Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Saturday, May 9, 2020
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Taking Back the Church: It’s NOT What Some Think It Is
Tuesday, December 26, 2017
You Are The Man! (2 Samuel 12:7)
Tuesday, December 5, 2017
Change, Perception, and Dissent
Saturday, April 29, 2017
Friday, February 24, 2017
Saturday, December 17, 2016
Thoughts on Authority and Disobedience
The Church has rules. That’s not open for debate. Some of these rules come from doctrine: God has taught us, and we cannot disobey these rules without disobeying Him. Others come from the Church applying her beliefs to face situations that arise in a given time, We cannot disobey these rules (Luke 10:16), but the Church can decide to change them when conditions change. Dangers arise when people confuse these things. If one assumes that Our Lord’s teaching is a “man made rule,” or that a discipline is Our Lord’s teaching, they wind up rebelling against Our Lord and the Church He established.
There’s more to it than that, however. Some confuse their assumptions about Scripture or about Church teaching are the teaching of Our Lord or His Church, when they actually apply restrictions or laxity which are not present. As Catholics, we’re blessed to have a Magisterium which has the right and responsibility to determine how these teachings are to be understood and applied in each age. They have the authority to decide when a change of discipline is needed and how Our Lord’s teachings, as passed on to us by the Apostles, faces the new challenges from the world.
Our Lord gave the Church the authority to bind and loose in His name, and this authority did not end with the death of the Apostles, but continues on with their successors until the end of the world. There will occasionally be Judases among them, but we believe the Lord will keep His promises and protect the Church from teaching error. These promises are important. If we did not know who was protected from teaching error, we could never know who we could trust to properly bind and loose. If the Bishop of Rome could sometimes truth and sometimes err—as happened with the patriarchates of ancient Christendom—how could we know who to turn to?
The history of the ancient Church tells us of sincere men who believed that the words of Scripture taught something contrary to the Church. These men persuaded emperors and patriarchs to embrace errors about the faith. It was only the Bishop of Rome that consistently resisted these errors. Sometimes that was tenuous—that a Pope might only be silent instead of teaching error—but the evidence shows that Popes did not teach error when using their authority to teach [†]. If a Pope were to teach that it was permissible to do evil, this would be a matter of the Church binding error, permitting a Catholic to do something which endangered their souls. The next Pope to do this would be the first.
Understanding this, we can see how reckless it is to accuse the Pope of teaching error, against the true faith of the Church. Such an accusation goes far beyond the accusation of the man holding the office. It must assert that God does not protect His Church and we must decide for ourselves when the Church teaches rightly or wrongly. That’s a recipe for spiritual anarchy, and contrary to what the Church teaches about herself.
Accordingly, some who disagree with the direction a Pope takes try to downplay the authority of a teaching. Since the Church teaches that the faithful must obey her teachings, some try to claim that a teaching is not binding unless it is infallible. Others try to draw a dividing line over what level of Papal document is binding [*] and claim that an unpopular document is neither binding nor protected from error. That is to legalistically split hairs. Even before Vatican II, the Church had a clear idea as to when the Pope was not protected from error:
The Pope is therefore not infallible when he gives a decision as man, bishop, scholar, preacher, or confessor, nor when he expresses an opinion on questions of art, politics, or secular science. Infallibility is quite distinct from personal impeccability.
F. J. Koch, A Manual of Apologetics, ed. Charles Bruehl, trans. A. M. Buchanan (New York: Joseph F. Wagner, 1915), 177–178.
One can exclude a press conference, an interview, decisions governing the diocese of Rome, writing a book [§], giving a homily and the like. But when the Pope, or those authorized by him, gives instruction, we are obliged to obey:
can. 754† All the Christian faithful are obliged to observe the constitutions and decrees which the legitimate authority of the Church issues in order to propose doctrine and to proscribe erroneous opinions, particularly those which the Roman Pontiff or the college of bishops puts forth.
Code of Canon Law: New English Translation (Washington, DC: Canon Law Society of America, 1998), 248.
Yes, we can have (charitable) differences of opinion on how to best carry out these decrees, but we can’t refuse obedience in the name of appealing to an earlier teaching of the Church or by trying to contrast the Bible with the Church. Unfortunately, people do make these appeals. Critics of St. John Paul II appealed to the Bible with selective quotes on love and mercy. Critics of Pope Francis try to argue that he contradicts his predecessors.
