We do not really want a religion that is right where we are right. What we want is a religion that is right where we are wrong. We do not want, as the newspapers say, a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world. (G. K. Chesterton)
Lately, I have been seeing Catholics objecting to the Church saying, “We cannot do this,” when it comes the question of whether people who are willingly estranged from the Church can receive things like blessings and the Eucharist. The strawman argument they use is that this treats sacraments and sacramentals like “rewards” for good behavior or “weaponizing” against bad behavior. Some go so far as to claim the Church is engaging in Pelagianism or works based salvation by barring sinners from communion when we are all sinners in need of salvation.
Regardless of the intention of the individuals making the argument†, they do seem to have a misconception about the purpose of the Church and the spiritual blessings she provides through God. The Catholic Church was established by Christ to bring His salvation and His Grace to the world. This involves both strengthening the faithful and bringing those outside of that body into communion. All of us are sinners of course. We need the grace and guidance to constantly turn back to God.
But if we have no interest in turning back to God, or if we refuse to give up what puts us out of right relationship with God, there is a problem. I am not talking about the person who wants to abandon some sin but keeps falling into it. I am talking about the person who demands that the Church change her teaching so that the sin of X is declared is not a sin, claiming the teaching is “legalism” in opposition to “love.”
If we desire to participate in the Sacraments and sacramentals of the Church, we do need to ask ourselves something: What are we prepared to surrender if we think it is so important to receive them? One answer—in fact the first answer—to that question is “to give up the grave sins we commit.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church (#1472) tells us:
Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the “eternal punishment” of sin.
While insufficient knowledge and a lack of free consent‡ might reduce the sin from the category of mortal, nobody can willingly be involved in grave sin and consider themselves in right relationship with God. Since the Sacrament of Reconciliation is necessary for us to get back in right relationship with God and receive the graces these provide, the demand for access to the Sacraments while living in grave sin shows a fundamental error on the part of the person who demands them.
Yes, Pope Francis did speak of accompaniment for those who are not in right relationship with God and His Church. He is right in doing so. But accompaniment is not a case of changing the rules about whether an act is a sin. It is helping them as they struggle to give up what is wrong. If those in the Church should fail to even attempt to guide the faithful away from sin, they would be betraying their mission.
Obviously, without God’s grace, it is impossible for anybody to be saved, and God gives the individual free will to respond to it. Since we cannot know if the person has obstinately refused grace or has not received it yet, we cannot write anybody off as reprobate. For as long as they live, we cannot give up on them… no matter how many times they reject us. But neither can we tell them “what you do doesn’t matter.”
Because of this, sometimes the Church does have to simply say, “No” in response to a request for the Sacraments or sacramentals. If we start accusing the Church of unjustly excluding people in these cases, we have missed the point of the Church. She is not a vending machine that gives us cheap grace on demand. Her task is what Jesus commissioned her to do:
Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18–20)
Jesus has made clear (cf. Matthew 7:21, 18:17, Luke 10:16, John 14:15) that if we profess to follow Christ, we are obligated to live as He taught, and the Church is who He has entrusted (cf. Matthew 16:19, 18:18, John 20:22-23) to teach in His name and with His authority.
If we are ever tempted to claim that the Church has gone wrong, we should ask ourselves whether it is possible that we are the ones who have gone wrong.
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(†) As there are many people who do this, it seems imprudent to make a one size fits all kind of judgment about them.
(‡) I leave this to the confessor to determine in the case of each individual.
One thing I encounter among Catholics on social media is the assumption that: because I identify with a thing, it must be good or because I oppose it, it must be bad. The problem with this view is it confuses what makes an act good or evil objectively with one’s feelings about an act. Since people don’t like to think of themselves as being wrong, this assumption frequently results in accusing the Church of error for affirming a teaching in the face of popular sentiment.
These attacks—like so many others—are not limited to one region or faction. Conservative or liberal; Democrat or Republican; these and many other factions across the public square find fault with the Church where the Church cannot do anything else but teach this way.
To understand why the Church holds that a thing must be a certain way, we need to grasp that there are three things needed to make an act morally good. The action itself must be good (e.g. you can never say an act of rape or genocide is good), the results must be good (a do-gooder who sparks a riot through lack of prudence doesn’t perform a good act even if the action itself is good), and the intention must be good (If I donate money to charity in order to impress and seduce my neighbor’s wife, that is an evil intention). If even one of these three conditions are absent, you don’t have a good act. Let’s look at some illustrations.
Things like abortion are examples of an intrinsically bad act. It arbitrarily chooses to end an innocent human life for the perceived benefit of another human life. Even if the person who commits it thinks that the good outweighed the evil, or meant well in doing so, you can’t call it a good act. How one feels about it doesn’t change that fact. This is why the Church cannot do anything other than condemn it. Reducing the amount of abortion cannot be an end in itself. It can only be a step on the way to abolition†.
Other acts can be neutral or good in themselves, but the consequence is bad. For example, the Church does teach that a nation can regulate immigration if doing so is necessary. This is something critics of the Pope and bishops love to point out. But there is a difference between “our country is in the midst of a disaster and we are having trouble dealing with it right now” and “Criminals among THOSE people are dangerous and we don’t want them here, so let’s keep everyone out!” The US bishops are pointing out that America is not in that first situation, and the second situation is a morally bad consequence—refusing to help those in need out of a fear of who might get in.
And, of course, a good or neutral act can be made bad if done for a bad intention. Being thrifty is a good thing. But, if one is frugal for a bad reason (like Judas dipping into the common purse [John 12:5-6]), it’s not a morally good act. If a government cuts expenses with the intent of targeting certain groups or raising taxes in the name of social services, but defines the term to fund immoral policies, then the bad intention corrupts the good or neutral base act.
In these cases, no matter how much one identifies with the cause, if it’s defective in one of these three parts, you can’t call it a good act.
On the other side, the fact that the Church as a whole, the Pope, or an individual bishop‡ acts in a way we disagree with does notmake it a morally bad act. The Church needs to act with an eye towards saving souls. That might be a soft merciful approach, as when Our Lord dined with sinners. It might be a strong rebuke, as when Our Lord rebuked the Scribes and Pharisees. But the point of their action is supposed to be bringing the sinner back to reconciliation. Since the Church is made up of sinners with finite knowledge, we will invariably encounter situations handled badly. But we will also encounter situations we think are handled badly due to our own lack of knowledge… either about the situation or about the teaching behind the Church’s action.
