Do You Not Yet Have Faith?

³⁵ On that day, as evening drew on, he said to them, “Let us cross to the other side.” ³⁶ Leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was. And other boats were with him. ³⁷ A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling up. ³⁸ Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. They woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” ³⁹ He woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!” The wind ceased and there was great calm. ⁴⁰ Then he asked them, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” (Mark 4:35–40).

This account of Jesus stilling the waves speaks volumes about our lack of faith in God. The disciples, seeing the storm, believed they were going to die and that Jesus was somehow going to just let them. But his rebuking the wind and sea shows us He certainly has the authority and power that keeps everything under control. He wasn’t going to let the boat sink, even though the disciples feared he might overlook the dangers and forget them.

We might smile at the disciples, but we’re no different. We fear that He will not involve Himself in what frightens us. If pressed, we might deny that we don’t trust Him and are merely concerned with other factors, but when it comes down to it, people are afraid He is going to just let His Church collapse at the hands of those they fear the most. 

Of course, free will means any one of us can act in a way that disrupts the Church. But when God makes a promise, He keeps it. He might not keep it in the way we expect—for example, the first century Jews had ideas about the Messiah that were not what God intended—but He keeps it faithfully. We, on the other hand, have a bad habit of anticipating God to fulfill his promises in a specific way, and if He does not seem to fulfill it in that way, we fear He is not going to fulfill it at all.

I think of that as some Catholics and Catholic periodicals who spent years defending the Faith and the authority of the Church, are suddenly despairing and assuming what they do not understand is the sign of a catastrophe. Because they cannot reconcile their interpretation of Church teaching with the actions of Pope Francis, they assume he must be in error. They invent theologies that can somehow have, at the same time, a “heretical” Pope and a Church protected from error. 

Such Catholics lament that this is the biggest crisis to afflict the Church since the Arian heresy, and wonder what will happen to the faithful (a group that always includes them, and usually excludes those who disagree with them). But I think this is a view that is ignorant of history. The Church has always had to deal with attacks. Whether attacks from persecution, heresy, or corruption, the Church has always needed to withstand and correct. What we forget, however, is the Church has made changes to disciplines without changing her teachings in doing so.

The problem is often one of perception. If one wrongly thinks a changed discipline is a sign of heresy or corruption, that one will no doubt assume the Church is in mortal peril. If one wrongly thinks that the existence of error means the magisterium supports it or is incompetent, they will assume the Church is in mortal peril. Critics thinking this way tend to assume the Church will remain in error until she does things the way they want them done, even though the Church is not in error.

The disciples, traveling on the Sea of Galilee, assumed that being in the company of Jesus meant that they would not experience difficulty. As a result, when things became difficult, they responded in a panic. But God responded in His own time and His own way. We need to recognize Our Lord will do the same for our own troubles. No, this isn’t a call for passivity. We have tasks to do in converting the world. But we shouldn’t think that the problems of the Church means that God forgets His Church and his promises. He protected the Church in the past. He protects the Church now. He will protect the Church in the future. Recognizing this, Our Lord’s question to His disciples remains’s relevant to our own fears: Do you not yet have faith?

Do We Understand? Or Do We Assume?

Introduction

Pope Francis recently issued some words of wisdom about the division of ideology and the loss of respect. These divisions are causing some Catholics to savage others they disagree with. The general assumption is that a disagreement on how one must act is proof that the “other side” is either ignorant or malicious in not choosing the accuser’s view. The buzzwords line up with the person’s ideology, and the accusations assume that the other side embraces the worst positions for the worst reasons.

Assuming the Worst, Without Cause

Human beings, because of their flawed nature, are prone to sin. So it is quite understandable to see people willfully choosing evil, or making morally bad choices with lesser levels of intention. We can’t ignore that. We’re called to reach out to sinners and bring them back to the truth. The problem is, accusers are assuming the fact that there is a disagreement as proof being an enemy of al that is good and decent. But, when one looks at both sides, they are actually making the same arguments, and merely plugging in different buzzwords. A supporter of Trump might assume most or all of those who oppose him must support abortion, Islamic terrorism, and so-called same sex marriage, even if the person accused supports none of them. Likewise, the opponent of Trump might assume most or all who voted for him support racism, fascism, and letting the rich prosper at the expense of the poor.

The problem is, many of these accused Catholics who thought differently on how to vote, or on what the worst evils were, used the same reasoning to reach different conclusions. For example, I’ve seen them agonize over whether they should vote for what they saw as the least offensive choice among the two major candidates, knowing both were bad, or vote for someone else, risking the possibility of the worst choice getting in. In doing so, some of them might have been ignorant of Church teaching, and made bad decisions. Others may have known of and rejected Church teaching. But not all of them did so. The result is, many are rashly judged as holding a position they actually reject.

