The Blind Leading the Blind

Have you ever encountered someone who speaks confidently on a subject and offers his opinion as fact—but makes many errors about that subject? It happens in all areas of life. I find that it usually happens when a person assumes that what they have heard on a subject is correct, or that the opinions they have formed are the only way something can be interpreted. The problem is, if what they have heard is not correct, or if there is more than one way that something can be interpreted legitimately, then the conclusions they draw can be wrong.

In the Catholic Church, we believe that the magisterium guides us in coming to a correct understanding of how we must live to be authentically Christian. Things that run counter to the magisterial teaching cannot be called good.

Unfortunately, some Catholics believe that the magisterial teaching is an opinion to be judged—if it does not square with the individual’s interpretation, that teaching is judged an “error.” Thus we have some Catholics argue that Humanae Vitae is an anti-woman opinion that can be ignored. Others argue that Catholic Social Teaching is an opinion that “proves” that bishops are expressing liberal political views. It doesn’t occur to them that their own views are opinions that are at odds with the Catholic teaching.

This is not something that only one faction is guilty of. Liberals shamefully reject St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI while holding up their false understanding of St. John XXIII and Pope Francis. Conservatives shamefully reject St. John XXIII (Mater Si! Magistra No!) and Pope Francis while holding up a false understanding of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

What makes things worse is when these people take their views and spread them to others, teaching them that the Church was “betrayed” by the Popes they dislike, and we need to follow their views to get the Church back to where she should be. But if they are in error about what the Church requires and permits, how can they lead us to where the Church should be? Our Lord’s words should be heeded here: “If a blind person leads a blind person, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14b). 

Our Lord spoke these words about the Pharisees, who challenged Our Lord over not holding His disciples to their views of moral obligation. Now, the word Pharisee has a lot of baggage. People associate them with religious conservatives—with all the negative stereotypes they associate with that faction. Religious conservatives resent that link because they don’t believe they behave with that attitude. Personally, I think it is a mistake to associate the term with a factional view. I think it is more accurate to understand Pharisees as group who believed that their views were right, and that those who disagreed were wrong—even when the one challenging them had the authority to do so.

I also believe that the Pharisee today is the one who clings to a set of views, judging others compared to their views, but never considering their rejection of the magisterium—which has Our Lord’s authority (Luke 10:16)—is rejecting truth for their own “traditions” (Matthew 15:6b).

If we want to be faithful to God, we must keep His commandments (John 14:15). Since he gave the authority to bind and loose to Peter and the Apostles (Matthew 16:19, 18:18), and we believe as Catholics that the Pope and bishops are the successors to Peter and the Apostles, it follows that the Pope and bishops today have that same authority and we must obey them.

Yes, every Pope and bishop is a human being, and therefore a sinner. Yes, they can say some cringeworthy things and do actions we find regrettable. The problem is there is a difference between a Pope or bishop speaking as a person (for example, in an interview) and speaking with the intention to teach in a way we are bound to accept. When the Pope teaches, we are obliged to give assent—even if his teaching is not given ex cathedra. If we refuse to give that assent, then we are dissenters—cafeteria Catholics who negate our claim to be faithful by picking and choosing when we will give this assent.

Once we understand that faithfulness to Our Lord includes listening to and following His Church, we can see that listening to the person who claims that the teaching of the Church is in error is to follow the blind guide—and doing so will result in our falling into a pit with them.

These blind guides will point to the existence of bad Popes and bishops in history. Since people did wrong, it is possible that the disliked Pope or bishop is doing wrong. They then go on to misapply history. For example, both conservative and liberal dissenters like to point to St. Catherine of Sienna and how she “rebuked” Popes for error (false—she rebuked them for not returning to Rome from Avignon). They like to point to how Pope Liberius “banished” St. Athanasius (false—the documents cited were debunked as forgeries). They like to point out how St. Robert Bellarmine taught how we could depose a Pope (false, he was mentioning different opinions on what to do if a Pope hypothetically became a heretic).

Using this misapplication of history, they try to argue that these examples justify their own dissent against the current Pope and bishops are justified. The problem is, they commit the fallacy of false analogy where the differences are greater then the similarities. They might cite the case of a privately held opinion of Pope John XXII (which was not yet defined), but the false analogy is they are not speaking on a personal opinion, but on rejecting actual Church teaching that they do not understand or dislike.

Ironies abound. They will reject Amoris Lætitia on the grounds that it is merely an apostolic exhortation that “contradicts” the binding Familiaris Consortio—but Familiaris Consortio is also an apostolic exhortation. They share the same level of teaching authority. In a similar manner, they deny the authority of a Papal encyclical (conservatives denigrate Laudato Si, liberals denigrate Humanae Vitae) because it is not taught ex cathedra, but we are still obligated to give assent to Church teaching even when taught under the ordinary magisterium. In fact, Pope Pius IX condemned (Syllabus of errors #22) the notion that we were only bound to obey things proposed infallibly.

The problem was described by Plato over 2000 years ago. In a Socratic dialogue, he described how some people did not know what was true—and they were ignorant of the fact that they did not know. Because of that ignorance, they thought that their misinformation was reality and reacted with hostility when their ignorance was revealed and their views debunked.

I believe the blind guides today share this problem. They don’t know that they don’t know. Their flawed view of Church history and teaching leads them to justify their own views against the Church, not realizing that a lack of knowledge leads them to judge wrongly when they are told that they are in the wrong. The Catholic who dissents against sexual moral teaching calls the Church patriarchal and conservative. The Catholic who dissents against social justice calls the Church liberal and modernist. In both cases, the error is not with the Church, but with them.

Ultimately, each Catholic will have to decide. Will they listen to the Magisterium of the Church today that tells us how to apply past teachings to current circumstances? Or will they listen to the disgruntled internet sites which tell them that the Church is in error until it complies with their own views? The person who does the first is wise. The person who does the second is following a blind guide.

Partisan Rebellion

can. 753† Although the bishops who are in communion with the head and members of the college, whether individually or joined together in conferences of bishops or in particular councils, do not possess infallibility in teaching, they are authentic teachers and instructors of the faith for the Christian faithful entrusted to their care; the Christian faithful are bound to adhere with religious submission of mind to the authentic magisterium of their bishops.

Code of Canon Law: New English Translation (Washington, DC: Canon Law Society of America, 1998), 247.

The US Bishops (rightly, in my opinion) took a stand against Trump’s decision to end DACA. In response, one faction of Catholics took a stand against the US bishops. They angrily condemned the bishops for “meddling in politics,” for “picking and choosing what laws to follow,” “for only caring about collections and numbers of people in the pews,” and for “being pro-Democrat.” Ironically, a different faction of Catholics (opposed by the first) made the same arguments when the US bishops opposed Obama’s actions on abortion, the contraception mandate, same sex “marriage,” and (though people forget it), immigration.

In both cases, what we have are Catholics who let their political views influence how they view the Catholic faith—which is a perversion of how it should be. When they do not like what the bishops say, they accuse the bishops of being partisan. It never occurs to these critics that the bishops are taking a stand because Catholic teaching requires it.

The fact is, no political faction is identical with Catholic teaching. Each faction gets something wrong, either in intention or in act. So we must hear the Church and let her teaching shape our political views. Unfortunately, regardless of faction, many Catholics seem willing to put the views of their preferred politicians over the teaching of the successors to the apostles. The bishops’ words are rejected as ignorant opinions, while the politician’s words are accepted as truth. 

The problem is, factional politics tend to create endless varieties of cafeteria Catholicism. Both conservative and liberal Catholics face the temptation to focus on issues they already agree with while downplaying or ignoring what they dislike. When the Church emphasizes what they dislike, it is often portrayed as a partisan betrayal of faith for politics. But it seems to me this is a reversal of the truth: The partisan Catholic is being deceived into thinking their partisan views are true Catholicism.

