The Church is holy, and holy is what it must want to be. Let us put it this way.
Christ is our husband. The Church is his bride. He provides for it and protects it. When it is glad about this and acknowledges him as husband, the Church is a functioning body of witness to Christ, who is the source and the truth of our humanity. When the Church does not acknowledge Christ as its husband, it becomes confused, anxious and divided, and its members are scattered and picked off by other predatory forces.
Now the Church is also the Body of Christ, the Lord’s mode of embodiment here and now, for the world. So in the same way, united to Christ, the Church is husband, and the nation is bride. The Church is here to provide for the nation, to protect it and give it its identity. The Church blesses, that is, talks up the nation, so that the nation can grow up to be a united communion of persons glad to belong to each other. Then each member of the nation recognises every other as a fellow member of this political community. But if the Church does not pass on to the nation what the Lord gives us, then its members will no longer remember why they should be glad to belong to it, the nation will become weak, confused and divided, and the Church will be responsible for this. The state of the nation shows the husbandry of the Church. It reveals when we Christians have not done our job. If the nation despises the Church, it is because the Church has not loved the nation enough to give it what it needs. The nation that despises the Church also despises itself.
For the nation’s sake the Church must remain holy and distinct, so that it always has what the nation does not possess, and so always has something to give it. The worst thing we can do for the nation is to stop being the holy Church, and become afraid of the world and conform ourselves to it. So, do not be afraid. Be holy. Stand out.