It doesn’t have to be about Trump either (He’s just, currently, the most controversial issue). Consider the liturgical wars. Some who prefer the way of the 1962 Missal believe all who disagree are heretics. Some who prefer the current Form of the Mass are schismatics. Some are—but not all. Again, those who do not are being rashly judged, accused of directly willing whatever bad effects come.

The Root of the Problem

I think there are two things people don’t ask: What the actual Church teaching permits, and what the person we disagree with actually thinks. If we don’t know both, we risk falsely accusing a person of supporting something he actually rejects. Even if it turns out he does support a wrong position, our accusation is merely a coincidence with no basis behind it.

Knowing what the Church actually teaches on a subject is important, because we have both the actual stated teaching, and the application based on conditions. For example, the Church speaks on the obligation to care for those in need. She does not define how we must vote, or what political platform we must endorse in order to meet that obligation. Provided we don’t try to “play the Pharisee” and evade our obligations under a disguise of piety, we can choose different ways to carry it out. In this case, it would be rash judgment to assume the person who chose a different way, while trying to be faithful, is ignoring Church teaching.

Likewise, when it comes to addressing the issue of sinners in the Church and reconciliation, we need to remember that the clergy need to not only assess the fact that something is intrinsically evil, but assess the intentions and circumstances that leads to our committing these sins. Why does the Church tolerate what we think is horrible? It’s a good question—and maybe we need to investigate, not assuming that our not finding an answer means there is none to be found.

The point is, if we don’t understand the fullness of the Church teaching, or lack of understanding may lead us to see sin where there is none, or vice versa. We may think the Church is too harsh or too lenient, when she is exactly right. We may think others are guilty when they innocent, or think they are innocent when they are guilty.

Our task is not done when we do understand the fullness of Church teaching. We have to also understand what the person holds before we accuse him of acting against it. Take, for example, the case of Pope Francis. If someone studies what he has to say—not the media accounts—you can see how close he is to the teaching of his predecessors. Personally, I found his harshest denunciations of evils in the practice of Capitalism in Evangelii Gaudium sound remarkably similar to the words of Pope Pius XI, or St. John Paul II in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis. I find he is no less firm in opposing the sexual sins than his predecessors. But his critics take snippets of quotes, given without context, and assume he intends to overthrow the Church teaching. But when one reads what he says in context, it is clear that the fault lies with his accusers.

On the other hand, some do get things wrong. They either reject Church teaching, or they wrongly think they are following. We still need to understand their position. Otherwise, how will we correct them? Nobody likes to be accused of holding a position they actually reject. If we falsely accuse them of rejecting Church teaching, or misrepresent their position, we will not show them the right path. Instead we’ll be fighting the wrong battle.

Conclusion

We need to realize that making false accusations against others will not bring about peace and conversion. As Christians, we have an obligation to seek out the truth and act on it. But in these days of instant communication of misinformation, we’ve stopped seeking and started assuming. We assume we can’t go wrong, but others can. And so we calumniate many of them by accusing them of actions and motives they do not hold to. That has to stop. By acting that way, we become self-righteous and we drive others away.

Our Lord had strong words to the Scribes and Pharisees for behaving this way. How much stronger will they be when directed towards us for knowing His teaching, but not living it?

Self-Righteousness or Seeking Righteousness?

Introduction

Some things the Church warns about gets shunted aside in different eras. If we think of them at all, we think of them as something other people do and never scrutinize our own actions. I think one of these issues is the issue of self-righteousness—the belief in one’s own actions and motives are morally superior to their opponents. Those who did not share that position were considered morally wrong, not merely mistaken. Unfortunately, many confuse their own self-righteousness with seeking righteousness, which means seeking out what is right and carrying it out. If we assume our own actions are righteous, while those who disagree with us choose evil; if we never ask whether we are doing wrong, while being certain no good Catholic can think differently than us—those are signs of being self-righteous.

Before I go on, I want to make something clear. I am not speaking in support of moral relativism. Some things simply are incompatible with being a Catholic Christian, and we may never dismiss them or treat them lightly. If a fellow Catholic is in error, he or she does need to be led to the truth. But not all differences are based on the willful disregard of Catholic teaching. Moreover, it is not just “other people” who can be in error. We can be blind to our own faults as well.

A Political Example

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side

(Buffalo Springfield, For What It’s Worth)

One of the sadder things I see on social media is the division that still exists among some Catholics over moral decisions made during the election. Since the 2016 elections were arguably the worst choices we’ve had in living memory, Catholics were faced with the unenviable decision of picking one of the unfit candidates from the major parties, or an unelectable candidate from a minor party. Catholics trying to act in good faith made their decision on how to prevent the most damage for the next four years. It’s the kind of thing where afterwards, you expected Catholics to say to each other, “That was a terrible election. I pray our options are better next time.”

