Some of you may have seen the famous sketch involving John Cleese, Ronnie

Barker and Ronnie Corbett about the class system, with Ronnie B saying “I

look up to him, because he is upper class, but I look down on him, because he

is lower class”, leaving poor Ronnie Corbett to say “I know my place”. But

later on, Ronnie C is able to say “I look up to them both. But while I am poor,

I am industrious, honest and trustworthy. Had I the inclination I could look

down on them, but I don’t.” Today in the second reading, St James says, “do

not try to combine faith in Jesus Christ, our glorified Lord, with the making of

distinctions between classes of people.”

The class system isn’t so pronounced in society now as it once was. But there

are also other ways in which we try to classify and put people in boxes. Rather

than naming any particular prejudice, compare it with another sketch involving

the two Ronnies, sometimes called The Confusing Library. Ronnie Corbett

goes to the librarian, Ronnie Barker, because he can’t find the book he wants.

They all seem to be “mixed up”. But Ronnie Barker says they aren’t. All the

red books are over there, the blue books over there and the green books over

there. It’s the architect’s idea. It makes them look neater. They are also sub-

divided: all the big books on the bottom and all the small books on the top.

But poor Ronnie C still can’t find the book he wants.

There can be different ways of dividing people up, but it doesn’t necessarily

make sense; it also isn’t necessarily right. One of the big examples of this was

the eugenics movement. It’s often associated with Adolf Hitler, but the idea of

our group wanting to subdue or get rid of another group is as old as humanity.

Despite the end of the Second World War, forms of discrimination still exist.

Earlier this year, the Vatican released a document on human dignity, in Latin

Dignitas Infinita, about the great dignity we all have as human beings. Human

dignity is not due to skin colour, physical characteristics, mental acuity or any

other such categories. We all have infinite dignity because we are made in the

image and likeness of God. That comes before any other considerations. We

do not lose that dignity if we are involved in a car accident; we do not gain

dignity by having plastic surgery.

Our society sometimes confuses dignity and equality with sameness. We are

not all the same. Even priests are not all the same. I remember going to an

ordination when I was still at seminary, and as well as Archbishop Vincent

Nichols, there were also many priests there too, and at the end, the Archbishop

commented, slightly humorously, that, as you can see, priests come in all

shapes and sizes. The same is true for any human being: we all have infinite

dignity as children of God, but we don’t all look the same, speak the same, act

the same, write the same.

Going back to the class system sketch, John Cleese, representing the upper

classes, says “I have got innate breeding, but I have not got any money, so

sometimes, I look up to him [referring to the middle classes]”. Prejudice can

sometimes be driven by money, or lack of it. But that represents an inversion

of how the world should work. So often it seems in our world that economic

interests determine what happens. We have to safeguard the economy. Banks

must be bailed out as they are too important to fail. But no. The human person

comes first, and money is secondary. Money is a means to an end, not people.

When Pope Benedict came to this country in 2010 and spoke to politicians in

Westminster Hall, I was a bit surprised by the positive reception he was given,

because if you read over what he said, some of it was quite pointed. Some

repeat the maxim that the Church should stay out of politics, but he had quite a

different take on it:

“Without the corrective supplied by religion, ... reason too can fall prey to

distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology, or applied in a partial way

that fails to take full account of the dignity of the human person. Such misuse

of reason, after all, was what gave rise to the slave trade in the first place and to

many other social evils, not least the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth

century.”

Our faith does something important for us. It can be so easy to just accept what

we are told by society without questioning it, but divine revelation means we

can look at those ideas currently in vogue and take a step back and say, is this

really what Our Lord would want? As human beings we have infinite dignity,

given by the Creator Himself at our conception. It does not depend on wealth,

status, ability, breeding or anything else. We are all important to God, whether

we are John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, or little Ronnie Corbett.

Curious about exploring things further?  If you would like to ask further questions about the topics raised in these homilies (or maybe think it wasn’t explained too well!), please feel free to e-mail Fr Michael at stjoseph.thame@rcaob.org.uk