Armageddon in 2016? Fearing the Future after November 8th

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The Qorban-ite Maneuver: Fidelity to and Evasion of Our Responsibilities

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Focus, People...

So, Catholics on social media spent a week savaging each other. Rhetoric ramped up and charity was rather scarce. But the case everybody was fighting over was the opportunity, not the cause, for our civil war to erupt. Whether conservative or liberal, Catholics had a whole list of topics they were already fighting over. This incident merely gave everybody an excuse to ramp up the vitriol, accusing people who took the opposing side of everything wrong with the world. OK, fine. Both sides worry about how people are behaving . . . but the problem is, people take offense because it’s their heroes or causes getting targeted, and they’re willing to use the same tactics against their enemies. But since I already wrote about that, I won’t carry that any further. 

The problem is, while we’ve been having our civil war, we’ve been neglecting the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). Fighting over who is being most loathsome on social media is not leading others to Christ. In fact, it’s probably doing more to drive people away and lead them to think we don’t practice what we preach. My question is this: What are we doing to carry out our mandate as Catholic Christians, and how does our online behavior advance it?

No, this post isn’t going to be one about “Spend Less Time On The Internet!” The Church has recognized the value of media and the rapid advances made in the 20th and 21st centuries, and encourages Catholics to make use of it to evangelize the world. As Benedict XVI put it:

Among the new forms of mass communication, nowadays we need to recognize the increased role of the internet, which represents a new forum for making the Gospel heard. Yet we also need to be aware that the virtual world will never be able to replace the real world, and that evangelization will be able to make use of the virtual world offered by the new media in order to create meaningful relationships only if it is able to offer the personal contact which remains indispensable. In the world of the internet, which enables billions of images to appear on millions of screens throughout the world, the face of Christ needs to be seen and his voice heard, for “if there is no room for Christ, there is no room for man”  [Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini #113].

So, when we spend time on social media, we need to ask ourselves how we’re making known the face and voice of Christ in our words and actions. That doesn’t mean we’re doing wrong when we share stupid puns and other things. But in what we say and do, we have to consider the message we send. Assuming it’s not a morally neutral area, like cute cat pictures, we need to ask: Does it advance the Kingdom of God? Or does it drive people away? I think the difference between the first and the last is whether the message or the tone shares the Christian teaching and/or shows Christian love and charity, or whether it shows things against what the Church teaches or treats people in a way which is against the command to love our neighbor as ourself.

As always, this is not a case of only conservatives being to blame or only liberals being to blame. It’s about Christians behaving like the rest of the world (see Galatians 5:20). The problem is, Christians are not supposed to be like the rest of the world and have a disordered love for it. We’re called to be the Light of the World, Salt of the Earth, the City on a Hill (Matthew 5:13-16). It’s not just about converting people, but converting cultures as well. The problem is, it’s easy for us to become corrupted if we forget our task as Christians.

Now I’m no bishop with the authority to bind and loose. All I can do is point to our call as Christians to follow the Church because we believe she is the Church established by Christ. All I can do is encourage people to deeply consider what Our Lord has called us to be and contrast that with what we actually are. If we find it is different. That’s a wakeup call to repent and turn back to the Lord. It’s not my task to tell you, the reader, where your flaws are. Most of you, I never met face to face. How would I know what your sins are? I only know you have flaws because, like me, you’re a human being and therefore a sinner. So all I can do is urge you to look to the Church to form your conscience and see where you need to change.

Because this isn’t about winning a Facebook argument. This is about the salvation of souls—ours and others. As St. Paul said:

¹ If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. ² And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Cor 13:1)

If we don’t have love for each other, we can’t witness the Christian message to the world. If we can’t witness the Christian message, people won’t respond to the Great Commission. Obviously we argue about the faith because we think it is important. So we need to consider the ultimate goal when we consider how we should act. Our focus should be on God and on following His Church to bring people knowledge of Our Lord and His command to follow Him.

Catholic Tribalism at its Worst

Over this weekend, a couple of famous Catholic bloggers lost their jobs with a prominent Catholic newspaper. But this article is not going to be about them. I only mention it because the aftermath does involve what I want to talk about—the partisan behavior of American Catholics who judge by what they prefer and not by what is true. In such behavior, we see Catholics split into two basic camps:

1. The faction of “I support X”
2. The faction of “I oppose X”

There is no third side. This is a case of “You’re with us or against us!” in their minds. If you won’t accept their view, you find them placing you on the opposite side. This is how the bishops get accused of being too liberal and too conservative at the same time. 

