2023) featured stories on the Catholic priesthood and the future of celibacy. It quoted senior church leaders predicting the end of mandatory celibacy, and observed that in contrast to the widely held view to the contrary, some Catholic priests are married men who live with their families. Happily married Father Randall is presented as one such exception.

While fascinating in itself, it it not the issue of clerical celibacy that caught my attention. Instead, it was the inescapable broader implications and inferences to be drawn from the Church’s relaxation and almost certain abolishment of compulsory celibacy for its priests.

The seemingly inevitable demise of mandatory clerical celibacy discloses or at least reminds us of the inconvenient reality that traditions and arguably even doctrine of religious faith are flexible and disposable.  The distinction between doctrine and church tradition appears to matter less to members of the church who see theologically justified compulsory practices such clerical celibacy being abandoned and prohibitions such as that on female clergy being relaxed. While defended as a fundamental dictates of religion and its practice, if not of God’s commands, it appears that some teachings and practices can be amended or discarded entirely for practical, political and clearly not religious reasons.  This reality should challenge our lawmakers’ naive view of religion and the protection of religious freedom – based as it is on the church promoted myth that religious dictates, processes and doctrines reflect God’s unchanging law.

Thus, celibacy, like many religious practices, has tended to be unquestionably accepted as an intrinsic and unalterable part of religion. While denied by unelected and unrepresentative religious leaders,  the introduction, amendment and removal of practices such as celibacy, male clergy and the confessional, is clearly documented in the histories of Catholic and Protestant religions.

When our law makers set out to respect accommodate and protect religion practices introduced, altered and removed by Church leaders, they need to distinguish such edicts  from core beliefs and practices that define a religion. If our lawmakers don’t make such a distinction, we may find ourselves privileging and protecting practices introduced by Church leadership rather than the religion itself. This raises the question whether compliance with church rules and customs recognised as being capable of being changed or revoked should be protected by the law in the name of religious freedom.

Accepting, as any student of history must, that reform of such church requirements tends to lag behind secular social reforms and public opinion, why are we so reluctant to insist on compliance with community standards where compliance is clearly at the discretion of church? The most compelling reason why is quite possibly that such a distinction would be difficult, if not impossible, to make, and if made by the legislature or judiciary would be at odds with the separation of church and state valued in secular countries such as Australia.

Such a distinction would not disguise the fact that if we scrutinise religious tenets and beliefs, we will discover religious beliefs and practices that were once protected have been abandoned either because the they were deemed to no longer represent the views of the church or because they were abandoned in the face of legal prohibition.

Additionally, can we continue to justify legally defending religious tenets that are overwhelmingly rejected by members of a religion, but upheld by their church leaders? I would argue that just as we accept that not all Muslim women consider the total coverage of their bodies in public to be a religious requirement, so not all Catholic women consider pre-marital sex and use of contraception to be prohibited to Catholics.

Inevitably, this line of inquiry leads us to consider how we define and determine what is religion and why we respect and protect some beliefs and practices and not others.

Both domestic and international law protects personal religious freedoms. However, what religious beliefs are we protecting when protecting the religious freedom of a church operated school? Is it the interpretation of religious doctrine held by those running the school, the parents of the students, or the teachers. Or is the religion being protected that understood by the local, state, national or the international leadership of the church? Should the law be used to protect the religious institutions rather than those directly affected by the law’s accommodation of religious belief and practice, whose religious views may be at odds with church leaders and church laws?

Finally, we must consider why we protect and continue to privilege religion. Can we really justify protecting and subsidising religions that promote anti-social values or which do not contribute to the community outside of their membership?

Even the most devoutly religious person will recognise that not all religions are worthy of public support, and that not all religious beliefs and practices are compatible with the best interests of society. In this sense religion is little different to any other philosophy of life. Admittedly, this suggestion will only resonate if our understanding of religions extends beyond the whitewashed misleading propaganda that makes any ideology sound ideal.

Currently, the freedom to believe in religion as a set of principles that guide your life is absolute. Beliefs that include a supernatural element are much more likely to be recognised as a religion. The right to practice or exercise such religious beliefs is also protected, but not absolutely. Consequently religious practice is subject to generally applying laws, unless it is expressly exempt from compliance. It is in this area that the above discussion is most relevant.

That someone broke the law because their actions were guided by their beliefs or conscience may serve to explain their actions but in itself should not necessarily absolve liability. This is especially the case where the official view as to what the religion requires is at odds with that held my many of its members.

Focusing on the beliefs of individual members is also a much more realistic in view of the dwindling number of Australians whose lives are guided by religion or whose link is increasingly not to a particular religion but rather to a smorgasbord of religious and secular views and practices. This trend does not prevent us from protecting the rights of all individuals to believe whatever they choose to believe, and requiring the law to recognise beliefs and acts of conscience especially when such contravene the law.

Recognising that religious beliefs and practices have shown themselves to be just as flexible and susceptible to changing social values, suggests that freedom of belief and free exercise of religion should be protected just as political, other freedoms and acting according to one’s conscience are protected. Unless, of course, we remain gullible and continue to treat members of religions, religious leaders and institutions as being inherently worthy of protection and privilege because they are bound to act in accordance with religious practices and doctrine.