Category Archives: Ecumenism

The Visible Church

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Sacred Tradition is, and always has been, a great obstacle for Protestants to overcome.  There is an utter incongruity between the Christianity of history and Protestantism that requires much mental gymnastics to avoid.  St. John Henry Newman put it another way: “if ever there were a safe truth, it is this…To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.”  The early Protestants, because they were drawn from the ranks of Catholics, knew this so that their theological acrobatics required them to discredit, or at least mitigate the role of the Catholic Church during the first fifteen centuries of Christianity, while still maintaining the revealed truth that the Church could not totally fail.  From this they developed the idea of the “Invisible Church” as the true Church.  This “spiritual” society was to be comprised of all the just men and women.  It would only be made visible to the extent that the various religious communities more or less perfectly realize the ideal proposed by Christ.  All of this leads to the notion that one Church is as good as another and only the “heart” of the individual believer really determines whether they are a part of the true, invisible Church.

We must admit at the outset that this ecclesiastical sleight of hand by the original Protestant revolutionaries was deliberate.  But for Protestants today, it is simply an unquestioned maxim upon which the entire façade of Protestantism rests.  This is why Newman thought, especially from his own personal experience, that studying the Church Fathers would lead one to the conclusion that the Protestant Fathers invented a new Christianity that was, at least in theory, based on the Bible alone.  But prior to this study it is often necessary to raze the foundation upon which the entire building of Protestantism rests—the invisible Church.

That Christ intended to form a single Church is clearly testified to in Sacred Scripture.  The one mustard seed, the one field, the one Bride of Christ and telling it to the Church all put this unity on display.  He prayed to the Father before making His sacrifice that all believers would be one.  Of these facts both Catholics and Protestants can agree.  But in order for this unity to real, there must be certain characteristics among the body of believers.

For any society to exist there must be a true union of minds and wills between members.  This unity in intellect means that the same doctrines are known and professed by each of the members.  Likewise, the union of wills means, not just that they do the same things, but that there is submission to a common authority.  Because man is not just a mind and will however, there must also be a third characteristic.  This third characteristic is a set of external signs that symbolizes this internal unity. 

Unity in Visible Government

In merely human societies, this unity is usually realized imperfectly.  Nevertheless, there are some core set of beliefs, recognition of authority and visible signs that mark members of a society as belonging to that society.  In the supernatural society that is the Church, these are necessarily realized perfectly.  No mere core set of beliefs will do because of the Divine promise of being given “all truth” (Jn 16:13).  There are no “core beliefs” in Christianity because the Truth is one.  This unity of doctrine likewise means a unity of acceptance and a unity of government. 

The Truth must be guarded and protected so as to avoid corruption.  Protestantism bears this aspect out.  Because there is no unity of belief, there can be no unity in government and thus we have thousands of “denominations.”  Protestantism, rather than leading to the unity willed by Christ, has led in the opposite direction.  This government must not only be one, but it must be visible.  The Government of the Church, because of the nature of man and the nature by which men are cooperators, must be something visible and external. 

As Leo XIII said in Satis Cognitum:

The Apostles received a mission to teach by visible and audible signs, and they discharged their mission only by words and acts which certainly appealed to the senses. So that their voices falling upon the ears of those who heard them begot faith in souls-“Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the words of Christ” (Rom. x., 17). And faith itself – that is assent given to the first and supreme truth – though residing essentially in the intellect, must be manifested by outward profession-“For with the heart we believe unto justice, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom. x., 10). In the same way in man, nothing is more internal than heavenly grace which begets sanctity, but the ordinary and chief means of obtaining grace are external: that is to say, the sacraments which are administered by men specially chosen for that purpose, by means of certain ordinances.

SG, 3

Unity in Visible Worship

But this visibility in government is not the only aspect by which the Church must be visible.  Since it is a religious society, there must be a unity in worship.  It is this unity of worship that signals to the world that the Church is one. 

Man, on his own, is incapable of worshipping God in a fitting manner.  For that, God must reveal the form of worship that is pleasing to Him. Throughout salvation history, God always makes a covenant with Israel that includes regulation of a concrete form of worship that God seeks.  The New Covenant is no different in that regard.  The worship that God seeks, the only worship that is pleasing to Him is the Mass.  This is exactly the point that St. Paul makes to the Corinthians.  First, he reminds them that the liturgy is their source of unity: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?   Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf” (1Cor 10:16-17).  Then he tells them that the form of the liturgy, including the manner in which they participate, is regulated by Christ Himself: “In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes” (1Cor 11:25-26).

Practically speaking then there can be no true Christian Unity without unity of Faith, government and worship.  True Ecumenism then must always have as its purpose conversion because until we have unity in the True Faith, governed by the True Church and worshipping with the True Sacrifice, we remain a divided society.

Eliminating the Other Police Force

American Founding, Church and State, Church Authority, Culture, Culture of Life, Defending the Faith, Ecumenism, Freedom, ,

While we are about the project of reforming the civil police force, we are allowing the Thought Police to run amok.  The Thinkpol are slowly rendering certain ideas unutterable simply because they do not conform to the Ochlocratic Orthodoxy.  Not only do they have ritual humiliation at hand, they have co-opted corporations so that private views now have become fireable offenses.  The mob silences dissenters by threatening livelihood and so most people simply conform.  Free speech has come under attack in America in ways that would make even Woodrow Wilson blush.  Like the previously discussed freedom of conscience, freedom of speech also needs defending.  And like freedom of conscience, only Catholics who have a proper understanding of it, are in a position to lead the charge.

On the one hand, it is not wholly unexpected that free speech in our country has taken such a sharp left turn into a ditch.  The Founders had an absolute faith in the power of the popular mind.  Individuals might err, but the entire society could not.  Free speech, coupled with democracy, serves as a recipe for finding the truth.  All debate, they thought, would eventually lead to the truth.  All ideas, even bad ones, then must be protected in order to keep the debate moving.  In Gertz vs Welch, the Supreme Court declared that “”Under the First Amendment there is no such thing as a false idea … (it) requires that we protect some falsehood in order to protect speech that matters.”

Captivity to the Mob

Any freedom that is directly linked to democracy is always susceptible to becoming captive to the mob.  If debate over an issue ceases then it is assumed that the truth has been reached.  Now those who do not accept the orthodoxy become a threat to the well-being of society and need to be shut up.  Thus we have things such as “hate speech” becoming punishable offenses.    

A vicious circle is formed so that truth as a democratic matter always ends in an assault upon true liberty including free speech.  It is as if they must saw off the limb they are sitting on.  Liberty can only be connected to purpose and the purpose of speech is to utter truth.  Therefore, there is such thing as liberty to speak falsehood.   Freedom of speech is not unlimited but instead is not then a justification to say anything. 

Truth is not democratic but is strictly governed by the dictatorship of reality.  Truth, that is, the accordance of mind with reality, is necessary for liberty. Summarizing, Leo XIII says that the right to free speech “is a moral power which – as We have before said and must again and again repeat – it is absurd to suppose that nature has accorded indifferently to truth and falsehood, to justice and injustice. Men have a right freely and prudently to propagate throughout the State what things soever are true and honorable, so that as many as possible may possess them; but lying opinions, than which no mental plague is greater, and vices which corrupt the heart and moral life should be diligently repressed by public authority, lest they insidiously work the ruin of the State” (Libertas, 23).    

This abuse of free speech eventually leads to its destruction as ironic as that seems.  The problem is that there is no set of public truths that are immune to criticism, no intellectual foundation upon which debate may be carried out.  Leaving everything open to debate actually closes it, a situation that Leo XIII anticipated when he said “The excesses of an unbridled intellect, which unfailingly end in the oppression of the untutored multitude, are no less rightly controlled by the authority of the law than are the injuries inflicted by violence upon the weak. And this all the more surely, because by far the greater part of the community is either absolutely unable, or able only with great difficulty, to escape from illusions and deceitful subtleties, especially such as flatter the passions” (ibid).

