Why I Listen to the Catholic Church

I have not always listened to the Church, despite my seeming  enthusiasm for obedience to demanding moral principles. 🙂

There was a time, in the not so distant past, when I considered myself Catholic, and I enjoyed being Catholic. I attended Mass frequently, read the Bible a little, and tried to be a good person in general. I even became a theology major because I found the study of God and Scripture very interesting.

From a theological perspective, I have basically always listened to the Church. I believed the Eucharist it the real presence of Christ. I believed in honoring Mary as “Theotokos” (God-Bearer). I believed that God is a trinity in unity; three Persons in one God, Father, Son, and holy Spirit. I believed everything contained in the Nicene creed which is said at Mass.

However, when it came to the Church’s teachings on morals, that was a very different story. In the arena of morals my principles were more defined by my political views and personal inclinations than they were by objective truth. I felt quite free, without completely understanding various Church teachings, to embrace or reject them out of hand. I was pro-choice. I was pro-contraception. I saw no problem with co-habitation or various other lifestyle choices. I was pro-stem cell research (without actually knowing much about it), and I was pro-euthanasia. In other words, in the world of morals, I was a product more of the culture than of the Church. I was Catholic enough to know that none of these things is accepted by the Church; I was more than happy to ignore the “stodgy old white men” who were deciding how people should live.

Meanwhile, I was more than happy to accept all of the “enlightened” Church teachings on war, nuclear weapons, racism, capital punishment, and other peace issues. The inconsistency of this belief now makes me chuckle as I think on it. I was more than willing to accept that the Church knew what was best for the whole world by opposing war, nuclear weapons, torture, and capital punishment. The Church should be taken seriously when it calls on the whole world to end the killing of human beings in war, but not when it calls for an end to killing human beings in the womb?

The Church knew better than many, many people, but not better than me. It knew better than heads of state who produce nuclear weapons. It knew better than war lords, and diplomats, and people who have spent their lives working in the criminal justice system. The Church knew something all of these people didn’t. But it didn’t know anything I didn’t know.

That was the main crux of the problem; my will and feelings were different from the Church’s will and feelings. One of three things could happen. I could (a) assume I’m right and 2000 years of Scripture and Tradition is wrong. That really, they were all waiting for me to come along and explain the error of their ways, or (b) just ignore the Church on issues of morals, but continue feeling a sort of vague idea that I might be off the mark, or (c) swallow my pride long enough to consider for just a moment, that the “stodgy white guys” might actually know something about God, life, or the metaphysical world that I don’t and as least do them the service of actually learning the teaching before I wholeheartedly dismiss it.

I though for a while I might like to choose a, then realized I probably didn’t know more about human nature and Truth than 2000 years of Scripture and Tradition, so I settled on b. I spent a looonnnggg loitering around letter b, until one day, I sort of thought…what if…and there I was at letter c.

I’m not even sure right now if I can trace how it happened. How I went from a position of ultimate arrogance, to one of docility and openness. Other than to say, there must have been people praying for me. And at some point, though I can’t exactly recall when, I must have opened my heart, just a little bit, to the possibility that a conscience more formed by CNN than by God is one little worth listening to. I stopped pushing against the Church, just for a second, and as Chesterton says, found myself being pulled further into Her.

And basically, that’s why I listen to the Church. Because I do not know everything. I have not had every experience, I have not read every philosophical text, I am not a biblical scholar, I do not know hebrew, greek, or latin. I lived the first 18 years of my life in Gouldsboro, PA, and then four more in Emmitsburg, MD; I spent the first 22 years (of my 25 so far) in towns with more cows than people. I know some things, but I do not know everything. I also know that the will of God is more important than the will of Sarah.

“It is impossible to be just to the Catholic Church. The moment men cease to pull against it they feel a tug towards it. The moment they cease to shout it down they begin to listen to it with pleasure. The moment they try to be fair to it they begin to be fond of it. But when that affection has passed a certain point it begins to take on the tragic and menacing grandeur of a great love affair.” – G. K. Chesterton