Not Knowing We Don’t Know

Socrates, in his Apologia, discussed ignorance and wisdom. He was not a skeptic who believed we knew nothing (as some portray). Instead, he recognized that it was better to be aware that one was ignorant than to be ignorant and think one knew the truth about something. The former could be educated by seeking out the truth to learn what was ignorant about. The latter, thinking he knew something when he did not, would never search for the truth, instead remaining locked into his uninformed views.

This is not something limited to one faction or one area of knowledge. One can be conservative, liberal, or moderate. One can be ignorant on religion, philosophy, law, science, or any number of technical subjects. Both a theist and an atheist can be ignorant on a subject. But the wiser man knows his lack. The fool gets into arguments over things he knows nothing about.

Wisdom should not be confused with intelligence or education. A brilliant scientist who gets into arguments about a field he knows little about is still a fool next to a man with little education but enough wisdom to know what is beyond his knowledge.

I think of this as I watch the various religious and political disputes Americans go through today. We are tempted to think that what we don’t know is not worth knowing, and that we can interpret for ourselves what we read—even if we don’t know anything on the topic or the context of what is said. We fill in the blanks with unfounded suspicions and imagine vast conspiracies where people who don’t agree with us are conspiring to damage our Church or our nation. 

I should note that I don’t write this to demand a meritocracy where only those deemed the wisest be allowed to speak. Instead, I think we would be better off if we asked ourselves whether things really were as we thought them to be. Instead of arguing that a member of the Church should have known something, therefore he must be guilty of coverup (or plausible deniability). Instead of arguing about a coming “invasion” of refugees traveling through Mexico, we could ask ourselves how much we actually know about their motivations and intentions.

Being wise about not knowing something should require us to ask questions on a subject? How many people bashing Islam actually know the difference between teaching and culture, or how interpretation of the Quran varies from sect to sect and country to country? How many people realize that the “evils of Catholicism” they rail against were never taught by the Catholic Church? A wise man asks, “Is what I heard true? Or is it just a rumor?” If it is a rumor, then one has the obligation to determine if it is true. If it is not true, then we have an obligation to stop treating it as if it was true. That’s the minimum. It would be wiser to learn what is true about the topic and to share that truth.

I believe that’s part of Our Lord’s commandment in Matthew 7:1 on not judging. We cannot judge one’s moral guilt without knowing the circumstances behind an act. For example, Pope Francis, in Amoris Lætitia, pointed out that before we treat a divorced and remarried person as being in a state of mortal sin, we must ask ourselves whether that person met all the conditions of mortal sin. Nobody’s debating the grave matter. The question is whether the individual had the sufficient knowledge and consent required to make a sin mortal. Unfortunately, people who do not understand this misinterpret it as a “come if you feel called” opening of the Eucharist.

I also think this is relevant to our sexual abuse scandals. Many people are arguing whether the existence of a highly placed Churchman who did evil indicts everybody whom he happened to know. People assume that any complaint made is automatically forwarded to the Pope who knows everything about the incident. Nobody asks whether complaints get redirected, misplaced, or even quashed before it reaches the Pope. Nobody asks whether the information that arrives in Rome is enough to act on.

It’s one thing to say “If X happened, then Y should happen unless other information would make Y unjust.” It’s quite another thing to say “X happened, so unless Y happens, the Pope is evil!” Do we know X happened? Do we know the conditions of X? Do we know Y is a just response for the circumstances surrounding X? That’s where the wise man realizes he is ignorant and tries to learn about X and Y. Sometimes, finding out about X and Y will go beyond our abilities—especially if the information is not available. But in that case, the wise man does not make unfounded statements about X and Y. Instead he learns what he can and does not go further than his knowledge allows.

But if we don’t do that, we’re simply fools, rashly judging things we do not know, but think we do.