Every election year, for example, we hear from certain Catholics on how the bishops are failing by not excommunicating politicians for supporting abortion. This is based on a misunderstanding of canon law. Canon law points out that those directly taking part in a specific act of abortion (abortionist, their staff, woman having an abortion, etc.) are automatically excommunicated. But those working to protect abortion as a “right” are doing something gravely sinful and, under canon 916, should refrain from Communion. Canon 915 involves those publicly involved in grave sin. Some bishops have invoked it in refusing communion to politicians in their dioceses. Others don’t seem to have acted in this way.
But what we don’t know is why they have not acted publicly. It could be laxity or sympathy… the two common charges from those who demand public action. Are there situations we don’t know about? Are the bishops in personal dialogue with these Catholic politicians? Have they privately told these politicians not to receive? Do they want to avoid conflict? I don’t know… but neither do the critics. We should certainly pray for our bishops to shepherd rightly. But we should also keep in mind that—in connecting the dots—we may not have seen all the dots that we need to connect.
This should not be interpreted as a “be passive in the face of injustice.” What it means is, we should not be so confident in our interpretation of events that we think only the conclusion we draw is true. Church history is full of people who thought they knew better and caused all sorts of chaos, endangering their own souls and the souls of others. Because conditions change, the Church will have to decide how to best apply timeless truths to the current times. Sometimes, the attitudes of a society can lead Catholics to tolerate—or even commit—injustice. Sometimes those Catholics are higher up in the Church. But we must not assume that this is the case when the Church must teach in a way we do not like.
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(†) Of course, we must do more to help people than just end abortion. We need to help people in situations where they think it is the only choice. But only focusing on those parts while leaving it legal is not a Catholic position.
(‡) Provided, of course, the Bishop is acting in communion with the Pope and fellow bishops. The actions of a Lefebvre or a Milingo (for example) cannot be defended on these grounds.
There are two different views of the Church that people often place in opposition to each other, assuming that the existence of one denies the truth of the other. The first view is that Jesus Christ has established the Catholic Church, given it the authority to teach in His name, and having His protection from error. The second view is that the Catholic Church is an institution filled with sinful people, some of whom are higher up members who have committed sins or even crimes.
These two views are—unfortunately—often seen as an either-or situation. Some Catholics take the first view in a way that either denies or downplays that problems exist in the Church. It gets shrugged off as “there will always be Judases in the Church.” Very true, but not what those who suffered unjustly at the hands of one of those Judases need to hear. Other Catholics will take the second view in a way that denies or downplays the first. They argue that the sinful or criminal members of the Church negate or even disprove the authority of the Church.
Both of these Either-Or interpretations are wrong. The fact that the Church is established and protected by Christ does not mean that sins within are non-existent or minor. But the fact that some very bad people have risen in the ranks of the Church does not mean that the authority and protection no longer exist, or never existed in the first place.
I suspect that both of these errors are excessively optimistic and pessimistic views over the recognition that the Church should beholy in both teaching and practice. But when some people encounter the evils within the Church, they tend to suppress or downplay the view that runs counter to their own outlook.
Both of these excessive views are a problem because it leads people to think any legitimate defense of the authority of the Church is “denial” of the problems, while any legitimate criticism of the problems within the Church is seen as refusal to accept the authority of the Church.
In the first case, the Catholics who defend the authority of the Church need to grasp that the anger against the wrongdoing members—especially if there seems to be no apparent consequence they can see—has reasons behind it that needs to be understood. Note I said “understood.” That doesn’t necessarily mean “accepted without question.”
I make this distinction because even if—as sometimes happens—the person who is upset or angry with the Church is wrong about the accusations made against the Church, it is a real pain that needs to be addressed. That might be done by solving the problem transparently (if it is a legitimate grievance and their request is just), or explaining (compassionately) why the Church can’t do what they want. In either response, we need to show concern for their issues and help them in a just way without looking upon them as a bother. Yes, some critics have wrongly put themselves in to literal or virtual schism. But we need to respond in compassion, whether the just response is reforming an evil or correcting one’s misconception about what is evil.
In the second case, critics need to recognize that just because they think that Priest A or Bishop B are behaving wrongly, this does not negate the authority of the Church to teach, nor of our own obligation to give assent to Church teachings. Yes, John XII (who is consistently mentioned) was a morally bad Pope (yes, that is an understatement) but that doesn’t remove the authority of Popes to teach in the ordinary or extraordinary magisterium (cf. canon 752). It doesn’t remove the authority the bishops have to govern their dioceses in communion with the Pope.Catholics need to be aware of both views and accept them both without assuming the existence of one denies the reality of the other. The Church has Our Lord’s authority/protection, and the Church has sinners within. When we find ourselves denying one of the two as threatening our preferred view, it’s a sign that we need to reevaluate our own views of the Church.
One of the conceits I see is the view that the individual Catholic is in the same place as Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher, while the Americans bishops are in the place of the English bishops at the time of Henry VIII breaking away from the Catholic Church [§]. This view holds that, in both cases, the bishops were cowardly and went along with an evil, rather than speak out against it. Therefore, they are in the “right” to reject them.
Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin. Smother that, deaden it — it can hardly be wholly cut out from the heart of man — let it not be awakened by any glimpse of the God-man dying on Golgotha’s cross to pay the penalty of sin, and what is there to hold back the hordes of God’s enemy from over-running the selfishness, the pride, the sensuality and unlawful ambitions of sinful man? (Pope Pius XII)
The words of Pope Pius XII about the greatest sin being the loss of the sense of sin is a good warning for our times, but I wonder if we actually consider the fullness of what it implies. For years I interpreted it as an indictment of modern psychology and sociology denying morality in general. No doubt that is one aspect of it. But I’ve begun to wonder if there’s more to it than that. It seems to me that there’s another aspect to it, and that aspect is, “others sin, but I don’t—at least not in important ways.” That kind of mindset allows us to be religious, but focussing on the sins of others and never asking whether God is just as offended with us as he is with others. That’s dangerous because, if we think this way, we don’t examine our consciences seriously and don’t repent of what we do—except superficially.
This temptation can be found in all different factions—and the danger is to only see it only in them, not us. It’s easy to do. We might ask, “Why does the Church speak out on X (whatever we think is minor, or perhaps justified) but not on Y (what others do, but we don’t)?” The conservative Catholic might think of X as social justice, and Y as sexual morality. The liberal Catholic might think of X as sexual morality and Y as social justice. The Church speaks on evils involving both, but we tend to resent it when the Church teaching jogs our conscience and tells us we have to change.