Americanism and the Fallout

Eventually, “nothing will remain sacred and inviolate; even the highest and truest mandates of natures, justly held to be the common and noblest heritage of the human race, will not be spared. Thus, truth being gradually obscured by darkness, pernicious and manifold error, as too often happens, will easily prevail. Thus, too, license will gain what liberty loses; for liberty will ever be more free and secure in proportion as license is kept in fuller restraint” (ibid).  This is exactly where we find ourselves.

Because many prelates in the Church in the United States are infected with the Americanist heresy, they often confuse the authentic Catholic (i.e. true) understanding of free speech with the American model.  The former leads to peace and justice while the latter leads to further division.  One prelate recently said that our religious principles demand that we “defend the rights of all people even those with whom we might disagree.”  Such a statement is misleading at best.  What we are disagreeing about absolutely matters.  Some topics are still open to debate, or as Leo XIII said, “In regard, however, to all matter of opinion which God leaves to man’s free discussion, full liberty of thought and of speech is naturally within the right of everyone; for such liberty never leads men to suppress the truth, but often to discover it and make it known” (ibid).  Others, such as the right to religious liberty and the immorality of racism God has not “left to man’s free discussion”.  Both sins against God cry out for justice.  Therefore, it is neither “baffling nor reprehensible” that a Catholic institution, faced with playing a role in rectifying either, would seize the opportunity; unless, that is, you think the Thinkpol, rather than God, has closed the discussion.  

Cardinal Cupich’s Two-Way Street

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In a commentary in Chicago Catholic posted last week, Cardinal Cupich weighed in on the Pachamama controversy.  The Cardinal decried the removal and disposal of the statues into the Tiber River of calling it an act of “vandalism”.  He defended the inclusion of the “artwork from the Amazon region depicted a pregnant woman, a symbol of motherhood and the sacredness of life” during the Amazonian Synod as an example of the necessary “two way street of inculturation” in which “both the cultures and the church are enhanced in coming to know God.”  In truth however, the Cardinal is defending idolatrous syncretism, a position that is indefensible for a Catholic.

Artwork or Idol?

In an act of sophistry that would make even Protagoras blush, the Cardinal depicted the statues as “artwork”.  One has to wonder why Aaron didn’t think of that when Moses confronted him over the Golden Calf.  His description defies logic and is a great distortion of the truth.  Pachamama is no mere symbol of motherhood and the sacredness of life, but a benevolent goddess of motherhood and fertility that is still worshipped among the indigenous peoples of the Andes.  The peoples, as evidenced by the opening ceremony in the Vatican Garden, still offer worship to the goddess through the statue. 

Each August, the people of the Peru dedicate the month to making offerings and sacrifices to Pachamama.  It is believed that it is necessary to satisfy her hunger and thirst with food offerings.  These offerings are burnt, carrying the prayers of the people in the smoke.  The Pachamama is no mere symbol, but instead a goddess.  The Cardinal is either lying or a fool or both.

Even Pope Francis admits that it was an idol, although not directly of course.  In his apology for the theft and submersion of the statues, he said that the statues were displayed “without any idolatrous intentions”.  No one would question the idolatrous intentions of someone unless the items in question were, in fact, idols.  The Pope’s comment, rather than exonerating him however actually makes what happened even worse.  Worse, that is, if you believe St. Thomas Aquinas.

As an offense against the First Commandment, he thought that idolatry, next to heresy is the gravest sin.  It is an offense directly against God Himself.  Aquinas thought that not all idolatry was equal.  He said that the worst kind of idolatry is, using the Pope’s words, idolatry “without any idolatrous intentions.”  The Angelic Doctor said “since outward worship is a sign of the inward worship, just as it is a wicked lie to affirm the contrary of what one holds inwardly of the true faith so too is it a wicked falsehood to pay outward worship to anything counter to the sentiments of one’s heart” (ST II-II q.94, a.2).  To set up idols without any idolatrous intentions is not only to commit idolatry but to lie as well.  Citing St. Augustine’s condemnation of Seneca for setting up idols that he did not believe in, Aquinas condemned the Pope’s position.

St. Thomas makes another interesting connection in his treatment of idolatry.  Citing St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, he mentions how God turns men over to sins against nature as punishment for idolatry. He says that it is a fitting punishment of the sin of idolatry which abuses the order of divine honor that man would sin against nature as a way of suffering from the confusion from abuse of his own nature.  Might it be that the refusal of the Church to stand against all of the idolatrous elements of New Age spirituality has been met by gross sins of nature, especially among the clergy?  In other words, perhaps the homosexuality that plagues the Church is an effect of idolatry that won’t be rooted out until its cause is also rooted out.

Inculturation?

The Cardinal mentions that this event is simply an attempt at inculturation.  He errs however is describing inculturation as a two-way street.  The Church needs no outside help as She has been given the fullness of truth.  Instead she brings the truth to those who have yet to accept it and explains the truth on terms that are readily understood by her audience.  When evangelizing new cultures she may find elements that can be baptized such that they will make the Gospel intelligible.  She brings nothing back to the Church except the souls she is saving.  Our Lady’s approach (detailed here) to St. Juan Diego and the people of Mexico is a prime example of this.  She borrowed elements that were familiar to them, modified them, and used them to point to the true God in her womb.  The Church learned nothing from the Aztecs.

A two-way street approach to inculturation is just another word for syncretism.  Often masquerading as “ecumenism”, this practice ultimately is about finding creative ways to blend the Church’s doctrines with those of other religions.  It thrives on ambiguity and teeters on heresy.  The problem is that you end up far away from the truth in a way similar to what Chesterton described when he described syncretism as analogous to a man who says that the world is a rhomboid because some people believe that the world is flat and others round. 

It signals a loss of faith, thinking we must compromise to get people to come over to our side.  But the truth has a power all its own such that when it is spoken, especially with charity, it is immediately compelling.  It is also a loss in faith in anything supernatural.  The fact that idols have demons behind them is totally foreign to those of Cardinal Cupich’s ilk.

This is why they find it so incomprehensible that someone would go to the lengths the “vandal” did in attempting to destroy the idol.  It is an act of zeal; zeal for God and hatred of demons.  As St. John Henry Newman puts it, “zeal consists in a strict attention to His commands—a scrupulousness, vigilance, heartiness, and punctuality, which bears with no reasoning or questioning about them—an intense thirst for the advancement of His glory—a shrinking from the pollution of sin and sinners—an indignation, nay impatience, at witnessing His honor insulted—a quickness of feeling when His name is mentioned, and a jealousy how it is mentioned—a fulness of purpose, an heroic determination to yield Him service at whatever sacrifice of personal feeling—an energetic resolve to push through all difficulties, were they as mountains, when His eye or hand but gives the sign—a carelessness of obloquy, or reproach, or persecution, a forgetfulness of friend and relative, nay, a hatred (so to say) of all that is naturally dear to us, when He says, ‘Follow me.’”  It is zeal that destroys idols without destroying the idolaters.  It is zeal that seeks to set the idolaters free.

Protestantism and the Motives of Credibility

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In investigating how we come to Faith, we discussed how the key step in the journey from natural faith to supernatural faith is to have “reasons to believe” that God has authentically spoken.    These external proofs of Revelation, when combined with the internal light of the Holy Spirit, help to formulate the content of faith.  The Church calls these reasons to believe motives of credibility (CCC 56) and enumerates three of them: prophecy, miracles and growth.  Only the Catholic Church bears all three of these stamps of authenticity, proving that she is the voice of God.  But these motives of credibility can also be applied in the opposite direction; not only are they signs of authenticity, but their lack is a sign that a given religion is false.