Like it or not, Catholic teaching focusses on both the moral behavior and the care for people in need. Neither is waived because of our own preferences or our fears that the teaching we prefer might be “undermined.” Yes, there can be a legitimate difference of opinion on how to best follow Catholic teaching. But we can never accept an “opinion” that sets aside Church teaching (cf. Mark 7:11). So, for example, Catholics can disagree on the best way to defend the right to life, but never downplay the right to life. Catholics can disagree on how to best handle illegal immigration, but not to undermine the teaching on how human beings are to be treated regardless of status.

I believe we need to evaluate our anger when the Church takes a position contrary to our politics. We may tell ourselves that we think the Pope or bishop is “betraying” the Church for a partisan reason, but we have to ask whether we’re the ones betraying the Church for a partisan reason. I also believe we need to consider whether our rejection of a bishop when he says something we dislike is a scandal that leads others to sin (Matthew 18:6-7). If we choose to reject a bishop on one topic, we have very little to say when another chooses to reject a bishop on something we think is vitally important.

It is important that we study what the Church teaches on a subject to make sure we have not gone wrong. But we also must recognize that the Church, not us, is the final decision maker on how these teachings are properly understood. For example, I know of some Catholics who claim that it is more “pro-life” to vote for a pro-abortion candidate because their policies will reduce the need for abortions. That interpretation was rejected by St. John Paul II, when he wrote:

[38] The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, fínds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights—for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture—is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.

 

John Paul II, Christifideles Laici (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1988).

Likewise when it comes to issues we find “hitting too close to home,” we need to make sure that we are not undermining Church teaching by interpreting it in a way that allows us to do as we please when the magisterium says we may not do as we please.

As a final point, it is not for me to judge the conscience of any individual of course—that is a task for the individual’s confessor, and far exceeds the competence of a layman. But I can point out that it is dangerous to use our political views to judge the shepherds of the Church. Before we claim that we can reject their “opinions,” we need to make sure they are in fact opinions, and not a legitimate application of the teaching authority of the Church.

Knowing, Not Knowing, and Knowing You Do Not Know

Accordingly I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom, and observed him—his name I need not mention; he was a politician whom I selected for examination—and the result was as follows: When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself; and thereupon I tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present and heard me. So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is,—for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him. (Apologia 21)

 

Plato, The Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett, Third Edition, vol. 2 (New York; London: Oxford University Press, 1892), 113–114.

Introduction

When it comes to the ongoing faction wars in the Church, I suspect many of the participants who attack the Church today as being in error never intend to reject the Church. Instead, they act as they do because they think it is the right thing to do. Unfortunately, what one thinks is the right thing, and what the right thing actually is are often two different things. I think this is an example of the situation described by Socrates’ Apology above—that the person does not know the truth, but does not know about this lack. That is a problem because, if a person does not know that they do not know the truth, they will remain in error while thinking themselves defenders of the faith. 

Unfortunately, one of the problems with social media discussions today is nobody wants to admit that they don’t know something. In fact, implying someone doesn’t know something usually results in an angry response. Bring up the Argument from Ignorance fallacy [†] and people think you’re calling them an idiot. This defensive attitude is unfortunate because every person has a lack of knowledge in some part of their life. The question is, do we recognize this lack and try to learn? Or do we think that what we think we know is all that needs to be known? 

Being Faithfully Catholic Means Constantly Growing

If we are in the latter state, this is harmful for our spiritual health. The Catholic faith requires us to know, love and serve God. That goes back at least to the Baltimore Catechism, and it’s a good summation. We need to know what God revealed, the natural law with which He created the universe, and make use of our natural reason to apply that revelation and knowledge to our personal lives. Being finite beings, afflicted with concupiscence, we do make mistakes in judgment. We do choose the wrong thing. We do miss crucial facts that would change our outlook. And, finally, we do fail to comprehend complex ideas that go beyond our knowledge. There’s no shame in that limitation. But we cannot live that way. As the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes puts it:

[16] In fidelity to conscience, Christians are joined with the rest of men in the search for truth, and for the genuine solution to the numerous problems which arise in the life of individuals from social relationships. Hence the more right conscience holds sway, the more persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to be guided by the objective norms of morality. Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same cannot be said for a man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or for a conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of habitual sin.

 

Catholic Church, “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World: Gaudium Et Spes,” in Vatican II Documents (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2011).

If we refuse to learn, refuse to form our conscience, we have no excuse when we do wrong. And, since Our Lord gave us the Church to guide us, we have no excuse for going astray if we should ignore the Church. As Lumen Gentium puts it:

[14] They are fully incorporated in the society of the Church who, possessing the Spirit of Christ accept her entire system and all the means of salvation given to her, and are united with her as part of her visible bodily structure and through her with Christ, who rules her through the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops. The bonds which bind men to the Church in a visible way are profession of faith, the sacraments, and ecclesiastical government and communion. He is not saved, however, who, though part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but, as it were, only in a “bodily” manner and not “in his heart.” All the Church’s children should remember that their exalted status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ. If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged.

 

Catholic Church, “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church: Lumen Gentium,” in Vatican II Documents (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2011).

In short, we can’t stop with what we think we know on how to live the Christian life. Growing closer to God means learning how to live as He calls us to live. Can you imagine a marriage where one of the spouses couldn’t be bothered to learn about his partner? Not caring what the other thought or felt about things? The successful marriage requires a constant change for the better. Our relationship with God requires the same.

Knowing and Learning

Of course the Church goes back to Our Lord Himself, and the writings of the members of the Church, the Councils and so on is massive. One person cannot hope to learn and master it all, even if they had no demands on their time but this study. So one average Catholic may view the encouragement to learn as an impossible demand and give up hope of understanding. Meanwhile another average Catholic might just decide that what he knows is good enough to pass judgment on Popes.

Both views should be avoided. In the first case, the equivalent of a Ph.D is not necessary for salvation. People with the ability and time to study theology can indeed lend their talents to the Church, but this is not the only way a Catholic can be holy and serve the Church. Each one of us has a calling regardless of education and status in life (1 Corinthians 12:15-26). In the second case, assuming one knows enough is to give up learning about Our Lord and growing in relationship with Him. When such a person encounters something within the Church, new to them, they might assume the idea is heretical without considering the possibility of their lack of knowledge making them misinterpret the issue.

To avoid this state, we need to start with the step of realizing the possibility of our not knowing something, considering the possibility that there is more to the situation than we are aware of. We need to realize that, just because we might think, “I can’t think of any reason why the Pope does/doesn’t do X,” does not mean there is no reason that justifies his actions.

Example—The Pope, Divorce, and Remarriage.

One of the problems I see in the social media debates is confusing the intrinsic evil with the actual responsibility of the person. Intrinsic evil means that some act is always wrong regardless of intention or circumstances. One can never have a just abortion or a just rape for example. But one can have a just war if proper conditions are met.

What some Catholics seem to forget (or perhaps did not know), and what the Pope wants us to remember, is that it is not enough to speak against intrinsic evil. Determining the culpability (responsibility) of the person who acts is part of the confessor’s task.  Certain circumstances can reduce the level of individual guilt (but not the fact that an intrinsic evil is done). Confessors have to assess the knowledge and circumstances that led to the action in determining how serious the sin is. For example, masturbation is an intrinsic evil. One must never do it. But some people have formed compulsive habits that are hard to break. In some circumstances, this compulsion reduces the personal responsibility so the person lacks the consent necessary for a mortal sin. The act is still intrinsically evil, and the person is obliged to work at overcoming this compulsion in cooperation with God’s grace. But this reduced culpability does not mean the Church is calling evil “permissible.”