9 He then addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. 10 “Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’ 13 But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’ 14 I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:9–14).
I think the hostility of the Pharisees to Jesus serves as a good example for our own hostility. The Pharisees sought to live what they thought was a pure life pleasing to God. I don’t think we can doubt their sincerity. The problem was, they lost sight of the fact that they needed to repent as well. So, when Jesus spoke to them in parables showing that they were falling short, they responded with anger. After all, they were trying to live rightly! The tax collectors weren’t even trying! Why didn’t Jesus speak against them! But instead, Jesus told them, “Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you. (Matthew 21:31b)” He didn’t say that because He was morally lax and wanted to change teaching. He said that because the one who knows he is a sinner and wants to repent will enter Heaven before the self-righteous who thinks he doesn’t need to change.
Yes, we do need to speak out on sin to the world that has been deceived to think that guilt over sin is merely a psychological disorder. But we also have to look to ourselves and consider how we have acted against what God calls us to be, constantly repenting and rejecting what is against His will. We must do this regardless of what the world does. We certainly cannot say that we’re fine because we’re not as bad as them (whoever we consider “them” to be).
As long as we cannot do this, we will be like the Pharisee who lost the sense of his personal sin.
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.
can. 752† Although not an assent of faith, 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; therefore, the Christian faithful are to take care to avoid those things which do not agree with it.
Code of Canon Law: New English Translation (Washington, DC: Canon Law Society of America, 1998), 247.
A sign that our discernment is in real contact with the Holy Spirit is and will always be adherence to revealed truth as it is proposed by the Church’s Magisterium. The interior teacher does not inspire dissent, disobedience or even merely an unjustified resistance to the pastors and teachers established by him in the Church (cf. Acts 20:29). It belongs to the Church’s authority, as the Council said in the Constitution Lumen Gentium (n. 12), to “not quench the Spirit, but to test everything and retain what is good” (cf. 1 Thess 5:12, 19–21). This is the direction of ecclesial and pastoral wisdom which also comes from the Holy Spirit.
John Paul II, April 24, 1991. Audiences of Pope John Paul II (English) (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2014).
Since too many people seem to assume that defense of Pope Francis is a condemnation of Cardinal Burke et. al., I should make this preliminary note: It’s not my intention to judge the souls or motives of the four cardinals. My concern is with the attitude of “Combox warrior” Catholics on social media who accuse the Pope of heresy and ignorance. Comments accusing me of judging these cardinals will be deleted.
Two Scenarios of Schism
When I talk about schism coming in the Church, there are two possibilities on how it may come about. One I think is unlikely, the other I think probable.
One scenario—which is what most people think when they hear the term—is that certain Catholics get so fed up with the Pope, that they set up one of his critics as an antipope and form a separate Church. This was a scenario popular in religious fiction during the Pontificate of St. John Paul II when he faced open dissent from those who wanted to change Church teaching. This sometimes happens in Church history, but in this case, I think this scenario is unlikely.
The other scenario—the one I think is more probable today—is that critics ramp up their opposition to the Pope, alleging he is teaching error. A growing number of Catholics believe this and refuse assent to his teachings because they believe, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” and are led to think they know the Catholic faith better than the Holy Father. So they refuse to listen to him when what he says doesn’t square up with what they think the Church teaching is. In this situation, those refusing submission to the Pope deceive themselves into thinking the shepherds of the Church are in error while they are a faithful remnant. They don’t think they’re schismatics because they’re not leaving the Church or creating an antipope.
Danger Lies in Assuming One’s Personal Interpretations are Doctrine
Let’s be clear, however. Simply wanting the Pope to answer the dubia is not in itself a sin. In doing so, we should be aware that there may be things going on behind the scenes that lead to him deciding to handle things differently than we want. The danger comes when one says, “I can’t see any reason for not doing this, so the Pope must be wrong.” Even if it should turn out there was no good reason, the worst one can accuse the Pope of is being a poor administrator, NOT that he is teaching error.
It becomes more dangerous when we become so invested in a certain interpretation of Church teaching, especially when a document was written in a different era. A changing world can lead to the Church taking a different approach in a different approach while accepting the long held doctrine of the Church. But if one has embraced a certain Church policy from one time to the point of confusing it with doctrine, there is a danger of thinking a change of policy is a rejection of doctrine.
For example, in his work Fundamentals of Catholicism, then-Cardinal Ratzinger spoke about the shift of tactics in dealing with the world between the times of Pius IX and St. Pius X compared to Gaudium et spes. In a passage that outraged some Catholics (and was used as ammunition by some sede vacantists), he wrote:
Let us be content to say here that the text serves as a counter syllabus and, as such, represents, on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789. Only from this perspective can we understand, on the one hand, its ghetto-mentality, of which we have spoken above; only from this perspective can we understand, on the other hand, the meaning of this remarkable meeting of Church and world. Basically, the word “world” means the spirit of the modern era, in contrast to which the Church’s group-consciousness saw itself as a separate subject that now, after a war that had been in turn both hot and cold, was intent on dialogue and cooperation. From this perspective, too, we can understand the different emphases with which the individual parts of the Church entered into the discussion of the text.
Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, trans. Mary Frances McCarthy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), 382.
People who were invested in the Syllabi of the earlier Popes took the term “counter syllabus” and accused him of heresy, saying he rejected doctrine and accepted the French Revolution as good. He said nothing of the sort. He didn’t deny the earlier teaching of the Church. He merely believed that the world had changed and the (non-doctrinal) approach of the Church needed to address new situations that had arisen since 1789. Never mind the fact that Vatican II begins with the premise that the Church established by Our Lord is the Catholic Church. People who preferred previous practices believe this is a change of doctrine, even though it is a change of practice.
Misunderstandings Leading to False Accusations
And that’s where the problem with the Church today exists. The Pope and bishops in communion with him (and never apart from him) determine how Church teaching is applied in every generation. Sometimes misunderstandings happen. The question is, will people investigate whether they have misunderstood, or will they assume any fault lies with the magisterium when there is a conflict, refusing to consider any other possibility?