 

To the partisans in these groups, their side is on the side of angels and the other side is on the side of demons. They justify or downplay whatever their side does. Whatever their opponents do gets twisted into willful malicious evil done to cause harm. Who’s in the right? In most cases, neither side. Oh sure, the conflict might start because someone did or taught wrong—but at other times it revolves around misunderstandings. Either way, that’s a side story to the mutual recriminations where each faction thinks the others are scum of the Earth. Because the other side doesn’t see it “our” way, it must mean they support the wrongdoing by the extremists on the other side.

This is the wrong way to approach this. As Catholics, our task is to be faithful to Our Lord and the teachings of His Church—under the leadership of His vicar here on Earth—the Pope, carrying them out to the best of our abilities. Sometimes there can be different ways to be faithful to Church teaching on a subject, and sometimes the faithful can disagree on the best way to carry out Church teaching. So long as a side does not try to evade Church teaching but follows the Church sincerely, these differences can exist without sin. In such cases, it is unjust to accuse others with a different idea on how to be faithful of being faithless.

At other times, sometimes individual Catholics or groups do go wrong. Either they knowingly choose something the Church teaches as wrong, or they don’t understand the Church teaching. They think the shepherds of the Church must be wrong because the bishops don’t see it their way. In that case people are choosing wrong, though I leave it to God to judge the culpability, and do not pretend to know their intentions. In that case, we must oppose people in error, though we must oppose them in charity, not with insults and wild claims.

And in both cases, Tribal Catholics get it wrong. In the first case, they take offense when someone says, “I do not think your plan is the best way to handle this.” Because they equate their position with all that is decent, whoever disagrees must not care about Church teaching, the poor, the unborn, etc. In the second case, a faction who supports something against Church teaching (for whatever motive) assumes that the Church intends harm to whoever is at odds with the teaching. In such a view, support for the Church can only be partisan or dogmatic rigidity. So they attack the Church on one side for not caring about women because she opposes abortion and contraception. On the other side, they accuse the Church of supporting illegal immigration because the bishops object to an inhumane policy on immigration.

So long as a Catholic clings to a tribe mentality, they're closed to considering anything that suggests their positions or heroes are wrong. Criticism is, ironically, considered partisan when it targets these things. What's vital to remember is both sides in a tribal war are guilty. When we put our tribal idols first, we're blind to considering whether we’ve gone wrong. It's only when we recognize our own sinfulness and turn to God, seeking His grace, that we can learn to do good. As St John Chrysostom said in a homily:

A first path of repentance is the condemnation of your own sins: Be the first to admit your sins and you will be justified. For this reason, too, the prophet wrote: I said: I will accuse myself of my sins to the Lord, and you forgave the wickedness of my heart. Therefore, you too should condemn your own sins; that will be enough reason for the Lord to forgive you, for a man who condemns his own sins is slower to commit them again. Rouse your conscience to accuse you within your own house, lest it become your accuser before the judgment seat of the Lord.

Catholic tribes can't do this because they think their sins are little compared to the "other side.” That’s what’s dangerous. Being a Christian means a constant turning towards God and away from the sins we were blind to. If we would escape the tribe (and we must strive to do so, praying for God’s grace to succeed), we must be open to considering whether we've fallen into error through ignorance, habit, or pride. We need to consider whether our heroes have gone wrong in comparison to what the Christian life demands. 

First, that means we have to make sure we know both all the facts and what the Church teaches. If we don’t do that, we risk falling into error, wrongly tolerating error, or wrongly accusing someone of error. If the Church allows leeway, we don’t condemn a person for taking it. if the Church forbids something, we don’t make excuses for going against it, claiming it is closer to the Catholic position in spirit. We look to the magisterium to guide us, and we seek to understand. We don’t make ourselves a judge of the “plain sense” when the Pope and bishops make this decision on how to apply the timeless teachings in a certain time.

Second, even when someone errs (for whatever reason or motive), that is not a signal that all moral obligations of justice and charity get tossed out the window. We need to speak truthfully and accurately. For example, being in error is not the same thing as being a heretic. The heretic knows and obstinately refuses to accept Church teaching. The person in error may sincerely think they are being faithful to Church teaching. If we respond in harshness, we may drive a person into the error we want to pull him out of.

