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.