For example, one common accusation from combox warriors is the Pope intends to implement the ideas of Cardinal Kasper in approving remarriage and reception of the Eucharist after divorce. Such accusations show they don’t really know what the Cardinal (whom I believe to be wrong) said, nor how his words differed from the Pope. What Cardinal Kasper thought was a good idea [*], was to invoke the opinion offered by some Church Fathers and accepted by the Orthodox churches (but not the Catholic Church):
But if a divorced and remarried person is truly sorry that he or she failed in the first marriage, if the commitments from the first marriage are clarified and a return is definitively out of the question, if he or she cannot undo the commitments that were assumed in the second civil marriage without new guilt, if he or she strives to the best of his or her abilities to live out the second civil marriage on the basis of faith and to raise their children in the faith, if he or she longs for the sacraments as a source of strength in his or her situation, do we then have to refuse or can we refuse him or her the sacrament of penance and communion, after a period of reorientation?
Walter Kasper, The Gospel of the Family, trans. William Madges (Mahwah, NJ; New York: Paulist Press, 2014), 32.
You won’t find this view in Amoris Lætitia, because the Pope doesn’t teach this view. What he discusses is getting people back to Church with the aim of reconciling them with God. He asks bishops and priests to remember the intents and circumstances and not just stop at the fact of intrinsic evil [†]. My reading of Amoris Lætitia and the Argentine bishops’ instruction is the ultimate goal is to get the divorced and remarried to live as brother and sister. If they should fall into temptation and sin, this is what the Sacrament of Reconciliation is for.
Some people read the same words and misinterpret the Pope as saying the Church should find ways around Our Lord’s teachings. But there’s no justification for it. In his February 18, 2016, press conference, he said in response to a question:
Thompson: Does that mean they can receive Communion?
Pope Francis: This is the last thing. 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.
Things like this show that an interpretation claiming the Pope intends to permit the Eucharist for the divorced and remarried without repentance is a misunderstanding, and an accusation that he intends to change an unchangeable teaching turns out to be a false accusation.
Conclusion: The Dangerous Ways of Thinking
The dangerous ways of thinking come from not being able to consider the possibility of going wrong personally. If I hold that the Pope can go wrong but I can’t, I’ve created a blind spot that prevents me from properly examining myself for error and repenting if error is found. Under such a view, we create a church of a billion popes where the only the Pope and everybody else who thinks differently from me can go wrong. Yes, one can wish a Pope handled things differently, and (as I pointed out above) that includes how he handled the dubia. But there’s a difference between wishing the Pope had handled things differently and saying “Not my Pope,” or “I can’t follow him any more,” as two Catholics I encountered on Facebook today said.
The first attitude is acceptable so long as one recognizes his authority to act as he sees fit. The latter is literally schismatic as defined by Canon Law. It is possible that the person didn’t realize how serious a claim was. It is possible they would never uttered those words if they had known. But it is a refusal to submit to the Pope. So one should think long and hard if they dislike the Pope.
Afterword: My Personal View
Above, I’ve tried to show how the attacks against the Pope are flawed. Now I’d like to offer my personal views.
I believe the attacks against the Pope are unjust. The assumption that anyone who defends him is “a modernist” and “a Hillary supporter” [§], shows the ideological slant of his critics. There is no cause for this, and such accusations show a lack of knowledge of what Pope Francis said, what his predecessors said, or (alarmingly on the increase) ignorance of both. Our Lord established Peter as the Rock on which He would build His Church. The attacks against Pope Francis are, whether his foes realize it or not, undermining the Rock, and will come back to haunt whoever succeeds Pope Francis.
For centuries, the saints spoke about obedience to the Church as part of our obligation towards holiness. Now, a growing number seem to think one can be holy in opposition to those who lead the Church. I am not making any accusations against any Catholic here (even if I wanted to, I certainly have no authority to do so). But if someone who reads my blog is tempted to take that approach, I plead with you as a fellow Christian to reconsider your actions and mindset.
As for me, I will continue to defend the Pope both because I place my faith in God to protect His Church from teaching error [∞], and I reject the accusations made against his intentions, orthodoxy and competence. This view might make me unpopular, but for me, prayer and study leads so I can take no other stand without being unfaithful.
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[*] The problem I have with Cardinal Kasper’s view is Our Lord’s and subsequent Church teaching tells us that when a marriage exists, one cannot remarry. Unless I misinterpret him, he seems to think a couple is “truly sorry,” they can go on living as if they were man and wife and receive the sacraments. But being truly sorry means doing what one can to turn away from the sin. So it seems like he holds contradictory premises.
[†] The reason I’m puzzled with the dubia is they are focused on the concept of intrinsically evil acts as if the Pope were ignoring them, but (as I see it) the Pope seems to accept that as a given and asks the clergy to look more at the other two parts of assessing sin.
[§] I’ve received both accusations from combox warriors. The latter is a non sequitur which shows the political motivations of some of the Pope’s critics.
[∞] If the Pope actually said the divorced and remarried they can receive the Eucharist without repentance (which I deny) that would seem to be a teaching on faith and morals.
Hell is Not Contrary to God’s Love
One of the things people in modern times find hard to reconcile is how God can be love (1 John 4:16) and the existence of Hell. The general assumption is that Hell is an arbitrary, disproportionate punishment tacked on to a crime—something like shooting a person for jaywalking. Because of this, it is assumed that God, being “good” (in an undefined way) would not really send them to Hell for their own actions. Maybe Nazis, but not “good” people. I suspect this is where the whole “God doesn’t care about X!” attitude comes from.
But this is to miss the point about what Hell is about. It is not an arbitrary sentence to a crime like, “If you commit theft, I will punish you with Prison.” It is more like, “If you jump off of a cliff, you will die.” In other words, Hell is the logical consequence for choosing to do what goes against what God has called us to be. As Peter Kreeft put it:
Take as an example God’s command to Adam and Eve not to eat the forbidden fruit. If this is a positive law, it is like a mother threatening to slap her child’s hand if he takes a cookie. If it is a natural law, it means that if we eat the forbidden fruit of disobedience to God’s will, divorcing our will and spirit from God’s, then the inevitable result will be disaster and death, for God is the source of all joy and life.
In a natural law ethic, virtue is its own reward and vice is its own punishment. Virtue is to the soul what health is to the body. It has its own intrinsic, necessary and unchangeable structures, such that all good deeds help the doer as well as the recipient and all evil deeds harm the doer as well as the victim.
The punishment of hell is inevitable, by natural law. Any human soul that freely refuses the one Source of all life and joy must find death and misery as its inevitable punishment.
[Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics: Hundreds of Answers to Crucial Questions (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 293.]
Essentially the Scriptural passages of Hell are not there as a threat, but as a warning. If we know that what we want to do goes against what God commands, and we choose to do that evil anyway, we are choosing something that will cause harm to our relationship with God. Because we have an immortal soul, it stands to reason that what damages our relationship with God will have consequences after we die.
Thus we see the concept of Jesus saying “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Those who turn away from their sins and towards God with His help can be saved. Those who refuse to turn away from their sins have turned their face from God, and so long as they do so, they cannot be saved. When one thinks of it this way, we can see that the defensiveness of those who say “God doesn’t care about X!” really want things both ways. They want to be able to reject God when it suits them without the consequences of that rejection. But since Hell is a logical consequence of rejecting God, and not an arbitrary punishment, people who want the Church to declare certain things are not sins are actually wanting the impossible.
What Follows From This
Once we understand this, then the point of evangelization and speaking out against sin is clear. In doing this, Christians are not being intolerant or judgmental. They seek what is good for others. As the future St. John Paul II put it:
This is a “divine” feature of love. Indeed, when Y [he] wants the good “without limits” for X [her], then properly speaking he wants God for her: God alone is the objective fullness of the good, and only he can satisfy every man with this fullness. Man’s love through its relation to happiness, that is, to the fullness of the good, in a sense passes as close to God as possible.
[Karol Wojtyła, Love and Responsibility, trans. Grzegorz Ignatik (Boston, MA: Pauline Books & Media, 2013), 119-120.]
To love someone is to desire their happiness through what is truly good—and that true good is God. To desire a “good” for the beloved that goes against what God has designed us for is destructive. So Christians, in desiring that all people be brought to Christ, is not being hateful in saying things are sinful and endangering the soul[*]. They love the sinner and desire their greatest good, which is their being in right relationship with God.
Being human beings and sinners, we recognize that we may express ourselves poorly. We may lose our tempers or become frustrated. These things do hide the love of God from those we are trying to show it to. Popes like St. John Paul II and Pope Francis have expressed apologies for this failing by members of the Church—including those who were in positions of authority.
But it is important to remember that despite these sins and failings which mar the message we give, the Christian message is motivated by love and not hate. That message is both a warning—that our sins alienate us from God, and a promise—that God loves us and wants us to turn back to Him. It is important to remember this and not lose sight of it when the messenger expresses himself or herself poorly.
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[*] Oh sure, I recognize (sadly) that there are people who miss the point of the Christian faith and think that hostility to the person who commits sin is the same as speaking out against evil. But Christianity, properly lived, rejects this because they recognize that we are called to love each other as Jesus loved us (John 13:34), and even when we think the actions of a person are wrong, we are still called to love the sinner.
Let’s consider a Bible passage from Matthew 9:9-13...
9 As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. 10 While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples. 11 The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 He heard this and said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. 13 Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”
From what we know about what Jesus taught, there is one thing we can never forget:
If we forget this fact, then we run the risk of becoming like the Pharisees, looking upon others as sinners, but giving no thought to our own sins. If we give no thought to our own sins, how can we repent of the evil done? The fact is, there are two types of sinners out there—those who acknowledge what they do is wrong, and those who do not acknowledge what they do is wrong. Jesus was calling the Pharisees to conversion as well. But the Pharisees did not acknowledge their own sinfulness. Instead, they assumed that because they kept the law strictly and did not commit the sins of the tax collectors, they were righteous before God. But actually, they merely committed different sins and still need the attitude of metanoia—the change of heart—which means they regret the wrong they did and turn back to seek God. If they did this, they would receive God’s grace.
Likewise, if we think our own religious practices and the fact that we do not commit notorious sins to make us righteous before God, we are behaving in the same way as the Pharisees did. Let us consider the words of St. Augustine in his Commentary on Psalm 40...
Who is there can calculate the number of the hairs of his head? Much less can he tell the number of his sins, which exceed the number of the hairs of his head. They seem to be minute; but they are many in number. You have guarded against great ones; you do not now commit adultery, or murder; you do not plunder the property of others; you do not blaspheme; and do not bear false witness; those are the weightier kind of sins. You have guarded against great sins, what are you doing about your smaller ones? You have cast off the weight; beware lest the sand overwhelm you.
[Augustine of Hippo, Psalm 40, #21, in Saint Augustin: Expositions on the Book of Psalms, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 8, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1888), 126.]
St. Augustine raises an excellent point here. Let us not think that just because we may not have notorious sins on our conscience that we are free of sin. We can be damned by a multitude of sins that we dismiss as unimportant compared to the sins of others. This is why we must not rest on the assumption that our actions are good enough, compared to the sins of others. The saints sought the grace of God and struggled against their sins out of love for Him. We must go and do likewise.
You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are not your @#$%ing khakis.
—Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
One of the major problems that comes up when people hear the old adage of loving the sinner and hating the sin is that nowadays, people assume that what they do is what they are. Therefore, when the Church condemns an action, people assume this means the Church hates them personally. This is why people assume Christianity is “homophobic” or “anti-woman” when they condemn behavior like homosexual acts, contraception, abortion and divorce/remarriage. Then we get to hear a lot of people quoting Matthew 7:1 out of context.
As St. Thomas Aquinas put it, "Parvus error in initio magnus erit in fine.” (“Small error in the beginning; large [error] will be in the end”). From the beginning error of believing a person is what they do, the concluding error is condemnation of a sin = condemning a person. A person may have a job as an accountant, but that does not make the person an accountant and a person may have a same sex attraction, but that does not make the person a homosexual. The Church believes that a person is more than their actions or ethnicity—and to reduce them to their behavior is to treat them as less than human.
In terms of Catholic teaching, the person is primarily a child of God. The individual may be ignorant of that fact. The person may reject that fact. The person may accept that fact. But regardless of what the individual does with that information, the fact remains that he or she is a child of God and however they are treated must reflect this fact. Because of this, the Catholic Church never allows us to turn our backs on the sinners, the poor or anyone else—we’re not allowed to write off anyone as irredeemable.