Escaping Catholic tribalism means recognizing we can be wrong, and that we must look to the Church for guidance, and respond to others with love and mercy. Sometimes our ideals are false idols. Sometimes our heroes can go wrong. In these cases we must choose: Do we sacrifice mercy and justice to our tribal feuds? Or do we sacrifice our tribal feuds to mercy and justice as God commands? We should consider that carefully the next time a fellow Catholic behaves badly or the next time someone opposes our heroes. We should consider carefully whether our tribal loyalties put us at odds with Our Lord and His Church.

Reflections on Mercy and Justice

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Dissent Masquerading as Conscience

People seem to think conscience is how we feel about something. If we like something, it is not a violation of our conscience. If we dislike it, we believe it goes against conscience. From there, anyone who tries to make a moral judgment of an act is accused of “violating a person’s conscience.” That’s a false understanding though. Conscience isn’t a feeling or a preference. A feeling says “I feel fine about this.” Conscience says, “You must not do that.” In fact, conscience often compels us to go against what we want to do and tells us what we must do. The Catechism describes conscience as:

1778 Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed. In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right. It is by the judgment of his conscience that man perceives and recognizes the prescriptions of the divine law: (1749)

Conscience is a law of the mind; yet [Christians] would not grant that it is nothing more; I mean that it was not a dictate, nor conveyed the notion of responsibility, of duty, of a threat and a promise.… [Conscience] is a messenger of him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by his representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ.

When conscience tells us something is morally wrong, we cannot disobey our conscience and perform that act. But that being said, conscience is not an infallible guide. Whether through (among other things) ignorance, cultural blind spot, or falling into vicious habit, we can become deaf to the call of conscience or even wind up thinking evil is good. The person who, through no fault of their own, is ignorant about some moral truth (called invincible ignorance), does not sin in following a conscience in error. But if a person could learn if they bothered to look does not have this excuse and has some level of guilt for their actions. As Gaudium et Spes #16 tells us:

Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same cannot be said for a man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or for a conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of habitual sin.

As Catholics, we need to remember we do not have the excuse of invincible ignorance. We profess that the Catholic Church was founded by Our Lord who gave her the authority to teach in his name. We believe that she shows us how to truly live the Christian life (Matthew 28:20). If we do not avail ourselves of this gift from Our Lord, we are without excuse for the wrong we do. As Lumen Gentium #13 tells us,

They are fully incorporated in the society of the Church who, possessing the Spirit of Christ accept her entire system and all the means of salvation given to her, and are united with her as part of her visible bodily structure and through her with Christ, who rules her through the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops. The bonds which bind men to the Church in a visible way are profession of faith, the sacraments, and ecclesiastical government and communion. He is not saved, however, who, though part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but, as it were, only in a “bodily” manner and not “in his heart.” All the Church’s children should remember that their exalted status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ. If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged.

What this means is, when the Church teaches how we need to live, we cannot appeal to conscience against the magisterium. We measure the formation of our conscience against the teaching of the Church, not the teaching of the Church against our conscience. When a bishop speaks out on the morality of a subject, he is not violating our conscience if it makes us feel uncomfortable. If he’s making us feel uncomfortable, perhaps he is awakening an awareness of where we have gone lax. But as Catholics we believe those who lead the Church have the authority and responsibility to speak out, as the Catechism teaches:

2032 The Church, the “pillar and bulwark of the truth,” “has received this solemn command of Christ from the apostles to announce the saving truth.” “To the Church belongs the right always and everywhere to announce moral principles, including those pertaining to the social order, and to make judgments on any human affairs to the extent that they are required by the fundamental rights of the human person or the salvation of souls.”

 

2033 The Magisterium of the Pastors of the Church in moral matters is ordinarily exercised in catechesis and preaching, with the help of the works of theologians and spiritual authors. Thus from generation to generation, under the aegis and vigilance of the pastors, the “deposit” of Christian moral teaching has been handed on, a deposit composed of a characteristic body of rules, commandments, and virtues proceeding from faith in Christ and animated by charity. Alongside the Creed and the Our Father, the basis for this catechesis has traditionally been the Decalogue which sets out the principles of moral life valid for all men.

