Reflecting on the Current Rebellion

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Do We Understand the Purpose of the Church?

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A Foolish Rebellion

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The Rebellion of False Prophets

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Ahab, Dissent, and the Art of Misrepresentation

When Catholics openly dissent from a teaching, but want to appear as if they’re really the faithful ones, they develop misrepresenting the Church into an art form. Doctrines are reduced to merely human teaching. The teachings of the ordinary magisterium are reduced to optional, often partisan, opinions. The dissenters effectively says, “yes the Church might say this, but they’re wrong and we’re justified in not obeying it.”

One of the most common tactics is to claim that the Church, or a member of the magisterium, is wrongly intruding into the concerns of the state or offering a political opinion. Such dissenters overlook seem to forget that totalitarian dictatorships made the same complaint about the Catholic Church. Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and many other regimes have bitterly complained when the Church condemned the evils of their regimes. It becomes especially bizarre when those who hold positions that the Church speaks out against are themselves Catholic. Those individuals come across like King Ahab speaking bitterly against the prophet Micaiah:

Jehoshaphat said, “Is there no other prophet of the Lord here we might consult?” The king of Israel answered, “There is one other man through whom we might consult the Lord; but I hate him because he prophesies not good but evil about me. He is Micaiah, son of Imlah.” (1 Kings 22:7–8)

Common sense says that, when one who speaks with God’s authority speaks against the position a person holds, the person who recognizes that authority in general is a fool if they reject it when directed at him or her. We might laugh at Ahab’s foolishness in refusing to listen, but if we start saying in response to a bishop acting in communion with the Pope, “the Church should be silent, and stick to what they know,” we’re behaving like Ahab did.

Another application of this misrepresentation is when Catholics draw a line in the sand where the Church stays on one side and the state stays on the other. The problem is, this line is arbitrary and does not resemble what the Church actually believes. The Church does in fact have something to say when the state behaves in an unjust way, persecuting those who do right and permitting evils. This is because the Church has a role in speaking out to ensure justice when those who govern violate what is right. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church points out:

1930 Respect for the human person entails respect for the rights that flow from his dignity as a creature. These rights are prior to society and must be recognized by it. They are the basis of the moral legitimacy of every authority: by flouting them, or refusing to recognize them in its positive legislation, a society undermines its own moral legitimacy. If it does not respect them, authority can rely only on force or violence to obtain obedience from its subjects. It is the Church’s role to remind men of good will of these rights and to distinguish them from unwarranted or false claims.

A state only has legitimacy if it acts in a way that is just. When the state acts unjustly, the Church must speak out to warn those who govern about the danger to their souls and to the legitimacy of the state, as well as to warn Catholics who live within not to be swept up into supporting the evil. So, when the dissenters side with the rule of government or ideology of a politician in opposition to the teaching of the Church, they are choosing to reject the Church. And, since Catholics should know that the Church teaches with God’s authority (Matthew 16:19, 18:18), then to reject the authority of the Church is to reject God (Luke 10:16).

To get around that, dissenters like to point to sin in the Church and try to claim that grevious evils by some means the guilt of the whole. And, if the whole is guilty (they argue), then the Church cannot teach with authority until those in authority eliminate those evils. Some go so far as to say that the existence of evil removes the authority to teach. It’s a sort of neo-Donatism that pops up in the Church from time to time. Those who promote it will point to evils that exist, and say that the Pope and bishops have lost their authority (something they assume but do not prove). From there (through a non sequitur) they argue that what they teach is right. When the Church rejects their erroneous views, they point to the evil and rejects the authority of the Church. (Martin Luther and John Calvin were especially notorious with this tactic).

The problem is, even though Scripture has a lot to say about what will happen to faithless shepherds, they don’t say that sinful behavior removes authority. Aaron created a golden calf. He did not lose his office for his sin. Peter denied Jesus three times. He did not lose his office. Indeed, Our Lord pointed out (Matthew 23:2-3) that there was a difference between authority and personal behavior. Those who teach with authority must be heeded, but we may not use their bad behavior to justify ours.

Yet another tactic is to argue that X is a worse evil than Y, therefore the Church should not focus on Y while X exists. This is a red herring fallacy, aimed at discrediting those in the Church speaking against Y. Yes, some sins are worse than others. But, if X is less common in the Church in a nation, while people routinely commit Y, it makes sense that the Church would remind the faithful of the fact that Y is evil, lest they go to hell for committing it. As Ezekiel warned through prophecy:

You, son of man—I have appointed you as a sentinel for the house of Israel; when you hear a word from my mouth, you must warn them for me. When I say to the wicked, “You wicked, you must die,” and you do not speak up to warn the wicked about their ways, they shall die in their sins, but I will hold you responsible for their blood. If, however, you warn the wicked to turn from their ways, but they do not, then they shall die in their sins, but you shall save your life. (Ezekiel 33:7-9)

When the Church calls us out for supporting Y, we often say “the Church should speak out on X instead,” overlooking the fact that we forget their speaking out against X because we resent being called out over Y. But we should be grateful that the Church, as watchman, does not remain silent when we are the ones in danger of hell.