But the fact that we, as Christians, cannot write off anyone as irredeemable has one very important fact that follows from it—every person is in need of redemption. That indicates that we are at odds with God in how we live to some extent. When we act in a way which is contrary to how God calls us to live, that needs to change. Living contrary to God’s call blocks us from Our Lord's redemption, and such behavior must be abandoned if we would be saved. People who know what the truth is can offer correction, just as the person who teaches can offer a student correction when the student gets a wrong answer. That’s not being judgmental. Consider this excerpt from a Socratic dialogue by Peter Kreeft (one that does not deserve to be in obscurity):
Libby: You sound so damned sure of yourself, so dogmatic, so judgmental! Your namesake[*] said, “Judge not.” But you don’t dig that soft stuff, do you?
‘Isa: What do you think Jesus meant when he said “judge not”? Do you think he meant “don’t judge deeds, don’t believe the Commandments, don’t morally discriminate a just war from an unjust war or a hero from a bully”? He couldn’t have meant that. He meant “don’t claim to judge motives and hearts, which only God can see.” I can judge your deeds, because I can see them. I can’t judge what your motives are, because I can’t see that.
Libby: Then stop being so judgmental about that, at least.
‘Isa: But I can judge what your motives ought to be—just as you’re doing, when you judge “judgmentalism”.
—Peter Kreeft, A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews with an Absolutist
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999), 108.
So the Christian teaching is not “homophobic” or “anti-woman” (two popular epithets today). Rather the teaching is concerned with letting people know how their lives estrange them from God and what they must do to be saved. It’s not a hatred. It’s a case of viewing a person as being worth the effort to save—worthy of receiving our love because God loves them.
Sure, you’ll find Christians who are judgmental and hateful. You’ll also find atheists and Buddhists who are judgmental and hateful. But the Christian who actually hates another person because of their sins is not acting as God commands them to act. They are not acting as the Church commands them to act. I think people forget that. Yes, in the Middle Ages, punishments that we now see as barbaric were seen as normal. But even then, the person was not reduced to the evil they did. Even when the evil done resulted in Capital Punishment, the Church was still concerned for the salvation of the person—to bring them back to right relationship to God before they died.
But what happens when a person refuses to be brought back into right relationship with God? We certainly cannot say “Oh well, might as well go ahead and do it then.” We cannot allow people to redefine their action as “good.” But we can try to show love in pointing out that this action is harmful to a person based on what God wants them to be—because trying to encourage a person to abandon a harmful action is an act of love, not an act of hatred.
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[*] The Arabic form of “Jesus” is ‘Isa. Hence the reference to “Your namesake” in the quote from Peter Kreeft.
Jesus has some interesting things to say about His relationship with the world and what it means to follow Him:
17 *“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18 Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.* 20 I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:17-20)
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,* but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ 23 Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you.* Depart from me, you evildoers.’ (Matthew 7:21-23)
14 After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: 15 “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:14-15)
7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I testify to it that its works are evil. (John 7:7)
11 She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, [and] from now on do not sin any more.” (John 8:11)
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)
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. (John 14:15)
18 “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. 20 Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin; but as it is they have no excuse for their sin. (John 15:18-22)
21 [Jesus] said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit. 23 Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” (John 20:21-23)
These passages are interesting because they testify to the fact that Jesus came to save people from their sins, calling them to turn away from the evil they did. Jesus, out of love for us died so that we might be saved. But the fact that Jesus came to save us from our sins demonstrates that we have sins we need to be saved from, and love of Him requires us to act in a way that is in keeping with how God has called us to live. The Greek word μετανοια (metanoia) means having a change of mind and heart, and metanoia is what Jesus is calling every one of us to have—to turn away from sin and to turn back to God. He also chose His Church built on Peter and the Apostles to go forth with the mission of preaching the Gospel and forgiving sins, saying that rejection of the Church was rejection of Him (Luke 10:16).
The problem is many people who are enthusiastic about Jesus’ message of love and not judging completely overlook the entire message of metanoia. Instead, they prefer a form of Christianity that H. Richard Niebuhr warned about: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross."
Under such a view, saying that certain behaviors can damn a person to hell is seen as an insult, not a warning. The worldly Christian thinks that their own actions are not anything to worry about. Others may do bad things (such as Nazis and murderers), but it is believed that God doesn’t care about the things the Church calls sin.
That’s a curious idea. If we believe that Jesus is God, and the Father is God (John 10:30), then we cannot separate God’s commands from Jesus’ saying that we must keep His commandments. But that is exactly what people are trying to argue. They try to argue that because Jesus did not specifically mention a moral issue by name (homosexual acts are frequently mentioned) that Jesus did not condemn them. Of course, you can show how ridiculous that argument is by pointing out that Jesus said nothing about rape, incest, bestiality or necrophilia—does anybody really think Jesus thought those acts were morally acceptable? (Logically, this argument is an argument from silence fallacy).
In fact, Jesus spoke about marriage specifically as an institution between one man and one woman in a lifelong union—things which people are trying to claim the Church must change. When you think about it, it appears that people attacking the teaching of the Church are not being zealous to defend the teachings of Jesus—they are being zealous only to deny that they need to change their behavior.
So, it’s not the Church that people have problems with, but the teachings of God. But people find it easier to blame the Church for promoting the teachings of Jesus while explaining away or denying that Jesus taught any such thing. That way they can pretend to be obedient when their actual behavior is rebellion. The Church is called “legalistic” and contrary to love when she insists on saying that God’s commands are binding. But since Jesus did link loving Him with keeping His commandments, we have a huge contradiction between Jesus as He was and the counterfeit version that people insist the Church is ignoring.
It is true that Jesus came to save the world, not to condemn it (John 3:17), but that is often taken out of context when people assume it means Jesus won’t punish anyone for refusing to change their ways. But when read in content, God’s action is actually conditional on responding to His call:
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn* the world, but that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. 21 But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God. (John 3:17-21)
We can see that believing in God means turning to the light and that means turning away from sin and towards truth. But those who do wicked things hate the light and prefer darkness to light. God is merciful, but His mercy is not “cheap grace.” He gives us the grace and the means to be reconciled to Himself. But He does not force one to receive it against His will and it is possible to refuse the gifts of grace and mercy—whether by outright refusal to believe in Him or by refusal to keep His commandments. If we spurn His mercy, what is left but His justice?
I suspect many people don’t give sufficient thought to these things and what the lack of judgment would mean:
Imagine it is the end of the world. God has brought all before Him to face judgment. There in the back we see a group of people scowling. It’s the infamous dictators and mass murderers who have inflicted suffering on the world. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, the Kims of North Korea, the Roman Emperors who persecuted Christians (like Nero, Domitian, Diocletian etc.). They’re unrepentant of their sins and proud of what they did.
