My Recollections on the Second Anniversary of Pope Francis' Election

I wonder if I could be considered a hipster Catholic. I could say I liked Pope Francis before it was cool to do so. I say this, because it seems that a lot of the past two years have been spent defending the Pope from fellow Catholics who challenged his authority and questioned his orthodoxy.

2013 was shocking. I recall in February, reading the news feed early one morning and—WHAT THE HELL?—saw the secular news article that Pope Benedict XVI was resigning. My first thought was disbelief. I looked for religious news to confirm it, and there it was. I knew that Popes could renounce their office of course, so it wasn’t the bombshell to me that it was for others. But since the last one was centuries ago, it was shocking. I loved Pope Benedict XVI, and had been reading his books since the late 1980s, beginning with The Ratzinger Report. So I certainly was sad to see him go (see HERE for my article on his renouncing the office of the Papacy on the day he announced it and HERE for the day it took effect).

Strangely, I wasn’t afraid. God was with His Church and we were to pray for His will to be done. So, even though I never heard of Cardinal Bergoglio, the news did not seem bad. Scandalized Catholics seemed to arise from both sides at once.  People seemed to judge his actions as if he were some idiot and not the Vicar of Christ, and in response to the scandal over his first washing of feet as Pope on Holy Thursday, I wrote the first of many articles about the Pope and Rash Judgment. I don’t regret defending him—what strikes me these past two years is that what Pope Francis had to say was no different than what St. John Paul II or Benedict XVI had to say on the various teachings of the Church. Pope Francis was just more blunt about it. 

So ultimately, I thank God that we have Pope Francis, just as I thank God for the pontificates of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI .Yes, some have tried to hijack his message to justify their own. But he has been good for the Church, reminding all of us that we need to be witnesses to the faith.

Brief Thoughts on Invoking the 2004 Memorandum of Cardinal Ratzinger

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Sez Who?

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Confusing Our Wants With Objective Morality

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Thoughts on the Death Penalty and Selective Obedience

Four Catholic magazines/newspapers (two of which I consider orthodox) have issued a joint call for the end of the Death Penalty in America. In doing so, they are echoing the teaching of the Church, emphasized by Popes St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis. One example of this joint statement: "National Catholic Journals Unite: ‘Capital Punishment Must End’ | Daily News | NCRegister.com."

Unfortunately (but hardly surprising), for this day and age, a group of Super Catholics denounced this action as a politically liberal action, contrary to the teaching of the Church and more proof of the “wishy washy post Vatican II era." I find this to be rather bizarre, an example of their neither understanding the Catholic teaching of the past which they cite nor the modern teaching which they deride. 

The Modern Magisterial Teaching is Binding

The problem is, even when something can be licit in some circumstances, it doesn’t mean that those circumstances can be found in all times and places. It also ignores the fact that the Church, under the headship of the Pope can decide whether the circumstances apply in this time and this place. If the magisterium rejects the application in this time and place, the run of the mill Catholic cannot say the magisterium is wrong. Consider what Canon Law says:

can. 752† Although not an assent of faith, a religious submission of the intellect and will must be given to a doctrine which the Supreme Pontiff or the college of bishops declares concerning faith or morals when they exercise the authentic magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim it by definitive act; therefore, the Christian faithful are to take care to avoid those things which do not agree with it.

 

can. 753† Although the bishops who are in communion with the head and members of the college, whether individually or joined together in conferences of bishops or in particular councils, do not possess infallibility in teaching, they are authentic teachers and instructors of the faith for the Christian faithful entrusted to their care; the Christian faithful are bound to adhere with religious submission of mind to the authentic magisterium of their bishops.

 

can. 754† All the Christian faithful are obliged to observe the constitutions and decrees which the legitimate authority of the Church issues in order to propose doctrine and to proscribe erroneous opinions, particularly those which the Roman Pontiff or the college of bishops puts forth.

 

can. 755 §1.† It is above all for the entire college of bishops and the Apostolic See to foster and direct among Catholics the ecumenical movement whose purpose is the restoration among all Christians of the unity which the Church is bound to promote by the will of Christ.

