Showing posts with label Church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Church. Show all posts
Monday, August 23, 2021
Thursday, November 26, 2020
Sunday, July 5, 2020
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
Saturday, May 11, 2019
Reactions From the Outside, Inside
In my daily theological studies (there’s not much to do in a hospital, so better to be productive than watching TV all day), I have the displeasure to be reading the work Reformation For Armchair Theologians. It’s a book written from a Protestant perspective and naturally gets a lot about the nature and beliefs of the Catholic Church wrong. I don’t think the author has any malicious intent. I think it’s because he writes from outside the Church, assuming the allegations leveled against her must be true, and that the reasons for the Reformation are true.
[EDIT: He has a Ph.D in Reformation history, so he has far fewer excuses for his errors than the average non-Catholic repeating what he was told, which was the focus of my point]
Of course it’s rash judgment and gossip to simply pass on the negative stories one has been told without verifying them. But one who is outside the Catholic Church [§] may be less culpable because many sincerely think they are repeating the “truth,” and it never occurred to them that they might be false (cf. Luke 12:47-48).
I mention this as a frame of reference for my main point: the fact that some Catholics emulate this outsider view, saying false things about the nature and beliefs of the Catholic Church in the present (usually negative) or past (usually positive). Their interpretation of Church history and the present events assume as true things that they have have to prove (begging the question fallacy). Such judgments can’t claim the reduced culpability that the non-Catholic might have because we profess to be in a Church established by Christ that teaches with His authority and has His protection from error. As Vatican II teaches (Lumen Gentium #14):
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.
If we profess to believe what the Church teaches about her own nature, we have no excuses if we try to interpret events in a way that denies that teaching. Yet many do exactly that. They assume that they have properly and (probably subconsciously) inerrantly understood the nature and teaching of the Church. If anyone—even the magisterium—should teach at odds with this assumption, then that person or magisterium is presumed to be in error. Thus we see all sorts of fabricated theology that tries to limit when the teaching of the magisterium must be obeyed. These fabrications are based on the times when real bishops historically fell into error (separated from communion with the Pope), trying to apply those consequences to the rare occasions a Pope (Honorius I, John XXII) made private statements of dubious orthodoxy.
The problem is, those were private statements with no teaching authority. In contrast, these teachings they deny are public acts when actually “a religious submission of the intellect and will must be given to a doctrine which the Supreme Pontiff or the college of bishops declares concerning faith or morals when they exercise the authentic magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim it by definitive act” (canon 752).
In other words, these critics are inside the Church [#], but giving an interpretation of the Church that one would associate with a non-Catholic view of one who doesn’t know what the Church really teaches. But, since we profess memberships in a Church that teaches that the Pope and bishops teach as the successors of Peter and the Apostles respectively, we do not have the ability to plead sincere ignorance. We know God protects His Church and we know that the Church teaches with binding authority. We know that to reject the Church is to reject Him (Luke 10:16). So, if we profess to be faithful members of this Church, we cannot justify our disobedience. Or, as Our Lord put it:
Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not also blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, ‘We see,’ so your sin remains. (John 9:40–41)
If we profess to be faithful Catholics, we are saying “we see.” So if we reject the Church, assuming error on the part of the magisterium, when we disagree, we are acting against what we have no excuses for not knowing, and our sin remains.
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[§] To avoid confusion, I am using the term “outside the Catholic Church” in the sense of “not formally being a member of the Catholic Church.” I am not using it in the sense of “not a Christian” or any other Feeneyite sense.
[#] Although some of them might be sede vacantists who claim we have no valid Pope in office.
Friday, May 3, 2019
Is the Road to Hell Paved With Bad Reasoning?
The Pope issued a statement today on the moral responsibility that capitalist systems must address. Predictably, defenders of capitalism and opponents of the Pope began pointing out the flaws of socialism, accusing him of championing it. This is bad reasoning. Speaking about the flaws of A does not mean a support of B (“either-or fallacy “). Pointing out the flaws of B does not debunk the arguments pointing out the flaws of A (“begging the question fallacy”). Reflecting on this, I was struck by the following: Is the road to hell paved with bad reasoning or the refusal to reason?
In saying this, I don’t mean invincible ignorance. Nor do I mean that one must be a logician to be saved. Rather, I mean there is a danger with seizing on whatever reasoning one can find to justify opposition to a disliked Church teaching without investigating the soundness of the argument. Since we have an obligation to form our conscience in line with the teaching of the Church, we cannot refuse to investigate whether we are in error. If we do, this is vincible ignorance, which is liable to judgment. As Gaudium et Spes taught (#16):
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.