Now imagine that Our Lord turns to this group and says, “Because I love everyone, I won’t send anyone to hell. So welcome to Heaven.” How do you think the victims of these dictators would feel? For example, the Christians who died rather than renounce their faith—would they not be justified in wondering why they bothered in knowing, loving and serving Jesus when it clearly did not matter whether they did or not? In fact, such people could not say Our Lord was loving because in letting everyone into Heaven, regardless of what they did and whether they repented—even at the moment of their death—would that not make God into somebody who was indifferent to the wrongs done in the world?
It would make God unjust. When we think about it, we don’t want a God who is unjust and does not hold the unrepentant wicked accountable for their sins. Rather we just want a God who doesn’t hold us responsible for the sins we refuse to repent. But when we think about it, such thinking makes us into monstrous hypocrites. We demand mercy without justice for ourselves, but justice without mercy for those we dislike.
Ultimately, we need to recognize that God approaches each of us calling us to turn back to Him and accept His mercy. This turning back means rejecting our sins and keeping His commandments out of love for Him. We should be grieved by our sins and want to turn back to Him just as a man who loves his wife should be sorry for causing her pain and want to reconcile with her. God’s call of mercy is available as long as we live. But if we die unrepentant, we have to face His justice without the mercy that we refused. In such a case, we cannot blame God for being unfair. We have only ourselves to blame.
None of us know how much time we have on Earth. You might live another 50 years. You might die tomorrow. So, we need to accept the grace God offers when we become aware of it, and not treat it as something to do “down the road.” We need to listen to those God has tasked in teaching us right and wrong, and not reject their teaching as hateful or partisan.
Because if we reject them, we reject Christ. And if we reject Christ, we reject God.
In seeking to be holy, we are setting ourselves apart for God to be the greatest focus of our lives. If we choose something over or instead of God, we are effectively behaving like an idolator. Why? Because, as Jesus taught us:
34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them [a scholar of the law]* tested him by asking, 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him,* “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and the first commandment. 39 The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” (Matthew 24:34-40)
These two things are inseparable in the eyes of God. If we are to love God, we cannot neglect the commandments He has given us. We cannot put in opposition His commands that say that certain things are evil with the command that we love our neighbor. This gives us two obligations to watch out for:
These two things have sometimes been done. I think that in the present, many people seem to ignore the first obligation. In the past, some have ignored the second.
We cannot ignore the obligations that God gives us because of a false compassion for our neighbor.
One of the problems in modern society is we confuse doing right with “being nice.” We feel pity for someone being obligated to do something or refrain from doing something, when we see that obligation as being an inconvenience of some kind. This is how most of the arguments supporting abortion or “same sex marriage” tend to work. An appeal is made to the plight of the woman who does not want to be pregnant, or the person with same-sex attraction being doomed to live life alone. Now, yes a woman who did not plan to be pregnant may have to undergo changes and hardships. Yes a person with same-sex attraction can suffer terrible loneliness from not having a lifelong companion (Genesis 2:18).
However, even though those hardships are real, we can never alleviate them by breaking the commandments of God. When it comes to that sort of a conflict, then we must serve God. It’s not that we have a low opinion for the people—putting rules ahead of people (as the popular charge goes). It’s a case of God giving us teachings that are for our good, not His good.
We need to think about it this way: Sin is not a violation of human rules. It is something that hinders or even kills our relationship with God. It is something we need to be redeemed from. Our Lord Jesus thought that sin was something so serious that He chose to die for us to save us from it. So, God telling us not to sin is not an arbitrary rule that we can disregard. In fact, if we do freely choose to sin, we are making a mockery out of Jesus’ death on a cross.
We cannot mistreat others in the name of following the obligations of God
Of course, we have to remember that Jesus died for all of us (John 3:16-17)—including the people who commit the sins we find abhorrent. So we are not allowed to write off the sinner as not being worth the effort. We have the parable for the Shepherd and the Lost Sheep (Luke 15:1-7). When we reach out to the sinner, we can’t behave in a way that drives them away. That’s the major thrust of Pope Francis’ emphasis on mercy.
Because sometimes it is true that Catholics have not done well in showing that mercy. People like to point out the Spanish Inquisition and, while the claims are exaggerated to a ridiculous degree, the fact remains that this is not something that is in keeping with the teaching of Christ. This was the point of the apologies made by St. John Paul II in March 12, 2000. There were times when some Catholics were more interested in punishing the guilty than redeeming them. There are also lesser cases where individual Catholics have used harsh rhetoric in defending the faith and in debate with those who disagree with them.
These things need to be avoided. If we behave in a hostile matter, it becomes difficult to show the reasons that the Church teaching is not one of hatred or rigidness. The teachings of God become confused with political views and are thus rejected.
The Deception
The trick, however, is the fact that some people try to prey on our fear of being like the Pharisee by making any application of Church teaching sound like a denial of mercy. Saying something is a sin and the person who commits that sin is endangering their soul is not hatred. It is the earnest warning of someone who does not want to see the person wind up in hell. If the Church hated the sinner, they simply would not bother to preach at all and enjoy the thought of the sinner in hell. But God does not want us to do this. He wants us to warn the sinner (see Ezekiel 3:18).
Conclusion
The point remains that one cannot separate love of God with love of neighbor. But one has to keep the love of God and what is truly the love of neighbor. When it comes to love of God, we love Him by keeping His commandments (John 14:15). When it comes to loving our neighbor, it excludes acting in a way which goes against God. Once we put something ahead of God, we have an idol. Whether that idol is a literal golden calf, or a cause like “choice,” or a behavior like sodomy, we prefer that over God and refuse to obey God. Maybe we persuade ourselves that God doesn’t really care about His own teaching, but remember what I pointed out about what God did about sin. He gave His only son (John 3:16) to die to break the bonds of sin. Do you really think that God will not exact justice from the person who dies unrepentant?
We need to destroy our idols, otherwise they will lead to our destruction. That’s not a statement of hatred, but a statement of compassion and love.
So, first they told us that while the Church had to tolerate what she thought was wrong in institutions affiliated with her and in businesses run by individual Catholics, but she at least had the right to determine who had the right to work or the Church directly. But the article, "Investigation expected after gay choir director fired from Catholic church files complaint | WGN-TV,” shows us that now the Church can be targeted for legal retribution when she takes action against a member of a Church liturgical ministry acts in public rejection of Church moral teaching.