 

§2.† It is likewise for the bishops and, according to the norm of law, the conferences of bishops to promote this same unity and to impart practical norms according to the various needs and opportunities of the circumstances; they are to be attentive to the prescripts issued by the supreme authority of the Church.

With that in mind, the Catechism of the Catholic Church makes clear that while there can still be recourse to the Death Penalty, it indicates that there is virtually no cases where it applies today:

2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people’s rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and the duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people’s safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party. (1897–1898; 2308)

2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor. (2306)

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm—without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself—the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent.”

So, even if recourse to the Death Penalty is possible, the non-lethal means must be taken when they are sufficient. This is not an opinion. It requires religious submission of intellect and will. There may be legitimate disagreement over whether or not a specific case might justify the death penalty, but we cannot treat it as a norm.

St. John Paul II has spoken about this in formal teaching and in his homilies. He makes a good distinction on why the Death Penalty can and must be reduced:

Dear brothers and sisters, the time has come to banish once and for all from the continent every attack against life. No more violence, terrorism and drug-trafficking! No more torture or other forms of abuse! There must be an end to the unnecessary recourse to the death penalty! No more exploitation of the weak, racial discrimination or ghettoes of poverty! Never again! These are intolerable evils which cry out to heaven and call Christians to a different way of living, to a social commitment more in keeping with their faith. We must rouse the consciences of men and women with the Gospel, in order to highlight their sublime vocation as children of God. This will inspire them to build a better America. As a matter of urgency, we must stir up a new springtime of holiness on the continent so that action and contemplation will go hand in hand.

 

[John Paul II. (2014). Homilies of Pope John Paul II (English). Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Homily of Jan 23, 1999] (emphasis added)

“The unnecessary recourse to the death penalty,” is the crux of the issue. If a person is tried and found guilty, the first question is whether the Death Penalty is necessary, not whether the guilty party “deserves” it. If it is not necessary, it must not to be applied.

He had also made use of the teaching authority of his office (which means, it requires our assent), saying in the encyclical Evangelium Vitae:

56. This is the context in which to place the problem of the death penalty. On this matter there is a growing tendency, both in the Church and in civil society, to demand that it be applied in a very limited way or even that it be abolished completely. The problem must be viewed in the context of a system of penal justice ever more in line with human dignity and thus, in the end, with God’s plan for man and society. The primary purpose of the punishment which society inflicts is “to redress the disorder caused by the offence”. Public authority must redress the violation of personal and social rights by imposing on the offender an adequate punishment for the crime, as a condition for the offender to regain the exercise of his or her freedom. In this way authority also fulfils the purpose of defending public order and ensuring people’s safety, while at the same time offering the offender an incentive and help to change his or her behaviour and be rehabilitated.⁴⁷

It is clear that, for these purposes to be achieved, the nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.

So it’s pretty clear that the magisterium has taught in a way that requires the assent of the faithful that the Death Penalty only be applied in cases of (practically non-existent) necessity.

The Classical Church Documents—and How they Don’t Contradict Modern Teaching

The Catholic theologians from earlier times have put more emphasis on the right of the state to employ the death penalty. However, they do not enshrine it in the way that its proponents would have us believe is being contradicted today. For example, St. Thomas Aquinas—who is constantly mentioned as a source to justify their view—expresses himself in this way:

Now every part is directed to the whole, as imperfect to perfect, wherefore every part is naturally for the sake of the whole. For this reason we observe that if the health of the whole body demands the excision of a member, through its being decayed or infectious to the other members, it will be both praiseworthy and advantageous to have it cut away. Now every individual person is compared to the whole community, as part to whole. Therefore if a man be dangerous and infectious to the community, on account of some sin, it is praiseworthy and advantageous that he be killed in order to safeguard the common good, since a little leaven corrupteth the whole lump (1 Cor. 5:6).

