Reaching Out to the Concerned Catholic

Read more »

Thoughts on the Rise of Abusive Internet Polemics

²⁹ Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for edifying, as fits the occasion, that it may impart grace to those who hear. ³⁰ And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ³¹ Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, ³² and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

 

 The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version; Second Catholic Edition (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), Ephesians 4:29–32.

I’ve seen several posts recently about Catholics lamenting the harsher tone on social media. Many of them have theories on why this is—such as it being an election year or a reaction to Pope Francis. I think that’s confusing symptoms with cause.  After all, it is possible to be civil in a debate about these things.

My own thoughts on the subjects that some replaced apologetics with polemics, moving from defending the faith to attacking those who have different views. Apologetics are “reasoned arguments in justification of a theory or doctrine.” Polemics are “an attack on or refutation of the opinions or principles of another.” We could say that apologetics are defensive and polemics are offensive. Unfortunately, on the internet today, we can say many times polemics are offensive in both senses of the word—they attack and they can cause feelings of repugnance.

Polemics are not bad in themselves. Some of the Patristic authors made use of them to debunk heresies, and sometimes spoke sternly (I think St. Jerome would have felt at home on today’s social media). But we have to remember we don’t write with the insights or talent of these ancient authors! Where they might deliver a stinging rebuke, we often wind up delivering a stinging insult that hardens people in their attitudes or treats people of good faith abusively, driving them away. That’s a bad thing, and we need to avoid it. St. John Paul II describes this negative side of polemics in Ut Unum Sit:

[38] Intolerant polemics and controversies have made incompatible assertions out of what was really the result of two different ways of looking at the same reality. Nowadays we need to find the formula which, by capturing the reality in its entirety, will enable us to move beyond partial readings and eliminate false interpretations.

In other words, we can get so caught up in fighting each other that we lose sight of what we hope to achieve in service of the truth. The end result is mutual hatred and mistrust that hardens positions to the point where no reconciliation is possible. St. Nicholas of Flüe described it as, “You would not be able to untie this knot in the rope…if we both pulled on each end, and that is always the way people try to untangle their difficulties.” (Congar, Yves. O.P. After Nine Hundred Years (1959) p. 79)

That doesn’t mean Catholics can’t refute error. What it means is we can do more harm than good, thinking of those we meet as foes to vanquish instead of people to help. If we drive them away, how will we bring them to Christ? Charity must reign in all dialogue. We must think about our words and our tone. Yes, there are people inside and outside the Church who attack us and promote error. We must certainly defend the faith and show why the attacks against the Church are unjust. But we must not be jerks about it and we must not give in to wrath—especially when it comes to people who seek the truth in good faith but might have trouble overcoming obstacles.

For example, today many attack Pope Francis, accusing him of error and harming the Church. That’s wrong and we must oppose it. But we have to distinguish between people who unjustly attack him and those Catholics—wanting to be faithful—who see the harm in the Church and fear these critics are right. If we direct abusive polemics at them, we might end up driving them into that camp.

Unfortunately, people today often think the attack on idea is a personal attack on them because they think the idea is true. So when we attack ideas spread by the abusive critics of Pope Francis, we need to make our ideas clear and charitable. Yes, that’s hard at times. We can’t control how people interpret what we say and write. Sometimes people get offended when we mean no offense. In such cases, we need to explain patiently what we do mean. Some might treat us wrongly. But we cannot let our anger drive our response. If we can’t avoid that, then perhaps we should rethink whether we should be part of the attack. 

Not everybody can do polemics with charity. Even if we can, people might still take offense, thinking it is a personal attack, and we might drive them even further away from the truth. So we should consider our words well, striving to avoid treating the other person as an enemy. We should neither patronize nor antagonize others when spreading Our Lord’s teaching.