Unfounded Suspicions Treated As Fact

A common problem in the Church today is unfounded speculation that leads one to draw a conclusion without any justification for it. We “fill in the blanks,” providing an explanation for something that makes no sense to us. Unfortunately, when we lack knowledge, or if we’re acting on preconceived notions, we are not reasoning but speculating. If we assume instead of learn, the conclusions we draw in these cases are not fact and the accusations we make based on them are rash judgment.

To illustrate, the comic to the left (Lucky Star) involves a speculation. To explain it, we need to understand the Japanese urban legend that massaging a woman’s breasts causes them to grow. The other women in the scene are assuming Minegishi is sexually active. Minegishi objects to their assumptions—based on a myth—that make her seem immoral. Minegishi may or may not be sexually active (the comic is about high school/college life, tends to be PG rated and doesn’t go into those topics), but her friends are making a judgment that can’t be justified by the facts they possess.

Members of the Church seem to be in the same place as Minegishi’s friends. They assume a cause-effect in regards to the existence of scandals in the Church without considering whether the reasoning has any merit to it.

For example, the sex abuse scandal in the Church. We know that a large portion of it comes from male abusers and is directed against male victims. It’s a serious problem that needs to be investigated in a way that identifies and roots out the base causes. Unfortunately, many Catholics fill in blanks based on assumptions.

For example, the “lavender mafia” or “gay lobby” claim. The term refers to a belief that there must be a group in the Church that exercises influence to legitimize homosexuality. While the term had originally been used to describe the entertainment industry, by 2007 it was being used to explain how predator priests could exist without being discovered and removed. It has evolved into an assumption that any bishop who failed to act or who ordained a predator priest must be a member; that any Pope who failed to take a desired outcome must have been placed by this “lavender mafia.”

The Church being led by human beings, not angels, will of course have sins to deal with... sometimes heinous ones. No doubt some of these sinners will reach high positions and cover for each other. In settings closed to outsiders, or afflicted by hubris, such people might abandon subtlety. But these facts do not justify a conclusion that there is a Church-wide cabal that encompasses all members of the clergy who act on a same-sex attraction.

Pope Francis made this point in 2013. When asked about the “gay lobby,” the Pope quite reasonably pointed out that there’s always a problem when people with a shared sin get together but the existence of an inclination in a person is not necessarily proof of conspiracy:

So much is written about the gay lobby. I still haven’t found anyone with an identity card in the Vatican with “gay” on it. They say there are some there. I believe that when you are dealing with such a person, you must distinguish between the fact of a person being gay and the fact of someone forming a lobby, because not all lobbies are good. This one is not good. If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him? The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this in a beautiful way, saying ... wait a moment, how does it say it ... it says: “no one should marginalize these people for this, they must be integrated into society”. The problem is not having this tendency, no, we must be brothers and sisters to one another, and there is this one and there is that one. The problem is in making a lobby of this tendency: a lobby of misers, a lobby of politicians, a lobby of masons, so many lobbies. For me, this is the greater problem.

Another speculation (one that’s been around at least as long as St. Paul VI is that the continued existence of error or dissent in the Church is because the Pope is “sympathetic” to it. Yes, we do have clergy and laity who take stands that are incompatible with the Catholic teaching. It’s not unreasonable to want scandal removed from the Church. But there is a problem with some methods of removing scandal. As long as I’ve been defending the Church, I’ve encountered people who say, “if this was a business, these people would be fired! Why doesn’t the Pope fire these bishops?”

The answer is that the Church is not a business and the bishops are not employees. Yes, there are causes which justify removing a bishop from office (though not as many as you might think). But the bishops are not appointees like in a presidential cabinet. They are successors to the apostles and removing them from their positions is done for grave reasons where the guilt is clear. The Church would rather have a repentant sinner who remains than an obstinate heretic driven out. When the Church finally does condemn a theologian for heresy (for example), it’s after years of dialogue aimed at converting him when it’s clear that he is obstinate. 

