I need to speak to the faithful Catholics today. I know you’re out there; you like to refer to yourself as a “faithful Catholic,” to distinguish yourself from other sorts of Catholic.
I know I’ve got readers from all different faiths and that’s great, you are welcome here, but today’s topic is sort of narrow and may not apply to you at all. I need to harangue my brothers and sisters right here in the same church for a minute.
Guys? Let me try an experiment with you. I’m going to write an alarming paragraph and you think about how you respond to it. Ready? Here goes:
“The Pope isn’t doctor and he doesn’t know anything about sex. Same for the bishops. It’s cute that they want to teach about abortion and sex ethics, their hearts are in the right place, but they really don’t know what they’re talking about. Better to listen to doctors and people who study sex for a living. You can still be a faithful Catholic and use prudential judgement to decide how you’re going to apply the Church’s teaching on sexuality and reproduction. “
Ah, I see some of you are sharpening your pitchforks and building a bonfire. I don’t blame you. It hurt just to write the previous paragraph; it’s not what I believe at all. We who are Catholic need to respect the authority of the Pope and the bishops and listen to what they say, even when the world says differently.
Now, let me give you a couple of paraphrases of arguments I’ve heard, which did not get an angry outcry from faithful Catholics; in fact, the very Catholics who are meticulously faithful on reproductive issues are the Catholics who make these kinds of arguments.
“The Pope isn’t an ecologist. He doesn’t actually know about the environment or global warming. We are free to disregard him when he speaks about it.”
“The Pope isn’t an economist. It’s cute that he wants to speak on economic issues, but he’s wrong about the evils of capitalism. You can use your prudential judgement about money and still be a faithful Catholic.”
“The USCCB doesn’t know as much about vetting as the president does. They really can’t say whether the president’s executive order is unjust or not. Not even Cardinal Vasquez, whose whole job is to study and speak on immigration. We ought to listen to the president rather than the Bishops.”
“The bishops don’t know about how hard it is to protect yourself in today’s world. We’d better just ignore their quaint ideas about gun violence and stock up on bullets. And you can disregard them on war in general. And don’t get me started on how antiquated their ideas are about the nuclear arms race. What do clergymen know about the harsh realities of war?”
“The USCCB doesn’t understand about Mexico. Governments have the right to secure their borders, after all. If the president says the current ICE raids are necessary, we shouldn’t listen to our bleeding heart bishops.”
How do you feel about those?
Well, the fact is, they’re equally untrue to the first sample paragraph.
If you are a Catholic, the Church’s authority doesn’t govern the area between your knees and your belly button and leave you free to follow your bliss everywhere else. If you are a Catholic, the Church has laws on how we are to view and interact with our brothers and sisters in every sphere. There’s not a hard and fast rule for everything, and we do have to exercise the virtue of prudence. But where the Church speaks, they’re not speaking authoritatively on sexuality and just shooting the breeze on everything else. Nor is the reverse true. When the Church speaks out on economics, immigration or war, we ought to treat that with the same gravity with which we treat sex or whatever our pet issues are.
I am certain that everyone reading this can think of aspects of the Church’s teaching they like, and certain aspects they’d rather do without. I know I can. But you’re not being a faithful Catholic if you pick and choose what commandments you obey.
In order to call yourself a faithful Catholic, you need to believe and profess all that the Catholic Church teaches. Yes, even that part. Even the weird liberal-sounding bits and the uncomfortable bits that sound too conservative. And then, after you’ve believed and professed, you have to practice it. How that looks in your life will differ somewhat from person to person, different vocations being what they are. But you’re not free to believe a teaching in theory but defy it when you choose your politics or how you spend your money and claim that’s “prudential judgement.” It’s not. It’s being the dreaded Cafeteria Catholic.
This is a hard saying, and I for one don’t want to accept it. But I have to, if I want to be a faithful Catholic.
(image via Pixabay)
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