Don't Be Jerks About "Don't Be Jerks" Posts

Pope Francis recently called for Christians who did wrong to people with same sex attraction to seek forgiveness. This was widely misrepresented and some Catholics wound up thinking the Pope was saying we should apologize for Church teaching. But a good number of Catholic bloggers rose to defend the Pope from these attacks, especially when they came from big names in Catholic blogging who had been defending the Church for years..

Unfortunately,there are some blog posts that seem to push an attitude of “we’re all guilty” of doing wrong to these people, and I think that will end up alienating faithful Catholics.

The problem is, the fact that some people do wrong does not mean all people do wrong and we need to avoid indicting every person who believes sin is sin. Many people were justly angered by Supreme Court justices striking down the defense of marriage laws and legalizing same sex “marriage.” They’re also justly angry when they suffer injustice.

See, anger in itself is not a sin. The 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia makes a good distinction:

Its ethical rating depends upon the quality of the vengeance and the quantity of the passion. When these are in conformity with the prescriptions of balanced reason, anger is not a sin. It is rather a praiseworthy thing and justifiable with a proper zeal. It becomes sinful when it is sought to wreak vengeance upon one who has not deserved it, or to a greater extent than it has been deserved, or in conflict with the dispositions of law, or from an improper motive.

The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church (Kindle Locations 32267-32270). Catholic Way Publishing. Kindle Edition.

We can, with prudence and balanced zeal, be angry at injustice and want it resolved—and we do not sin in such cases. We sin when our anger makes us want revenge on the innocent or by demanding more than justice allows. So, with that balance in mind, it is wrong to assume that all Christians angry at sin or for suffering injustice for their beliefs must be guilty and think they need to seek forgiveness.

As I see it, Pope Francis is talking about Christians who have treated people with same sex attraction as less than fully human, when our task is to show God’s love to our fellow sinners, even though their sins are different than ours. I believe he refers to those who think our faith justifies driving these people away and insulting them—those who go overboard in their rhetoric and those who think that we must ostracize them on account of their sins. The Pope’s message since 2013 was one of showing mercy, which is not the same as permissiveness. Each individual will have to look to their own conscience and see if they stand indicted by the Pope’s words. But neither you nor I can look at their conscience for them. We can only look at our own conscience and see whether we have failed to show love and mercy.

That means we need to stop using rhetoric that accuses and assumes that everyone must be guilty. Instead of saying "Don't be like that guy!” (which assumes bad will on the part of “that guy” and those who have similar concerns), let’s say, "Let us be merciful and charitable because that is God's will for us."

Another point we need to be aware of. Just because people take offense at us because we believe homosexual acts are wrong, does not mean we’re guilty of wronging them. Sure, if someone overlays the rainbow flag with Hitler, that’s seeking to offend. But if a Christian says, “I’m sorry, but these acts are sins,” and the person gets angry, the Christian has done no wrong. Yes, we must be careful to witness Our Lord in our words and actions. But just because someone gets angry when we will not call evil “good,” that doesn't mean we are to blame for that anger.

We should avoid both the idea that everybody is to blame and the idea that nobody is to blame. The Pope’s words call each of us to honestly examine our conscience, and see if we have done right or wrong. But let’s not use rhetoric that sounds like we think everybody has done wrong on this topic.

Being Faithful in Small Things Means Being Respectful to the Pope

When people talk about the Catholic Church becoming more faithful, they generally think of a Church that expels the liberals and leaves us with a more conservative Church that was doctrinally pure—according to the preferences of the individual imagining it. It’s easy to understand the temptation. Catholics get tired of dissenting Catholics walking around with seeming impunity and they get tired of what they think are ineffective bishops. Catholics wanted vindication and they didn’t want to keep battling people who claimed to be good Catholics while openly rejecting Church teaching. What people didn’t consider was that this would stand the parable of the lost sheep on its head, where the shepherd who, instead of leaving the 99 to save the one, wouldn’t worry about 70 lost sheep so long as he had 30 good sheep who didn’t stray.