St. Francis de Sales, in his book The Catholic Controversy puts these motives of credibility to the test in refuting the authenticity of the Protestant Reformers.  He points out that throughout Salvation History, every ambassador for God carried with him a “letter of recommendation”.  This letter of recommendation comes in two forms, mediate and immediate. 

The mediate minister is the one who is commissioned by an already established authority and sent by one of God’s authentic ministers.  Scripture is replete with examples, but one will suffice to demonstrate the point.  When Elijah, who was God’s anointed, appointed Elisha as his successor, the latter became the authentic prophet and the voice of God among men through the imposition of his mantle (c.f. 1 Kings 19:16-21).  Likewise, Acts of the Apostles shows numerous cases in which the Apostles (or those who have been given authority by them) sending ministers out to speak in the name of the Church, the voice of God among men.

Someone who is sent immediately is one who received direct divine commission.  Again, we find numerous Scriptural examples including the aforementioned Elijah and the Apostles themselves.  In contrast to the mediate ministers, these immediate ministers must always carry with them two marks: prophecy and miracles.  They must be both prophesied and prophecy themselves.  The Apostles once again are the example par excellence through both being prophesied and prophesying themselves.  They also performed miracles making their message believable.  The interior movement of the Holy Spirit was met with external signs directing them to the true voice of God.

Applying the Principle to the Protestant Reformation

Once this principle is established, St. Francis de Sales applies it to the Protestant Reformers to see if they are truly God’s ambassadors.  It is readily apparent that the Reformers were not mediately appointed.  They rejected the authority of the Church and therefore to argue that they were sent by the Church would be nonsensical.  But what is often argued is that the Protestant Revolt was one from below and that it was the rank and file laity that sent them.  This viewpoint is historically debatable given that it was mostly imposed by princes, but even if we concede that it is true, then it is most certainly not Scriptural.

Hebrews 7:7, “unquestionably, a lesser person is blessed by a greater” carries with it a corollary and that is that a lesser person cannot bless a greater person.  What this means practically is that the laity cannot ordain an ambassador for God.  Even if some of them were priests, sharing only in Apostolic Succession through their Bishop, they lacked the proper authority to act directly against those Bishops.  To say that Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin were anointed by the people would contradict a fundamental tenet that the Reformers all had in common: sola scriptura.  Therefore, we cannot say that these same Reformers were mediately appointed.

This leaves us with the immediate option, namely, that they were appointed by God directly. These reformers were obviously not the first in the history of the Church to make claims against the Church.  Heretics almost continuous made similar claims and were all rejected in part because they lacked these two signs of credibility.   So then, if the Protestant Reformers were truly on a mission from God, then we should expect both prophecy and miracles.  Unfortunately, we find neither as Luther and company never performed any miracles nor were they either subjects or objects of prophecy.

This certainly deals a blow to their credibility and should have been enough for many people to reject them out of hand.  But they countered that they were not changing anything , but restoring it.  Anyone who has studied the history of the Church knows that this is a rather dubious claim at best.  But what is indubitable is that they did change one thing: the Priesthood.

Changing the Priesthood

We find two Scriptural examples of a change in the Priestly Office.  First, we have the Levitical Priesthood.  Moses instituted the Levitical priesthood through his brother Aaron (c.f. Ex 28) as a replacement for the original priesthood of the firstborn son of every family.  This changing of the Priesthood was accompanied by a changing of the law given on Sinai. The members of the tribe of Levi were set aside to offer sacrifices for the people, despite the fact that the entire people of God was a “kingdom of priests” (Ex 19:6).

Jesus, the new High Priest, instituted a new priesthood.  It was prophesied that there would be a new priesthood.  This new priesthood would cease to be a hereditary Levitical priesthood but would be of the order of Melchizedek.  This priesthood will never be replaced (c.f. Ps. 110).  To make the point clear, the Book of Hebrews explicitly lays out how Jesus’ priesthood was of the order of Melchizedek and was the replacement for the Levitical priesthood (c.f. Hebrews 7:11-28).  Its sacrifice (a priest by definition must have a sacrifice) is bread and wine (c.f. Gn 14:18-20).  Jesus anointed the Apostles as priests and commanded them to continue this sacrifice perpetually at the Last Supper.

Looked at in this light, we can clearly see then that the Protestant Revolutionaries instituted a new priesthood.  Gone was the Melchizedekian priesthood to be replaced by “the priesthood of all believers.”  Yet, unlike Moses and Jesus, they did not carry the divine letters of credit with them.  The Melchizedekian priesthood was to last forever so these “reformers” were not prophesied anywhere within the divine deposit of faith.  Nor did they perform any miracles.  Thus, we must conclude that they were operating under, at best, their own inspiration.   

Lacking the first two motives of credibility would be incriminating enough, but they also lack the third as well.  The reformers sowed disunity rather than unity, leading to over 200 different “churches” or denominations (the number 33,000 has been greatly exaggerated ).  Unity is evidence of God-protected and inspired institution while disunity is evidence of a man-made institution.  That is why the unity or “one-ness” of the Church remains a mark distinguishing it from all other ecclesial communities.

St. Francis de Sales spent much of his life battling the Protestant reformers, even being exiled from his See of Geneva.  But because of his grasp of Scripture, a love for the Church and a love for those who left the Church, he convinced many Protestants that he had the truth on his side.  We could all learn a valuable lesson from him.

Led into All Truth

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The digital age is nothing if not cacophonic.  We are inundated with words to the point that, in order to be heard over the din, hyperbole becomes the norm.  Our Lord and the Apostles, on the other hand, were neither cacophonic nor hyperbolic.  When He said something, the Word made Flesh was economical and precise in what He said and what He meant.  That is why when He promises the Apostles that the Holy Spirit “guide you to all truth” (John 16:13), he really means all truth.  The Apostles would be given full and perfect knowledge of God’s Revelation so that the Barque of Peter would never be steered off course.

One might be justified if his initial reaction to such a statement, even if true, is to conclude that, in the end, it has no practical bearing.  But as we shall see it is an especially important point that has practical implications.  So important in fact that when St. Irenæus, the second-degree disciple of the Apostle John through St. Polycarp, wrote his treatise Against Heresies, he included a proof of it in order to refute the Gnostics who claimed to have hidden knowledge.  Irenæus tells the would-be heretics that “after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles] were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge…”(St. Irenæus, Against Heresies, III-I, emphasis added).

The Amen of the Church

We look to early Church Fathers such as Irenæus  because they tell us how Divine Revelation was received.  God speaks and the people, in receiving His message, say “Amen”.  If someone like Irenæus interpreted Jesus’ words during His farewell discourse literally, then we can rest assured that it is the authentic interpretation.  This becomes even more obvious when we consider that it has to be true or else the Deposit of Faith will eventually decay.  And this is why he wrote what and when he did.  The Gnostics professed that the Apostles merely got the ball rolling and that men (especially men like them) would come along and add to it: “For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed perfect knowledge, as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles” (ibid).  If the Apostles did not have full and perfect knowledge then it necessarily allows for addition to it the deposit of faith, the position that Irenæus found “unlawful”. 

The practical implication that follows from this is the absolute necessity for the development of doctrine and the authoritative Church.  Development is not the same thing as addition, as we have discussed previously, but a result of the Word of God being living and active.  But the distinction between development and addition necessitates the presence of an authoritative Church.  But just because the Apostles had full and complete knowledge, it does not mean that they articulated all of it.  To grasp this we can turn to the Apostle of Development, Blessed John Henry Newman.

Newman on the Full Knowledge of the Apostles

Like Irenæus, Newman also took Our Lord at His word.  But he was more interested in how that could be, than that it could be.  In his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (EDCD), Newman concludes that “Thus, the holy Apostles would without words know all the truths concerning the high doctrines of theology, which controversialists after them have piously and charitably reduced to formula, and developed through argument. Thus, St. Justin or St. Irenæus might be without any digested ideas of Purgatory or Original Sin, yet have an intense feeling, which they had not defined or located, both of the fault of our first nature and the responsibilities of our nature regenerate…Thus St. Athanasius himself is more powerful in statement and exposition than in proof; while in Bellarmine we find the whole series of doctrines carefully drawn out, duly adjusted with one another, and exactly analyzed one by one.” (Blessed John Henry Newman, EDCD, Ch.5, Section 4).