2034 The Roman Pontiff and the bishops are “authentic teachers, that is, teachers endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach the faith to the people entrusted to them, the faith to be believed and put into practice.” The ordinary and universal Magisterium of the Pope and the bishops in communion with him teach the faithful the truth to believe, the charity to practice, the beatitude to hope for.

So, to argue that those entrusted with forming our consciences are violating them, because they teach that X is wrong, is to speak dissent as well as nonsense. 

Even if a bishop should speak with a lack of charity or gentleness in his teaching (as opposed to the person in the wrong being offended), this does not take away from his teaching office. Of course the bishop or priest should be careful not to discourage the sinner when he speaks out against the sin, but harsh words do not change truth into falsehood. Remember, we’re not talking about priests or bishops teaching heresy or other dissent. We’re talking about teaching what we are bound to believe.

[Edit: Reader Colin Leicht made a good point on Facebook that bears addressing. A bishop or priest who, on account of fearing to hurt our feelings, avoided teaching the truth would be preventing us from forming our conscience properly.]

But what if he does not speak as a bishop? It happens at times. Archbishop Chaput recently wrote on the sorry plight of this election, speaking it as “thoughts from a brother in the faith, not as teachings from an archbishop.” In such a case, he makes clear that he is not making a binding teaching, but speaking just as a fellow Catholic. Even here, we should treat the bishop’s words with respect, recognizing his personal learning and the personal grace provided him by God. In doing so, he explains the problems we should think about and we would be foolish not to consider what he says. I won’t put what he says on par with a teaching from the Pope. But I find his words helpful all the same.

Because the Church forms our conscience properly, we cannot claim conscience as an excuse to disobey the teaching authority of the Church. When the bishop teaches in communion with the Pope and says “X is a sin,” Catholics cannot accuse him of violating conscience with their teaching. If we find that what our feelings and preferences tell us go against Church teaching, that is a sign that our own conscience is malformed and needs to be corrected.

Thoughts on Two Errors in Catholic Voting

Introduction

One of the most troubling things about Catholics debating right and wrong is that sometimes that debate gets misdirected. Instead of looking at our calling as Christians, we look at what the Church says through the lens of political preferences. People tend to accept or reject the Church over whether the teaching seems to be in line with their political positions. People tend to confuse their political preferences with what the Church teaches, or misinterpret Church teaching to justify what they want but actually justify what the Church has no intention of supporting. The first is harmful to Christian charity. The second deceives people into supporting evil in the name of a "greater good."

I. Fighting over Legitimate Differences of Opinion

The first ugly problem I see is when Catholics confuse thinking about what the Church teaches with the way we prefer people should apply Church teaching. They are two different things. For example, look at what St. John XXIII wrote in 1963:

11. But first We must speak of man’s rights. Man has the right to live. He has the right to bodily integrity and to the means necessary for the proper development of life, particularly food, clothing, shelter, medical care, rest, and, finally, the necessary social services. In consequence, he has the right to be looked after in the event of illhealth; disability stemming from his work; widowhood; old age; enforced unemployment; or whenever through no fault of his own he is deprived of the means of livelihood.

 

 John XXIII, Pacem in Terris (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1963).

I suspect, while reading this, many started thinking about certain political parties and their platforms, praising one and condemning the other based on their preferences. What makes this dangerous is people are condemning others without cause, not because they reject the Church, but because they reject one proposed political solution. Yes, sometimes, political platforms embrace things the Church warns us are evil (we’ll get into that below). Then we have to oppose the platform, whether we work to reform it from inside the party or rejecting the party and walking away. In such a case we cannot excuse the immoral position, or evade our obligation to oppose it. When the Church says “X is intrinsically evil,” a party which calls the act good, or a right is at odds with living as a Christian, and we must oppose them.

But the Church does not endorse a specific political platform on how to carry out her teaching, and sometimes Catholics falsely accuse each other of rejecting Church teaching when it is more a case of one Catholic thinking the second Catholic’s preferred plan won’t work. We have to be honest with ourselves. We can’t cherry pick the Church teaching to find convenient phrases to justify what we want to do anyway. We have to be sincerely trying to seek out and follow Church teaching when we support legislation or candidates.

One Catholic may think that a particular political proposal will better promote social justice in America. A second may believe the harm it causes outweighs the good claimed. If both are sincere and have their conscience properly formed by the Church, neither sins for not favoring the approach of the other and it is unjust of accusing them of disobeying the Church.