The problem is, if we accept their claims, we’re back to the problem of never being able to know when the magisterium taught truly and when they did not. Some liberal Catholics reject Popes they dislike. Some conservative Catholics do the same. Without a final authority, who can determine who is right? We’d be reduced to making the appeal the Mormons make about the Book of Mormon: Feeling a “burning of the breast.” But heretics feel just as strongly about their errors as orthodox Catholics feel about the truth. So we can’t rely on what feels right, or how we interpret Scripture or Church teaching. We must use the magisterium as the guide. If we proclaim that we can’t trust the authority of the Church today, then we have no guide at all. We merely have a Church with a billion Popes.
We can trust God to protect the Pope from teaching error as Pope. That can either be through extraordinary tools, like ex cathedra teachings, or it can be from preventing a morally bad Pope from teaching, or somewhere in between. But we can’t declare a teaching we dislike as somehow being an exception to our obligation to obey the Pope when he teaches. We can’t invent excuses not to obey. So, having faith in God to protect His Church, we should pray for the Pope and bishops to be effective teachers.
_________________________
[†] Pope John XXII held a private opinion on the Beatific Vision which his successor later defined to the contrary. But at the time, it was not defined, and he did not teach as Pope on the subject. Pope Honorius may or may not have personally believed in Monothelitism (Scholars are divided). However, he did not formally teach it as Pope. The documents under contention were private letters.
[*] Ironically, some of these critics will simultaneously say that a Papal statement is not binding but somehow prove the Pope is “teaching error.” If it is a teaching, it is binding (See Code of Canon Law, #751-754). If it is not teaching, the Pope is not “teaching” error.
[§] For example, Benedict XVI’s Jesus of Nazareth trilogy was very insightful, but not protected under infallibility.
Saturday, December 10, 2016
False Interpretations and Unspoken Assumptions
There’s no doubt that there is infighting in the Church. Without getting into who is right and who is wrong, Catholics are pitted against each other. This time, it is not just orthodox vs. heterodox. Added to that conflict is a civil war between Catholics professing to be faithful to the Church—indeed Catholics who strove to defend the Church during earlier pontificates—on whether one needs to oppose the current shepherds or whether that is wrong. One of the areas of contention is over the claim that we never had this level of confusion in the Church before (a claim I disagree with).
I have a few theories. One of them involves the growth of Social Media plus smart phones allowing us to be instantly misinformed about what is going on with the Church. One who wants to undermine the Church can now reach a global audience as opposed to xeroxed pamphlets shoved under people’s windshield wipers. But that’s only one part of the problem. It doesn’t explain how some stalwart defenders of previous Popes can now turn on the current one. To some critics of the current Pope, they don’t see how one can support him without rejecting his predecessors. Since they know his predecessors taught truly, they believe they have to oppose the Pope today.
Yes, St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI did explain boundaries of intrinsic evil. Nobody denies that. But what we forget is they also stressed reconciling the sinners to God, not expelling them from the Church, except for grave issues in hopes that would bring them back to their senses. Like it or not, they did have teachings against unrestrained capitalism and destruction of the environment (in earlier documents, they called it “ecology”). Like it or not, there were bishops who did regrettable things during their pontificates but remained in their positions. There were pro-abortion Catholics who were never excommunicated back then too. We tend to forget these things and that some Catholics bitterly condemned them.
It seems to me that Pope Francis takes his predecessors’ teaching on intrinsic evil as a given and has devoted his teaching to emphasize what we overlooked (but was always present) in his predecessors’ teachings—how to reach out to those Catholics estranged from the Church in the hopes of bringing them back. This is why I think some have missed the point of previous papal teaching: We were so concerned with blocking those people actively trying to corrupt Church teaching (and they existed), that we assumed all people who wound up afoul of Church teaching were part of this group. We didn’t consider that some of them might have been badly educated on what the Church taught and why, and might be brought back if we reached out to them. We assumed they made an irrevocable decision and any attempt to reach out to them meant compromising on truth.