Some critics of the Pope (including a few I ordinarily respect) say they can’t envision a circumstance where culpability can be reduced. But that is an argument from ignorance fallacy. We need to consider the possibility of things being different from what we think, based on our own experience. 

I believe that some Catholics forget this when it comes to the fight over Chapter 8 of Amoris Lætitia involving the divorced and remarried. Contrary to his critics’ claims, the Pope has not denied that divorce and remarriage is never permissible as long as the legitimate spouse lives. What he calls for is that confessors assess the knowledge and circumstances of each person, in this situation. Contrary to the claims of anti-Francis Catholics, the Pope is not seeking to legitimize divorce/remarriage. He is seeking to restore each person to a right relationship with God and His Church. If [§] it turns out that a Catholic in this situation lacks the conditions that make a mortal sin [∞], then the confessor can encourage the reception of the Eucharist while also guiding the sinner to turn away from sin and return to God. He is not a “liberal” or a “modernist” when he properly applies this.

Is it possible that a confessor can act wrongly, or err in their assessment? Yes, because we are all sinners. But the wrongful action of some confessors or some bishops does not mean that the Pope promotes or supports those things. 

Example—Knowing that differences exist in other nations.

Another thing that people may not know that the situation in Western Europe and the United States is not universal. For example, during the Year of Mercy, the Pope declared that all priests would be granted the facility to absolve abortion [¶]. This did not affect the United States, where the bishops already gave their priests the facility to act in their name, but it did affect other parts of the world. In interviews and press conferences, the Pope has discussed all sorts of different abuses and obstacles to marriage that we in the West have never experienced, but people in other countries have to deal with.

Likewise, things we take for granted, like tribunals, do not exist in some Catholic countries. An open and shut annulment case might take 90 days in the US, but might take years in another country. Other countries might have vicious customs that discourage seeking annulment. In such cases, people might feel trapped into doing things that the Church teaches is wrong. As I pointed out above, this does not change the fact that what they do is wrong. But it might (and might ≠ must) mean that some (and some ≠ all) cases involve reduced culpability. If we do not know these things, we run into the danger of thinking the entire world is like the US, and that his actions are nothing more than laxity. But this is false.

Blind Guides who do not know that they do not know.

4. The root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition. Incomplete, because it does not take sufficiently into account the living character of Tradition, which, as the Second Vatican Council clearly taught, "comes from the apostles and progresses in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on. This comes about in various ways. It comes through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts. It comes from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience. And it comes from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth".(5)

 

But especially contradictory is a notion of Tradition which opposes the universal Magisterium of the Church possessed by the Bishop of Rome and the Body of Bishops. It is impossible to remain faithful to the Tradition while breaking the ecclesial bond with him to whom, in the person of the Apostle Peter, Christ himself entrusted the ministry of unity in his Church.(6)

 

 John Paul II, Ecclesia Dei 

So far, I have talked about people who are unaware of differences, or what the Pope actually said, and simply assume conditions are the same everywhere in the Church. But there is another group of Catholics who are truly dangerous to souls. These are the Catholics who, out of ignorance, assume that differences between their own misunderstanding and what the Pope says to be “proof” that the Pope is in error. They stir up confusion, and then argue that the existence of that confusion is the fault of the Pope they attack. 

This group of Catholics seem intimidating because they pull quotes from obscure Church documents the average Catholic has never heard of. But they sound knowledgable, and the average Catholic, insecure in their own knowledge, thinks their inability to think of a response means it must be true. It is important to remember that their behavior is like the anti-Catholic who distorts a Catholic teaching, and then cites a Bible verse they claim “contradicts” it. But the issue is not the Bible verse, but whether they use it properly. Likewise, the anti-Francis Catholic who cites a quote from Church teaching and contrasts it with something the Pope says has always either misquoted or taken the quote out of context. Often they have never actually read these documents, though they may try to feign otherwise. They often get isolated quotes from websites that argue the Church today is in error. Once countered, they ignore that argument and move on to the next [∑] or ignore that refutation.

For example, when they cite St. Robert Bellarmine on a “heretic Pope,” they make it sound like this is an official Church document. It is not. It is one opinion he lists in a work defending the authority of the Pope (I discuss this HERE). They often misrepresent history of the Church, making it sound like we have had openly heretical Popes in the past, and Pope Francis is merely one more of them. But this too is false. We have three Popes who may have privately held error [£], but never taught it. Since Pope Francis is teaching, if he taught error, it would mean that what the Church believes about being protected from teaching error in faith and morals was false. And once we see that, we realize we can never know if the Church was not in error.

What the average Catholic needs to know about not knowing in this case is, the issue in question is not the Bible or Church documents. It is their interpretation of the documents that are being judged. The authority to interpret how the timeless truths of the Church are applied in each time period fall to the Pope and bishops in communion with him. One judges the dissenter’s claims by how they line up with what the Pope and bishops in communion with him say. When the Pope teaches, even when that teaching is not ex cathedra, it must be obeyed:

892 Divine assistance is also given to the successors of the apostles, teaching in communion with the successor of Peter, and, in a particular way, to the bishop of Rome, pastor of the whole Church, when, without arriving at an infallible definition and without pronouncing in a “definitive manner,” they propose in the exercise of the ordinary Magisterium a teaching that leads to better understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals. To this ordinary teaching the faithful “are to adhere to it with religious assent” which, though distinct from the assent of faith, is nonetheless an extension of it.

 

Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Ed. (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), 236.

So, even if you are an average Catholic who has not had the opportunity or time to study all the tomes the Church has produced, here is something important to know—you cannot have authentic Catholic faith in opposition to the Pope and bishops of this generation. Once you know that, you know that despite all the quotes they may produce, these dissenters have no authority to defy the Church today in the name of being faithful to what they think the Church meant in the past. 

Conclusion

To tie all this together, we need to avoid being like the politician who neither knew the truth nor knew he did not know it. We need to know our limitations and if we do not know something, we must recognize this lack and try to learn the truth. You wouldn’t trust a person who claimed to read a medical textbook and rejecting the findings of the AMA to do surgery on you. You shouldn’t trust a person who claimed to read Church documents and rejected the Pope and bishops guide you spiritually either.

We do have a Church, established by God. God promises to protect this Church. In this Church we have a guide to show us how to live. But the dissenter—whether he says the Church is too strict or too lax—is no guide. He is simply someone who does not know of his own ignorance. If you know you do not know, but know the dissenter does not know either and does not know they are ignorant, you are not as bad off as he is.

But knowing is better than not knowing. So it is always good for Catholics, regardless of their state in life and education, to learn more of their faith—always with the Church, and never apart from it.

_______________________

[†] Briefly explained: Just because a person doesn’t know of a reason disproving their position, it doesn’t prove there isn’t one.

[§] What critics forget is the possibility of a diocese investigating and finding zero cases that meet the Pope’s criteria. That’s why I, unlike some Catholics, don’t see Archbishop Chaput’s statement that he’s not changing diocesan policies to be a rejection of the Pope. If a diocese already does these things the Pope calls for, there’s no need to change.

[∞] Intrinsic evil, full knowledge, deliberate consent

[¶] Normally only the bishop, and those priests he permits, can absolve in this case.

[∑] My favorite “war story” of this type was the anti-Francis Catholic who cited one of the sessions of the Council of Trent to try claiming that after Vatican II, the Church was in error. Unfortunately for him, I had read the sessions of Trent (it’s amazing how much of a Catholic library one can acquire electronically) and cited another portion of that same session that contradicted his interpretation. His response was he didn’t have time to “reread” that document. But if he had read it at all, it was quite clear.