When we’re tempted to balk at the teaching of the Church, we should consider these ways in which we try to evade the religious submission of intellect and will. The Church teaches with the authority of Christ, and we should be very wary around arguments denying that authority. 

Yes, there will be those in the Church who do fall into error when they try to teach in opposition to the Pope. But we trust that God will not permit His Church under the headship of the Pope to teach binding error. Yes, a teaching of the ordinary magisterium is changeable. But that means it can be refined, not that it was heresy before.  If we accuse the Church, when she teaches, of teaching error, we are acting like Ahab who dared to be angry when a prophet warned him of his destruction.

Enough Already! Reflections on the Need to Reject Emotion Based Response

As the abuse scandal goes on, we’re constantly bombarded with blogs, editorials, and commentaries that amount to saying “I’m angry and I’m going to tell everyone about everything I dislike about the Church and why I think it failed me!” I am not talking about actual victims here. They’re right to be angry over the pain suffered. I’m certainly not qualified to judge when they’re healed and would not dare to presume to tell them they should “get over it.” 

Instead, I’m talking about Catholics, not personally affected, who are letting their emotions drive their understanding of the situation. I get it that shock and anger are natural reactions to becoming aware of this wrongdoing. But if our response is led by emotion, we will not achieve any meaningful reform. Instead, we will only respond in a way that satisfies the emotion. We see this in the rush to judgment. Yes, certain bishops did conceal wrongdoing. Yes, we had a predator work his way up to the rank of cardinal. These things should not have happened and we need a reform.

The problem is, a meaningful reform requires us to be rational. We can’t just accuse our usual suspects, demand they be gotten rid of, and expect things to fall into place. But if you read the endless articles out there, you usually learn about the writer’s politics by the “reforms” they propose. We’re constantly bombarded by calls for women priests and the ending of celibacy on one hand, accusations against Vatican II and the “lavender mafia” on the other.

But when you think about these arguments, they don’t really make sense. Women priests won’t eliminate sexual abuse. It seems like every other week there’s a story in the news about a female teacher who sexually abused a student. Ending celibacy won’t end it. Protestant denominations have similar rates of sexual abuse, and schools—an institution that emphatically does not require celibacy—have higher rates of sexual abuse. Vatican II didn’t cause it. A high percentage of cases preceded Vatican II or involved priests ordained before Vatican II. As for the “lavender mafia,” that’s an ill-defined term that basically amounts to saying that some corrupt people in the Church with same sex attraction have received positions of authority and work together in some manner.

Arguing that these things be “changed” is not a blueprint for reform. It’s just assuming that everything would be fine if we just got rid of what we dislike. True reform requires an investigation into how these things could have happened and what could be reasonably done to prevent it from happening again.

Unfortunately, when we let emotions get in the way, we demand instantaneous fixes and think “reasonably” is a code word for “token reform.” But to avoid a “feel good” bandaid that achieves nothing or possibly to assume guilt until proven innocent, we need to evaluate the situation with the willingness to understand both what has happened and what the Church can do in response.

A reasonable reform (by which I mean a reform established by reason, not “the minimum reform we can get away with”) involves looking at the facts of the matter, determining what worked, what failed, who did their job, and who failed to do so. It means we think about the long term fix and don’t settle for scapegoats.

For example, consider the Pope’s words during the September 25 press conference, (ZENIT translation) for which critics accused him of being “tone deaf”:

I take Pennsylvania’s Report, for example, and we see that up to the first years of the 70’s there were so many priests who fell into this corruption. Then, in more recent times, they diminished because the Church realized that it had to fight another way.  In past times, these things were covered up. They were covered up also at home when an uncle violated a niece when the father violated the children. They were covered up because it was a very great shame. It was the way of thinking in past centuries, and of the past century. There is a principle in this that helps me very much to interpret history: a historical event is interpreted with the hermeneutics of the time in which the event happened, not with today’s hermeneutics. 

He’s right. To understand the behavior—and to understand is not to condone—we must understand the mindset that made it possible. In the past, things were hidden out of shame. That doesn’t justify the silence. But it does help us understand why things were tolerated in the past. If we understand them, we can try to change them. But if we don’t try to understand them—if we think being angry is enough—we will never overcome the evil.