If one grasps onto sophistry to justify dissent, that person cares less for truth than for supporting an ideology. And we, who profess to be Catholic, would be wise to remember Our Lord’s words on the higher standard we are held to:
That servant who knew his master’s will but did not make preparations nor act in accord with his will shall be beaten severely; and the servant who was ignorant of his master’s will but acted in a way deserving of a severe beating shall be beaten only lightly. Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more (Luke 12:47–48).
As Catholics, we are the ones entrusted with more. With a Church established by Christ Himself, we are the ones who know our Master’s will. As Lumen Gentium #14 says (citing Luke 12:48),
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.
We should keep this in mind always. All the advantages we receive through the Church comes with a corrresponding obligation. We have a Church that teaches with Christ’s authority. If we refuse to keep the obligation, of hearing the Church, and forming our conscience in line with the teaching of the Church, we will not be saved.
I believe part of this obligation is the obligation to ask whether our “justified” disobedience is really a refusal to ask if we are in error. One can mistakenly reason without guilt if it were impossible to know otherwise. But if we “reason” ourselves into dissent, we should be aware that we do not have the charism of infallibility. The Church does. So our “reasoned” opposition must be spurious if we think we must be right and the Church wrong.
Thursday, December 27, 2018
Saturday, November 24, 2018
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
Monday, September 3, 2018
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Institution? Family? Thoughts on the Church
Venerable Fulton J Sheen, in his Your Life is Worth Living series, once said:
What do you think of when you first hear the word Church, an institution, an organization, a kind of an administrative body? It is the way we have too often presented the Church.
It’s a good point. Many people view the Church as as a means of organizing the Christian religion. A person who sees the Church as a positive thing thinks the organization cannot be questioned. A person who sees the Church as a negative thing thinks of the organization as interfering between the relationship between God and the individual or as an arbitrary rule maker.
Those views are understandable if a person sees the Church as a thing, then they will see that thing in either a positive or negative way, and everything that thing produces in the same way. The problem is, the Church is not a thing but a relationship: between God and man; between fellow men in relationship with God. If the Church is a relationship, a family, then the people within it are not overlords and minions but are members of a family.
As the future Pope Benedict XVI wrote in 1960, each one of us has a relationship with God only if we are part of His community:
In fact this word [“Our”] does have great importance, for only one man has the right to say “my Father” to God, and that is Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son. All other men must say “our Father”, for the Father is God for us only so long as we are part of the community of his children. For “me” he becomes a Father only through my being in the “we” of his children. The Christian prayer to the Father “is not the call of a soul that knows nothing outside God and itself”, but is bound to the community of brothers. Together with these brothers we make up the one Christ, in whom and through whom alone we are able to say “Father”, because only through Christ and in Christ are we his “children”.(The Meaning of Christian Brotherhood, page 51)
When we grasp that truth, Our Lord’s admonition to love our brother takes on deeper meaning. If we hate our brother, we are not in communion with him, and therefore not in communion with God. But, if we continue to love our brothers, even if they do not love us, we remain in communion with God and each other.
The difference is like night and day. If we think of the Church as an institution, those who shepherd as rulers, and teachings as edicts, then it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking, “I will only listen if they act as I think good.” In those circumstances, we are deceived if we think we can serve God while rejecting an external institution. But if we see Church as a properly functioning family, then we can understand the authority of the Church like the authority of the family. Our parents do not cease to be our parents just because they make a decision we dislike. The parents can listen to our input, but the responsibility for seeking the good of the family and the final decision rests with them. So if we desire something harmful, the Church (acting in persona Christi) like the parents, must refuse. If we do not like our parents decision, that does not negate their authority. If we dislike a Church teaching, it does not negate Church authority.
Unfortunately, whenever the Church makes a decision we dislike, we immediately drop into “Church as institution” mode and seek an excuse that justifies disobedience. But when we remember Luke 10:16, rejecting the Church is rejecting Our Lord... it breaks the relationship with God and with a His community. So, though we may think we’re doing good in rebellion, we’re actually doing wrong.
Of course all analogies limp if taken too far. Yes, in literal families we have problems. Yes we can have dysfunctional families that cause harm. But we trust God that He will protect His family, the Church, from leading us astray. Yes, we will have heretics, incompetents, and predators that seek to misuse the Church for their own purposes. But we believe they will not prevail in leading the Church, under the visible headship of the Pope, astray.
This is why we must look at the Church as family and be concerned for our brethren in loving God. To look at it any other way damages the communion.
Saturday, July 28, 2018
Monday, February 20, 2017
Saturday, February 11, 2017
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