Yes, some of the issues are muddled because some people do want to undermine Church teaching, whether knowingly or through being mistaken. But when one starts wth the assumption that the Pope’s position is the teaching of the Church (the quote ignored in favor of “Who am I to judge?”), we will see his teachings on mercy and forgiveness presuppose the works of his predecessors. It’s only if we assume he intends error to begin with that we’ll see error in his words. This is why Benedict XVI could talk of Pope Francis in an interview this way:
[Q] Some commentators have interpreted this exhortation as a break, particularly because of its call for the decentralization of the Church. Do you detect a break from your Papacy in this programmatic text?
[A] No. I, too, always wanted the local churches to be active in and of themselves, and not so dependent on extra help from Rome. So the strengthening of the local church is something very important. Although it is also always important that we all remain open to one another and to the Petrine Ministry – otherwise the Church becomes politicized, nationalized, culturally constricted. The exchange between the local and global church is extremely important. And I must say that, unfortunately, those very bishops who oppose decentralization are those who have been lacking in the kind of initiatives one might have expected of them. So we had to help them along again and again. Because the more fully and actively a local church itself truly lives from the centre of faith, the more it contributes to the larger whole.
It is not as though the whole Church were simply dictating to the local churches: what goes on in the local churches is decisive to the whole. When one member is diseased, says St Paul, all are. When, for example, Europe becomes poor in faith, then that is an illness for the others as well – and vice versa. If superstition or other things that should not occur there were to fall in upon another church, or even faithlessness, that would react upon the whole, inevitably. So an interplay is very important. We need the Petrine Ministry and the service of unity, and we need the responsibility of local churches.
[Q] So you do not see any kind of break with your pontificate?
[A] No. I mean, one can of course misinterpret in places, with the intention of saying that everything has been turned on its head now. If one isolates things, takes them out of context, one can construct opposites, but not if one looks at the whole. There may be a different emphasis, of course, but no opposition.
[Q] Now, after the present time in office of Pope Francis – are you content?
[A] Yes. There is a new freshness in the Church, a new joyfulness, a new charisma which speaks to people, and that is certainly something beautiful.
Benedict XVI, Pope (2016-11-14). Last Testament: In His Own Words (Kindle Locations 769-787). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
This is the testimony of a Pope emeritus who believes the current Pope to be orthodox and consistent with his predecessors. But many Catholics who praise Benedict XVI seem like they would disagree with his assessment.
This is why I have misgivings about the things four cardinals, a group of philosophers, and a mob of Social media critics say—in various levels of politeness—the Pope should answer the dubia. Whether they intend it or not, what some of them really mean is, Answer it so we can see if you are orthodox or heterodox. When one looks at it this way, there is no confusion when the Pope and his supporters say things are already clear. He does intend them to be understood in the light of Church teaching.
I believe the way out of the confusion some complain about is not in the Pope speaking differently. Confusion ends when we start assuming the Pope is orthodox and we interpret what he says from that perspective. No Pope will look orthodox if people assume he is heretical. Remember, sede vacantists and the SSPX interpreted St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI as teaching error when these Popes went against their views.
The confusion is not about what Pope Francis said or did. The confusion is about individual Catholics on the internet being mistrustful of the Pope. They have interpreted Church teaching in a certain way and anything that does not match that interpretation must be in error. What they don’t ask is whether they misinterpreted the Pope or prior Church teaching. If a critic misinterprets one of these (they often misinterpret both), they will reach a false conclusion.
We should start questioning our own interpretations. If interpretations do not correspond to what a teaching is, they are false interpretations. We should look at our own assumptions. If they are wrong, we will be misled. The hard part is, self-deception is easy. Nobody likes realizing they’re wrong and we have ways of shifting the blame to excuse ourselves. But when this interferes with our obligation to seek out and follow truth, that can have dangerous consequences.
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Catholic Tribalism at its Worst
Over this weekend, a couple of famous Catholic bloggers lost their jobs with a prominent Catholic newspaper. But this article is not going to be about them. I only mention it because the aftermath does involve what I want to talk about—the partisan behavior of American Catholics who judge by what they prefer and not by what is true. In such behavior, we see Catholics split into two basic camps:
- The faction of “I support X”
- The faction of “I oppose X”
This is the wrong way to approach this. As Catholics, our task is to be faithful to Our Lord and the teachings of His Church—under the leadership of His vicar here on Earth—the Pope, carrying them out to the best of our abilities. Sometimes there can be different ways to be faithful to Church teaching on a subject, and sometimes the faithful can disagree on the best way to carry out Church teaching. So long as a side does not try to evade Church teaching but follows the Church sincerely, these differences can exist without sin. In such cases, it is unjust to accuse others with a different idea on how to be faithful of being faithless.