II. Falsely Claiming a Right to Support A Candidate who Favors Evil in the Name of a Good

On the other side, we have to understand that conscience is not the same thing as feelings or opinions. Conscience tells us about what is right and wrong about an act. Our opinions and feelings can mislead us by sentiment, or an imperfect knowledge of the facts. A person may not feel that he does anything wrong. But conscience formed by the Church tells us something is a grave evil and we cannot treat it as a lesser concern just because we like the candidate’s other positions. A person who does not know that Church teaching must form conscience but sincerely seeks to do right might make a mistake in pursuing the good. The Catholic does not have that excuse. 

Since the Church made known to us we cannot use an evil means to cause good (see CCC #1789), we have an obligation to consider the action we want to use and the goal we want it to achieve. If will the evil in means or goal, we cannot use the action without sinning. If we don’t intend the evil, we have to assess if it outweighs the good intended. If the unintended evil outweighs the intended good, we cannot do the act without sinning. We cannot support an action that violates the rights of the human person—and the Church defines life as the fundamental human right—we can only tolerate it prevent a greater evil against that right to life. Our task is to limit the evil done if we can’t stop the evil outright:

4. The complex array of today’s problems branches out from here, including some never faced by past generations. Scientific progress has resulted in advances that are unsettling for the consciences of men and women and call for solutions that respect ethical principles in a coherent and fundamental way. At the same time, legislative proposals are put forward which, heedless of the consequences for the existence and future of human beings with regard to the formation of culture and social behaviour, attack the very inviolability of human life. Catholics, in this difficult situation, have the right and the duty to recall society to a deeper understanding of human life and to the responsibility of everyone in this regard. John Paul II, continuing the constant teaching of the Church, has reiterated many times that those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a «grave and clear obligation to oppose» any law that attacks human life. For them, as for every Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them. As John Paul II has taught in his Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae regarding the situation in which it is not possible to overturn or completely repeal a law allowing abortion which is already in force or coming up for a vote, «an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality»

 

 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2002).

This is a good rebuke of a popular misconception. Some Catholics believe they can vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil as a “right” on the grounds that his other policies will make fewer people want to avail themselves of that “right.” That reasoning is usually a post hoc fallacy that assumes the candidate’s other policies will cause the decline in abortion, and does not consider other possible reasons for the decline, such as the declining birth rate (many countries are now below replacement levels) and the success of pro-life laws. 

The problem is, even if these policies did make intrinsic evils less necessary do not change the fact that politicians think these intrinsic evils are good and want to defend them, which goes against what Christians need to do—make known to the world the need for salvation and how we need to live to follow Our Lord. Maybe the world will resist what we have to say, but that doesn’t change our obligation. If we vote for politicians who promote intrinsic evils, how convincing will we be when we claim to be against those evils?

That’s the problem of scandal—an attitude or behavior that leads another to do evil. If we don’t practice what we preach, people will decide our practices are easier to follow, even though our words claim we value Church teaching. Our Lord’s words on scandal are not pleasant ones to hear (Matthew 18:6-7). So, if we want to bear witness, we’ll make sure we consider the message our actions send, making sure they match up with our words. That means squaring our political preferences with our Catholic faith, not the reverse.

Conclusion

In this election cycle, neither major candidate could be called good, and even the largest minor parties support intrinsic evil. Most have endorsed things the Church condemns as unjust. As a result, Catholics are scrambling to salvage the best way to limit evil. Unfortunately, we’re greatly divided and observers, understandably, not only have a hard time seeing what American Catholics actually believe, but would have a hard time recognizing Tertullian’s description of how the earliest Christians were seen:

But it is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. See, they say, how they love one another, for themselves are animated by mutual hatred; how they are ready even to die for one another, for they themselves will sooner put to death.

 

 Tertullian, “The Apology,” Chapter XXXIX, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. S. Thelwall, vol. 3, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 46.

I believe Catholics need to be more aware of the meaning of what the Church teaching, not presuming that we know enough to reason out on our own something unfamiliar to us when we have the Church as mother and teacher. Between now and November, we need to study and pray—to know God’s will and to deal with each other in charity. We should make clear witness of the Catholic teachings that guide our decisions, while striving to avoid bad judgments through misunderstanding.

Our choices may be bad, but we have the opportunity to witness to what is right in charitably discussing the what we believe.