Of course, it’s possible to be too cautious. It’s possible to hesitate when decisive action is needed. When that happens, reform is needed. But it’s unfounded suspicion to assume that the Church doesn’t care about error. She does. But she has to show mercy to the repentant and not just give up on the seemingly unrepentant sinner.

Mercy of course is another area of unfounded suspicion. People who want a hard “DEUS VULT!” style Church where the wicked are cast out tend to view Pope Francis’ words on mercy as a moral laxness that was never found in the Church before 2013.

But it was. Benedict XVI stressed the same mercy that is the hallmark of his successor:

Homily, November 4, 2010.

The unfounded suspicion here is that mercy secretly means laxity or permissiveness. So the critics think that the Pope is advocating divorce and remarriage, contraception, and “same sex marriage” when he actually reaffirms Church teaching on the subject.

Thus we see the danger of the unfounded suspicion. If one assumes it to be true, they will believe any falsehood that uses the unfounded suspicion as a basis. Consider the anti-Catholics whose sole source of “information” are the Jack Chick tracts and 16th century propaganda. They never question whether there information is true. As a result, they are willing to believe lies that fit their suspicion. Lest we become arrogant with the anti-Catholics, let us not forget that there are Catholics who form unfounded suspicions about the Pope, the bishops, and councils they dislike. They build on these suspicions until they believe whatever allegations made against them. 

This is not a minor matter. One of the Ten Commandments forbids bearing false witness. This is not limited to lies. It also forbids speaking about what one does not know, assuming them to be true. The Catechism teaches:

Do we really think we can speak falsely or recklessly and not have to answer it at the final judgment? If we would avoid condemnation, we must make every effort to learn, speak, and live the truth. This means studying, and it means hearing our teacher, the Church. This means that when the Pope teaches, even under the ordinary magisterium, we must give religious submission of intellect and will. This means that when what the Church says something in opposition to what we think it means, we trust that the Church is right, not ourselves. As St. Ignatius of Loyola wrote:

This doesn’t mean we think that a lie is true because the Church says so. That means we trust that God will always protect His Church, under the headship of the Pope, from teaching error. If we would be faithful to God, we will give up our unfounded suspicions and follow Him by following His Church led by His current vicar, Pope Francis.

Taking Back the Church: It’s NOT What Some Think It Is

Twenty years ago, I had finished my Masters in theology at a university renown for its fidelity to the Church and the Pope. It was clear to everyone that if we would be faithful Catholics, we needed to remain faithful and not fall into dissent. Today, I see many (including some who came from the same university) who now speak contemptuously about the successor to Peter and behave like it falls to them to defend the Church from those tasked with shepherding it, who call the religious submission of intellect and will we all accepted twenty years ago “ultramontanism” or even “papolatry.” 

It is a reminder that no individual can guarantee their remaining faithful to the Church unless they put their trust in God to protect the Church. This protection cannot be sporadic, today protecting the Pope in Rome, tomorrow protecting an archbishop who accuses the Pope. Either God consistently protects the visible magisterium under the headship of the Pope or He does not protect it at all. If He does not protect it at all, then we can never know for certain when the Church taught truth...not even when the Church defined the canon of Scripture.

Some of these Catholics raise slogans that we need to “take back the Church.” I think the slogan is true, but not in the sense these Catholics mean it. To take back the Church is not to take it back in time to where one thinks the Faith was practiced “properly,” eliminating what we dislike. Nor is it “taking the Church back from those successors to the apostles who we dislike.” No, taking back the Church means taking it back to the proper understanding of obedience—something that can exist regardless of who the Pope is and how he applies past teachings to the present age.

To be faithful to God means keeping His commandments (John 14:15). Since He made obedience to His Church mandatory (Matthew 18:17, Luke 10:16), if we want to be faithful to Him, we must be faithful to His Church. This was true when the worst of men sat on the Chair of Peter, and it is true now. If Our Lord did not create an exception for obedience with John XII, we can be certain He did not create an exception for obedience with Pope Francis.