At other times, sometimes individual Catholics or groups do go wrong. Either they knowingly choose something the Church teaches as wrong, or they don’t understand the Church teaching. They think the shepherds of the Church must be wrong because the bishops don’t see it their way. In that case people are choosing wrong, though I leave it to God to judge the culpability, and do not pretend to know their intentions. In that case, we must oppose people in error, though we must oppose them in charity, not with insults and wild claims.
And in both cases, Tribal Catholics get it wrong. In the first case, they take offense when someone says, “I do not think your plan is the best way to handle this.” Because they equate their position with all that is decent, whoever disagrees must not care about Church teaching, the poor, the unborn, etc. In the second case, a faction who supports something against Church teaching (for whatever motive) assumes that the Church intends harm to whoever is at odds with the teaching. In such a view, support for the Church can only be partisan or dogmatic rigidity. So they attack the Church on one side for not caring about women because she opposes abortion and contraception. On the other side, they accuse the Church of supporting illegal immigration because the bishops object to an inhumane policy on immigration.
So long as a Catholic clings to a tribe mentality, they're closed to considering anything that suggests their positions or heroes are wrong. Criticism is, ironically, considered partisan when it targets these things. What's vital to remember is both sides in a tribal war are guilty. When we put our tribal idols first, we're blind to considering whether we’ve gone wrong. It's only when we recognize our own sinfulness and turn to God, seeking His grace, that we can learn to do good. As St John Chrysostom said in a homily:
A first path of repentance is the condemnation of your own sins: Be the first to admit your sins and you will be justified. For this reason, too, the prophet wrote: I said: I will accuse myself of my sins to the Lord, and you forgave the wickedness of my heart. Therefore, you too should condemn your own sins; that will be enough reason for the Lord to forgive you, for a man who condemns his own sins is slower to commit them again. Rouse your conscience to accuse you within your own house, lest it become your accuser before the judgment seat of the Lord.
Catholic tribes can't do this because they think their sins are little compared to the "other side.” That’s what’s dangerous. Being a Christian means a constant turning towards God and away from the sins we were blind to. If we would escape the tribe (and we must strive to do so, praying for God’s grace to succeed), we must be open to considering whether we've fallen into error through ignorance, habit, or pride. We need to consider whether our heroes have gone wrong in comparison to what the Christian life demands.
First, that means we have to make sure we know both all the facts and what the Church teaches. If we don’t do that, we risk falling into error, wrongly tolerating error, or wrongly accusing someone of error. If the Church allows leeway, we don’t condemn a person for taking it. if the Church forbids something, we don’t make excuses for going against it, claiming it is closer to the Catholic position in spirit. We look to the magisterium to guide us, and we seek to understand. We don’t make ourselves a judge of the “plain sense” when the Pope and bishops make this decision on how to apply the timeless teachings in a certain time.
Second, even when someone errs (for whatever reason or motive), that is not a signal that all moral obligations of justice and charity get tossed out the window. We need to speak truthfully and accurately. For example, being in error is not the same thing as being a heretic. The heretic knows and obstinately refuses to accept Church teaching. The person in error may sincerely think they are being faithful to Church teaching. If we respond in harshness, we may drive a person into the error we want to pull him out of.
Escaping Catholic tribalism means recognizing we can be wrong, and that we must look to the Church for guidance, and respond to others with love and mercy. Sometimes our ideals are false idols. Sometimes our heroes can go wrong. In these cases we must choose: Do we sacrifice mercy and justice to our tribal feuds? Or do we sacrifice our tribal feuds to mercy and justice as God commands? We should consider that carefully the next time a fellow Catholic behaves badly or the next time someone opposes our heroes. We should consider carefully whether our tribal loyalties put us at odds with Our Lord and His Church.
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Sunday, March 13, 2016
Catholics and the Ideology Trap
It's no secret that factions try to hijack Church teaching to either try to give their political platform credibility (if they are similar) or to discredit the Church (if they are opposed). For example, the Church teaching on caring for the poor is hijacked into either equating this teaching as a mandate to vote for a party platform or to indicate that the Church is being biased and therefore should not be heeded.
