Showing posts with label false witness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label false witness. Show all posts
Saturday, February 19, 2022
Saturday, September 4, 2021
Saturday, July 3, 2021
Thursday, October 29, 2020
Thursday, October 8, 2020
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
Thursday, April 16, 2020
Monday, February 3, 2020
Friday, September 20, 2019
Sunday, September 1, 2019
Sunday, May 12, 2019
Myths and Lies
The term “myth” in the dictionary (Oxford) has two definitions.
- a traditional story concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.
- a widely held but false belief.
I’m inclined to think that when it comes to anti-Catholicism, we can combine the two and describe it as “a widely held but false belief explaining a natural or social phenomenon.” By this, I mean that in defending a movement opposed to the Church, proponents of the movement must retroactively justify the opposition. Because actual history does not provide such a justification, these proponents must invent one that explains it. Thus we wind up with a bizarre claim that the original form of Christianity was “corrupted” or “driven underground” by the Catholic Church early on through “error” and “innovation.”
Under this tactic, the teachings of the Church are turned into a huge straw man that Catholics have never believed while the actual corruption is transformed into something that was openly supported and blessed by the Church instead of the abberation it was actually seen as. The absence of technology before a certain point is transformed into a conspiracy. Cause and effect is assumed when it needs to be proven (post hoc fallacy).
Thus abuse in the matter of indulgences (for example Tetzel or how the use of charitable donations could be misunderstood as buying and selling) was transformed into an invention of the Church interfering with the relation between God and man. The fact of widespread illiteracy (those who were literate in that time did know Latin) and no printing press before the 15th century became the Church “withholding” the Bible from the laity.
Under this myth, aberration is portrayed as “normal.” There’s the case of how monks and priests were supposed to be stupid and uneducated. Yet the former clergy who began Protestantism were highly educated as monks and priests and they were not self-taught. Who taught the Reformers about Scripture in the first place? Luther didn’t find the Bible hidden in a storeroom. He was assigned to teach it by his superior in the Augustinian order!
I could go on and on, and the anti-Catholics undoubtedly will. But the point is that the Church corrected her corruption, while holding firm to her teachings. The Church made them clearer against misunderstanding, yes. Reduced opportunity for abuse, yes. Made uniform standards, yes. But the teachings were never repudiated. In fact, men like Luther, Zwingli, Knox, etc., misrepresented what the Church taught, whether knowingly or out of their own misunderstanding. (I leave it for God to judge).
As I’ve said in similar articles, this is not a “Protestant bashing” article. Rather I take this historical issue of misunderstanding or misrepresentating the Church (which continues among anti-Catholics), and apply it to the “widely held but false belief explaining a natural or social phenomenon” that Catholics use to attack changes in discipline which they dislike.
Take the case of First Things, issue 249 (January, 2015). In an article arguing that the Church was compromising with the sexual revolution, the author wrote:
By renouncing the discipline of the Friday fast after Vatican II, the Church abandoned the stomach—after which collapsed an entire social system of Friday-focused marketplace and restaurant businesses that was organized around the Church’s claim upon the body. The same goes for the Church’s provision of Saturday-evening Masses. This decision relaxed Christianity’s claim to “own” our bodies on Sunday.
I find his comments to be the Catholic equivalent of the anti-Catholic propaganda. St. Paul VI did not renounce the Friday fast. Rather, he recognized that penance needed to be... penitential. In the Apostolic Constitution, Paenitimini, he wrote:
The Church, however, invites all Christians without distinction to respond to the divine precept of penitence by some voluntary act, apart from the renunciation imposed by the burdens of everyday life.To recall and urge all the faithful to the observance of the divine precept of penitence, the Apostolic See intends to reorganize penitential discipline with practices more suited to our times. It is up to the bishops—gathered in their episcopal conferences—to establish the norms which, in their pastoral solicitude and prudence, and with the direct knowledge they have of local conditions, they consider the most opportune and efficacious.
It’s the person having lobster on Friday, not the Church, abandoning the stomach. The diabetic who can’t abstain from meat isn’t abandoning the stomach by replacing it with another penance. Likewise, with the vigil Mass, Ven. Pius XII established the Vigil to benefit the person who has to work or travel on Sunday. One can abuse the intent, but the Church “relaxed” nothing.