I think we have a tendency to “fill in the blanks” when we have partial information. We insert the motives we think explain an evil and treat it as truth, demanding we be refuted even though the onus of proof falls on us to prove our angry assumptions true. Moreover, when proof is given to the contrary, we claim it is part of a coverup—because we “know” it must be false. Why do we “know” it’s false? Because it contradicts our preconceived notions about what happened. “Innocent until proven guilty” becomes “presumption of guilt that can never be disproved.”

This kind of emotional response will not reform the Church. It will instead lead people to assume that any solution that doesn’t immediately satisfy their need for vengeance is a coverup or attempt at stonewalling. That kind of mistrust eventually leads to schism while the problem goes on... and probably continues to exist in the rebellious group that thinks they eliminated the problem by rejecting the Pope.

If we want to truly reform the Church, we need to recognize when our emotions are interfering with seeking out truth. As St. Paul warns (Ephesians 4:26-27), “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun set on your anger, and do not leave room for the devil.”

I think at this point, we’re leaving plenty of room for the devil and he’ll take advantage of it as long as we let emotion take first place.

Reform or Rebellion?

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Come What May, The Church Remains

The scandals have shaken the Church. McCarrick and the 300 priests who have credible accusations [§] against them abused their positions to molest children and that is inexcusable. Some bishops were more interested in avoiding scandal than in shepherding their flock. That too is inexcusable. The Church has a procedure to canonically investigate and try bishops and that should be done [†].

However, certain Catholics have taken it further. In their mind, all the bishops should have known and therefore cannot be trusted. They believe that only the laity can save the Church and demand that they lead the investigation, determine the fate of bishops, and have a say in their replacements. The implication is that since none can be trusted (unproven) they cannot lead us. It’s a very anticlerical movement that shows some people do not have a clear understanding of what the Church is.

Others have shown signs of believing that the Church is a simply human institution. I’ve seen parents say they weren’t sure if they wanted their children baptized and priests wonder if the gates of hell have prevailed against the Church (cf. Matthew 16:18). These too are a sign of people not understanding what the Church is. 

What we need to remember is the Catholic Church is the Church Our Lord, Jesus Christ, established and promised to protect, remaining with it until the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). That doesn’t mean that the leaders of the Church will be sinless. Even in the best of times, there is corruption. Even with the holiest of Popes and bishops, there are bad decisions. That doesn’t mean we have to be fatalistic about the current crises in this time. Of course we have to work to clean up the Church. But regardless of corruption in the Church, Our Lord’s promise remains. Individuals sin, fall into heresy or schism. But Our Lord does not permit the Church to teach error in His name [¶] regardless of what some of the shepherds may do. 

Remembering this is how we discern true reform from rebellion. In every time of crisis, the true reform has come from those who gave submission to those tasked with leading the Church. False reform came from those who rejected that authority. In fact, the false reform usually spun off into heresies or schisms. 

What we need to remember is that the Church exists as the ordinary means [∞] Our Lord uses to bring His salvation to the world and help us discern how to live faithfully, and that He has entrusted the teaching office to the successors of the Apostles—the Pope and the college of bishops in communion with him. Our Lord made hearing His Church mandatory (Matthew 18:17, Luke 10:16). So, when we encounter a movement which refuses or undermines the teaching authority of the Church, we know this movement is not of God.

I understand it is frustrating, especially since some bishops have been revealed as failing to look after their dioceses. How can we tolerate knowing that other bishops, guilty of similar things, may be undetected? The answer is, we must trust that even if a sinful priest or bishop should escape detection, God is not mocked (Galatians 6:7). Our Lord’s warning about millstones (Matthew 18:6) should terrify them about dying unrepentant. We trust that God can and will protect the Church from going astray.

I admit that may be a small consolation for the victims and their families. They do want justice—rightly. But we need to realize that, being but men, our magisterium will not do a flawless job of rooting out corruption, no matter how diligent and sincere they are. For the rest, we must leave it up to God, painful as it may be.

So let us pray for the faithful clergy in this time of trial. Let us pray for the unfaithful clergy that they may repent and be brought to repentance and salvation. Let us pray for the victims, that they might be consoled. Let us pray that we act wisely and not out of sheer emotion. And then, after praying, let’s get to work—but let’s work with the Church, not against her.

_____________________________

[§] Barring any exculpatory evidence a la  the Cardinal Bernadin case—which I do not expect—I have no reason to question the credibility of the cases.

[†] As I understand it, the statute of limitations is past for criminal charges or lawsuits.