The knowledge “without words” meant that the “Apostles had the fullness of revealed knowledge, a fullness which they could as little realize to themselves, as the human mind, as such, can have all its thoughts present before it at once.  They are elicited according to occasion.  A man of genius cannot go about with his genius in his hand: in an Apostle’s mind great part of his knowledge if from the nature of case latent or implicit…”

In essence, the Apostles were infused with all knowledge of divine Revelation.  It was always in their mind.  But the communication of knowledge on a human level is always deficient.  No word necessarily encompasses a complete idea.  Development allows the idea to be looked at from multiple angles so that it can be fully articulated.  Instead then of fully articulating what they knew, they were guided by the Holy Spirit to have all of their knowledge spread implicitly.  It would then unfold over time, under the divine authority bestowed upon the Church.

Newman gives a good example when he asks whether St. Paul would have known about the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.  While he might not have initially grasped what the term Immaculate Conception meant, “if he had been asked whether our Lady had the grace of the Spirit anticipating all sin whatever, including Adam’s imputed sin I think he would have replied in the affirmative.”  The explication may have been foreign but as soon as he knew what you meant he would have found it among the deposit of faith that he was given.

The practical implication then is that either way, the Protestant argument against the Church’s authority fails and ultimately is self-defeating.  If they take a reductive, rather than a literal meaning of Christ’s words, namely that the Apostles did not know all things, then there is no reason why the deposit of faith must be closed or must be included solely in the Bible.  In fact, if this is true then an authoritative Church is absolutely necessary as the guardian of divine revelation.  Likewise, if the Apostles did know all things and did not communicate them explicitly, then there must be an authoritative Church that guides the articulation of that knowledge.  There is a third option, namely that the Apostles were simply bragging about what they were given and were unwilling to hand it on, although that leads to an absurd conclusion.  Either way then, the existence of an authoritative Church is implicit in Christ’s promise that the Apostles would be led to all truth by the Holy Spirit.

Protestantism and Infant Baptism

Apologetics, Church Fathers, Ecumenism, Evangelization, Grace, Sacraments, Theology, , , ,

One of the more hotly contested issues between Protestants and Catholics is infant Baptism.  What makes this particular practice contentious is that it really gets to the heart of the fundamental differences between Catholicism and Protestantism by pitting Tradition and Sacramental Theology against two of the Solas, Scriptura and Fide.  Because it is a “test case” of sorts for tackling these differences overall, it is necessary to have a ready answer to this common objection.

Although we have discussed this before, it is helpful to reiterate something related to relationship between Scripture and Tradition, namely the principle of the Development of Doctrine,  Because Sacred Scripture is the Word of God written using the words of men, it cannot fully express the divine ideas that God is trying to convey, at least not explicitly.  Instead it can contain those ideas implicitly.  When those ideas meet different human minds in different times and places, there is development of doctrine in that all of those things found implicitly in the Sacred Word are made explicit. 

Infant Baptism and the Development of Doctrine

As it relates to the question at hand, we must admit that nowhere do we find in Scripture an explicit statement regarding the baptism of infants.  But this does not make it “unbiblical” because there are implicit mentions of it.  In the Gospel of Luke, we find that ““Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God’” (Luke 18:15–16).  If the Kingdom of God belongs to children also, the same Kingdom of God that “no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.’” (Jn 3:5) then one could infer that infants too should be baptized.  That coupled with St. Paul’s explicit connection of baptism with circumcision (Col 2:11-12), a ritual that was performed on the 8th day after a child was born, would seem to suggest that infant baptism is not only permitted but also recommended. 

This highlights one of the problems with Sola Scriptura.  Because it does not permit any development of doctrine (at least in principle) then its adherents really can’t say anything about this and any number of topics.  Strictly speaking because the Bible does not say “thou shalt not baptize infants” then there is absolutely no basis for disputing the fact that Catholics do it.  To condemn it is to add to Scripture.

The phrases “one could infer” and “would seem to suggest” imply a certain amount of uncertainty.  Any uncertainty is quickly erased when we examine how the Biblical Revelation, especially regarding infant baptism, was received.  We hear of the practice of baptizing entire “households” in Scripture so that the practice of baptizing entire families, some of which presumably included infants, was common practice in the early Church.  At least, that is how the Church Fathers received the message from the Apostles themselves.  St. Irenaeus, who himself was likely baptized by St. Polycarp, a disciple of St. John mentions it as if it is a given in his Against Heresies (2:22).  Origen says that the tradition of “giving baptism even to infants was received from the Apostles” (Commentary on Romans, 5).  In fact, we do not have a single record of anyone in the first two Christian centuries objecting to infant baptism.

This practice however was not universal in the early Church and, in fact, most Baptisms were of adults.  We hear of a number of famous saints like Augustine and Jerome who despite having Christian parents, waited until they were adults.  What is clear though is that if at any point a child was in danger of death, they would be baptized immediately.  They all agreed that baptism was necessary for salvation and that it was the means b which all sins were forgiven.  What they did not agree upon however is what to do when someone sinned gravely after Baptism.  They were well aware of the Sacrament of Confession (see for example Didache, 15 ~AD60), but they did not know how many times someone could receive the Sacrament.  Was it once, twice, as many times as a person sins, or what?  There were rigorists (like Tertullian for example), especially in the 3rd and 4th Century, who thought you could go at most once.  Therefore, a practice of delaying Baptism began to become the norm. 

In other words, the development of the doctrine of infant baptism depended upon the development of the doctrine of Confession.  Once this was worked out, by the 5th Century however we see a concurrent movement towards infant baptism being the norm.  Those children that were baptized as infants would however have to answer for their faith.  The great Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem imply that these children are among his audience (c.f. Cat XV, 18).

Sola Fide and The Sacrament of Baptism

This leads to the second way in which this discussion acts as a” test case” in confronting the second sola, namely Sola Fide.  We must first admit that no one, until we get to the 16th Century ever believed in Sola Fide.  The Early Church on the other hand always believed that Baptism was necessary for salvation.  Just like Baptism, faith is, by all accounts, necessary for salvation.  It is the relationship between the two that is at the heart of this part of the discussion.   

Faith, for the Protestant, is always reflexive.  Whatever the believer believes is so.  If he believes he is saved, then he is saved.  If he believes he is forgiven, then he is forgiven.  If he believes that Communion really is the Body of Christ, then it is. If he believes then he shows that belief by being baptized.  In this construct there is no need for the Sacraments and they can safely be replaced by faith.  Faith, not the Sacraments, is the efficient cause of God’s actions.

This is problematic because faith then becomes a work by which we are saved. This is the ironic part of the discussion because it is usually the Catholic that is accused of a “works-based righteousness.”  But Catholics are very clear that salvation, and all the is necessary for achieving it, are pure gifts.  In other words, baptism from the Catholic viewpoint is not a sign of faith, but a cause of it.  Saving faith is not believing you are saved, but believing all that God has revealed.  It is baptism that infuses this habit into us and thus it is necessary if we are to be saved.  “It is,” St. Peter says, “baptism that saves you” (1Peter 3:21).

In conclusion, we can see that Infant Baptism carries with it a number of principles that are absolutely necessary to grasp if we are to advance the discussion of the differences between Protestants and Catholics.  It offers an example of how Scripture is often pitted against Tradition and Faith against the Sacraments.  Only by developing a proper understanding of the issue can we begin to talk about it.