[£] Liberius, Honorius I, John XXII. Of these: Liberius’ error is widely debated; Honorius I probably held error but never said anything public; John XXII offered an opinion on a subject not yet defined—and was only defined by his successor.

The Church and the Self-Centered Catholic

Introduction

The Church, over the past two thousand years and including today, has continued her mission of being faithful to Our Lord’s teaching. She evangelizes and she fulfills the commands of love and justice. She cares about the spiritual and physical needs of the people. Sadly, we have some in the faith who assume that if the Church does not explicitly focus on what they care about, or if they focus on what these people don’t care about, then the Church is accused of not being faithful. Depending on the slant of the critic, the same Church is accused of ignoring past teaching and of ignoring Our Lord’s commands to love.

But when we look at the complaints, they have something in common, no matter how vast the ideological divide. That commonality is believing the Church has failed if she does not act as I see best. This is a problem because it makes the individual preference take precedence over the discernment of the magisterium. The decisions of the magisterium on how to apply the teachings of Our Lord as handed on to the Apostles are reduced into an opinion—no more valuable than anybody else’s and often less valuable.

Confusing Preference With Truth

The problem is, we’re tempted to think that we have got things right. If others disagree, it means they are wrong. If problems don’t seem to subside, it means the Church “doesn’t care” or even “supports error.” Such views overlook the possibility of our own error, the possibility of more options than we have considered, or the possibility of people rejecting the Church teaching. In other words, if we think the problems in the Church are because the Church does not handle things as we see best, then we are self-centered Catholics. 

To head off objections, I want to make clear that I am not saying we should be passive when some Catholics support something morally wrong. As Catholic Christians, we have the right to expect our clergy, religious, and laity to provide the true faith and not their self-imposed opinions (cf. Canon 213). The problem is, self-deception is easy. We can trick ourselves into labeling the warnings of conscience rising from Church teaching as “political” or “heretical.” 

Too often we assume God, previous successors to the Apostles, the saints, etc., think like we do. What we want becomes DEUS VULT! What we don’t like is obviously “error.” But is that the case? If we don’t like Church teaching on contraception, on divorce/remarriage; if we don’t like the Church changing discipline on the Form of the Mass or how to interact with other religions, we accuse the Church of betraying Christ or betraying the past teachings of the Church, depending on what proof-texting we can use to justify ourselves. 

Do We Center Our Preferences on Ignorance about our Ignorance?

Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is,—for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him. (Apologia 21)

 

Plato, The Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett, Third Edition, vol. 2 (New York; London: Oxford University Press, 1892), 113–114.

What’s not asked is, Do I properly understand what the Church teaches and accepts as legitimate obedience to those teachings? If we think we know what the Church teaches and think we understand the person we think at odds with the Church, but we actually are mistaken about one or both, we may be condemning what the Church accepts or supporting that which is incompatible with Church teaching—all the while thinking we are doing right.

On one side, I see Catholics dissenting from Pope Francis on the basis of what they think he supports and what they think Church teaching allows. The problem is, a review of their attacks show they neither understand what he actually said, nor understand the Church teaching he references. Many assume his teachings on social justice reflect a “leftist” anti-capitalist political view. I think these critics have never read Pope Pius XI, or St. John Paul II when they wrote on moral obligations in economics. Many assume his position on divorced/remarried Catholics shows moral laxity, ignoring the reality of intrinsic evil. These critics seem to show no recognition about the question of individual culpability. They seem to be unaware that the Pope asks bishops and confessors to investigate the conditions of individual Catholics, not look for loopholes. They seem to confuse discipline, which can be changed, with doctrine, which cannot.

On the other side, I see some Catholics who are proud of their defense of Pope Francis but behaved just as badly towards his predecessors as current dissenters behave towards Pope Francis. They sought to contrast a loving Jesus against a bureaucratic, heartless Church. They showed no understanding on why the Church said something could not be changed. They viewed the male priesthood and the condemnation of abortion and contraception as proof of “patriarchy.” They assumed that any attempt to determine what barred people from the Eucharist as “being obsessed with rules.” 

In both groups, the assumption was that the Church went wrong when she taught differently than the critics wanted—usually when her teaching showed them as being in the wrong. Both groups assume God doesn’t care about what they don’t care about. Yet both groups are willing to point fingers at each other where the other group goes wrong. This finger pointing shows that they are aware that the Church teaches, and that they appeal to it when it suits them. But with this awareness, it shows one has no excuse if we only apply Church teachings to others and never bother to ask if we fail in our own behavior.

Conclusion

I think the temptation to self-centeredness leads us to judge others rather than go through the trouble to investigate ourselves. We think that God cares more about the sins of those we disagree with than ours. We forget that the deadliest sin for each one of us is the one that sends us to hell, not the one we’re not tempted by. So if we can’t be bothered to look at our own sins and repent of them, we might be horrified at the Last Judgment, if Our Lord says to us,‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’ (Matthew 7:23.) St. Paul warned us, Therefore, whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall. (1 Corinthians 10:12).

If we’re so self centered that we think that all flaws are with the “other side,” and that even the magisterium of the Church can be on the “other side” if her stance is against us, we are likely to find, at the Last Judgment, that we were on the wrong side all along.

On the Outside Looking In: Thoughts on Misinterpretation

Introduction

I was reading a book on how Westerners misinterpret the Bible. It made the point that we have cultural blinders which lead us to give meaning to things that were never originally intended. Ironically, the book gave an unintended example of this when talking about the Protestant Reformation trying to recover the original meaning of words:

Viewed from one perspective, the Protestant Reformation began as an effort to correct a mistaken assumption about equivalency in language. Over time, the Roman Catholic church had developed a doctrine of confession that included works of penance, such as reciting a certain number of prayers (think “Hail Marys” or “Our Fathers”) and, most disturbing, the purchase of indulgences to assure forgiveness of sins. By the late Middle Ages, church leaders insisted this system is what Jesus had in mind when he called sinners to repent—that do penance was equivalent to (meant the same thing as) repent. 

 

E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 76.

The book went on to argue that this was not what early Christianity meant by repenting. The problem is, this is also not what Catholicism means by repenting. The section started with an error and wrote on what Martin Luther was “saving” people from. Except he didn’t.  The authors wrote about how Catholics in the Middle Ages confused the concept of penance with the Greek word for repenting. Except we didn’t. They wrote about how we created this in medieval times. Except we haven’t. The Orthodox churches also have the concept of the sacrament of penance, and some of them have been separated from us since the 5th century

The problem with the authors is they assumed that the distorted vision of Catholicism they received was true, and created a view of Catholicism which had nothing to do with us. They had cultural blinders that caused them to misread us. Catholics have never believed in indulgences being sold, let alone for the forgiveness of sins! When it comes to the Latin word Paenitentia, the meaning is: regret (for act); change of mind/attitude; repentance/contrition (William Whitaker, Dictionary of Latin Forms). Properly going through the sacrament of confession requires us to regret our actions, change our attitude, and intend to do right in the future. In other words, the same meaning as the Greek metanoia. There was no error of understanding on the part of Catholics. There was an error of understanding on the part of those on the outside looking in because they assumed they knew without investigating whether it was true.

I bring this up not to ridicule these Protestant authors, but to illustrate a point: We too can go wrong if we either assume others think like us, and focus on what we think it means, and we can go wrong if we get so distracted by the differences that we miss the point behind those differences.