There is a deadly movement in the Church. One filled with people who that believes that the magisterium can err but they cannot. They claim to be faithful to the true teachings of the Church but no saints behaved in this way. The saints offered obedience to the Popes and bishops who remained in communion with the Popes... even if these saints turned out to be holier than some Popes. What these members of this movement are acting like are not saints, but like the heresiarchs who insisted that the Church was in error but they were not.

To appeal to the credentials of the current dissenters, I once had a critic of the Pope tell me that one of the people making accusations against the Pope had a doctorate. To which I can only reply, “So did Hans Küng, so what’s your point?” Education is not a guarantee of infallibility. The authority of the Pope is not in his education or his reputation for holiness (though this Pope has both). His authority comes from the charism that comes from his office.

Unfortunately critics appeal to a hypothetical crisis to deny the authority of the Pope or a Church teaching that they despise. They ask, “what if a Pope were to teach X?” X being something that clearly contradicts Scripture or Church teaching. The argument is meant to imply that such an error would prove the Pope heretical and therefore we cannot provide the obedience required to the Pope on other areas we think wrong.

The problem is, the Pope has never taught this hypothetical X, no matter how many times people expected it. They constantly claim that the Pope will “legitimize” homosexuality, contraception, remarriages and the like. In fact, he has consistently reaffirmed Church teaching on these subjects. He has simply called for mercy and compassion for those sinners that they might be helped back to right relationship with God and His Church.

The fact is, while we have had morally bad Popes (like Benedict IX and John XII) and suspected theologically bad Popes (like Liberius and Honorius I), they have never taught error. Unfortunately, the anti-Francis critics seem to think infallibility is something like prophecy where the Pope declares a new doctrine. Infallibility is a negative charism that prevents him from teaching falsely. 

An illustration of this could be: if the Pope’s infallibility was in mathematics instead of teaching faith and morals, how many questions on a math test would he have to answer correctly to be infallible? If you answered “all of them,” then you have misunderstood infallibility. The answer is “zero.” The Pope could submit a blank answer sheet.

This is why the Church has always taught that when the Pope teaches—even if that teaching is not ex cathedra—we are bound to obey (canon 752). He is not teaching a mixture of truth and heresy. A future Pope might change discipline in a way that the current Pope does not. A future Pope might address conditions in the world that the Church today doesn’t have to deal with. These things don’t mean that the current Pope is wrong.

But when he teaches as Pope, whether by ordinary or extraordinary magisterium, we are bound to obey. If it seems strange to us, we must realize that we can err and trust God to keep His promises to protect the Church—under the authority of the Pope—from teaching error.

The ones we need to take back the Church from are not predatory priests and bishops who covered up (though we must oppose them while remaining faithful to the Church). We need to take back the Church from those who claim to be faithful while rejecting the successors of the apostles. Until we do, the Church will simply become more factionalized until someone finally commits a formal schism.

Do You Believe...? Do You Understand...?

Do you believe in God? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is God? do you believe that He can be trusted to keep His promises? Do you believe He established the Catholic Church to bind and loose in His name? Do you believe that the authority He gave His apostles continues through their successors?

If you do not believe one or more of these things, you are one of the following: A non-Christian, a non-Catholic, or an erring Catholic. But if you sincerely profess belief in all of the above, then you should realize that a belief that the living magisterium of the Catholic Church today has fallen into some sort of error is incompatible with our professed belief. This article does not intend to address the non-Christians or non-Catholics. Rather, in this time of struggle, I intend to reach out to the Catholics who have fallen into, or are struggling with, the belief that the Catholic Church is teaching error and only a handful of Catholics remain faithful.