Motives of Credibility

Church, Defending the Faith, Dialogue, Ecumenism, Evangelization, Faith and Reason, Islam, Theology, , , ,

If it is possible to describe a book that has survived for nearly eight centuries as a “hidden gem” then St. Thomas’ other Summa, the Summa Contra Gentiles, qualifies.  As the name suggests, St. Thomas wrote it as a response to the re-emergence of non-Christian philosophy and the rise of Islam.  It is by far his greatest work of apologetics for the Christian faith and in that regard,  it remains a preeminent work and an untapped resource for the Church.  In the first book, he sets out to show both the existence and nature of the Christian God.  In his usual thorough-going manner, he begins by showing how reasonable belief in the Christian God actually is.

Catholics, even down to our own day, are often accused of fideism.  Fideism is the view that religious beliefs are settled only by faith and unsupported by reason.  To be clear, faith deals with claims that transcend human reason.  But they must still be grasped by human reason without doing violence to the human mind and way of thinking.  They cannot be “proven” in the scientific sense, but this does not mean there are no objective reasons why we should believe them to be true.  In an important early question, St. Thomas declares “that to give assent to the truths of Faith is not foolishness even though they are above reason”.

Objective vs Subjective Reasons

St. Thomas uncovers the objective motivations for belief, that is, why someone should believe, and not so much why an individual does believe.  This distinction is rather important because Christianity is often attacked on the basis of subjective motivations for belief.  Whether it is Freud’s father longing or Marx’s opium of the masses, St. Thomas has little interest in uncovering why someone believes (as an aside, you will be hard pressed to find another author, who is as prolific as St. Thomas, that uses personal pronouns less).  Instead he gives four motives for belief in the truth of Christianity.

First, he speaks of the witness of miracles.  Whenever God has spoken those truths that “exceed natural knowledge, He gives visible manifestation to works that surpass the ability of all nature.”  St. Thomas is simply repeating the Johannine principle that miracles should be seen as signs.  Our Lord and the Apostles would preach a message, and to confirm that message came from God, they manifested a physical sign in the form of some miracle.  Public miracles were a regular occurrence in the Early Church because of the need for their strong testimonial power.  In our age, St. Thomas says, miracles are not as necessary and so therefore are not as commonplace.  Nevertheless, “God does not cease to work miracles through His saints for the confirmation of the faith.”  Think of when the Church was an infant in the New World, and how the miracle of Our Lady of Guadalupe resulted in the conversion of 10 million people in less than a decade.  Or think of the Miracle of the Sun and the promise of protection to Portugal.  Or even the Shroud of Turin, the Eucharistic Miracles or the incorruptibility of some of the saints.  All of these defy scientific explanation (and not from a lack of trying) and yet serve as great signs of the truth of the Catholic faith. 

The second motive of credibility as the Catechism calls them (CCC 156) is the mass conversion to Christianity.  In order to be intellectually honest, you must wrestle with the question of how, despite unbelievably humble beginnings, Christianity spread to such epic proportions.  To chalk it up to good fortune is not only too hasty of a dismissal, but also unhistorical for four reasons.  First, it grew “in the midst of the tyranny of persecutions.”  Christianity was illegal for most of its first two and a half centuries.  Why would anyone sign up for it, unless it were true?  Better yet, why would everyone sign up for it?  Conversions came not just from Jews or slaves, but even from the upper classes—“both the simple and most learned, flocked to the Christian faith” St. Thomas says. 

Human nature being what it is, there is a tendency to spurn truths that surpass the human intellect.  That St. Thomas makes a defense of revelation shows just how true this is.  Men are very quick to dismiss those things that they cannot grasp.  Not only that, but Christianity teaches that “the pleasures of the flesh should be curbed” and “the things of the word should be spurned.”  This is, according to St. Thomas, “the greatest of miracles.” 

In an “enlightened” age such as ours, one dominated by the hubris of chronological snobbery, this is most certainly underappreciated.  There was no worldly advantage whatsoever to accepting the truths of the Faith.  Many men and women gave up everything in order to live as Christians.  Perhaps a few would be gullible enough to believe these things, but the Church grew 40% per decade for its first 300 years.  We must take seriously the “democracy of the dead” and not think ourselves wiser than the men upon whose shoulders we stand.

The Miracle of the Church

St. Thomas says that the third motive of credibility is related to the first and the fact the need for miracles in our age has been diminished.  It has been diminished because the greatest miracle (next to the Resurrection) is the Church herself.  One must wrestle with the historical fact of the enduring presence of the Church.  Or, as St. Thomas says, it is not necessary that the miracles “be further repeated, since they appear most clearly in their effect,” namely the presence of the Church.  Lawrence Feingold makes an argument in the form of a dilemma that further illuminates this point.  He says that either the Church spread by miracles, in which case God has confirmed her mission, or it spread without miracles.  Even if the latter is true, it would be no less miraculous to have lasted 2000 years.  Anyone who immerses themselves in Church history and is unafraid to confront the messy human elements, must quickly conclude that the Church as a merely human institution should have failed long ago.  I fear that our own time may, in hindsight, feed this motive of credibility.

The “longevity” argument is often countered by the example of Islam.  St. Thomas, mostly by way of anticipation, shows how it is precisely in lacking the motives of credibility, that Islam is shown to be a false religion.  Muhammad, St. Thomas says “did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration.”  Secondly, it was spread not by the force of truth, but by the sword.  This is not to whitewash Christian history and say that there weren’t any forced conversions, but that it spread despite being at the wrong end of the sword.  Islam (again even if there are individual Muslims who sincerely choose Islam) has always spread mainly by force which are “signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants.”  Finally, Muhammad lacks the final motive of credibility, prophecy—”Nor do divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness.”

The growth of the Church was prophesied both in the New Testament (c.f. Mt 13, 16) and Old Testament (c.f. Dan 2).  But most striking is the fact that the Old Testament, a collection of books written over the course of hundreds of years, predicted the coming of Christ.  This, if we are to be intellectually honest, cannot be easily dismissed.  His arrival was even predicted within a very specific window of time (c.f. Daniel 9).

In closing, we would be remiss if we did not make an important distinction.  These motives of credibility are reasons why we should believe in Christian revelation.  They clear the way for the infusion of divine Faith, by which we assent to everything God has revealed.  Like all of God’s gifts, there is always give and take.  He gives, but we must take, and we take not by grasping but by removing the impediments we have erected to the reception of the gift.  The motives of credibility help to remove those impediments.

Nothing New Under the Sun

Bible, Church, Ecumenism, Magisterium, Redemption, Scripture, , , , ,

A mega-church pastor in Atlanta named Andy Stanley has written an article in Relevant magazine asking why Christians persist in protecting monuments to the Ten Commandments when, in truth, they no longer apply to us.  Although keeping up with the ramblings of various mega-church pastors could be a full-time job, this particular article merits attention because it is demonstrative of heresies in general and how they seem to persist, especially when believers are cut off from the preservative protection of the Catholic Church.

A native of Sinope in modern day Turkey, Marcion was a shipbuilder who rejected the Old Testament.  He desired to strip Christianity of anything Jewish and any connection to the Old Testament.  In his view, Christ came to undo the work of the Creator.  He even went so far as to produce his own set of Scriptures, removing the Old Testament along with any references to the Old Testament in the New Testament and any suggestions that we would be judged by God.  Within the plan of Divine Providence, Marcion of course moved the Church along by encouraging her to make explicit the role of the Old Testament in the life of the Church.

The Law and Historical Christianity

Pastor Stanley and the second century ship builder are, in a very real sense, kindred spirits.  For truly, there is “nothing new under the sun” when it comes to heresies.  They are simply recycled throughout the ages.  That is why Blessed John Henry Newman’s maxim rings true—“to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.”  Pastor Stanley’s error is not just theological but historical.  He claims that “the blended model began as early as the second century when church leaders essentially kidnapped the Jewish Scriptures and claimed them as their own.”  This is simply rehashing what Marcion said and he interprets the Church’s clarification as “kidnapping” the Jewish Scriptures.  In other words, he is saying that Marcion was right. 