[Summa Theologica, II-II q.64 a.2 resp.a]

So, St. Thomas Aquinas equates capital punishment with amputation of a diseased body part, and indicates that it can be a justified remedy if there is danger of a spreading infection. But the problem of modern Catholics citing his work is that the Church today has not contradicted St. Thomas Aquinas. The modern magisterium (to use St. Thomas’ analogy) has merely said that in these times “amputation” is almost never needed as a treatment.

What gets overlooked when one relies on the older Church documents and ignores the modern ones is the fact that some things were impossible then that are possible now (for example, in the 13th century, one had to amputate a gangrenous wound, but today it is possible to save it). There were no “Super max” prisons in the 13th century. It was much easier then for a dangerous criminal to escape and cause more harm than it is now.

The Roman Catechism gives us another consideration:

Question IV

It is lawful to sentence Men to death, or to slay them, in Judgment

Another kind of slaying is also permitted, which applies to those civil magistrates, to whom is given the power of life and death, by the legal and judicial use of which they punish the guilty, and protect the innocent. Far from involving the crime of murder, the just exercise of this power is an act of paramount obedience to this divine law, which prohibits murder. For since the end of this commandment is the preservation and security of human life, to the attainment of this end the punishments inflicted by the civil magistrates, who are the legitimate avengers of crime, naturally tend, giving security to human life by repressing audacity and outrage with punishments. Hence these words of David: I will early destroy all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all wicked doers from the city of the Lord. [The Catechism of the Council of Trent (p. 418). London: George Routledge and Co.]

This equates the use of Capital Punishment with the protection of citizens from crime (self defense). There is no difference between this and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. However, the Catholic Church does not and never did sanction the use of a greater punishment if a lesser punishment would be more just. Self Defense requires us to use the minimum force necessary. If I have the ability to defend myself or my family in a non-lethal way, I do evil by killing the foe anyway. Likewise, if the state does not need to use capital punishment to defend the law abiding citizens, the state cannot justify using it.

Conclusion

So, we can see that the teachings of the modern Popes and the Catechism do not contradict the earlier teachings. They merely demand a more rigorous standard before applying the Death Penalty—one that the magisterium teaches is practically non-existent today when it comes to the ability of the State to deal with criminals in non-lethal ways. Given that Jesus Himself gave us a teaching that held one to a higher standard than the Jewish Law did (see Matthew 5:21-48), we cannot object to the Church following His example.

It seems to me that the problem is that certain Catholics equate opposition to the Death Penalty with political liberalism. They think political liberalism is wrong (often correctly). Therefore they assume that the Church is “turning left,” instead of applying the teaching of the Church to the conditions of the modern age. The principle of the Church teaching still exists, uncontradicted, but sometimes the Church sees a need to decree specifically how the Church teaching must be applied in a certain place or time. The Church has the authority and the responsibility to do so for the salvation of souls.

Missing the Point: Church Teaching or non-Teachings?

Today I ran across a claim on the internet that the Church could change Church teachings on moral issues, because she had made changes in the past. When pressed on the question, one individual pointed to the Church changing the rules on eating meat on Friday and the “extermination” of those who refused to convert to Catholicism as proof of changed teachings. The person went so far as to claim Papal bulls sanctioned this extermination—though when pressed was unwilling or unable to name any.

That wasn’t unexpected of course. When one does not understand how the teaching of the Church works or does not know of the doctrines and history of the Church, it’s easy to believe all sorts of claims about the Church without actually looking for evidence for the claim. Thus, there’s a lot of cases going around where there is common knowledge—where the response is “everybody knows THAT,” but when one tries to find evidence for what “everybody knows,” it turns out that nobody actually knows of any...

I find that people tend to make one or more of four errors when it comes to the Catholic Church and what she teaches. These are:

1. Confusing a discipline or other decree with the official teaching of the Church.
2. Missing the Point about the actual Church teaching.
3. Misunderstanding a term used in a Church document, thinking it means something more than it actually does.
4. Wrongly believing that an abuse which is done by a Catholic is the intended teaching of the Catholic Church.

I’ll take a look at these things, and see where they go wrong.

