Proper ethics simply cannot be instituted in the state without the authoritative guidance of the Church. Here, we find an article claiming that Britain is desiring a more Catholic society! The question is: Do they want traditional Catholicism or some sort of quasi-Catholicism? Even the writer states in the last paragraph that a Catholic-based society will only work by taking “the whole package.”
Borrowing ethics from the church whenever one feels the need to will leave the borrower with a huge deficit of solutions. When one particular Christian ethic is embraced another particular Christian ethic is needed in order to maintain the cause. This is the way Christian ethics work. They build upon one another, creating solution, thus resulting in empire and dominion. But dominion is what the enemies of Christ do not want and so we see the enemy constantly attempting to give throttle to ethics that they cannot steer, thus wrecking entire cultures.
What the liberal left seems to be grasping at is a piecmeal society appart from the Church. But the Church is not to be whored out! As St. Paul says, if you are going to live without Christ, live it up in abomination and fullfill the flesh but if you are going to live in Christ, live in the fullness of him (paraphrased, of course).
Taking ethics from the Church and applying them to society will only work if one continues on that same ethical path by actually advancing the spiritual value of the ethic. We cannot, for instance, give to the poor without mentoring the addicted and abused in order for them to properly use the gifts we give them. And of course we cannot mentor without an ethical standard that contains spiritual authority, since ethics are spiritual laws. We can also use the example of the ‘institution’ of marriage. We want people to become “married” but we do not advance the spiritual element of this institution, which is the binding of the married people and the Church (monogamous marriage began with the Church). When two people become married to each other they inherit the ethics of the Church. Their union is guided by Christ’s ethics, not to mention, Christ’s everlasting love. Secular marriage, outside the Church is simply another ethic that has been stolen from the Church and made a mockery.
Without Christ’s Law there is moral relativism (ethics fluctuating according to how relative they seem to each individual). This means that any tribal or barbaric religion can claim their standard and apply it to society. Take a hard core barbaric custom such as aborting children (began with Roman pagans and perfected by the Nazis), mix it with a tad of Christianity to appease and…whala, there is your cultural standard. This nonsense will never work and until Christians begin to realize this and begin to stand for God’s Law, our country will continue to fall.