Interestingly enough, many German Lutherans became Marcions under the Nazi regime for obvious reasons.  To be clear, Pastor Stanley is not suggesting anything like this (he does in fact condemn it).  But his doctrine necessarily leads to that no matter how unwittingly he proposes it.  This is the nature of heresies, they always lead to a dead, and sometimes even deadly, end.  Given enough time, what is implicit will always be made explicit.

The Law and the New Covenant

That is why it is instructive to cut off his error at its roots, especially because it is a common one.  In essence, his thesis comes at the end of his essay—“While Jesus was foreshadowed in the old covenant, he did not come to extend it. He came to fulfill it, put a bow on it, and establish something entirely new.”  The error really comes in equating the Old Covenant with the Law.  There was not a single “Old Covenant” but instead God made a series of covenants with man, beginning with Adam and ending with David, all of which culminated in the New Covenant that is sealed in Christ’s blood.  Nowhere in Scripture does it suggest that Jesus was “establishing something entirely new.”  The new wine and new wineskins are like the old wine and wineskins, even if they are new. 

The question, and it was one that the early Church had to wrestle with (c.f. Acts 10-20), was what role the Jewish law would play in this New Covenant.  That it was to play a role was clear when Our Lord said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17-18).  For Pastor Stanley and many like him Jesus came precisely to destroy the Law.

St. Augustine in his famous treatise on the Sermon on the Mount said that to “not abolish the law but to fulfill it” can be taken in two ways, both of which are applicable to Christ’s words.  First to fulfill means to add what is lacking.  Augustine says, “he who adds what is lacking does not surely destroy what he finds, but rather confirms it by perfecting it.”  For Pastor Stanley, addition comes by way of subtraction.  You need only one commandment—“love one another as I have love you”— but he would have this commandment demolish the foundation of the Law rather than building on it.  No wonder he calls out Chick-fil-A for closing in observance of the Sabbath.  His one commandment says nothing of loving God, a commandment that surely requires more than keeping the Sabbath sacred but most certainly not its exclusion.

Christ also fulfilled the Law by doing everything that was in it.  He did this not just to show it was possible, but to make it possible for us as well.  In Christ, the impossible becomes possible.  Ethics becomes ethos as the Divine Stonemason moves the law from the stone of Sinai to the stone of our hearts.  The Ten Commandments cease mere laws, but prophesies.  Christians “shall keep the Sabbath” and “shall not kill, lie or steal.”

As further proof that Christ does not want to abolish the law, He devotes much of His Sermon on the Mount to how it will be fulfilled.  He does this by precisely using the Ten Commandments as the model.  “Moses said, but I say to you…”  So clearly He has no intention of abolishing the Ten Commandments.  But what about all the other Old Testament precepts?  Some of them, particularly the ceremonial aspects will find their fulfillment in the rites of the New Covenant.  Other precepts, especially some of the moral ones will remain in place.  Still, if we examine the issue honestly, there is still not enough guidance.  This reveals the larger error that Pastor Stanley makes and, unfortunately, many other Christians with him .

The aforementioned quote of Newman is really an indictment that Protestantism is not the Christianity of history.  Sola Scriptura necessitates that view because they are rejected a historical explication of Christian dogma in favor of one based solely on the Bible.  The problem with this however is that it is a dead Christianity because much of the Bible only makes Revelation implicit.  Which aspects of the Mosaic Law are binding and which are not is never explicitly told to the Biblical reader.  Instead what is implicit in Christ’s words must be made explicit.  This explication must happen under the guidance of the Church, led by the Holy Spirit “who guides us to all truth” through the Church.  Once a Protestant turns to the Church Fathers and sees the unbroken line of belief to what the Apostles taught, errors such as Pastor Stanley’s are never made.  Christ did not make something entirely new, he added the necessary ingredients to Judaism to make it Catholic.  But if you reject the Catholic Church outright then you necessarily will think He must have started something new.

Being closing we would be remiss in neglecting Pastor Stanley’s fundamental question as to why Christians should insist on the presence of monuments of the Ten Commandments instead of the Sermon on the Mount.  Perhaps Pastor Stanley’s suggestion is a little self-serving in that he is looking for a place to actually read and study it.  But in theory there is no particular reason why we could not use the Sermon on the Mount instead, although it is, admittedly, a little long.  But the Ten Commandments, especially in a post-Christian culture can be very effective for the same reason that God gave them first.  The law was given so that the people became aware of their inability to keep it and would cry out to God for redemption.  Sometimes the bad news is just as effective as the good news.

Going to the Chapel

Church and State, Ecumenism, marriage, Moralilty, Sacraments

Living in what is a predominantly non-Catholic culture, one of the most common questions that faithful Catholics are confronted with is whether they should attend a non-Catholic wedding or not.  One can certainly appreciate the moral difficulty of such a decision especially when there is a question as to the validity of the marriage and the chance that such a decision could permanently alter their relationship with the bride and bridegroom.  Complicating the issue is that the Church has not spoken definitively but instead has left the Faithful to exercise their own prudence in coming to a decision. Prudence requires knowledge of the principles involved so it is instructive to examine the principles involved.

The Scandal to Evangelization Ratio

For most people there is a certain moral calculus that comes into play.  They attempt to discern what might be called “a scandal to evangelization ratio”. They may intuit that their attendance at the wedding has the opportunity to create scandal but attempt to balance that with the opportunity to show them the love of God (i.e. evangelize).  This type of calculation however is fraught with problems.

First, it represents an equivocation of the theological understanding of scandal with the worldly version of it.  Scandal in the worldly sense means some behavior that causes public outrage.  Scandal in the theological sense is much broader than this and can occur even when there is no “public outrage”.  St. Thomas says that scandal really has two dimensions to it—what he calls active and passive scandal.  Active scandal is when 
a “man either intends, by his evil word or deed, to lead another man into sin, or, if he does not so intend, when his deed is of such a nature as to lead another into sin… something less rightly done or said, that occasions another’s spiritual downfall ”  Passive scandal on the other hand, is the reception of “another man’s word or deed actions such that it disposes him to spiritual downfall”  (ST II-II, q.43). 

For the sake of the discussion at hand, the focus is on active scandal.  Before we set aside passive scandal though a further distinction needs to be made.  A man may be guilty of active scandal even if the person who witnesses the word or deed is not actually led into sin. This is why St. Thomas calls it a “deed of such a nature as to lead another into sin.”  It is the type of the action and not its consequences that determine whether someone has committed a sin of active scandal.  A scandalous action may still be scandalous even if there is no “public outrage.”  The reason why this matters is that even if no one else knows about it (except the bride and groom of course), because a wedding is a public act it would still be the type of act that causes scandal and thus a scandalous act.  

Returning to our scandal/evangelization calculator we see why this approach would not work.  Negative precepts like “thou shall not commit active scandal” are binding at all times.  Positive precepts like “preach the Gospel” are still an obligation, but their fulfilment depend on the circumstances.  Setting aside the inherent contradiction that we could somehow preach the Gospel while at the same time sinning personally, there still would be no proportionality between the two.  Avoiding sin is one of the circumstances in which the positive precept of evangelization is set aside. Even if we label this quantitative tradeoff  as “discernment” it is still not possible.  Nor, as an aside, could we appeal to the principle of double effect because of the same lack of proportionality.