Confusing Discipline/Decree With a Church Teaching

Church teaching is not everything a member of the Church says—even if the person speaking is a bishop or the Pope. The Teaching of the Church is what the Church formally intends to teach as being binding on all the faithful as a matter of the faith or morals of the Church. So when the Church says that same sex marriage, contraception and abortion are intrinsically (that is, always wrong regardless of motives or circumstances) evil, this is a Church teaching. This is not something that is optional, or that the changing circumstances of the times will let the Church decide to do things differently.

However, when the Church decides that members of the Church need to practice a discipline for their spiritual good—for example, Friday abstinence from meat, permitting or withholding the chalice for the laity, whether the Mass be said in Latin or the Vernacular, or even whether or not the clergy must be celibate—these things can be changed if the Church deems it to be for a greater good. So now, we can choose another Friday sacrifice instead of giving up meat. The Church has at different times decreed that the laity may or may not receive the chalice. And, if the Church truly sees a need for it, she can change the discipline of whether the Church ordains married men (as she does in the Eastern Rites) or only ordains celibate men (as she does in the Latin rite). Making a change in these matters is not a case of “the Church was wrong then but right now” (or vice versa for traditionalists). These are situations where the Church makes a decree based on certain conditions.

Missing the Point About the Church Teaching

This brings us to the next issue, which is keeping in mind what Church teaching is actually under consideration. Consider the common canard that the Church changed her teaching on “eating meat on Friday means you will go to Hell.” This is to miss the point. In this case, the Church teaching is not that eating meat on Fridays is evil. The Catholic belief is that the Church has Christ’s authority and that what the Church binds or looses on Earth will be bound or loosed in Heaven. If a person willfully rejects a discipline mandated by the Church for the good of the people that person is rejecting something bound in Heaven.

Another common accusation made about Church teaching being changed is the issue of loans. The argument is that formerly the Church forbade lending at interest, but is now OK with it. Therefore, the Church can change her other teachings. But it wasn’t interest that was the problem. It was the problem of usury (the practice of lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest). In different economic systems during the Roman era, the Dark Ages, the Medieval period and the Enlightenment, what was an unreasonably high rate of interest was different from one period to the next. So the Catechism of the Council of Trent could condemn any interest on a loan while over 200 years later, Pope Pius VII could say some returns on investments were acceptable, but profits that were made based on harmful methods of lending were not. (I imagine the modern practice of Payday loans would meet the criteria for condemnation).

When the only means of exchange were coins and barter, and when every person was paid a fixed amount a day, then charging interest on a loan could mean extreme hardship for the person in debt. But when money could be exchanged with notes, deposited in banks and used to bring in profits, it became possible for people to pay off certain loans. In the first instance any charging of interest would be usury. In the second, some charging of interest would not be usury. So, we can see that the Church did not go from saying “usury is wrong” to “usury is OK.” She merely updated the understanding of what was and was not allowed.

But we have to avoid the fallacy of irrelevant comparisons. One cannot argue that the change in economic conditions changing what met the definition of usury means that the Church can change her teaching on sexual morality. Economic systems can change. The genders and the nature of the sexual act do not change.

Misunderstanding a Term Used In Church Teaching

So, where does the idea come that the Church permitted the extermination of people who would not convert? It comes from applying a limited meaning of a word in modern English which actually has a much broader meaning in different times. The modern meaning of exterminate is "destroy completely; eradicate.” But, when you look at the Latin word, exterminare, we find that it has a different meaning:  lesser banish, expel; dismiss. So, while some people may point to the Lateran IV Council (AD 1215) and quote the following from canon 3:

Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church; so that whenever anyone shall have assumed authority, whether spiritual or temporal, let him be bound to confirm this decree by oath. But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his territory of this heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. If he refuses to make satisfaction within a year, let the matter be made known to the supreme pontiff, that he may declare the ruler’s vassals absolved from their allegiance and may offer the territory to be ruled by Catholics, who on the extermination of the heretics may possess it without hindrance and preserve it in the purity of faith; the right, however, of the chief ruler is to be respected so long as he offers no obstacle in this matter and permits freedom of action. The same law is to be observed in regard to those who have no chief rulers (that is, are independent). Catholics who have girded themselves with the cross for the extermination of the heretics, shall enjoy the indulgences and privileges granted to those who go in defense of the Holy Land.

