Bureaucratic vendettas against truth-tellers

In 2019, Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen posted a tweet criticizing her church’s choice to partner with a prominent gay organization for Pride month. The Evangelical Church of Finland had been sliding leftward, much like other mainline denominations in the West. As a concerned member, Räsänen backed herself up with a quote from Romans 1. This sparked a years-long political persecution process, where she was dragged through the courts for allegedly “insulting” and “agitating” against homosexuals as a (protected) class.

That process has finally come to an end, as the Finnish government recently announced its decision not to convict her for the tweet. However, they did convict Räsänen of “hate speech” for a church pamphlet she wrote in 2004, published with help from an equally concerned conservative bishop. What horrible and hateful things were included in this pamphlet? A basic summary of conservative Christian ethics on homosexuality, and of how its normalization will affect society for the worse. Most “shockingly,” Räsänen drew on her background as a physician to refer to homosexuality as a psychological disorder. 

When prosecutors announced they were “investigating” the pamphlet, in the course of digging up whatever evidence they could, Räsänen reposted links to the pamphlet on her site so people could judge the content for themselves. Of course, she hadn’t removed the supposedly “hateful” parts, meaning that by the Court’s Orwellian standards, she could now be said to have demonstrated the intent to commit “hate speech.” The Court has ordered both her and her bishop to pay a fine. They are considering an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

All this is part of a whole pattern of persecution across Europe, as bureaucrats commit themselves to hounding conservative Christians who dare to support a traditional sex ethic in public. Generally, this persecution is conducted under the pretense of “protecting” protected groups from “conversion therapy.” In another recent case in Iceland, a Catholic priest is under “investigation” for affirming the traditional ethic on a radio program. Father Jakob Rolland, who has lived in Iceland for over 40 years, but is originally from France, was asked on air if active homosexuals could receive Communion. He carefully distinguished between homosexual acts and homosexual temptation, saying the Church should pray for and accompany anyone who struggles with the latter, but they should confess and commit to chastity before taking the sacraments. 

Apparently, this is enough for the National Queer Organization of Iceland to spearhead a prosecution (persecution) campaign. Even though Rolland never even mentioned “conversion therapy,” the law is being wielded against him anyway. In a telling remark, Member of Parliament Sigmundur Rúnarsson denounced Rolland with the declaration that Icelandic society “has nothing to do with the Catholic Church.” Catholics are a beleaguered minority in the aggressively secularized country. Clearly, some would prefer they went functionally extinct.

Meanwhile, there is some better news out of Malta, as the three-year hounding of Christian convert Matthew Grechs has finally ended with him being found not guilty of “conversion practices.” Matthew’s sin against progressivism was daring to share his own testimony about leaving the gay lifestyle on a radio show. For this, not only he but the radio presenters fell under an investigation for allegedly “advertising conversion practices,” banned under Malta’s 2016 Affirmation of Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Gender Expression Act. They were dragged into court no fewer than 17 times over three years, beginning when a senior gay “EU equality official” moved swiftly to file a police report within days of the interview. Had they been found guilty, they could have faced up to five months in prison and/or a €5,000 fine. 

Such “officials” appear throughout these stories like corrupt figures from the Ministry of Magic in Harry Potter, pursuing their vendettas with a distinctly bureaucratic kind of malice. Nothing seems to give them more pleasure than the thought of making these kind, non-threatening Christians “pay”—in fines or jail time—for merely suggesting that an abnormal sexual lifestyle might be … abnormal. In all these cases, as always, the zero-sum nature of the conflict is clear: There will be no agreeable sharing of the public square. One side must be normalized, the other stigmatized.

Father Rolland is prepared for whatever turns his case takes next, even imprisonment. He sees himself as a missionary of sorts, slowly working to save souls in the frigid spiritual wasteland. He has become passionate about helping to “wake up” people being guided towards a “wrongful lifestyle,” particularly children. Because Iceland is so isolated, he fears that the rest of the world is unaware of what is happening. “People are sleeping amidst a dictatorship,” he says, “They don’t dare to speak out.” In a tragically ironic twist, Iceland’s foreign minister is one of the country’s only native-born Catholics. Yet she has betrayed Father Rolland with a statement warning the Church “not to act in ways that could be interpreted as undermining legal protections or social diversity.”

It would be easy to despair in the face of such relentless bureaucratic evil, but Father Rolland’s words model how Christians should resist it: “I must fight for the Lord. If we don’t speak up. No one does.”