This mindset shows up when Catholics take offense with the Pope’s words about seeking forgiveness from those we wronged. Since this involved the past mistreatment of people with same sex attraction, people reacted with outrage. Some went so far as accusing him of wanting to apologize for Church teaching. That sort of thing happens all the time. The Pope speaks. People rely on out of context quotes and go berserk. They assume mercy means permissiveness, and asking forgiveness for mistreatment means apologizing for Church teaching—even though the Pope specifically rejected this interpretation.

But what makes this troublesome is I’m not talking about radical traditionalists here. I’m talking about people who spent years or even decades defending the Church suddenly treating Pope Francis as if he were a burden to endure and saw themselves as needing to defend the faith in spite of him.

These people will hasten to tell you they are not being unfaithful. They profess obedience to the Church and Pope. I don’t dispute their sincerity. What I dispute is their belief that their behavior is not dangerous. I do not believe a person can withhold loyalty and respect to the Pope in small matters without eventually becoming disloyal and disrespectful in great matters. Our Lord warns us in Luke 16:10, “The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones.” If we can’t trust a person to be respectful and loyal to the Pope in small matters, how can we trust him to be faithful in large matters?

No, I’m not talking about radical traditionalists. I’m talking about Catholics who profess loyalty to the Church and the Pope, but they are patronizing about it. They feel superior to him and think they have a better grasp of Church teaching. They’ll argue that the Pope can make mistakes when speaking as a private person, and not intending to teach the Church (which is true). But they don’t ask if maybe they are the ones who made mistakes in interpreting the Pope or Church teaching itself. They’ll point out that we have bad Popes (which also is true) but they don’t show that Pope Francis is one. In other words, they mention the cases of not being infallible and of bad Popes in order to lead people into thinking the Pope’s might have spoke in error and might be a bad Pope. What they don’t do is prove that the Pope speaks wrongly. They  blame him for the misunderstandings that happen but don’t ask whether there is another cause—like our tendency to focus on one sentence in isolation when we must read his entire statement in entirety if we would understand. 

This is the danger: If one is so confident that they know better than the Pope, they eventually will decide that they can only obey him when they agree with him. The danger though is that Our Lord linked obedience to his Church with faithfulness to Him (see Luke 10:16 and Matthew 18:17), and the Pope is the head of the Church. Even when one might disagree with him on a minor matter, it is wrong to treat him like a fool—even if one is polite in doing so. I’m not advocating papolatry or ultramontanism (two popular ad hominem attacks thrown at Pope Francis’ defenders). I’m simply saying that Catholics who rush to blame him for the confusion caused by religious illiteracy are causing scandal, leading people to mistrust the Pope and the Church. Such people should remember that  Our Lord warns that the fate of those who cause such scandal:

But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of scandals. For it must needs be that scandals come: but nevertheless woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh. 

 

 The Holy Bible, Translated from the Latin Vulgate (Douay-Rheims), Mt 18:6–7.

Usurpation: When Preference Replaces Church Teaching

One thing the 2016 elections makes clear is that while our preferences and Church teaching may be similar, they are not the same thing. In saying this, I don’t indict my fellow Catholics of being “bad Catholics.” What I mean is, what we think is the best way to live as a Catholic are sometimes prudential judgments where other faithful Catholics can legitimately disagree. So, if we insist that our prudential judgment is the only way to follow the Catholic faith, we end up being unjust to those who follow their own prudential judgment.

It’s easy to make that judgment. Some Catholics do make bad decisions while believing them to be compatible with Church teaching. When that happens, we do have to help them understand (in charity) what the Church does teach. The problem is, we tend to think that because some go astray, it means whoever reaches a different decision than we do must be guilty of the same thing. We see this happen in disputes over what sort of laws we should pass in response to national events and what sort of votes we should cast to be faithful to the Church and her teaching.