In America, both parties use both tactics, and some members of the faithful who want to promote a politcal cause will misquote Church teaching a way that makes it appear as if the Church is changing...either to praise the party or discredit the Church by accusing them of "becoming political."
For people who get caught in it, this is nearly an airtight trap. It leads one to either think that fidelity to one political faction is fidelity to the Church, or to claim that they are being faithful to Our Lord or the earlier Church over the Church today.
This happens in two different ways. In one case, we have obvious schizophrenia where the US bishops are simultaneously called left-wing and right-wing by foes of different positions. But a new tactic is emerging, One where both factions react to accounts from the secular (and religiously illiterate) media and ignores what they ignore. As a result, people are ignorant of the fact that Pope Francis is just as firm in defending Catholic moral teaching as his predecessors, and his predecessors were just as firm as Pope Francis on social justice.
For example, I recall a debate on Facebook with a woman who angrily wanted to know why Pope Francis never mentioned the plight of Christians in the Middle East when he spoke about injustice. She was shocked when I produced an address by the Pope pleading for the world to help these Christians and retracted her objection. She literally didn't know the Pope had spoken about this.
People forget that ALL news media is partisan. It's easy to deride "Faux News" or MSNBC, but the entire media is biased. If a person is unaware of this, they will not realize that a distortion IS a distortion.
The remedy for partisanship is to recognize that a political position must be judged by the Church, NOT the other way around. We must remember that deploring abortion is not "right wing" and deploring the treatment of migrants (legal or not) is not "left wing."
I believe that we must change our method of thinking. We must stop assuming that secular reports about Church teaching are accurate. We must first seek to understand what the Church intends to teach. We must reject an arrogant overconfidence in our ability to interpret what we think is the "plain sense" of a document (if I had a dollar for every time someone with a wrong interpretation appealed to the "plain sense" of the document, my student loans would have been paid off years ago). We must realize that our perspective as 21st century Americans (or Europeans etc.) may lead us to interpret words in ways that the Church NEVER intended.
In such a case, the Church is not at fault for "speaking unclearly" (a common charge). Rather WE are at fault for assuming that the Pope is thinking like a 21st century American. It's pretty arrogant to assume our cultural experience is normal.
I believe that, for us Catholics, we must step back from our dualistic political views where Left and Right become Right and Wrong. We must start thinking of the Church as Mother and Teacher again and apply her teachings to the issues of the World. That means rejecting the tendency to view Church teaching as a political platform and accepting the view that all politics need to be re-formed (and thus reformed) by Christian belief that doing good in relation to God, neighbors and self is to be sought and evil rejected. When it comes to the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, we need to stop thinking like the Pharisee.
It means we must stop thinking of politicians as evil incarnate when they have the "wrong" letter (D or R) after their name and stop making excuses if they have the "right" one. Regardless of your opinions on Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, we have to think of them as fellow sinners who God wishes to save as much as He wants to save us.
That means when the Pope shows compassion to a person on the "wrong side" of the political divide, we don't assume he is blessing the party platform of our opponents. It also means we don't assume he gives carte blanche endorsement to our political platform when he says something our party agrees with.
What it boils down to is that the Christian must constantly assess themselves, turning away from evil and back to God. It means we must pray that our hidden faults are revealed to us and for the grace to change our ways.
This, I believe, is the remedy to the trap of ideology.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
With Great Concern: Thoughts on the Anti-Bishop Mentality among Some of the Faithful
Introduction
The recent civil war on the internet which has erupted among Catholics brings to my attention that it is actually a symptom of a deeper problem, and that is the growing issue of division among some Catholics seeking to be faithful to the Church.
12 I mean that each of you is saying, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Kephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”
13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Corinthians 1:12-13)
One mindset seems to believe there is widespread corruption among the hierarchy of the Church, and very few can be trusted to do the right thing. This isn’t merely an attitude of arrogance – the “do what I think is right or you’re a modernist heretic” mindset. There are also those individuals who do look at the remaining dissention within the Church, who rightly recognizes that it is a bad thing, and think it must have a cause among those who lead the Church. They then think that if the bishops were doing their jobs rightly, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with.