We can point to other myths. Consider the claim that the Ordinary Form of the Mass was designed by Protestants (explicitly denied by those involved)... a myth aimed at justifying disobedience to the Church and rejecting the legitimate exercise of the magisterium. Consider the “Pope Francis allowing divorced/remarried to receive the Eucharist” when his point was determining whether all elements of a mortal sin was present instead of assuming they were. For that matter, consider all the (continuing) claims that the Pope is changing Church teaching on homosexuality, even though he consistently teaches against it. Or that he intends to force through female deacons even though he has said, “I can’t do a decree of a sacramental nature without having the theological, historical foundation for it.”
I can go on, and like the anti-Catholics, these people will.
When it comes to the anti-Catholic, the anti-Vatican II, or the anti-Francis myths, we have to ask ourselves this: Do those who spread them know they are false? If they do, they commit calumny. If they don’t, they commit rash judgment. Both are sins. The former is deliberate. In that case, the person spreading the myth knowingly participates in a lie. The latter is a failure to investigate the justness of a claim before assuming guilt and spreading unjust gossip. Their culpability, I leave for God to judge. But He has forbade false witness.
Whether the reader is hostile to the Catholic Church or a member, we have an obligation to speak honestly and make sure what we hear is true before spreading it. If we refuse to meet that obligation, we will have to answer for it.
Monday, April 1, 2019
Saturday, May 19, 2018
Back to Basics: Reflections on Anti-Catholic Attacks
There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church —which is, of course, quite a different thing. These millions can hardly be blamed for hating Catholics because Catholics “adore statues”; because they “put the Blessed Mother on the same level with God”; because they say “indulgence is a permission to commit sin”; because the Pope “is a Fascist”; because the “Church is the defender of Capitalism.” If the Church taught or believed any one of these things it should be hated, but the fact is that the Church does not believe nor teach any one of them. It follows then that the hatred of the millions is directed against error and not against truth.—Bishop Fulton J. Sheen (Introduction to Radio Replies)
Preliminary Note: Not all non-Catholics are anti-Catholic. This article does NOT intend to accuse all non-Catholics. Rather this article is focused on those who not only disagree with us, but also accuse us of spreading error through ignorance, corruption, and/or malice. For the non-Catholics reading this who may disagree with us but are not anti-Catholic, I do not intend to lump you in with them.
Also, this article involves anti-Catholicism within Christianity. It will not deal with any non-Christian versions of anti-Catholicism.
Introduction
Under this way of thinking, something the Church has long rejected is accepted by a certain group as “true.” Then our rejection is considered “proof” of our “falling into error.” So long as we refuse to accept how they see things, we are accused of error. But this is the begging the question fallacy. What they assume to be proof of our “apostasy” actually has to be proven.
Separating Anti-Catholicism from Mere Disagreement
Non-Catholics who are not anti-Catholic disagree with us on issues of authority. We hold in common with Protestants a belief in the authority and inerrancy of Scripture, but we disagree that authority stops there. We hold in common with the Orthodox a belief in Sacraments, Apostolic Succession, Councils, and Sacred Tradition. But we disagree that authority stops there. We believe that there can be a legitimate development of Church teaching that does not contradict Scripture and Sacred Tradition.
The Catholic and the non-Catholic (assuming them equally educated about their beliefs) will disagree about what Scripture means in some places. They will disagree about the weight and meaning of Sacred Tradition. They will disagree about who has the authority to make binding interpretation. Of course these differences are contrary to each other and they cannot all be true. At least some of them must be false. But the existence of this disagreement does not mean that the person who disagrees must be anti-Catholic.
The anti-Catholic hates what they (wrongly) think the Catholic Church is. Because they think we embrace error, the anti-Catholic believes that the Catholic Church is a force of evil that must be opposed. Those people who are members of the Church are assumed to be “ignorant” about what the Bible says—deceived by “heresy.” Those people who are not ignorant are assumed to be willful heretics doomed to be damned for spreading error. I’ve encountered some anti-Catholic Protestants who accused me of being a “reprobate” (those predestined to damnation). I’ve encountered anti-Catholic Orthodox who called on God to curse me.