Missing the Meaning

The further we are removed from the original meaning, the more likely we are to diverge from what was meant. These can be linguistic, cultural, historical, or many others. Once we include history, we add the difference of time to the difference of language and culture. What people experienced in AD 17, 517, 1017, 1517 and 2017 are widely different. Laws, government, customs and the like would change over time even in one region. Once we go to a different region in a different time where they used a different language, and there are many ways we can go wrong if we forget these differences exist. 

For example, when an English speaking critic reads a transcript of Pope Francis today, there is a difference of language requiring a translator and there is a difference of culture between a member of the clergy who lived in Latin America and a lay blogger living in the United States. If the critic does not take these differences into account, the odds are good that the critic will get things wrong. For example, when the Pope spoke of a large number of marriages possibly being invalid, and of some couples living together being closer to the true meaning of marriage than some married couples, people went berserk. They assumed he was talking about 21st century American marriages and justifying cohabitation. He was not. He was talking about vicious customs in South America where people sometimes face insurmountable difficulties getting married while others treat the sacrament of matrimony as merely part of the celebration.

In other words, people assumed his words against vicious customs which they never witnessed were about marriage in the United States—which has its own set of problems. They forgot about these differences and thought that what he said must be directed at them. They missed the meaning because they were blind to differences facing Catholics in different parts of the world.

We can learn, despite these differences. But we need to learn the intended meaning, and not assume the people of different times, cultures, and languages think like 21st century Americans. Otherwise we risk attacking the Church because we think the Church is “attacking” moral values when she is in fact responding to cultural problems. For example, the radical feminist who sees “patriarchy” everywhere or the radical traditionalist who sees “modernism” everywhere because they assume that their interpretations are the norm, refusing to consider the possibility of their own error.

Missing the Point

On the other hand, we can go wrong by being distracted by differences of cultures. Sometimes these differences involve the existence of things we today know are morally wrong. We’re offended by the fact that a saint from another century speaks about them as if they were normal, and miss the point he was trying to make. 

For example, in reading some of St. John Chrysostom’s homilies, I’ve come across the reference, in one of his homilies, to the slave market. At this time, the Roman Empire was about a thousand years old and had slaves for the entire time. This can be quite jarring. Because of our experience with the ugliness of  slavery, segregation, and racism in the United States, we are rightly appalled at the evils. So, the fact that a Saint talks about slavery in a matter of fact manner can be shocking. But if we stop at the differences, without understanding them, we miss some real insights.

St. John Chrystostom makes reference to Our Lord being a noble at a slave market asking us (the slave) if we will choose to serve Him. In the 21st century, our egalitarian views balk at this image of Our Lord buying slaves. But in doing so, we risk missing the point that would have been clear to 4th century Greeks. St. John Chrysostom was invoking an image the people of Constantinople could understand with the differences of social rank

That Our Lord, in the role of the noble, offers to purchase (redeem) us from the slave market of sin and asks if we are willing to serve Him showed a difference between God and man that our egalitarian views might misunderstand. Recognizing an image of Jesus as a Noble Lord, us as the lowly slave, and the purchase price being His own blood, we can see an image showing how great God’s love for us is when He is so far above us and is willing to pay so great a price for us if only we will serve Him—a choice that is not forced on us.

If we stopped at the level of being offended with the existence and mention of slavery, we’d entirely miss the point of the homily on what Jesus has done for us in relation to what He asks of us.

Yes, sometimes saints in one era say things in a way that seem cringeworthy or excessively harsh in our time. That doesn’t mean the saint was in error or promoting evil. We have to understand the context and meaning if we are to profit from it, rather than be members of the Church of Perpetual Indignation. Otherwise, we risk accusing the Church (falsely) of supporting evils she does not.

Conclusion

The point of both examples is this: If we stop at what we think is meant and don’t actually investigate what the person we were offended with actually intended, then we do wrong. We judge rashly. We accuse them of supporting things they do not. Whether it is accusing the Pope of contradicting Church teaching or accusing a reformation era saint of holding to a heresy, the fault of rash judgment is with us if we do not investigate what the person we think offensive actually means. If we’re scandalized by a Bible verse, a Church teaching, a saint, or a pope, we need to recognize that the Church was not cruising on autopilot, rubber-stamping error when she confirmed the canon, made a teaching or named a saint. 

If we feel like something the Church has affirmed is error, that’s a warning sign that we need to reassess our own interpretation and see what we missed when viewed in context.

Prudential Judgment? Misunderstanding? Partisanship? Willful Rejection? A Reflection

²⁰ You sit and speak against your brother, 

slandering your mother’s son. 

²¹ When you do these things should I be silent? 

Do you think that I am like you? 

I accuse you, I lay out the matter before your eyes. (Psalm 50:20–21).

Four Forms of Disagreement

When people disagree on Facebook or other social media, they seem to do so in one of four ways: 

1. Prudential Judgment recognizes that two Catholics, who both strive follow Catholic teaching, might reach different conclusions on how to best carry out that teaching while living in the world. Provided that neither of these Catholics are seeking to evade Church teaching to justify what they want to do anyway, we have no right accusing one of error. There are different ways of engaging the world, including political approaches, after all. 
2. A person can be mistaken but in good faith about what Church teaching involves. Such people need to be corrected of course, but they need to be corrected gently (Proverbs 15:1). People recognize when they are being treated unjustly, and resent it. In resenting it, they might turn away from the truth, thinking our bad behavior is a sign of our being in the wrong. That would be false, but many in the world do reason this way. 
3. There is also the attitude of partisanship, where we treat a disagreement with our political views as if we were rejecting Church teaching on a subject. Under this attitude, a person who votes for X, or disagrees with voting for Y, is considered to be openly rejecting the Catholic faith. But in reality, this person is simply disagreeing with our political views, but not the Church teaching, and we are in the wrong for judging them. 
4. Finally, we have a case a person rejects the Church teaching in favor of a political teaching, saying if the Church disagrees with them the Church is wrong. In this case, the person is doing wrong, for whatever reason. The Church does have the authority to speak out on matters of faith and morals, and this includes when a nation or a political movement goes wrong. For a person to reject Church teaching as “intruding into politics” would be to give to Caesar what is God’s (cf. Matthew 22:21). 

Or, in short, we can describe these situations as: Neither is wrong, the other is wrong but in good faith, we are wrong, our opponent is wrong.

Discerning Between These Forms to do the Right Thing

Unfortunately, combox warriors have a bad habit of assuming the first three things are actually the fourth. Disagreement must be rejection of Church teaching, because we can’t possibly be wrong. The problem is, this is the kind of judgment our Lord condemned in Matthew 7:1. We’re assuming that any disagreement with how we see the world is rejecting truth itself, and assuming that rejection is done willfully. But in only one of these four cases is this true. That means in three of these cases, we are judging rashly, and committing calumny if we accuse them.

To avoid these sins, we have an obligation to discern what they intend to say, and what the Church herself teaches on the subject. Discernment, in this case, does not mean our personal reading of these things, and judging others in light of our interpretation. It means we make sure we understand what troubles us, and make certain it ought to trouble us before taking action. Then we have to make certain our reaction is just and chartable. As St. Francis de Sales as says:

Although S. Paul calls the Galatians “foolish,” and withstood S. Peter “to the face,” is that any reason why we should sit in judgment on nations, censure and abuse our superiors? We are not so many S. Pauls! But bitter, sharp, hasty men not unfrequently give way to their own tempers and dislikes under the cloak of zeal, and are consumed of their own fire, falsely calling it from heaven. On one side an ambitious man would fain have us believe that he only seeks the mitre out of zeal for souls; on the other a harsh censor bids us accept his slanders and backbiting as the utterance of a zealous mind.

 

Francis de Sales, Of the Love of God, trans. H. L. Sidney Lear (London: Rivingtons, 1888), 351.