But in many cases, that didn’t happen. Some Catholics focussed instead on others who made a different decision on how to best limit evil, assuming they were supporters of the worst evils that came from their choice. So, those who voted for our current president are accused of being responsible for every action he takes that runs counter to Church teaching, regardless of whether the Catholic voter supported it or not (the guilt by association fallacy). Meanwhile, those who voted against him are accused of favoring every evil his main opponent supported. So, every time President Trump does something, we get a flood of posts accusing those who disagreed with the poster of either supporting evils in his proposals as well as counter-posts accusing the first group of supporting evils that would have happened if he hadn’t been elected.

At the same time that this is going on, these factions are congratulating themselves for standing up for the Catholic faith because of the superficial links between their favored party and the Church teaching they happen to feel strongly about, ignoring the parts where their favored party runs against Catholic teaching. I’ve seen Catholics who voted, Democrat, Republican, and Third Party act this way, all castigating the others. In other words, these groups accuse each other of putting politics above the Catholic faith, never considering that both groups used the same arguments to reach different conclusions. 

Non-Political Examples

It’s not only in politics. We can see it in the “all we need to do to save the Church is…” attitudes. Some argue that we all need to return to ad orientem, reception of Communion on the tongue, etc., and if we don’t, we’re ignoring the problem, or even in cahoots with those who rebel. Others say the Church needs to change her attitude towards contraception, divorce/remarriage, woman priests, etc., to prevent the collapse of the Church, and those who disagree are against Christ. The problem is, these solutions are not based on the teaching of the Church, but on what we think the Church should be. Often we elevate a discipline to a doctrine. Often, we try to treat a doctrine like a discipline. But in both cases, we tend to attack the people who disagree with us as ignoring the problem or even being a part of it.

But like the political examples above, people are assuming that different views means being part of the problem, through not caring or about actively willing evil. I think the difference between this and the political examples is we are no longer arguing over the best way to apply Church teaching, but whether Church teaching is to be followed. In this case, we’re not only being self-righteous towards others, but towards the shepherds of the Church. Like so many other things, this isn’t done by a single faction. Whether it is a case of a rigorist Catholic saying the Church has no right to reach out in compassion to sinners, or a laxist Catholic saying the Church has no right to bar Catholics from the Eucharist, these are cases where the self-righteous Catholic is saying they are superior to those tasked with shepherding the Church. Whether it’s a case of accusing the Pope of heresy or of accusing a saint of heresy, this is (among other sins) self-righteousness.

The Risk To Ourselves

The problem is, when we fall into self-righteousness, we forget to consider three things:

1. The fact that we might be wrong in assuming our opponent's error or bad will
2. The fact that we might be wrong in the positions we hold.
3. The fact that we are to show patience and charity to those actually in error.

Let’s face it. If we’re going to call a Catholic who viewed Trump as the least harmful choice, “Anti-abortion but not pro-life,” (or if we call the Catholic who could not vote for Trump in good conscience and voted for a Third Party, “pro-Hillary”), we’re being self-righteous. We overlook the fact the individual might have acted in good will. We overlook the possibility of making an error of our own. And, if the person actually did vote this way for reasons incompatible with Catholic teaching, we are not likely to win them back by behaving self-righteously. But bringing them back is part of the Great Commission.

Here’s a personal example on the third point: When I was in my early 20s, I began to consider the Catholic faith I was raised in seriously. But some of my positions were not compatible with the Catholic faith, and I was struggling with these issues, trying to understand how something I had always thought to be politically bad was morally good. If I had encountered the social media crowd of Catholics who insult and speak abusively towards those who thought differently, I would have probably equated the Catholic faith with their behavior and left it behind, thinking it wrong. I probably would have been morally culpable for the errors I clung to, thinking them right. But I think God would have had something to say, at the Final Judgment, to those who drove me away as well.

Pope Francis, in stressing mercy, remembers what many American Catholics seem to forget—we’re not goalies, trying to keep lesser Catholics out. Nor are we just throwing out the rules and saying, “Anything goes.” What we’re trying to do is reach out to those lost sheep and bringing them back into the fold. That means reconciling them with God. And how can we reconcile people who we drive away? How will we answer God when we, instead of rescuing the lost sheep, pitch it back in the brambles?

It Starts With Ourselves

As i said back in the beginning of the post, I’m not saying we should let people do whatever they want and not worry about it. IF they are in error, we need to guide them back. But if we’re self-righteous, how can we guide them? We need to be guided ourselves. This means we need to turn to God in prayer and study, seeking out how we are called to live, not confusing our preferences with what the Church actually teaches. We need to investigate the actual statements and motives of the person who disagrees with us—not presuming on either. We need to recognize that if we are actually not in error and another is, we are called to be Christlike in reaching out to them.