St. John Paul II in Familiaris Consortio warned about confusing the “law of gradualness,” that is the gradual way in which the ethos of the Gospel takes hold in a man’s heart, with the “gradualness of the law.”  There are not different degrees or forms of God’s law that apply for different individuals in different situations.  But in an effort to be “pastoral” or “charitable” people will try to lighten the load of the law by issuing personal abrogations instead of working with the person openly so that they may make their life conform with the life-giving ethos of the Gospel.  Sometimes the most loving and just thing to do is to tell a person the truth and then to continue working with them (even if virtually through prayer) to help them conform their lives with that truth.  You might not see immediate conformity, but you must always (hopefully gently) spur them on to living out the truth.  Otherwise you rob the Cross of its power by trying to make it easier on them.  This might also require some redemptive suffering on your part as you are scorned by them because you spoke truthfully. 

Other Moral Reasons

Scandal is not the only thing at play here, and, in fact, may not be the largest issue.  Weddings by nature are public events precisely so that the community can witness to the union. Practically speaking a witness is not just someone who attends a wedding, but someone who consents to it. Traditionally speaking this explains the tradition of asking whether anyone objects.  Just as St. Paul, bywitnessing to St. Stephen’s stoning was complicit in it (c.f. Acts 7:58, 8:1),witnesses at a wedding are cooperating formally in the exchange of vows.  That is, their attendance (and forever holding their peace) implies consent.  Based upon everything you know about the bride and groom, you will that they should be married.  To not align your will with the spouses and still attend the wedding would be a lie.  This goes for any other moral “short-cuts”like only going to the reception, not going and sending a gift, or even saying “congratulations.”  All of these, using the language of the body, tell the couple and everyone else that the marriage as something to be celebrated is a good thing.   

All that having been said, can we come up with a rule by which we can operate?  I think a general rule of thumb would be that it is morally permissible to attend a wedding in which there is a reasonable presumption of validity.  This can include marriages of Catholics, so-called mixed marriages, marriages between non-Catholic Christians, and non-Christians. The first two are governed by Canon Law and relatively easy to discern(canon 11-08-1133).  It is not like you have to form your own pre-Cana Tribunal to determine whether the wedding will be valid, but that you have good reason to believe that it is.  A wedding involving, for example, a couple who were previously married to other people, would be a clear-cut example of one that we would have to avoid.

What About Gay Weddings?

We have a great deal of freedom to exercise good judgment with only a few obvious exceptions.  There is one other exception that bears some closer examination and that is same-sex weddings.  All that we have said so far including scandal and formal cooperation would disqualify a Catholic from attending.  But those are not the only reasons.  Same-sex marriages are an intrinsic evil because they can never be ordered to the good, regardless of the intention or circumstances.  To witness and explicitly or implicitly imply consent to such a union is itself an evil. 

One might question the designation of it as an intrinsic evil, but in truth it attempts to “solemnize” a sacrilege.  From the beginning, marriage was meant to be a sacred union that reveals Christ’s nuptial relationship with the Church (c.f. Ephesians 5:21-33).  Even non-Sacramental marriages bear this mark and in this way marriage as a sign is considered to be the “primordial sacrament” (c.f. JPII Theology of the Body, 06 October 1982).  Same-sex marriage is a sacrilege because it attempts to falsify the sign.   Therefore a Catholic knowing this would participate in the sacrilege by attending a gay wedding.

Before closing it is worth revisiting something said above about having the hard discussion.  It can be extremely difficult to disappoint other people, especially people you love.  There is a real risk of damaging relationships.  That is why it is important keep an eternal perspective on these types of things.  When we generously strive to avoid disappointing God first, He always outdoes us in generosity by blessing both us and the other people involved.  While it may strain the relationship here, it paves the way for the only real relationship in the Communion of Saints.  Bearing this in mind, can help to ease some of the difficulty here and now.

Making Supermen

Ecumenism, Evangelization, Redemption, Sacraments, , ,

A friend of mine often wears what he calls his “favorite conversation starter” t-shirt.  It features a bunch of Marvel and DC superheroes sitting on top of a building listening to Jesus regale “and that is how I saved the world.”  This clever t-shirt is a conversation starter indeed, but not for the reason that you might think.  For most people, Christian and non-Christian alike, know the story of how Jesus saved mankind.  What they do not understand is how Jesus saves individual men.  It is this distinction between the universal and the particular, between all men and each man, that has both evangelical and ecumenical implications.  It is towards this distinction that we need to turn our gaze, not only to grasp it intellectually, but to embrace it more fully with our hearts.

The logic of the Word pitching His tent among us is twofold: atonement and redemption.  He came to return to the Father all the external glory that was lost through mankind’s offense.  But He did not just leave mankind in travail, but also redeemed us.  This is how He saved the world.  But not all members of the human race are redeemed so that simply being a member of the human race is not sufficient.  There is still the question as to how you and I enter into the orbit of the redeemed.  In Protestant parlance, the question is how does Jesus become my personal Lord and Savior?

How You and I Are Saved

The obvious, and somewhat simple answer, is faith.  Although the answer is simple, all too often we equivocate on the word faith and do not truly grasp what it means.  Faith, in the broadest sense, means to believe.  According to St. Augustine believing means to give assent to something one is still considering because one does not have a finished vision of the truth.  That is, rational inquiry into the object is not yet complete and therefore the person’s assent is not in the reason but in the will.  One trusts the Source and therefore proceeds as if the object has been sufficiently proven.

Faith is not complete until it has an object.  It is not enough to say “I believe” but one must say what he believes in.  To say that one has faith in Christ, he must believe that “there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).  That is the man trusts that all Christ did and said was true and that his act of redemption was sufficient to overcome his slavery to sin and power of death to hold him.

So far, the Catholic and non-Catholic Christian would agree.  Faith is necessary for salvation but it may not be sufficient.  Faith in Christ could exist prior to His appearance.  This is the faith of the father of the Old Testament, “the faith of Abraham which was credited to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:22).  Faith by itself is not tied to the historical appearance of the Son of Man per se.  In other words, faith’s object remains blurred until it is bound to the Passion of Christ.

To bring the power that flows from the Passion of Christ, that is our personal possession of His act of redemption, into focus requires something further.  As Aquinas puts it, “the power of Christ’s Passion is united to us by faith and the sacraments, but in different ways; because the link that comes from faith is produced by an act of the soul whereas the link that comes from the sacraments, is produced by making use of exterior things” (ST III, q.62 a.6).  The sacramental system is joined to faith so that there is not just a psychic connection between the believer and Christ but also a physical one.

Just as the physical encounter that St. Thomas the Apostle (and all the witnesses to His resurrection) had with the risen Christ that strengthened his faith, so too with the physical encounter with the Risen Lord in the Sacraments strengthens our own.  That is the Sacraments do not diminish our faith but greatly supplement it.  Aquinas says that the Sacraments are indispensable to a full life of faith for three reasons.  First is because of our nature as spirit/matter composite.  Faith, as an act of the soul, is strengthened by acts of the body.  Second, our slavery to material things can only be remedied by a material thing that contains spiritual power to heal.  Finally, because man finds in them a true bodily exercise that works for salvation (ST III q.61, a 1).

The Sacraments and the Link to the Incarnation

These same three reasons can also be given for why God should appear before men.  As the “image of the invisible God” Our Lord comes only because of our needs.  The Sacramental system is seen most properly as an extension of the Incarnation.  Those who reject it, tend towards Gnosticism, that is, seeing themselves saved based on some secret knowledge they have been given.  They reject the notion that material objects can be instrumental causes of grace just as the Gnostics rejected the Incarnation, thinking that the human body of Christ could not be an instrumental cause of saving grace.   A sacramental system free view of salvation is an over-spiritualized salvation—one that is both theologically and practically unlivable.

This is why my friend’s t-shirt is so compelling—not because Christ is the greatest superhero but because it leads to a deeper truth.  Christ does not merely offer us redemption nor make us super-spirits like angels, but into supermen.  Faith unites us to Him, the Sacraments incorporate us into His life making us into something wholly other (or holy) than we are.