 

[Schroeder, H. J. (1937). Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils: Text, Translation, and Commentary (pp. 242–243). St. Louis, MO; London: B. Herder Book Co.]

I imagine people might be shocked on reading this. Isn’t it genocide? Well, no. If you look a couple of paragraphs down, you’ll see an admonishment for the people who interact with the exterminated heretics...

If any refuse to avoid such after they have been ostracized by the Church, let them be excommunicated till they have made suitable satisfaction. Clerics shall not give the sacraments of the Church to such pestilential people, nor shall they presume to give them Christian burial, or to receive their alms or offerings; otherwise they shall be deprived of their office, to which they may not be restored without a special indult of the Apostolic See. Similarly, all regulars, on whom also this punishment may be imposed, let their privileges be nullified in that diocese in which they have presumed to perpetrate such excesses.

We can see that the heretics are not exterminated in the sense of “The Final Solution.” They’re exterminated in the sense of being ostracized. We see in other documents the calling for bishops to use the penalty of interdict to exterminate heresy. Interdict was the refusal of Mass, Sacraments and Christian Burial. In modern times, interdict is applied only to a person, but in the past, the Church did apply it to regions. The point was to bring heretics to their senses by denying them the ministry of the Church until they repented (and see 1 Corinthians 5:5 if you think this is an unbiblical behavior), showing them how serious this was.

Wrongly Believing That an Abuse is the Actual Teaching of the Church

There’s no sense in denying that some people in history who professed to be Christian did behave in a way which was wrong. Not just wrong by the 21st century standards and sensitivities. I mean things that even back then, should have been obvious to people. So the mess that was the Spanish Inquisition, the wrongdoing by some in the Crusades—these things were wrong. The problem for the accusers is the fact that the Church condemned the evils done at the time. They didn’t always speak out effectively, and they weren’t always heeded. But they spoke out.

Here’s something to think about. Consider the Catholics who present themselves as being pro-abortion. They act publicly and ignore the teaching of the Church. is their disobedience the fault of the Church? No, because the Church does have a clear teaching that is being ignored. Sure, a person may wish that the Church was more forceful in certain times, but one can’t say that the Church supported these things.

The fact is, many of the events people point to as proof of the wickedness of the Church (the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, the sacking of Constantinople by Crusaders and the cruelties of the Spanish against the Native Americans are popular accusations) were actually denounced by the Church. But, like today, there were many Catholics who chose to ignore the teaching of the Church, and like today, many got away with it. There is only so much the Church can do against the willfully defiant. That doesn’t mean the men who led the Church always did enough or responded perfectly. Sometimes they even used their office to do wrong. However, these failings were not a part of the binding teaching of the Church.

So What is a Teaching of the Church?

So, now that I have said what the teaching of the Church is not, one might ask what a teaching of the Church is. The first step is to look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church #888-892. The teaching of the Church is based in preserving the teachings of Christ as passed on through the Apostles. It is "to preserve God’s people from deviations and defections and to guarantee them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error” (CCC #890). When the Church intends to teach in a way which "they propose in the exercise of the ordinary Magisterium a teaching that leads to better understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals" (CCC #892) or when the Pope “when, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful—who confirms his brethren in the faith—he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals” (CCC #891).

So, many things which people point at, in an attempt to deny that the Church is protected from error, were never considered teachings of the Church in the sense she intends to be understood as teaching. Many others were not teaching what her enemies accused her of teaching.

When one wants to critique the Church, the first step is to determine whether the Church was teaching something as doctrine, and if so, what the Church intended to teach when binding the faithful. The Church can certainly make certain disciplines binding that are not teachings of the Church, but disciplines can be changed if the need requires it without contradicting Church teaching. Criticisms which fail to take into account what the Church intended to teach are doing nothing more than creating a Straw Man fallacy, condemning us for something which is either false or taken out of context.

Missing the Point of Mercy

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