This is a reasonable warning. The fact that St. Paul could rebuke the Galatians or offer correction to St. Peter is not permission for us to behave rudely to those we think are doing wrong. More often than not there is a risk of responding in sinful anger, confusing it with virtue. So, we have three obligations:

1. To make sure we understand the person who offends us
2. To make sure we understand the teaching we think he/she goes against
3. To make sure any response we make is compatible with Our Lord’s commandments to show love and mercy

If we fail in any of these obligations, we behave unjustly, quite possibly causing harm. If we’re wrong about what a person holds, or wrong about what the Church holds, or wrong about confusing our ideology with the Catholic obligations, we condemn the other unjustly. If we are right, but react without love or mercy, we have done wrong, and quite possibly driven a person away from accepting grace.

Conclusion

As always, it is not my intent to point fingers at any individual, nor to insinuate their guilt. Rather I hope to point out a dangerous attitude showing up in disputes between Catholics on how we should behave. Yes, we need to correct the sinner. But it seems that lately we are assuming guilt, rather than asking whether our assumptions are correct. Even when we are correct, there is a growing habit to behave in a vicious way. We need to stop falsely judging those who have not done wrong, and when we correct those who do wrong, we must correct in charity. Otherwise, people might be driven away from the Catholic faith because of our own behavior, not that of the person we disagree with.

Blind Guides

²⁴ Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel! ²⁵ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. ²⁶ Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean. (Matthew 23:24–26)

Introduction

How many Catholics on Social Media
Come Across Today, Sadly… 

There are very vocal groups of Catholics out there who are fighting tooth and nail about the belief that their preferences are the only true view, and pretending they are the defenders of religion. These groups have a hatred for whoever disagrees with them on the grounds they knowingly support the evils this faction oppose. While the political platforms they support are different, their tactics are the same. When the party they oppose is in power, they condemn what they do loudly. When their own party is in power, they ignore it when that party does wrong. Of course, these groups will point out the hypocrisy of the other faction, but ignore it when it found on their own side. They are acting against our Catholic faith, but both assume only the other group is.

These groups are adept at citing Scripture and Church documents to play “gotcha” with their foes—You claim to be Catholic, but you’re ignoring X! The problem is, nobody seems to pay too close attention to the full teaching. They downplay the Church teachings they value less, while angrily demanding everyone value the Church teachings they hold important. What they forget is they’re all important—the deadliest sin is the one that sends you personally to hell. If we forget that, and spend all our times looking at the evils of others, we’re acting like Pharisees—and that’s not a title that only applies to one faction.

These factions don’t have clean hands. When Obama was president, his Catholic supporters downplayed the Church teaching on abortion and sexual morality. Now that Trump is in power, his Catholic supporters downplayed the Church teaching on social justice. These factions bash the bishops as political when they speak out on the issues that their factions are wrong on, while using them as a symbol of purity when they speak out on what they already believe.

One Big Error Paired with Many Ideologies

The problem is thinking of this as a clash between two factions. Any faction can be a part of this. It’s based on the assumption that whoever disagrees with me must support the opposition. Thus whoever speaks against a political evil stands accused of all the evils the other side supports. Whoever questions whether an accusation is just is accused of defending the crime. Logically this is the either-or fallacy and it ignores the possibility of there being a third choice or a rejection of both positions. 

The clash between two positions can only be valid if there are only two positions, and everybody takes one of these two sides. But if there are more than two sides, then a person can say, “I think you’re both wrong.” It would be wrong to accuse this person of standing for evil or ignoring other issues simply because they disagree. Yes, some  take a partisan view about their faith, but not everyone. So when we see someone accusing another of being a “anti-abortion but not pro-life,” or a “Hillary supporter” because the target disagrees with their conclusions, this is a sign of someone blinded by their ideology.

Avoiding the Error

What we need to remember is this: We need to accurately learn what a person holds, and critique that. We can’t assume that because a person disagrees with us, that he endorses the opposite view. The critic may simply think we have gone wrong in our argument. In that case, we need to understand why this person rejects our reasoning. This is not an argument calling for relativism. Rather, it is the Church, led by the Pope and bishops, who interpret how to apply Church teaching in each generation, and they are the measure of orthodoxy. We trust God protects them from teaching error in binding matter (which can be a case of guiding the shepherd not to teach at all). 

So if a person deliberately rejects or misrepresents Church teaching, this must be opposed. But we also have to consider the possibility of others faithfully following Church teaching, but preferring a different way of doing so, or even of being sincerely in error. It would be monstrously unjust to accuse them of being false Catholics willfully defending evil.

Conclusion

If we would avoid being blind guides leading others into a ditch (Matthew 15:14), we have to consider whether we have misunderstood those we disagree with, or even our own faith. St. Paul once believed he was doing good in persecuting Christians, because he thought he was opposing a blasphemous heresy. He learned he was wrong about how God viewed Christians, hating what God Himself willed.

Yes, there are Catholics out there who support evil positions, and think the bishops are “political” when they speak against these evils. Yes, they need to be corrected, but corrected with charity so as to return them to the sheepfold. Even if we’re defending the right view, if we drive people away from considering the right way to live, what have we gained? And if we’re defending a position contrary to God’s will, while believing we are faithful, we do great harm.

So we need to be certain we properly understand what the Church teaches, we need to be certain we properly understand what our opponents are saying, and we need to respond in charity. If we fail on one or more of these, we run the risk of being blind guides leading people astray into thinking our personal preferences are truth and driving them into error.

A Little Knowledge Is Dangerous: Catholic Combox Warriors Revisited

But especially contradictory is a notion of Tradition which opposes the universal Magisterium of the Church possessed by the Bishop of Rome and the Body of Bishops. It is impossible to remain faithful to the Tradition while breaking the ecclesial bond with him to whom, in the person of the Apostle Peter, Christ himself entrusted the ministry of unity in his Church.

 

John Paul II, Ecclesia Dei, #4

Introduction

Encountering some anti-Francis combox warriors, one of them alleged that: "Even if the Pope claims to speak ex cathedra, but what he said was not in line with the authentic Magisterium, they we cannot follow his teaching, as it would be outside the Church. In which case, it would not be ex cathedra.” When I saw that, I was left kind of stunned at the ignorance. When the Pope speaks ex cathedra, that’s a guarantee that he is not teaching error at all! But this person (and others commenting on the post in question) have reached a state where they would rather deny the authority of the Church than consider the possibility of being rebels against the Church they profess to believe in.

This isn’t a problem linked to one faction (and, to be fair, it doesn’t involve all Catholics in a faction). I’ve seen modernist/liberal Catholics try to argue that the Catholic teaching goes against Our Lord’s teaching on love and mercy. I’ve seen traditionalist/conservative Catholics argue that a Pope (from St. John XXIII to the present) goes against previous teaching. In both cases, the Catholic in question argues that the Church is in error and will remain in error until she becomes what the combox warrior thinks it should be.

The problem is, whether the critic is citing the words of Our Lord or a teaching of the Church, the quote is usually ripped out of context. It’s obvious that the person has not considered the rest of what the text says or what else has been said. For example, yes, Our Lord did speak on love and mercy—but also about hell and the need to follow Him and His Church to avoid it. Yes, in some centuries, Popes emphasized certain aspects of the Church teaching against attacks from that direction, but that emphasis was not a denial of the other aspects. 

An Example Where Catholics Go Wrong

Let’s take the Papal Bull Unam Sanctam. I have seen Catholics cite the line[†], “Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff” to deny that non-Catholics can be saved and to insist that every Pope from St. John XXIII forward who speaks about the salvation of those outside of the Church are heretics. What they overlook is the fact that Pope Boniface VIII was dealing with the Caesaropapism of the French king, Philip the Fair, who refused obedience to the Pope and insisted that the clergy owed him obedience over obedience to the Pope.

