Have you ever encountered someone who speaks confidently on a subject and offers his opinion as fact—but makes many errors about that subject? It happens in all areas of life. I find that it usually happens when a person assumes that what they have heard on a subject is correct, or that the opinions they have formed are the only way something can be interpreted. The problem is, if what they have heard is not correct, or if there is more than one way that something can be interpreted legitimately, then the conclusions they draw can be wrong.
In the Catholic Church, we believe that the magisterium guides us in coming to a correct understanding of how we must live to be authentically Christian. Things that run counter to the magisterial teaching cannot be called good.
Unfortunately, some Catholics believe that the magisterial teaching is an opinion to be judged—if it does not square with the individual’s interpretation, that teaching is judged an “error.” Thus we have some Catholics argue that Humanae Vitae is an anti-woman opinion that can be ignored. Others argue that Catholic Social Teaching is an opinion that “proves” that bishops are expressing liberal political views. It doesn’t occur to them that their own views are opinions that are at odds with the Catholic teaching.
This is not something that only one faction is guilty of. Liberals shamefully reject St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI while holding up their false understanding of St. John XXIII and Pope Francis. Conservatives shamefully reject St. John XXIII (Mater Si! Magistra No!) and Pope Francis while holding up a false understanding of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
What makes things worse is when these people take their views and spread them to others, teaching them that the Church was “betrayed” by the Popes they dislike, and we need to follow their views to get the Church back to where she should be. But if they are in error about what the Church requires and permits, how can they lead us to where the Church should be? Our Lord’s words should be heeded here: “If a blind person leads a blind person, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14b).
Our Lord spoke these words about the Pharisees, who challenged Our Lord over not holding His disciples to their views of moral obligation. Now, the word Pharisee has a lot of baggage. People associate them with religious conservatives—with all the negative stereotypes they associate with that faction. Religious conservatives resent that link because they don’t believe they behave with that attitude. Personally, I think it is a mistake to associate the term with a factional view. I think it is more accurate to understand Pharisees as group who believed that their views were right, and that those who disagreed were wrong—even when the one challenging them had the authority to do so.
I also believe that the Pharisee today is the one who clings to a set of views, judging others compared to their views, but never considering their rejection of the magisterium—which has Our Lord’s authority (Luke 10:16)—is rejecting truth for their own “traditions” (Matthew 15:6b).
If we want to be faithful to God, we must keep His commandments (John 14:15). Since he gave the authority to bind and loose to Peter and the Apostles (Matthew 16:19, 18:18), and we believe as Catholics that the Pope and bishops are the successors to Peter and the Apostles, it follows that the Pope and bishops today have that same authority and we must obey them.
Yes, every Pope and bishop is a human being, and therefore a sinner. Yes, they can say some cringeworthy things and do actions we find regrettable. The problem is there is a difference between a Pope or bishop speaking as a person (for example, in an interview) and speaking with the intention to teach in a way we are bound to accept. When the Pope teaches, we are obliged to give assent—even if his teaching is not given ex cathedra. If we refuse to give that assent, then we are dissenters—cafeteria Catholics who negate our claim to be faithful by picking and choosing when we will give this assent.
Once we understand that faithfulness to Our Lord includes listening to and following His Church, we can see that listening to the person who claims that the teaching of the Church is in error is to follow the blind guide—and doing so will result in our falling into a pit with them.
These blind guides will point to the existence of bad Popes and bishops in history. Since people did wrong, it is possible that the disliked Pope or bishop is doing wrong. They then go on to misapply history. For example, both conservative and liberal dissenters like to point to St. Catherine of Sienna and how she “rebuked” Popes for error (false—she rebuked them for not returning to Rome from Avignon). They like to point to how Pope Liberius “banished” St. Athanasius (false—the documents cited were debunked as forgeries). They like to point out how St. Robert Bellarmine taught how we could depose a Pope (false, he was mentioning different opinions on what to do if a Pope hypothetically became a heretic).
Using this misapplication of history, they try to argue that these examples justify their own dissent against the current Pope and bishops are justified. The problem is, they commit the fallacy of false analogy where the differences are greater then the similarities. They might cite the case of a privately held opinion of Pope John XXII (which was not yet defined), but the false analogy is they are not speaking on a personal opinion, but on rejecting actual Church teaching that they do not understand or dislike.
Ironies abound. They will reject Amoris Lætitia on the grounds that it is merely an apostolic exhortation that “contradicts” the binding Familiaris Consortio—but Familiaris Consortio is also an apostolic exhortation. They share the same level of teaching authority. In a similar manner, they deny the authority of a Papal encyclical (conservatives denigrate Laudato Si, liberals denigrate Humanae Vitae) because it is not taught ex cathedra, but we are still obligated to give assent to Church teaching even when taught under the ordinary magisterium. In fact, Pope Pius IX condemned (Syllabus of errors #22) the notion that we were only bound to obey things proposed infallibly.
The problem was described by Plato over 2000 years ago. In a Socratic dialogue, he described how some people did not know what was true—and they were ignorant of the fact that they did not know. Because of that ignorance, they thought that their misinformation was reality and reacted with hostility when their ignorance was revealed and their views debunked.
I believe the blind guides today share this problem. They don’t know that they don’t know. Their flawed view of Church history and teaching leads them to justify their own views against the Church, not realizing that a lack of knowledge leads them to judge wrongly when they are told that they are in the wrong. The Catholic who dissents against sexual moral teaching calls the Church patriarchal and conservative. The Catholic who dissents against social justice calls the Church liberal and modernist. In both cases, the error is not with the Church, but with them.
Ultimately, each Catholic will have to decide. Will they listen to the Magisterium of the Church today that tells us how to apply past teachings to current circumstances? Or will they listen to the disgruntled internet sites which tell them that the Church is in error until it complies with their own views? The person who does the first is wise. The person who does the second is following a blind guide.
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