What we should remember is, the Church teaches us about truth, morality and the need to follow it if we would be faithful Catholics. She does not tell us we must vote for candidate X or law Y. As Benedict XVI wrote:

[#9] The Church does not have technical solutions to offer and does not claim “to interfere in any way in the politics of States.”¹¹ She does, however, have a mission of truth to accomplish, in every time and circumstance, for a society that is attuned to man, to his dignity, to his vocation.

 

 Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2009).

If we act against the truth taught by the Church (such as calling an openly pro-abortion candidate “the real pro-life candidate”) we do wrong. But if people take to heart the teaching of the Church and, properly understanding it, their conscience leads them to vote differently than we prefer, we cannot attack them as being bad Catholics. We can debate (in charity) whether certain reasoning is accurate, but we can’t say they choose to do evil because they do not embrace the third party option or do not think the recent slate of gun control legislation will solve anything.

When one Catholic accuses another of supporting evil when it is only a difference of prudential judgment, this is what St. Thomas Aquinas calls usurpation—a case “when a man judges about matters wherein he has no authority” (Summa Theologica II-II q.60 a.2 resp) [†]. We don’t have the authority in judging a man an evildoer when he follows Church teaching in good faith and to the best of his ability. We can shake our heads and disagree. We can offer charitable arguments on why we disagree. But if we equate our preferences with Church teaching, we usurp her authority when we judge.

If we don’t get this attitude under control, it sometimes becomes suspicion of the Church herself. If we continue letting our preferences usurp the teaching of the Church, we risk becoming judges of the Church where the Church can only be right when she does our will. That too is usurpation. The Church binds and looses because God gives the Church this right and responsibility. We do not have such a right.

But when we claim the Church went wrong and can only repair herself if she follows our preferences, we are usurping what God has given His Church. It doesn't matter whether The Church seems inept or error prone to us. God has given the successors of the Apostles the right and obligation in leading the Church and we trust Him to protect the Church. If we feel called to reform the Church, we must work under her authority, not against it. St. Francis of Assisi, for example, did not write abusive articles about how awful the Church was. Instead, he followed Our Lord’s call to rebuild His Church, by giving obedience to the Pope and bishops.

We can have preferences about how the Church should handle things. That’s not wrong in itself. It goes wrong when we make our preference the yardstick that measures the Church, when it should be the Church that measures our preference. When we start viewing the Pope as a burden, or claiming that the Church went wrong after Vatican II, or thinking her moral teachings are arbitrary teachings she should abandon, we have gone wrong, and may be guilty of scandal if we lead others into this rebellion.

The way to change, is to learn the teaching of the Church and to avoid condemning the Church herself or people who strive to be faithful just because they go against our preferences. in the course of being faithful. Some Catholics may not like that others oppose certain gun control measures. Some Catholics may be in a civil war over whether to support Trump or a 3rd party. But before condemning them, we need to learn both what the Church allows and what motives these fellow Catholics might have for their decision. 

 

___________________________

[†] The whole response is worth reading:

I answer that, Judgment is lawful in so far as it is an act of justice. Now it follows from what has been stated above (A. 1, ad 1, 3) that three conditions are requisite for a judgment to be an act of justice: first, that it proceed from the inclination of justice; secondly, that it come from one who is in authority; thirdly, that it be pronounced according to the right ruling of prudence. If any one of these be lacking, the judgment will be faulty and unlawful. First, when it is contrary to the rectitude of justice, and then it is called perverted or unjust: secondly, when a man judges about matters wherein he has no authority, and this is called judgment by usurpation: thirdly, when the reason lacks certainty, as when a man, without any solid motive, forms a judgment on some doubtful or hidden matter, and then it is called judgment by suspicion or rash judgment.

 

 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne).

The Rise of the "I'm With Stupid" Faction in the Church

Read more »

A Church of a Billion Popes?

Read more »

Love and Truth Will Meet—and Apparently Say "See Ya"

¹¹ Love and truth will meet; 

justice and peace will kiss. 

¹² Truth will spring from the earth; 

justice will look down from heaven. (Psalm 85:11–12).