What disturbs me most about this mindset is that it seems to be a spirit of dissention which confuses the lawful authority of the office of the bishop with the individual who holds it. If the individual falls into sin, makes a bad choice or even makes a different choice from the one we would personally like, it seems that there are some who would dare to say we can ignore their authority as a bishop.
A Personal Experience
I recall encountering this mindset for the first time in the lead up to the 1996 elections when Pat Robertson was going about with his Christian Coalition and trying to form a group for Catholics (I think it was called Catholic Alliance). One bishop, citing canon law, made a statement reminding the faithful that no group could call itself Catholic without the approval of the Church, and this group had not even sought approval from the Church.
I recall bringing this up at the campus (I was doing my Masters degree at this time) group Human Life Concerns where certain members were trying to encourage all of us to join Catholic Alliance. In response, one of the members made a dismissive response saying the bishop in question was “totally liberal” and we didn’t have to listen to him.
I was deeply troubled by this because it was a bishop who was exercising his office to clarify what the Church position was (not his own opinion) on this subject and he was treated dismissively because this individual had a low opinion of this bishop and “the bishops” in general.
A Fallacy of Bifurcation
An underlying problem with the mindset is the dividing the issue into two areas – but the two areas are not mutually exclusive. This is the mindset of either [A] or [B]. Either we can side with the person in defiance of the bishop, or we can side with “corruption within the Church.” The reason this is a false argument is that it is possible that one can say neither [A] nor [B]. I can for example deplore the dissent among certain priests, religious and laity and also reject the claim that we can disobey a bishop and still be faithful Catholics.
The Bishops are Successors to the Apostles
The problem I have with the antipathy towards the bishops by those who claim that they are faithful to the Church is that it ignores a rather crucial part of the Church teaching, and that is the bishops are not employees of the Church but are successors to the Apostles. Vatican II points out:
27. Bishops, as vicars and ambassadors of Christ, govern the particular churches entrusted to them (58*) by their counsel, exhortations, example, and even by their authority and sacred power, which indeed they use only for the edification of their flock in truth and holiness, remembering that he who is greater should become as the lesser and he who is the chief become as the servant.(169) This power, which they personally exercise in Christ's name, is proper, ordinary and immediate, although its exercise is ultimately regulated by the supreme authority of the Church, and can be circumscribed by certain limits, for the advantage of the Church or of the faithful. In virtue of this power, bishops have the sacred right and the duty before the Lord to make laws for their subjects, to pass judgment on them and to moderate everything pertaining to the ordering of worship and the apostolate. (Lumen Gentium)
So, when the bishop acts as the head of his flock, he is to be heeded by those under his care. That is inescapable. Refusal to obey the rightful authority of a bishop means one is dissenting against what they dislike. St. Ignatius of Antioch, in his letter to the Smyrnaeans, writes:
Chapter VIII.—Let Nothing Be Done Without the Bishop.
See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid.
Chapter IX.—Honour the Bishop.
Moreover, it is in accordance with reason that we should return to soberness [of conduct], and, while yet we have opportunity, exercise repentance towards God. It is well to reverence both God and the bishop. He who honours the bishop has been honoured by God; he who does anything without the knowledge of the bishop, does [in reality] serve the devil. Let all things, then, abound to you through grace, for ye are worthy. Ye have refreshed me in all things, and Jesus Christ [shall refresh] you. Ye have loved me when absent as well as when present. May God recompense you, for whose sake, while ye endure all things, ye shall attain unto Him.
—St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans
From the earliest days of the Church, the importance of the Bishop was recognized. Acting in harmony with the bishop is seen as good. Acting against the bishop or without him is deemed wrong. This is something to keep in mind. Do we carry on the practice of faithful Catholics when we reject the authority of bishops we dislike or disagree with?
Rights and Duties of the Faithful
At this point some may accuse me of saying that all the faithful should shut up and mindlessly obey the Church. I would in fact reject this accusation. The Church does indeed speak on what we are to do in terms of dealing with difficult situations.
Canon Law brings out that we the faithful of the Church have rights and duties in terms of our relation to the Church. We are to obey the lawful authority of the Church, but have the right and at times the obligation to make known our needs to those entrusted with our spiritual health.
Can. 212 §1. Conscious of their own responsibility, the Christian faithful are bound to follow with Christian obedience those things which the sacred pastors, inasmuch as they represent Christ, declare as teachers of the faith or establish as rulers of the Church.