[¶] This protection is not “prophecy.”  It isn’t a guarantee of personal moral perfection either. Rather it is a negative protection. It prevents the Church from teaching error, but it doesn’t mean further development isn’t possible.

[∞] Ordinary means is the normal way Our Lord carries out His mission. There’s nothing to stop Him from using an extraordinary means, but it would be presumptuous on our part to knowingly refuse His ordinary means and demand something unusual to save us.

Avoiding Rebellion

If you’ve been following my blog, you know I’ve been warning about certain factions among Catholics who are hijacking certain controversies in the Church to support their ideologies. For example, Catholics who oppose Pope Francis are treating his refinement of Church teaching on the death penalty as “proof “ of his error.” Meanwhile, Catholics who oppose the US bishops because of their opposing Obama on the contraception mandate or Trump on immigration are seizing the McCarrick scandal as “proof” of their moral badness.

Keep in mind I am not talking about people who hear the news and are trying to make sense of it, seeking the truth. I am talking about people who assume everything can be explained by their favorite theories. It’s one thing to be shocked by the McCarrick scandal or the Pennsylvania grand jury report. It’s another to use these cases to advocate dissent.

Tragically, the number of Catholics believing these accusations of theological or moral “badness” are growing. I believe this shows that Catholics seeking to understand these upheavals are believing the constantly repeated accusations from these factions. The people who thought capital punishment was morally good are finding it easier to believe that the Pope teaches error than to consider the possibility that their understanding of the Catholic position is faulty. The people who are appalled by McCarrick are finding it easier to blame “the USCCB” than to grasp that predators can deceive others into thinking they are “good.”

What we need to do is look at the leaders of these anticlerical attacks. Have they had past problems with Church leadership? Is “ignorance” or “liberalism/conservatism” their continual accusation to explain why the magisterium does not go the way they want? If so, it is a warning sign against their reliability as authentic guides. Are they on the record (books, blog, etc) as holding a position that is not compatible with clarified Church teaching? That may be a sign that their objectivity on what is authentic interpretation of Church teaching is questionable.

We need to understand that the Pope does have the authority to determine what is authentic or inauthentic applications of Church teaching. He has the authority to determine how the investigation and trial of a bishop can be handled. Nobody has the authority to hear an appeal against his judgments (canon 1404). So he does have the authority to declare that the use of the Death Penalty is inadmissible in these times. He does have the authority to determine how the investigation of wrongdoing will proceed. We cannot argue that the laity can overrule him or the bishops in the lawful exercise of their positions.

Once we understand this, we might be able to find ways leading to useful reform. If we understand how a canonical investigation/trial works, we can properly apply canon 212 and reverently provide useful input on how to better achieve justice. If we understand the scope of the Pope’s authority (try Pastor Aeternus, Chapter 3, for example) we can avoid needless arguments on whether we need to listen to him (short answer: Yes). 

But if we refuse to learn how things work, if we assume that the error must be with others, not ourselves, then we are not providing religious submission of intellect and will to the authority of the Church. Our interpretation of Scripture is not Scripture itself. Our interpretation of past Church teaching is not past teaching itself. The Pope and bishops in communion with him have the right and responsibility to determine which interpretations are correct.

If we choose our own interpretation over that of the magisterium, if we argue that when we disagree the Church must be wrong, we are choosing a faction over obedience, and becoming rebels.

I Don't Have to Listen to You! Thoughts on Rebellion Against the Ordinary Magisterium

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Remembering Forgotten Teaching: Obedience and Docility

Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me. (Luke 10:16)

And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Matthew 16:18–19).

 

If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. ^18 k Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 18:17–18)

Attempts to cast oneself as a faithful Catholic by challenging the shepherds of the Church ultimately turn out to be chasing shadows. Chasing them can lead to our ruin as we follow them over treacherous ground. Our Lord created a visible Church where we can turn to know God’s teaching and how it is applied from generation to generation.

It is not the Pope and bishops endangering the Church, but those who forget this promise, who think the Church—especially her shepherds—must have erred and must be opposed, that deceive and scatter the faithful. Some of these people are clergy, some are laity. But the fact is, they do not have the authority to change what the Church teaches, nor to cite one favored teaching against a despised teaching. They cannot change what we are obligated to be and do. Yet in each age, such false teachers arise. Today, they come from the modern political divide of conservative/liberal, or the modern theological divide of modernist/traditionalist. Of course, these are not the only divides. Church history tells us of many divisions where people scrambled to challenge Church teaching. It would be meaningless to apply our current dichotomies to those factions. But one constant remains despite the divisions of history: these false teachers cannot demand we follow them over the shepherds of the Church.