Introduction

There’s an ugly battle flaming up between Catholics when it comes to the Orlando mass shooting. it’s a battle over how to address the people who have a same sex attraction when it comes to condolences. Are they a community? Or are they not? The dispute is over whether one should send condolences to the “LGBT community” or whether that would look like an endorsement of sinful acts. This seems like something which they can resolve charitably. Unfortunately, it’s gotten to the point where the two sides are practically throwing anathemas at each other, assuming the other side is guilty of bad will or even malice.

Setting Up the Situation

To sum up the two positions briefly (and hopefully, fairly):

1. Those who think we should use term “LGBT community” say this is no different than referring to “the black community” or the “Jewish community,” and nobody should take offense or think this is an endorsement of sinful behavior.
2. Those who oppose the use say that grouping people by their inclination or behavior is not the same as real ethnic or religious communities, but instead equates people with their behavior. Also, given the tendency of the media to present such things as “CHURCH TO CHANGE TEACHING” headlines, it does matter whether or not Catholics use this term.

So the question is over whether calling people with a disordered attraction a community is in keeping with the command to love the sinner and speaking against the sin.

There’s no official teaching on the proper form here. The official statement from the Holy See said:

The terrible massacre that has taken place in Orlando, with its dreadfully high number of innocent victims, has caused in Pope Francis, and in all of us, the deepest feelings of horror and condemnation, of pain and turmoil before this new manifestation of homicidal folly and senseless hatred. Pope Francis joins the families of the victims and all of the injured in prayer and in compassion. Sharing in their indescribable suffering he entrusts them to the Lord so they may find comfort. We all hope that ways may be found, as soon as possible, to effectively identify and contrast the causes of such terrible and absurd violence which so deeply upsets the desire for peace of the American people and of the whole of humanity.

The Pope did not use the term, but there’s no doubt he was clear in condemning an evil act and showing love and compassion for victims and their families. So, unless wants to condemn the Pope, there is nothing wrong with avoiding the term. On the other hand, some bishops did use the term in sending condolences and Catholics dispute whether this was right.

Here’s the Problem

The problem with this debate is many debaters are openly insulting of the other side, accusing them of being bad Catholics. Hotheads among Catholics who support using the term “LGBT community” accuse those who don’t like it of bigotry and a lack of compassion for the victims and their families. Hotheads among Catholics opposed to the term accuse those who do use it of heresy and sending a false message to the world. Neither side is free of inflammatory rhetoric (So don’t go pointing fingers at the other side).

But people are assuming that a dispute proves a lack of love or a neglect of truth. Yes, we want to show compassion to the victims and their families. Yes, we want to condemn the mass shooting as something evil regardless of how the victims lived. But we also must make clear (where fitting) that our moral beliefs are not going to change because of the evil some do.

So, we have an obligation. Before we condemn a Catholic for being heretical or hateful, we have to know the intentions the speaker or writer had. Does the person who uses the term “LGBT community” mean to endorse something against Church teaching? Or is this a case of simply not thinking about the potential meanings people might draw from it? Does the person who does not use the term mean to show hatred to the victims? Or is it a case of wanting to be clear about where the Church stands?

What gets overlooked is the fact that a person may not intend what the listener/reader believes it the point. We should strive to speak clearly. But not all will have the same talent in doing so. We have to realize that condolences phrased differently than we like may not mean support of evil. It is possible the speaker is unclear or we have simply misunderstood because we give words meaning that the speaker does not intend. If the speaker uses the term, but does not mean to support sin, we must not condemn him for heresy. if the speaker does not use the term, but does not act out of hatred in doing so, we must not condemn him of bigotry. It is only when we know the person acts from a bad motive, that we can offer a rebuke.

Conclusion

It’s hypocrisy to love the person far away and hate our brother. God, who told us to love our enemies, also told us to love our neighbor as ourself. So if we call for love and compassion for the victims, but will not show it for the fellow Christian who we argue with, we are doing wrong. It’s time to stop accusing each other of bad will and time to start understanding what the other person meant, accepting different views as valid when they are compatible with Catholic belief and gently guiding them back when they are not.