Yes, it is true there is no Salvation outside of the Church as St. Cyprian of Carthage put it. But what this means is whoever is saved is saved by Christ and His Church, not through Buddha or some other figure, nor from some other religion. But it does not mean that only Catholics will be saved (that’s the heresy of Feeneyism, condemned at the direction of Pope Pius XII). In fact, Even before the First Vatican Council, Pope Pius IX spoke on the possibility of those outside the Church being saved. In Singulari Quidem #7, he said, “Outside of the Church, nobody can hope for life or salvation unless he is excused through ignorance beyond his control.”

Vatican II reaffirmed the necessity of those who know of the necessity of the Church to enter and remain within it: “Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved” (Lumen Gentium #14). The Church recognizes (Lumen Gentium #16) that those who never received knowledge of Christ might be saved when they seek to do right, but…

[O]ften men, deceived by the Evil One, have become vain in their reasonings and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature rather than the Creator. Or some there are who, living and dying in this world without God, are exposed to final despair. Wherefore to promote the glory of God and procure the salvation of all of these, and mindful of the command of the Lord, “Preach the Gospel to every creature”, the Church fosters the missions with care and attention.

In other words, we don’t despair of people who die who are ignorant of Christ and His Church through no fault of their own, but to save them from falling into evil ways or despair, we have to reach out to them. What many people think is indifferentism, is actually a discussion of what is and is not humanly possible in carrying out Our Lord’s work.

A Little Knowledge is Dangerous

This is just one example I’ve encountered over the years. People pull one quote off of a site which portrays it as contradicting a later statement (which actually clarify what the earlier statement means) and go on their merry way wrongly believing the Church today is in error and trying to persuade others of this misinformation. The problem is, there’s no real effort made to understand what the Church has taught and how she has deepened her teaching. Likewise, when they encounter something that doesn’t square up with how they interpret these out of context quotes, they assume the other must be in error, not themselves.

The problem is, this is vincible or culpable ignorance, not the invincible ignorance a person who has never accurately encountered the teaching of the Church might possess. As Catholics belong to the Church established by Christ, shepherded by the successors of the Apostles, we don’t have an excuse when we reject that authority. Yes, individual bishops can reject the authority of the Church and promote error (as the early centuries of Church history show), but the safe path has always been with those shepherds who follow the Bishop of Rome. Whenever a Pope has believed an error, it was always a private error and never a binding teaching. 

And that’s why a little knowledge is dangerous. People ignorant of the history of Popes Liberius, Vigilius, and Honorius I cite them as “proof” that a Pope can be a heretic and “teach error,” even though they never taught error and historians are divided over whether they ever held it. Such people wrongly believe John XXII “taught” heresy on the beatific vision, even though he did not teach (he did mention it in two homilies), and the issue was not defined until his successor, Benedict XII decided to settle the issue.

Unfortunately, some Catholics choose to undermine the teaching of the Church by embracing arguments that attack the authority Our Lord gave the Church. That’s dangerous because when one has a difficulty, we have an obligation to investigate it, and not let it fester into a doubt. That doesn’t mean that Catholics must abandon their families, live as monks and study obscure documents. God understands our limitations in our vocational obligations or ability to study and doesn’t expect us to do the impossible. But He does expect us to put faith in Him and the Church He established, offering obedience (Matthew 18:17, Luke 10:16, John 14:15) when the shepherds teach in communion with the successor of Peter. When we find a difficulty, we ought to seek an answer while trusting in God to protect His Church.

Conclusion

The teaching of the Church is vast. For example, I read theology for pleasure as well as for study, and even I discover new things every day on how the teaching can be applied. There are many in the Church wiser and more knowledgable than me and they too discover new things every day. None of these discoveries have ever shown the magisterium of the Church going from “X is a sin” to “X is permissible.” That might surprise the person who has wrongly believed that Pope Francis “contradicts Church teaching.” But this false belief comes from being ignorant of what the present Pope really said, being ignorant of what his predecessors really said, or (often) both.

What we need to remember is God has been protecting His Church. He has protected us from wicked Popes changing teaching to justify their behavior. He has protected the Church from Popes making a teaching out of erroneous materials, even when not teaching ex cathedra[§]. This protection did not end in 1958 (when St. John XXIII became Pope), 1962 (when Vatican II began), 1965 (when it ended), or 2013 (when Pope Francis was elected). If there was ever a time when this protection was withdrawn, Our Lord’s promises in Matthew 16:18 and Matthew 28:20 would be false (a blasphemous charge) and we could never know when the Church was teaching wrongly. Those who hate the Church have argued for centuries that they are right and the Church has fallen into error. If Vatican II could teach error, why not Trent? If Blessed Paul VI could teach error in promulgating the Missal of 1970, why not St. Pius V in promulgating the Missal of 1570?

We must stop assuming the fault is with the Church when the magisterium teaches differently than we think the Church should teach. We need to ask whether our limited knowledge is the cause of this error, and seek to learn from sources which remain faithful to the Church today, and not those sources adversarial to her. Otherwise we risk the ruin of souls through our vincible ignorance.

 

_______________________

[†] Ironically, critics of the Pope seem to have forgotten the quote since Pope Francis became Pope. Their quote-mining would indict them for refusing to follow what they demanded before.

[§] For example, when Blessed Paul VI called a commission to study whether the Pill was contraception or not [Because it didn’t work like barrier methods, the question was whether it was legitimate like medicine], nobody knew that the Pill had an abortifacient effect. If the Ordinary Magisterium (which some Catholics wrongly believe can be error-prone) had ruled it was not contraceptive, we could have wound up with the Church approving an abortifacient while condemning abortion

I'm With Him Because I Believe He Faithfully Serves God

As the pontificate of Pope Francis goes on, opposition to him solidifies. Certain groups within the Church accept as proven the claim that the Holy Father is either ignorant of theology or heretical, even though these charges depend solely on how these groups interpret his words and the teachings of the Church. Now, it’s not for me to judge the intention or the state of the souls of those people who oppose him, but I do believe that at a minimum their opposition is a case of begging the question and reflects a misunderstanding of what the Pope taught in relation to what the Church has taught prior to Pope Francis.

To state it bluntly, I believe those who think the Pope is trying to “change” Church teaching on moral issues have grossly missed the point of what he said and taught. He is not looking for ways to turn “X is a sin” into “X is not a sin.” He is looking to remove obstacles that keep people from reconciling with God and His Church. Some of those obstacles involve sinners being intimidated and discouraged in getting to the confessional. Other obstacles involve others assuming that a sinner must be shunned and kept away from the Church until they become as holy as we are.

The latter is a real problem. When the Pope reaches out to the divorced and remarried, people assume that bringing them back to the Church must mean the Sacraments, even though the Pope has rejected that view. During his February 18, 2016 Press conference, the Pope said:

 Integrating in the Church doesn’t mean receiving communion. I know married Catholics in a second union who go to church, who go to church once or twice a year and say I want communion, as if joining in Communion were an award. It’s a work towards integration, all doors are open, but we cannot say, ‘from here on they can have communion.’ This would be an injury also to marriage, to the couple, because it wouldn’t allow them to proceed on this path of integration. And those two were happy. They used a very beautiful expression: we don’t receive Eucharistic communion, but we receive communion when we visit hospitals and in this and this and this. Their integration is that.