 

On Christian Unity

Ecumenism, Evangelization

Historically, the division of Christianity marks the beginning of the end of Christian Culture.  There are a number of historical causes for this, but the most prominent is the “religious wars” that resulted from the Protestant movement.  Rightly or wrongly so, it was the Christian faith as a whole that was blamed for the wars.  Many began to wonder whether doctrinal disputes could be worth so much bloodshed.  This religious division touched the lives of nearly everyone and many had a difficult time believing that the neighbor who happened to have a different set of beliefs, but who they knew so well, was going to hell.  In this climate, the doctrines of the individual churches didn’t seem to matter as much and people began to investigate other arenas as avenues to truth.  In this soil, the Enlightenment philosophy was able to take root especially since science seemed to provide many answers in a rapid fashion to questions about the universe, while issues in theology seemed to go unresolved.  People began to see science as the source for truth and no longer looked to religion. These advances in science also gave assurance of God’s power and wisdom, but led people to a “natural religion that could be established by reason alone.  This natural religion spoke only of the basic truths about the existence of God and human morality known to all mankind.  Eventually religion became merely a means for maintaining decent behavior and social order.  It would seem almost common sense then, that in order to stem the rising tide of secularism, a restoration of Christian unity is necessary.

John Paul II commented numerous times throughout his Pontificate that Christian unity has suffered “deep lacerations” in the course of history through which “large communities came to be separated from full communion with the Catholic Church-for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame” (Unitatis Redintegratio, 3)  However, the historical situation has now changed in that “(T)he children who are born into these Communities and who grow up believing in Christ cannot be accused of the sin involved in the separation, and the Catholic Church embraces upon them as brothers, with respect and affection” (UR, 3).  In other words, there is very little to be gained at this point in time to play a blame game.  A divided Christianity is our present reality and this reality is a great scandal to the world.   In a world marked by sin and division, unity stands out.  This is why Jesus prayed in His High Priestly Prayer that His followers would remain united because that unity would be a sign that He had come from the Father (Jn. 17:21-23).  In other words, the unity of all Christians has its own evangelical force, drawing people to the Truth Who is Jesus Christ. It is in this spirit that the Church has marked this week as the International Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

In his Encylclical, Ut Unum Sint, Pope St. John Paul II surveyed the ecumenical landscape that was created by the openness of the Second Vatican Council and offered a primer on how this unity could be restored.  He emphasized the need for prayer not just because it is necessary for all things, but because it is both a sign and a fulfillment of the desired unity:

It must not be forgotten in fact that the Lord prayed to the Father that his disciples might be one, so that their unity might bear witness to his mission and the world would believe that the Father had sent him (cf. Jn 17:21). It can be said that the ecumenical movement in a certain sense was born out of the negative experience of each one of those who, in proclaiming the one Gospel, appealed to his own Church or Ecclesial Community. This was a contradiction which could not escape those who listened to the message of salvation and found in this fact an obstacle to acceptance of the Gospel. Regrettably, this grave obstacle has not been overcome. It is true that we are not yet in full communion. And yet, despite our divisions, we are on the way towards full unity, that unity which marked the Apostolic Church at its birth and which we sincerely seek. Our common prayer, inspired by faith, is proof of this.

Drawing on the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, the Holy Father also provided the faithful with a game plan of sorts.  Although the Council Fathers sought to enter dialogue with the whole world, they marked a clear delineation between the different groups.  Often it is the case that the terms “ecumenism” and “interreligious dialogue” are used interchangeably.  However the Council makes a clear distinction between these two terms because they have very different goals. Ecumenism is directed towards our fellow Christians with the goal of Christian unity so as to remove the “division openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages the holy cause of preaching the Gospel to every creature” (UR, 1). Interreligious dialogue, on the other hand, involves dialogue with non-Christian religions with the same goal of unity but it cannot be separated from proclamation of the Gospel.

The one Church still is found in physical form today and subsists in the Catholic Church (Lumen Gentium, 8).  There has been some controversy around the use of the term subsists but the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith offered some clarification in 2007 saying:

[T]he use of this expression, which indicates the full identity of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church, does not change the doctrine on the Church. Rather, it comes from and brings out more clearly the fact that there are “numerous elements of sanctification and of truth” which are found outside her structure, but which “as gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, impel towards Catholic Unity.

It follows that these separated churches and Communities, though we believe they suffer from defects, are deprived neither of significance nor importance in the mystery of salvation. In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation, whose value derives from that fullness of grace and of truth which has been entrusted to the Catholic Church.

The point is that while the Catholic Church is the one true Church founded by Christ, sources of sanctification can be found within other Churches and ecclesial communities.  These sources of sanctification have their source from within the treasures of the Catholic Church with whom Christ left the whole dowry.

Christian Unity

In general, most Catholics struggle to hold both the truth that the true Church subsists in the Catholic Church and that other communities can be sources of sanctification in tension.  What usually happens is that one aspect is over-emphasized to the detriment of the other and one or two attitudes usually emerges.

Very often those who consider themselves “traditional” Catholics will emphasize the fact that Jesus started one Church.  For them, Protestant communities become a source of mockery.  They see the Church as having the fullness of truth and we should condescend in giving it to them. This “convert or else” type mentality is something that John Paul II addressed in Ut Unum Sint  when he says that  in the other communities, elements of the “Christian mystery have at times been more effectively emphasized.”  The Holy Father’s point is best understood when we examine what he is saying through his personalistic lens.

John Paul II had a unique way of examining the truths of the faith using personalism.  He thought that any truth had two dimensions—the objective (which he called notional) and subjective (which he called real).  There is the objective fact and the subjective experience of that fact.  Faith, for Karol Wojtyla the Philosopher, involved moving the notional knowledge of the truth from the head to a real knowledge that is concrete personal, experiential, and taken to the heart.  So then while Catholics have the fullness of truth (notional and ontological) there are those who may live it better (real and existential) and so we can learn from them how those truths can be better lived out.  This is why Catholics in religious dialogue are not merely condescending but truly in a position of learning.  Many Protestant communities live out certain aspects of the Gospel better than Catholics do and we can learn how to make those truths more present in the Church.  Once these are more present, the Church will look more appealing to those who are separated and they will see how their experience of the truth fits into the fullness of truth overall.

The second attitude is one more in line with “tolerance.”   But if we truly believe that the Jesus has entrusted the Church with a great treasure to be shared, why wouldn’t we share it?  If we examine ourselves we may find that we don’t really believe that.  But if we do, then it is a supreme act of charity to share the fullness of the faith with someone.  Certainly we should take the reminder from the Council Fathers to heart that “the way and method in which the Catholic faith is expressed should never become an obstacle to dialogue with our brethren. It is, of course, essential that the doctrine should be clearly presented in its entirety. Nothing is so foreign to the spirit of ecumenism as a false irenicism, in which the purity of Catholic doctrine suffers loss and its genuine and certain meaning is clouded” (UR, 11).  In an age of religious relativism this serves a stark reminder that while the truth itself may be divisive, we as Catholics must avoid being divisive in the manner in which we present that truth.  But still we should actively engage others in order to share of the fullness that we have received.

This ultimately is why the onus for Christian unity falls upon us as Catholics.  Many non-Catholics have no idea on what they are missing.  Sure, they could get to Heaven even if they aren’t Catholic, but do we love them enough to show them just how full Christ’s Revelation really is?  Do we love them enough to bring them to the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist of which Our Lord warned that it was impossible to have life without?  There will come a day when we as Catholics will have to answer for the ignorance of our friends and neighbors.

Although the Catholic Church was somewhat late in entering the ecumenical arena compared with other Christians, they are the only ones who are still committed to the ecumenical movement’s original goal of the unity in Christ’s one Church in doctrine and practice.  This is precisely because the Council Fathers grounded their approach in solid principles.  In this week of Prayer for Christian Unity let us all examine our commitment to this most necessary cause.