Savaging each other over disagreements because we assume the other is deliberately choosing to do evil is rash judgment and we become hypocrites if we refuse to love our fellow Christian.

Reflections on Orlando and Searching For Meaning

It’s undeniable that the attack in the Orlando night club shooting was evil. Outside of a few twisted individuals out there, everyone realizes this type of thing is indefensible. Regardless of what moral objections there may be over a person’s life, murder is never justified. One does not oppose wrongdoing by doing wrong. Yet, sometimes there are extremists who cross that line. Whether they act from mental illness or from dangerous views, there are people out there who will respond to things they don’t like in a disproportionate and dangerous way.

I think that when something like this happens, people sometimes start drawing the wrong conclusions. Some find scapegoats. Others, seeing some sort of similarity with the wrongdoer, feel they have to tone it down and sometimes appear to cave in on what is true due to fearing guilt by association. Nobody who feels revulsion over evil wants to seem guilty of supporting it, but they do want to root out the cause of the evil. That’s natural, but it can do more harm than good.

The problem is, it’s not enough to go with our emotions. We have to use our minds as well to find out what did happen and respond to the reality of the situation. In the course of less than 24 hours, claims shifted from the shooter being a rage filled Muslim extremist enflamed by the image of two men kissing to a claim that the shooter was a regular at the gay nightclub where he carried out his massacre. Today’s news may debunk this. Or maybe we will find more that proves it true. Who knows? Right now, the answer is “not us." The point is, we need to slow down and learn what happened before declaiming on “What Ought To Be Done."

Conservatives are blaming Islam. Liberals are blaming guns and intolerance. Rhetoric gets ramped up so high that whoever questions one of these causes finds themselves accused of blindness, or even supporting this crime. But few are asking the question, “What is the truth?” But the moment we stop asking that question and instead start blaming the groups we dislike, we stop searching for meaning and go into “It’s your fault!” mode. People want vengeance, not justice and they seem to want a hated foe to take the blame.

Some of the claims are contradictory. For example, if it does turn out to be true that the shooter was a patron of this club, then “homophobia” seems less likely and we need to find a new motive to help us understand it. If it turns out he was mentally ill, then perhaps the claims of this being a planned terrorist attack are false. So, I think there are some things we need to learn here.

First of all, we cannot guilt ourselves into silence over right and wrong. When the Church says we must speak against wrong in evangelizing the world, then we cannot shrink back from speaking the truth. That doesn’t mean we can be tactless or judgmental about it. As Pope Francis has made clear in his pontificate, we do need to show mercy and understanding. We have to show compassion and love.

Second, we need to remember that God wants the salvation of all. His respect for our free will may mean some will speak or act wrongly. But we can’t abandon them to damnation. That means both we can’t be harsh and drive them to despair and it means we can’t be so wishy-washy that people can’t find out whether a thing is wrong or not.

Third, building on God’s desire for our salvation, even if some victims have done wrong themselves, that does not mean they “got what they deserved” in this case. We should not say such things. God sent Old Testament prophets to exact punishments that were bloody by our standards. God did not send this shooter to do it.

Fourth, the actions of an extremist do not indict the whole unless the crime is explicitly what a person’s professed religious or value system obliges. It does not indict all Muslims, gun owners, people who believe homosexual acts are morally wrong unless the evidence inescapably proves this. 

So as we begin today with new developments and continued recriminations in this evil, let us remember our obligation to speak truth with love and compassion. Let us also remember our obligation to search for the truth before blaming our favorite scapegoats or backpedaling on what we believe about right and wrong.

Building Houses on the Sand: A Reflection on Relationships With God and His Church

Read more »

Do They Speak the Truth?

Read more »

Which is Manmade? The Church or Your Movement?