§2. The Christian faithful are free to make known to the pastors of the Church their needs, especially spiritual ones, and their desires.
§3. According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons. (Code of Canon Law)
So the Church does not say “Shut up and take it,” in response to problems within the Church. However, we are to obey the pastors who act in the role of ruling the Church, and when we must make known our needs and concerns we must do so in a manner which is reverent and dignified.
Thoughts on Galatians Chapter 2
Members of the SSPX I have encountered love to cite Galatians 2: 11-15 to justify their disobedience to the Pope. They claim they are like St. Paul withstanding St. Peter to his face on an issue where they claim the Pope is wrong. Others use this to justify opposing their bishop, claiming they are following the example of St. Paul. There is a problem with this however.
Let’s look at the passage from Galatians 2:
11 And when Kephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he clearly was wrong.
12 For, until some people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to draw back and separated himself, because he was afraid of the circumcised.
13 And the rest of the Jews (also) acted hypocritically along with him, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy.
14 But when I saw that they were not on the right road in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Kephas in front of all, “If you, though a Jew, are living like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
St. Paul is calling to mind a flaw in St. Peter’s behavior, not his teaching. His personal actions warrant a rebuke. St. Paul is not disobeying St. Peter because this is not an issue of obedience. So it cannot be used to argue that we can defy the bishop when he acts as head of his diocese.
St. Thomas Aquinas and Correcting a Superior
St. Thomas Aquinas brings forth an excellent exposition of what the correction of a superior entails:
I answer that, A subject is not competent to administer to his prelate the correction which is an act of justice through the coercive nature of punishment: but the fraternal correction which is an act of charity is within the competency of everyone in respect of any person towards whom he is bound by charity, provided there be something in that person which requires correction.
Now an act which proceeds from a habit or power extends to whatever is contained under the object of that power or habit: thus vision extends to all things comprised in the object of sight. Since, however, a virtuous act needs to be moderated by due circumstances, it follows that when a subject corrects his prelate, he ought to do so in a becoming manner, not with impudence and harshness, but with gentleness and respect. Hence the Apostle says (1 Tim. 5:1): "An ancient man rebuke not, but entreat him as a father." Wherefore Dionysius finds fault with the monk Demophilus (Ep. viii), for rebuking a priest with insolence, by striking and turning him out of the church. (Summa Theologica II-IIa Question 33: Article 4)
The act of correcting a superior requires charity, gentleness and respect. Angry, rude and disrespectful accusations are not a part of such a charitable correction. St. Paul demonstrates the attitude which St. Thomas Aquinas discusses. He is not rude and abusive. He brings the facts of where Peter goes wrong in his personal behavior, but does so respectfully.
Recognizing that Our Way is not the Only Way
Another problem to be aware of is that just because we have a preferred solution to a problem does not mean only our situation is right. I may personally prefer that our bishops punt the dissenters out so hard that they bounce on landing. However I need to recognize that, because the Church acts with the mentality of saving those who are in dissent from her, the Bishop may have a valid reason for undertaking a different action than we do.
The Need to Recognize the Possibility of Personal Error and Partisanship
We must also recognize that before judging a bishop we must be certain we have all the relative facts. If our understanding is flawed, our conclusion will be flawed as well. It probably reflects our original sin, that it is easier for us to think someone else errs than that we err.
Likewise we need to recognize that a similarity between a Catholic position and a political party plank does not mean that the bishops are “liberal” or “conservative.” We need to realize the one who is partisan may be us.
If we do not realize this, we run the risk of dogmatizing our personal beliefs and mistaking them for the beliefs of the Church.
You Cannot Draw a Universal Conclusion from a Limited Sample
Another problem is the tendency to argue from the bad decisions of certain bishops that the whole is corrupt. Now there are bishops who do wrong and do disagree with the teaching of the Church. However, it does not follow that all bishops are bad because of this.
To have a valid argument which makes a universal conclusion, one needs a universal premise (All [A] is [B]). If you don’t have this Universal premise, you cannot draw a universal conclusion. To make an argument about the whole, you have two options.