In this case, the music minister announced publicly that he was going to be taking part in a so-called “same sex marriage.” This is to make a public rejection of the Church teaching on marriage, and if the Church gives the impression she is indifferent to such behavior, it causes scandal because people might wrongly think the Church believes it is morally acceptable.
So, in response to this decision, the parish terminated his employment. Now he has filed a “discrimination” complaint against the Church.
The Church makes a distinction between reaching out to the sinner (which she must do) and accepting sin as good (which she must not do). When a person sins in his or her private life, the response is usually to reach out quietly to the sinner with the aim of bringing them to salvation. I’m sure there are people who work directly for the Church who are guilty of even mortal sin. It is spiritually harmful for them to be in that state, and people who seek to work for the Church need to recognize that they are called to live a life of Christian witness and the living in sin mars that witness. But the Church tends to work with such people with the sacraments and spiritual direction, reminding them of the need to live the way God calls them to live.
But once the person openly and publicly flaunts their rejection of the Church teaching, that becomes a serious matter. The Church is forced into a situation that either requires them to take action or cause scandal by giving the appearance that it accepts evil acts as good. Because Mr. Collette publicly announced he would be taking part in a so-called “same sex marriage,” the Holy Family Parish and the Archdiocese of Chicago chose to act, rather than give the impression that the action was morally acceptable.
What this case boils down to is a case of the State determining what religious and moral beliefs can be valued. Whatever religious beliefs the state does not approve of it can use coercion to change. In this case, the coercion is the use of the EEOC laws and regulations, treating the Church as a secular business—believing that holding members of the Church who work directly for the Church cannot be terminated for openly violating the teachings of the Church.
But the whole concept of religious freedom is that the state can neither coerce support of a state religion, nor force a religious institution to do what it believes to be morally wrong. So, if the EEOC is allowed to take action forbidding the Church from insisting her employees comply with Church teaching, or at least not publicly flaunt defiance of it, the result will be that the state is allowed to decide which religious beliefs can be enforced.
We’re in for darker times here.
9 He then addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.c 10 “Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’d 13 But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’e 14 I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”f
The standard interpretation of the verses today is to equate the Pharisee with the Church. The fact that she says sins exist and that all are sinners is seen as judging the world while praising herself. That is to miss the point of why the Church exists. The Church doesn’t exist to pick out and exalt the exemplary person while shaming the rest. She exists to carry out Christ’s role of bringing back the Lost Sheep to the fold and the Prodigal Son to the family, each Christian acknowledging his or her own sins. The Christian, properly formed in his or her faith, knows they sin and seeks out Jesus as Savior. The Prayer of St. Ambrose before Mass expresses well how Christians should see themselves:
I approach your banquet table in fear and trembling,
for I am a sinner,
and dare not rely on my own worth,
but only on your goodness and mercy.
I am defiled by many sins in body and soul,
and by my unguarded thoughts and words.
Gracious God of majesty and awe,
I seek your protection,
I look for your healing.
Poor troubled sinner that I am,
I appeal to you, the fountain of all mercy.
I cannot bear your judgment,
but I trust in your salvation.
None of us can approach Our Lord with the attitude of “I am Good, Praise me!” All of us must acknowledge that we do evil and seek His help in repenting from this evil. If we do not recognize that we are sinners, we cannot seek out His healing and His mercy.
Unfortunately, the curse of modern times is the fact that people don’t recognize that they do evil anymore—instead they assume that their sins “aren’t important,” and point to the sins of Christians throughout history as a way of showing their superiority to the Christian. “My sleeping with my boyfriend/girlfriend isn’t as bad as their intolerance!"
It is that charge of “intolerance” as an unforgivable sin” that seems to place the modern person in the category of the Pharisee and not the Tax Collector. The modern person looks at Christianity as hating the person who sins, but this is because the modern person cannot distinguish between the person and the acts they perform—they are seen as one and the same. But Christianity has a view which divides what the world will not divide. G.K. Chesterton expresses this division very well:
A sensible pagan would say that there were some people one could forgive, and some one couldn’t: a slave who stole wine could be laughed at; a slave who betrayed his benefactor could be killed, and cursed even after he was killed. In so far as the act was pardonable, the man was pardonable. That again is rational, and even refreshing; but it is a dilution. It leaves no place for a pure horror of injustice, such as that which is a great beauty in the innocent. And it leaves no place for a mere tenderness for men as men, such as is the whole fascination of the charitable. Christianity came in here as before. It came in startlingly with a sword, and clove one thing from another. It divided the crime from the criminal. The criminal we must forgive unto seventy times seven. The crime we must not forgive at all. It was not enough that slaves who stole wine inspired partly anger and partly kindness. We must be much more angry with theft than before, and yet much kinder to thieves than before. (Orthodoxy, page 175)
The distinction is important. It points out that Christianity recognizes forgiving the sinner always, but never accepting the sinful act as allowable. So, the murderer can be forgiven for his sin, but murder can never be redeemed as a good act. The man is not destined to be a murderer forever. Jesus gives grace to repent and if the sinner chooses to say, “I did wrong,” he can be cleansed of his sin with the admonition to “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11). But the choice has to be made—does he reject the sin and repent or does he let the sin define him and refuse to repent?
Now in cases like murder and rape, we tend to all be in agreement, but I think the problem in the modern West is we don’t want to give up certain sins and resent the implication that we are sinners because of this attachment. We let the sin define us and denouncing the sin is seen as hating the sinner. But that’s the problem. The teaching of Jesus Christ is that all of us are sinners—both the Pharisee and the Tax Collector—and repentance is required if one wants salvation. When the Pharisee praises himself, he does not go away justified. But what if the tax collector praised himself and refused to recognize his sinful actions as sinful? He would not be justified either.
When we look at things this way, I think we see why modern society is in such moral danger today. It defines Christianity as self-righteous in judging others, but it refuses to judge itself. Essentially, modern society stands the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector on its head, saying “I thank you I am not like that Christian!"
So, that’s the trap. Both the Pharisee and the Tax Collector can repent and be justified because they humbled themselves. But both the Pharisee and the Tax Collector can deny their sins, look down on others and walk away unjustified because they exalt themselves.
Perhaps Advent, less than a week away, would be a good time to reflect on where we individually stand before the Lord.