Read more »

Let's Talk Elections—More Specifically Let's Talk About Our Behavior in Them

Read more »

The Political Pharisee

Read more »

How Hard Did You Look?

One common complaint about the teaching authority of the Church today is that she does not teach clearly. This complaint pops up a lot when a person railing against a Church teaching or press conference by the Pope gets refuted. In other words, the person assumes that any misunderstanding about Church teaching must be the fault of the Church. Translated: “I don’t make mistakes. So if I misinterpreted it, someone else must be to blame!"

But when I witness people who blame the Church for their misunderstanding, the question that pops into my mind is How hard did you look for the true interpretation? Now the ability to interpret Church teaching may vary from person to person. Each of us have different levels of education and training after all. Some may be able to research for themselves. Others may not even know where to begin and need help from a reliable source to understand. But how many are even looking?

The fact that people automatically assume that the Pope and bishops in communion with him are seeking to change Church teaching shows that not only are they not looking for truth misrepresented in news reports, they do not even know the foundations the Catholic theology needed to properly assess what the Church teaches—both now and in the past. Since we believe that the Church can only bind and loose (Matthew 16:19, Matthew 18:18) because Our Lord gave the Apostles and their successors that authority, and that Our Lord equated rejecting the authority of the Church with rejecting Him (Luke 10:16), it follows that when the magisterium intends to teach—even if the teaching is not ex cathedra—we must give our assent to that teaching[†]. Since it is absurd to think God would expect us to obey error and deny truth, it logically follows that Our Lord protects His Church from teaching error in matters that would force us to sin against God if we obeyed.

So, when we read a report that the Church is reversing a long held teaching to allow what she formerly condemned as sinful, Catholics searching for the truth should know this claim is untrue. From this, we can search out what the Pope, bishop or synod said and in what context. The belief that Pope Francis intends to change Church teaching on moral obligation shows both an ignorance about what Pope Francis says and what his predecessors said. 

For example, many take offense at Pope Francis condemning evils in Capitalism and call him a Marxist. But if we look at what Popes said about moral obligation in social justice, we see that from Pope Leo XIII to the present have consistently opposed the same economic injustice Pope Francis opposes. To call him a Marxist means calling his predecessors the same thing.

What we have is the same situation Socrates spoke about. People often do not know the truth, and they do not know they are ignorant about the truth. Instead, they think their assumptions and preferences are truth, and attack whatever challenges those assumptions and preferences as error. So long as they do not constantly investigate whether their assumptions are true, they will never escape error.

When we are ignorant about something and we could have learned the truth if we bothered to look, we have vincible ignorance—that is to say, ignorance we can avoid and are responsible for if we do wrong through our ignorance. If we rely on the secular news and decide that the Church is in error while we are not, then we reach our interpretations through vincible ignorance and the error is our fault.

Yes, some people say “Pope Francis should have expressed himself more clearly” to excuse themselves. But people have misinterpreted Church teaching throughout history. How many anti-Catholics still believe we “worship” statues? How many of them think we believe in “works-based” salvation where we have to earn it? We do not believe these things but you will always find someone taking the Bible or a Church document out of context to justify a false accusation.

The fact is, the Church cannot express herself in such a way where nobody can misinterpret or misrepresent what she said. We use words in different contexts than Church documents intends and then assume the Church uses the word in the same context we do. That’s our fault. We rely on what others claim the Church said and don’t consider whether their claims are in context or even factually correct. 

I’d like to end this article with two truths that always helped me when people try to attack my faith in the Church:

1. Just because we don’t know the answer to a problem does not mean the Church has no answer
2. When we’re tempted to think the Church is teaching error, we must investigate whether we have misunderstood

If we remember these things, we are less likely to fall into error when the Church says something we find confusing.

___________________________

[†] Pope John XXII (commonly cited as proof that “heretic Popes”can exist) offered a personal opinion on a topic not yet defined at the time and never intended to teach it as Church belief. Yes, we’ve had bad popes, but that badness was moral, not doctrinal.