I say this because to believe in God is to believe He seeks our good. To believe that Jesus is God is to believe that what He teaches holds the same weight as what God the Father and God the Holy Spirit teaches. To believe He keeps His promises means we must trust that whatever seems to contradict His promises cannot be true—even when things seem bleak. To believe that He established the Catholic Church, gave it the authority to teach in His name and that authority continues through apostolic succession means that we put our trust in what the Church teaches, giving obedience when required.

This belief does not mean that some individuals who hold the office of priest, bishop, cardinal, or Pope will be impeccable. We believe they can and do sin—not just the notorious Popes like Benedict IX or John XII, but the saints among them as well. But we believe that since God made obedience to His Church necessary (Matthew 18:17, Luke 10:16), He will ensure that the Church teaches without error. If we did not have that assurance, we could never know when the Church should be obeyed and when it should not.

That’s why I have to reject the idea that the Pope is in error while a small number of bishops/cardinals who disagree with him are correct. The Pope is the final arbiter of what is authentic interpretation of Catholic teaching. He draws the final line. If it turned out that sometimes the Pope was in error, and another see was correct, we could never know who spoke for the Church at any particular time. For example, take the Arian Crisis. Most of the Church embraced this heresy. But the Pope did not. He was the beacon of orthodoxy we could trust when there was confusion over which interpretations of Scripture were correct.

Without the belief that God protects His Church from teaching error, we could never know that any particular Pope was correct, whether any particular council was correct. We could only say we think that a certain opinion was correct. But other Catholics would deny that claim and who can we appeal to to prove who is right?

This is why the Church has always held that when the Pope teaches we must give religious assent of intellect and will. Not only in the matters of ex cathedra teachings, which must be treated as doctrine, but in the ordinary magisterium and in the governance of the Church. When there is a conflict of interpretation of past teachings, it is the Pope that has the final say.

“But what about...?” There is no “what about?” If we believe that Our Lord established the Church, made it necessary, and gave it the authority to bind and loose in His name (Matthew 16:19, 18:18), then we must trust Him to protect the Church from teaching error. In Vatican I (Pastor Aeternus, chapter 3), we are taught:

Some Catholics, opposed to Pope Francis, try to deny his right to teach and to modify discipline and governing of the Church. They claim to appeal to past teachings, claiming that the Pope contradicts them. But what they are actually appealing to their personal interpretation of past teachings. It’s similar to the anti-Catholics who point to the Bible to claim we contradict it. We do not reject the Bible. We merely reject their personal interpretation of it.

You may have heard anti-Francis Catholics point to St. Robert Bellarmine (I discuss it HERE). [§] They claim it is “doctrine” that a heretical Pope can be deposed and devote time to trying to prove that things the Pope does are signs of “Manifest Heresy.” But the Saint was exploring five opinions on the subject, accepting two and rejecting three:

1. The view that the Pope cannot be a manifest heretic (which he calls probable and easily defended) [#]
2. The view that the Pope can be deposed even for personal heresy (he rejects this)
3. The view that the Pope can’t even be deposed for manifest heresy (he rejects this)
4. The view that the Church has the authority to depose a Pope for manifest heresy (he rejects this)
5. The view that the Pope ceases to be Pope if he falls into manifest heresy in the same sense that a heretic ceases to be a member of the Church (he calls this a “true opinion”)

Unfortunately, people misunderstand St. Robert Bellarmine. A “true opinion” doesn’t mean a doctrine. It means an opinion backed by reasoning instead of arbitrary belief. “Manifest heresy” does not mean a Pope declaring the death penalty inadmissible in this time. It means openly declaring that he rejects the doctrine of the Church in some manner.

St. Robert Bellarmine was not defining a doctrine (he couldn’t if he would—his De Controversiis is not a magisterial document. It’s an apologia for the authority of the Church against those who reject it), and his work must be understood in light of later magisterial teaching such as Vatican I, Vatican II, and Code of Canon Law 1404 (“The First See is judged by no one.”). If a Pope should become a “manifest heretic” (a notion I find incompatible with the promises of Our Lord), we would need to trust in God to protect His Church because we would have no means of deposing him.