If an anti-Catholic member of one of the Orthodox churches accuses us of inventing Papal primacy, or if an anti-Catholic member of a Protestant church who accuses us of inventing teaching contrary to Scripture, the Catholic must respond, “No, we cannot accept that. We believe what you say is at odds with what the first Christians believed and the legitimate development of doctrine.” We cannot hold that the Pope is merely “the first among equals” as the Orthodox claim. We cannot hold “Sola Scriptura” like the Protestants claim. These claims strike me as a reason created to reject the authority that the Church has always held.
Sincere or not, Anti-Catholicism is Bearing False Witness
Aristotle once defined truth as saying of what is that it is and of saying what is not that it is not. In this context, this means that the person who disagrees with what the Catholic Church teaches has an obligation to know what we believe before condemning us. For example, we do not reject the Bible. We do not believe “earning salvation.” We do not “worship” Mary or the Pope. The person who accuses us of doing these things bears false witness against us. They might not do so deliberately—they might sincerely believe we hold these things—but the fact of false witness remains.
We have an obligation to learn what is true instead of assume that what has been told to us is true. Unfortunately, some people who do not know what Catholicism teaches are willing to believe any number of accusations against us. They assume we are ignorant. They assume our Church is willing to do evil if it serves our purpose. So, when someone tells them something false about us, they believe it to be true... sometimes to the extent of assuming the Catholic trying to correct their false understanding is either deceived or lying.
A variant of this is the “horrifying past history” tactic. Let’s face it, by 21st century standards, crime and punishment of past eras was barbaric. Much of it came from the Germanic barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire (trials by ordeal, burning at the stake etc. are Germanic, not Christian in origin), but even the Romans did some pretty barbaric things. The thing to remember is this: The Catholic Church did not invent and impose these barbarisms. It was not a case that some bishop said “Hey, why don’t we set people we dislike on fire?” Rather, it was a case of governments changing but the means of punishment remaining constant. My point here is, when we hear about horrifying things in history, we need to understand why things were done that way without making excuses for it.
This means when someone says a thing about the Church that sounds horrible, people have an obligation to get to the truth of it before spreading it around. Do you hear someone say that we believe that we can earn salvation? Before you spread it around, you have an obligation to find out if it is true—and the truth is we do not believe that.
Does it Cut Both Ways? A Warning to Catholics
Our Lord, teaching the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31) tells us we must do to others what we would have them do to us. If we would have others stop speaking falsely about us, we must be sure we speak truth about others rather than assume the worst is true. For example, I have encountered incredibly vicious members of the Orthodox Church online. But I learned that these individuals generally came from a small faction within the Church. It would be wrong if I portrayed the wrongdoing of this faction as if it was practiced by all members of the Orthodox churches. Likewise, not all Protestants believe in things like the “prosperity Gospel” or “Once Saved, Always Saved.” It would be wrong if I accused all Protestants of believing it.
It is not intolerance to believe that the Catholic Church is the Church established by Our Lord. It is not intolerance to believe that where non-Catholic churches disagree with the Catholic Church, they are wrong. But it is wrong if we are willing to believe the worst about them without discerning if those accusations are true. It is wrong to act with a lack of charity towards non-Catholics.
Whatever level of culpability those who broke away from or opposed the Catholic Church at the time of a schism may have had (something I will NOT discuss), the modern non-Catholic was not party to those actions and should not be treated as if they shared that guilt. We should avoid debating “body counts” and whether actions done in the brutality of the 16th century were “justified” or proof of the other side’s barbarism today.
In short, we should not use the tactics that offend us when they are used against us. Regardless of how anti-Catholics may act, we have an obligation to respond in charity.
Conclusion
My point on writing this is not to shame non-Catholics or to claim that the Catholic Church is impeccable. Rather I hope people reading this might reflect on their assumptions and ask whether what they think about us is really true. Obviously we can’t hold to a form of relativism that says “what we believe doesn’t matter. But I do hope we can respond to each other in charity while learning what is true.
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