Dr Diarmuid Martin: 'To be counter-cultural requires integrity and courage'

One of the great temptations of a bishop is to be moralistic... But that is not what the church is about

As Archbishop of Dublin,
I get many letters telling me that I am not doing my job right. It is good to get such letters. At times it is humbling. Sometimes I find hard to accept criticism. Sometimes I see that it is it good to be brought down to earth and the real world.

There is, however, one trend that emerges in a larger number of the criticisms I receive, about which I am not so happy: they tell me I should be condemning more! One of the great temptations of a bishop is to be moralistic. Of course, it is part of the job of a church leader to draw attention to the failings of society and its inadequacies. It is the painful task of a bishop to have to note the failings and inadequacies of the church itself. But a Christian leader cannot just be moralistic and negative, because that is not what the church is about. It is not what the message of Jesus Christ is about.

There is great goodness out there. We have extraordinarily generous and idealistic young people. There is a great sense of solidarity and sense of caring in our people, urban and rural. I was moved to see that, for example, the annual collection in the archdiocese of Dublin for the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul increased last Christmas by 24%, coming to more than €2m. People who are rightly anxious about their own financial fragility do not fail to recognise the needs of those who are worse off.

There are many signs of egoism and individualism, but there is also a great sense of community. There is horrible violence, but there is also great courage in addressing it within the affected communities.

The Christian message is not just about moralising. The identity and mission of Jesus has to be gleaned through watching his mission, through interpreting it, through a process of personal identification with the challenge that Jesus brings, that of understanding and following a God who was born into this world in utter humility and who ended his earthly life a condemned criminal. This message can only be understood by the countercultural rejection of the classic symbols of power and prosperity and following a path of life based on self-giving love, as Jesus did.

That message should challenge believers (and why not unbelievers also?) to reflect on the values that govern our lives today and the values we would wish to see incarnated into the world, the society and the economy of tomorrow.

There is no doubt those values will need to be counter-cultural and to be counter-cultural requires integrity and courage. But the opposite of being counter-cultural is being conformist, and being conformist can quickly lead to being complacent and losing the sharpness and critical sense that should come from our faith.

There are many reasons to be anxious and fearful, and indeed critical of who is to blame. But the goodness of so many in our society should shake us – perhaps even shame us out of our own self-centredness and indifference – to see and do things differently. We will not be on our own. There is great goodness out there.