As the rebellion continues against the Catholic Church reaffirming the teaching of marriage, one logical fallacy gets repeated over and over… the argumentum ad passiones or the appeal to emotion. This fallacy exploits emotions—frequently of pity or guilt—irrelevant to the situation to sway people towards a desired position. If a person loses track of what is relevant, it is easy to lose track of why some things cannot be done.
When the Church has to say No on an issue, people who don’t like that answer will come up with all sorts of appeals as to why that refusal should be reversed. The general tactic will be to portray the Church as unfeeling or out of touch making “unreasonable” and “arbitrary” rules that are “manmade” and should be changed. Attempts to explain why the teaching must be followed is portrayed as “legalism.” When the Church states that it is impossible to alter the teaching, it is then labeled “betrayal.” We are then given lectures about how we are “going against Jesus” for saying it is a sin.
We need to remember slogans like “love is love” do not refute the Church teaching. Accusing the Church of “betrayal” is meaningless when the Church never had any intention to change her teachings and in fact made clear that she could never change this teaching. But these catchphrases do succeed in stirring up feelings of sympathy for the “victim” and hostility against the Church. Because “God is love” (taken from 1 John 4:8, 16) is misinterpreted to mean “God does not condemn what I do,” whoever repeats the Church teaching that something is a sin is accused of “hating,” which is considered unforgivable and worthy of that hostility in these times†.
But these emotionally changed terms have no bearing on the fact that not all behavior can be reconciled with loving God and doing His will. People can and do fixate on things they cannot have if they want to follow Christ (cf. Matthew 7:21-23). The Church can (and does) help these people in the hardships that sometimes come from the pain of doing the right thing over what we desire. And we must do so, even if nobody else will (cf. Revelation 22:11). But, if a person insists that the only acceptable solution is the one the Church says goes against God’s ways, then the person who insists on going against the Church or invents a phony theology that misleads others is the one causing the pain that he blames the Church for.
The common topics of dissent: abortion, contraception, divorce and remarriage, same sex “marriage,” etc... these violate the commandments set down by God. Yes, we can find appeals to emotion that claim that hardship is the only result and the greater good requires changing the teaching. But these appeals to emotion refuse to address why the Church teaches they are wrong. Instead, we are told that it is just an “arbitrary rule imposed by celibate old men.” If Catholics accept that dishonest reframing (it is an ad hominem by the way), they can easily use that as an excuse to reject anything they dislike about the Church.
If one wishes to follow Christ, and professes to be a Catholic, then it follows we must believe that the Church is empowered by Christ to bind and loose (cf. Matthew 16:19, 18:18). That does not mean that the Church can bind us to commit sin or free us from doing right. It means we trust that when the Church teaches, she does so with God’s authority and protection from error.
This is true even though hypocrites and sinners exist in the Church. I am one of them. You, the reader, are another. In past centuries, we have had knaves and scoundrels among the princes of the Church and even Popes. But we believe that God has protected His Church from teaching error. So, pointing to the notorious sinners within the Church to bolster our outrage and justify dissent is merely a lame excuse. Our Lord had something to say about the authority of hypocritical religious leaders: “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example.” (Cf. Matthew 23:2-3). Do religious leaders cause scandal by living in a way contrary to teaching a scandal? Yes. Does it justify disobedience to teaching? No. Bringing these things up‡ may raise disgust or contempt, but do not refute the truth of the teaching they hate.
The faithful need to be aware of this if they should be tempted to waver. Yes, we do need to show compassion to people we believe are doing wrong. Yes, we should be careful not to use slurs and hateful language about those we believe are doing wrong. But the terms “sin” and “sinner” are not hateful language.
Let us face the facts. If we truly hated these people, we would not be warning them of the consequences… we would simply let them go to hell without a word. That would be going against what Christ commanded: “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:10) §. And the seeking and saving is what the Church is doing in speaking out.
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(†) Which raises the question: If to say “X is wrong” is to be guilty of hate, what does that make those who claim that the Catholic Church is wrong about her teachings?
(§) The whole story of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10), like that of the Woman taken in Adultery (John 8:1-11) shows Jesus giving forgiveness to the repentant. Not to the unrepentant.
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