In other words, the Pope wants to integrate all Catholics back to the life of the Church and right relationship with God. Obviously people who are determined to sin and refuse to repent are not integrated into the Church, and cannot hope to be saved. If the Pope wanted to treat such people as if they did no wrong, that would indeed be troubling. But that is not what he refers to. Back when he was head of the archdiocese of Buenos Aries, he said:

Nevertheless, today Catholic Doctrine reminds its divorced members who have remarried that they are not excommunicated— even though they live in a situation on the margin of what indissolubility of marriage and the sacrament of marriage require of them— and they are asked to integrate into the parish life.

Bergoglio, Jorge Mario; Skorka, Abraham (2013-04-19). On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family, and the Church in the Twenty-First Century (p. 110). The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Notice the theme here. Integrating into the parish in order to encourage them to seek repentance. He opposes things that hinder this repentance. He has made this clear:

Let us always remember that God rejoices more when one sinner returns to the fold than when ninety-nine righteous people have no need of repentance. When a person begins to recognize the sickness in their soul, when the Holy Spirit— the Grace of God— acts within them and moves their heart toward an initial recognition of their own sins, he needs to find an open door, not a closed one. He needs to find acceptance, not judgment, prejudice, or condemnation. He needs to be helped, not pushed away or cast out. Sometimes, when Christians think like scholars of the law, their hearts extinguish that which the Holy Spirit lights up in the heart of a sinner when he stands at the threshold, when he starts to feel nostalgia for God.

I would like to mention another conduct typical of the scholars of the law, and I will say that there is often a kind of hypocrisy in them, a formal adherence to the law that hides very deep wounds. Jesus uses tough words; he defines them as “whited sepulchers” who appear devout from the outside, but inside, on the inside… hypocrites. These are men who live attached to the letter of the law but who neglect love; men who only know how to close doors and draw boundaries. Chapter 23 of the Gospel of Matthew is very clear on this; we need to return there to understand what the Church is and what it should never be. He describes the attitudes of those who tie up heavy burdens and lay them on other men’s shoulders, but who are unwilling to move so much as a finger; they are those who love the place of honor and want to be called master. This conduct comes when a person loses the sense of awe for salvation that has been granted to him.

Pope Francis (2016-01-12). The Name of God Is Mercy (Kindle Locations 605-617). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

In other words, Catholics who think of their role as keeping sinners out of the Church in the name of purity have missed the point. We’re not supposed to think of 1 lost sheep out of 100 as “acceptable losses.” We’re supposed to save that last sheep. We were saved by God’s grace, and we should desire others be given that same grace. Such a person may refuse God’s grace and that is beyond our control. But we can’t stop trying to bring them Christ, and we can’t stop praying for them.

This is what the Pope wants us to do. He wants us to find the lost sheep and work on bringing them back to the full life of the Church. To assume that he wants to throw the consistent teaching of the Church out of the window is a rash judgment and a reading into his words something he never intended. It’s only when one approaches his words with the assumption he must reject Church teaching that one can make the accusation of error.

Perhaps it is time for his critics to ask themselves, “What if I misunderstood the Holy Father and the mission of the Church? What if he’s really telling us not to drive people away from seeking salvation?” I believe that if we ponder those questions, we’ll find these are his motives, not error or moral laxity.

Quick Quips: "Parvus error in initio magnus erit in fine" Edition

Introduction

It seems like it is once again time for Catholics and other detractors of the Pope to bear witness through example to the old Latin saying:  Parvus error in initio magnus erit in fine (Small error in beginning, large error in the end). When people begin with a faulty assumption, and use that faulty assumption as the basis of their entire argument, you wind up with an unsupported claim. That’s just logic here. If the premises are false or the structure of the argument is unsound, then the conclusion cannot be proven. If it’s true, it’s true solely by coincidence, not reasoning.

And We Should Accept Your View Because…?

With every press conference we have, we can be sure that a subset of the Catholic laity will stretch the meaning of the word “faithful” beyond recognition by condemning the Pope. Certain individuals and groups have taken it upon themselves to go over the words of the Pope, comparing their interpretation of his words with their interpretations of what the Church said in the past and making a conclusion that the Pope is a heretic. Of course the ones who are judging him are also the ones making the accusation. What’s left unasked by these people is this: Why should we accept their assessment of the Pope or prior Church teaching as correct?

Are they experts in theology? Experts in the relevant languages? Have they read the full documents which they set contra the Pope? Or are they people relying on the mainstream media coverage of what the Pope said and on blogs and publications hostile to the Pope to interpret him and the rest of Church documents? There can be a lot of nuance in Catholic teaching, and most people trying to interpret the Church teaching for themselves don’t recognize that nuance—hell, they don’t normally even read the actual documents for themselves.

That much is apparent when you see how they use the term heresy as an epithet, giving one the impression that they don’t seem to understand what the Church means by the word.

Heresy is defined in the Code of Canon Law as:

can. 751† Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.

 

 Code of Canon Law: New English Translation (Washington, DC: Canon Law Society of America, 1998), 247.

Since heresy is the obstinate denial/doubt of the truth as believed by the “divine and Catholic faith,” we need to ask first [†] whether the Pope has denied or doubted a Catholic teaching in the first place, and only then, if the answer is yes, can we move on to whether it is obstinate denial or doubt. The problem is, all the evidence cited is a begging the question fallacy. The examples are only proof if the assumption of heresy is true—but that’s what has to be proven! 

That’s the ultimate problem. The people who dislike the Pope give his words and writings a negative interpretation which they assume to be heretical. But it is the accusers who have to demonstrate that their interpretation is the interpretation the Church holds to and that they have not misinterpreted a nuanced phrase, whether by the Pope or by one of his predecessors

Numbers Racket

I saw a Catholic blog try to make an argument that Pope Francis was a bad Pope because, even if he didn't try to change Church teaching, there were multiple millions of Google results for Pope Francis and Contraception (he claimed 4 million hits, I found 2 million) and the damage was done (it is argued) on account of what he said.

Of course, if you do a Google search for "Are Catholics Christian," you get 25 million hits despite the fact that The Church has been teaching Christ since she was established by Christ. You'll also find a lot of hits for "is the Catholic Church antichrist," "Catholics worship Mary," or "Catholics worship statues." Basically any anti-Catholic statement will bring hits in the 5 digits or more.

Another problem, is the total number of hits does not assess what percentage of them are promoting an error and what percentage are refuting them.In other words, the number of hits on a claim on the Catholic Church ≠ the truth of the claim. This is basically an appeal to numbers fallacy. If 99% of the population believe something that is false, that does not change the falsity of the belief. If 1% believe something that is true, that small % does not make it false.

So Why Give Credence to Something You Don’t Ordinarily Trust Anyway?

Of course these two points lead us to another question. Why exactly we see people who recognize that the media is biased in their reporting on politics [*], refuse to consider the possibility that it is biased in reporting on religion? If the media can misrepresent the political concerns of the Right to Life and the proper understanding of marriage, they can certainly misrepresent a Pope when it suits them.

Yet, we see that the people who wouldn’t trust the media to accurately report on the political position of a presidential candidate without an agenda have no problem whatsoever accepting the media reports on the Pope. So why is that?

Personally, I think it is a case of people disliking the media when it says something they disagree with. So, I suspect that the person who believes that the Pope is a bad person agrees with the media in these reports because it confirms what they already want to believe, just as the person who wants to believe the Church can change her teachings agrees with the media portrayal because they want it to be true.

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Notes

[†] Actually, the first point is realizing that Canon Law says: "CAN. 1404 The First See is judged by no one” and these “judges” haven’t any authority to behave as they do. If they have concerns, per Canon 212, they need to make them known “with reverence toward their pastors.” Something entirely lacking.

[*] Both the person who believes that only Fox is biased and the person who believes that only Fox is not biased are greatly misled. All news organizations have a bias. It’s just easier to be blind to a bias you agree with.