You can either say:
- All [A] is [B]
- All [B] is [C]
- Therefore All [A] is [C]
Or you can say:
- All [A] is [B]
- No [B] is [C]
- Therefore No [A] is [C]
Any other valid form of argument can only speak of “Some,” not the whole. Even that requires one universal statement (Either “All [A] is [B]” or “No [A] is [B]”) to go with the limited statement (“Some [B] is [C]” or “Some [B] is not [C]”) to make a valid conclusion (Therefore some [A] is [C] or Therefore some [A] is NOT [C]).
Otherwise, the argument cannot be said prove its point.
So to apply this to the case of the Church, if one wants to say that ALL Bishops are bad, or to say NO bishops are good, that person has to establish universal premises and show that the premises are true
Begging the Question
This brings us to our next error to consider. This is the failure to establish that a claim is true, but merely assume to be proven what needs proof:
- The Church is falling into error by doing [X].
- If the Church wasn’t in error, she wouldn’t do [X]
We call this Begging the Question because we can ask, “On what basis do you say [X] is wrong?” Or “On what basis do you say the Church is doing [X]?” If [X] isn’t wrong or if the Church isn’t doing [X], then the argument doesn’t work.
If someone tells me “All Bishops are corrupt,” I have a right to ask that be proven. I don’t have to take your word for it. We can look at the Church teaching on [A] and see if it is being violated by the bishop (as opposed to being handled differently than we would like).
I suspect this is why so many “appeals to Rome” against some Bishop fail. The allegation is made, the Church looks at it and recognizes that the accuser does not realize their allegation does not establish real wrongdoing.
Confusing Partisanship with Doctrine
We also need to be aware that just because a bishop formulates a response for his diocese which seems to come close to a political plank for one of our parties does not mean the bishop is acting out of sympathies for one party or another. The Catholic Church opposes abortion. Not because the Catholic Church is “right wing” but because the Catholic Church believes that the unborn children are human beings. The Catholic Church does not oppose the anti-immigrant laws in America because they favor the Democratic Party, but because they believe these actions go against the obligation to treat each person as a child of God.
We have to judge the political parties by Church teaching, not Church teachings by political ideology. We also have to recognize that the rejection of one extreme does not mean the acceptance of the other extreme. For example, the rejection of pure socialism is not an endorsement of laissez faire capitalism, and the rejection of laissez faire capitalism is not an endorsement of socialism.
Overlooking our own lack of knowledge and potential to err
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that there are many who assume the Church teaches a thing when she does not, or does not realize that their own views are far stricter (or far more lenient) than the Church teaching.
I’ve personally experienced people hear me say [A], then reason “If [A] then [X]. If [X] then [C]. Therefore he supports [C].” I then get accused of holding [C] when I actually reject [C]. The false accusation is based on the assumption that premise [X] follows from holding [A] without checking to see if I actually agree that [X] follows from [A].
This also happens in the Church. For example some argue:
- If a bad priest appears to unchecked in a diocese, it means the bishop is doing nothing.
- If the bishop is doing nothing, it means he sympathizes with the bad priest.
- Therefore the bishop is corrupt/heretical etc.
The problem is, just because we don’t see a response does not mean an absence of response. If we do not know how the proper procedure, if we are focused on punishment while the bishop is focused on redemption, then it is possible that we can judge a bishop out of ignorance.
So the question is first, do we know all the facts of the case? If we do not, educating ourselves is necessary.
Conclusion
The anti-magisterial attitude among certain Catholics is a danger which needs to be recognized. Yes some bishops do wrong and need to be corrected. However, others do not do wrong but are accused of being wrong because the individual thinks a case should be handled differently. Also the whole is often judged on the failings of a few.
I don’t feel we need to justify a bishop who does wrong through choice or through a mistaken judgment. However, we do need to realize that it is entirely unjust to judge the whole on the basis of what we think is correct, without verifying that our knowledge is correct.
Nobody wants to admit their knowledge is lacking on a topic important to them. For those who seek to be faithful Catholics, having to admit not knowing is difficult — it’s as if we feel we are admitting we are less faithful than we thought. But that simply isn’t true.
Once we realize we don’t know a thing, we can begin to learn. However, so long as we stubbornly cling to thinking we know all there is to know about a situation, the result is clinging to error. It is dangerous for a person to assume he is not blind and therefore is allowed to judge.
40 Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not also blind, are we?”
41 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)