Critics of Pope Francis should consider the existence of literally bad Popes like Benedict IX or John XII or those suspected of personal heresy (Liberius, Honorius I, John XXII [+]). They never taught error. If they were ever tempted to, it seems Our Lord prevented them from doing so.

Catholics who believe that the Church or the Pope has fallen into error need to ask themselves the questions I began the article with:

Do you believe in God? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is God? do you believe that He can be trusted to keep His promises? Do you believe He established the Catholic Church to bind and loose in His name? Do you believe that the authority He gave His apostles continues through their successors?

If a Catholic believes these things, then he or she should believe that these things remain true with the Pope and the Church today. But if a Catholic doesn’t believe these things, then such a person should realize they have fallen into deeper error than that which they accuse Pope Francis of.

————————————

[§] The book can be purchased HERE. The relevant pages are 304-310 in my version. The translator has issued a new edition and the pagination may be different.

[#] As a disclosure, I personally believe that the promises Our Lord made justifies this view. A Pope might fall into personal error as some think Liberius, Honorius I, and John XXII did. But that personal error will not spread to his teachings.

[+] I contend John XXII was no more a heretic over the beatific vision than St. Thomas Aquinas was over the Immaculate Conception  Both were mistaken, but the Church had not yet defined the matter, so there was nothing to obstinately reject.

Let’s Not Be Proud

7 “Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’? 8 Would he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished’? 9 Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’ ” 

(Luke 17 NABRE)

It’s no secret that this blog offers religious submission of intellect and will to the Church under Pope Francis. I’m not alone in this view, and we recognize that the attitude of dissent against the current magisterium must be opposed. However, I notice a trend on social media that we should beware: the attitude that we are holier than the rest—whom we look down on with disdain. But our obedience doesn’t mean we’re saints. It just means we haven’t rebelled yet, and we should be praying that we never do fall into disobedience.

In addition, the temptation to look down on those who rebel is incompatible with the message put forth by the Pope we claim to defend. In reaching out to the divorced/remarried, the people with same sex attraction, etc., he seeks to call them back into right relationship with God. We recognize that the Catholics who oppose him are behaving like the Pharisees who preferred ostracizing to evangelizing. But in refusing to reach out to these Catholics, we become what we denounce.

In addition, when we denounce the dissenting Catholics, are we dissenting ourselves? For example, I have seen some “defenders” of the Pope agitating for a change in Church teaching on homosexual acts and “same sex marriage” even though the Pope has rejected these things:

251. In discussing the dignity and mission of the family, the Synod Fathers observed that, “as for proposals to place unions between homosexual persons on the same level as marriage, there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.” It is unacceptable “that local Churches should be subjected to pressure in this matter and that international bodies should make financial aid to poor countries dependent on the introduction of laws to establish ‘marriage’ between persons of the same sex.”

(Amoris Laetitia)

Are we willing to entertain doubts about the binding nature of the Pope refining Church teaching on the death penalty, calling it inadmissible in this time? If we are, we are guilty of what we denounce in others. Are we willing to accept at face value the accuracy of a Catholic—who consistently misrepresented the words of the Pope—when he or she approvingly cites a member of the clergy he or she thinks is opposed to the Pope? If we are, we are guilty of the same rash judgment that they are.

The point of all this is, we must not be proud. If we are faithful to the Church, giving religious submission of intellect and will to the Pope when he teaches, we are only doing what we are obliged to do. And if we choose to disagree with the Church under Pope Francis, we are no better than his dissenting critics.

Let us move forward in carrying out the mission of the Church without praising ourselves for doing what we must do. Let us continue to pray we are not subjected to the tests that might break our faith. Let us continue to reach out to those who reject the Pope (overtly or through behavior).

Otherwise, we’re failing to what is required of us.