The problem is, these false teachers try to invoke their personal interpretation on how a teaching should be applied as if it were Church teaching. They tell us that a Pope or bishop is in error if they do not meet the accusers’ ideals.

Of course we can have bad Popes (I deny the current Pope is one) and bishops throughout history. They hinder the mission of the Church by bad personal example. But no Pope has ever taught error (a couple have debatably held to error privately), and while some bishops throughout history have fallen into error, and sometimes heresy, they have not done so when following the teaching of the Pope. I think that’s something we forget. We’re so busy splitting hairs over the limits of an ex cathedra teaching, that we forget that protecting the Church is largely a negative function (preventing error from being taught) and that a formally defined dogma is rare.

Forgetting this creates a bizarre claim—that a disliked Pope is not protected from teaching error as Pope. But if this is true, then we can never know when a Pope taught error. If Blessed Paul VI brought error and spiritual harm to the Church with the Missal of 1970, how can we know St. Pius V didn’t bring error and spiritual harm into the Church with the Missal of 1570? If we will not trust God to protect His Church from error then we become “Cafeteria Catholics,” who pick and choose what we like and deny authority of the rest.

Recognizing both this protection and the fact that the Pope is the successor of Peter, we see the folly of trying to line up people against the Pope as if their opinions outweighed his teaching. A bishop has authority when in communion with the Pope, not in opposition. Otherwise the Old Catholic and Eastern Orthodox bishops would have authority over faithful Catholics.

If the bishops have no authority when not in communion with the Pope, the laity have even less. The armchair theologian, the blogger (including me), the canon lawyer, the combox warrior, the religion reporter have no authority to bind and loose at all. Their credibility depends on accurately representing the Catholic faith. The layman can do great things for the Church, but he has no right to demand acceptance for his opinion over the magisterium.

Think of it this way. In the legal system, a lawyer can be knowledgable about the law and can make compelling arguments on why it should be applied as he thinks. But neither his knowledge nor his arguments are authority. He argues the case, but the judge decides whether his application is right or wrong. The Church works in a similar way. Yes, each of us can read Church documents, and each of us can form an opinion on what they mean and how they should be applied. But our reading and interpretation are not Church teaching. It is the current magisterium who rules on how we must apply Church teaching for today.

That being said, we need to clear up misconceptions. This isn’t an assertion that the Pope and bishops can do whatever they want The magisterium is the servant, not superior to Scripture and Sacred Tradition. We do not hold some sort of “ultramontanism” (a popular slur against Papal defenders). We are stating the reality of who decides where to draw the line.

This is important when we address concerns and desires. Yes, Canon Law 212 tells us the faithful have the right and sometimes the duty to make their needs known. But the Pope and bishops have the authority to determine what practices should be maintained and which can be changed for the good of the faithful. In past centuries, people used to know this. St. Francis de Sales (made clear that we do not err in obedience to those in rightful authority acting for our spiritual benefit:

If this refers to those who have from God the power and duty to guide your soul and to command you in spiritual things, you are certainly right. In obeying them you cannot err, although they may err and advise you badly, if they look principally to any thing else than your salvation and spiritual progress.

 

Francis de Sales, Letters to Persons in the World, trans. Henry Benedict Mackey and John Cuthbert Hedley, Second Edition, Library of Francis de Sales (London; New York; Cincinnatti; Chicago: Burns and Oates; Benziger Brothers, 1894), 33.

So, some may want ad orientum, return to the use of Latin, or even a return to the Missal of 1962 for the whole Church. It’s not wrong to prefer these things, but some do wrong by rejecting the decision if the magisterium when it goes against what they want. Charity and docility to legitimate authority means we recognize they receive the power and responsibility to lead the Church from God. Accusing the Pope and bishops of bad will is not being a good Catholic “defending the faith.” It is dissent.

Once we realize this, we see the rebels have no authority to act against the Pope. They can’t treat his teaching as error. Nor can they treat it as opinion. Once the Pope teaches, even if it is not ex cathedra (see Canon Law 751-754), we must give assent. Those who will not may be clamorous and disturb us, but they have no authority to remake the Church to what they want it to be. Their clamor must be dismissed like shadows (Psalm 73:20), not given credibility, while we reach out to the world to bring them to Our Lord (Matthew 28:20).

I’d like to conclude by stressing one point. We’re not expected to be mindless sheep here with a blind obedience. As human beings, we all have our preferences and our dislikes, and we certainly have the right to make a respectful appeal to have these things addressed. However, we also need to remember what the Church knew in past centuries—that the Pope and bishops are given authority to determine what is best for the Church. We cannot rebel against this authority in the name of being “faithful Catholics.” That is simply a contradiction.