The UK's Catholic Herald ran an article suggesting caution in supporting the Russian Orthodox Church's outrage at the Pussy Riot punk group demonstrators recently sentenced to prison. You can read the entire article Catholic Herald. But I was especially struck by the final few paragraphs which could be read as a warning to the American church about the apparent growing identification of many of our bishops with the Republican party.
Fr. Alexander Lucie Smith
Catholic Herald (UK)
Aug. 20, 2012
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I disapprove of political demonstrations in churches, but, and it is a huge but – when the Church itself turns political, party political, then it opens itself up to precisely this sort of behaviour. The Russian Orthodox Church has compromised its integrity by allying itself with Mr Putin’s regime – an alliance which results, incidentally, in state-sponsored persecution of Catholics in Russia. Pussy Riot were not wrong to protest at the way the Church has behaved. Remember, their demonstration was not aimed at Putin, per se, it was aimed at the Church. And the Church responded to the Pussy Rioters by invoking the power of the state against them
It cannot be the job of a Catholic such as myself to tell the Orthodox Church what to do. But let us remember, that when the Church is married to the spirit of the age, she will be a widow in the next. What will come after Putin? And what will the Patriarch do then?
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