Escaping self-righteousness in favor of seeking righteousness is hard. For example, I’m constantly struggling with sarcasm when it comes to people I think are wrong and should know better. I struggle with it because I know there’s no spiritual growth, and a lot of spiritual harm there. But the temptation is always there to want to “put wrongdoers in their place” and seeking to do right in such cases is much harder.

But, if we fail to make the attempt, then we are like the Pharisees who opposed Our Lord and judged others, never showing mercy, and never considering our own need for it. Don’t think this is a Conservative problem or a Liberal problem. Don’t consider this a Traditionalist problem or a Modernist problem. This is a problem for any person who will neither consider the possibility of their own error, nor show mercy when they are right.

Thoughts on Difficulty vs. Doubt Regarding the Holy Father

Many persons are very sensitive of the difficulties of religion; I am as sensitive as any one; but I have never been able to see a connexion between apprehending those difficulties, however keenly, and multiplying them to any extent, and doubting the doctrines to which they are attached. Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, as I understand the subject; difficulty and doubt are incommensurate. There of course may be difficulties in the evidence; but I am speaking of difficulties intrinsic to the doctrines, or to their compatibility with each other. A man may be annoyed that he cannot work out a mathematical problem, of which the answer is or is not given to him, without doubting that it admits of an answer, or that a particular answer is the true one. 

 

John Henry Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1865), 264–265.

Blessed John Henry Newman spoke of having difficulties with the Church, but that this never led him to doubt. I think his distinction is a good one: We can have difficulties on understanding a Church teaching, the actions of the Church, or the behavior of a churchman without falling into doubt about the authority of those who lead and teach. I have defended St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. But this does not mean I openly praise everything they have done. There are some things I wish they handled differently. But those actions have never led me to doubt that the Holy Spirit guides and protects the Church from teaching error, or to doubt the Church teaching on the authority of Popes.

For example, I wish Saint John Paul II had not elevated certain individuals to bishoprics, I wish he had not kissed that Quran, I wish he had treated Assisi 1986 like a conference. I wish Benedict XVI had not used the example of “a gay prostitute with AIDS” in the Light of the World interview, and had not lifted the excommunications of the SSPX bishops. I wish Pope Francis would put a moratorium on press conferences, and I wish he would address conflicting interpretations of Amoris Lætitia. All of these things led to confusion in the Church. However, these difficulties have never led me to doubt their orthodoxy. Nor have they led me to doubt or explain away their authority when they exercised it differently than I preferred.

I think this is the difference: The person with difficulties may struggle at times when a Pope does something that seems disruptive. But he doesn’t reject the Pope in some degree, or seek to deny his authority at some level. However, the person with doubts does allow himself to do these things. That doesn’t mean the doubting Catholic is a schismatic—though doubt can lead there. But the doubting Catholic thinks the action of the Pope cannot be reconciled with his own understanding of what the Church should be, and seeks a solution to justify setting aside Church teaching or obedience to the Pope.

I think another insight from Blessed John Henry Newman fits here:

I will take one more instance. A man is converted to the Catholic Church from his admiration of its religious system, and his disgust with Protestantism. That admiration remains; but, after a time, he leaves his new faith, perhaps returns to his old. The reason, if we may conjecture, may sometimes be this: he has never believed in the Church’s infallibility; in her doctrinal truth he has believed, but in her infallibility, no. He was asked, before he was received, whether he held all that the Church taught, he replied he did; but he understood the question to mean, whether he held those particular doctrines “which at that time the Church in matter of fact formally taught,” whereas it really meant “whatever the Church then or at any future time should teach.” Thus, he never had the indispensable and elementary faith of a Catholic, and was simply no subject for reception into the fold of the Church. This being the case, when the Immaculate Conception is defined, he feels that it is something more than he bargained for when he became a Catholic, and accordingly he gives up his religious profession. The world will say that he has lost his certitude of the divinity of the Catholic Faith, but he never had it.

 

John Henry Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (London: Burns, Oates, & Co., 1870), 240.

I think he makes a good point that goes beyond converts to the Church. The Catholic who recognizes the divinity of the Catholic faith, established by Our Lord and passed on to us by the Apostles, recognizes that it remains the same Church in AD 33, AD 117, AD 1057, AD 1517, and AD 2017. Our understandings of the Faith deepens over time, which can lead the magisterium to make new definitions or change how teachings are best applied to carry out the Great Commission.

I think his point about the Catholic who accepts what the Church teaches up to this point and the Catholic who will accept the authority of the Church whenever she teaches or changes discipline is vital in recognizing the difference between difficulty and doubt: Do we believe that Our Lord, who established the Church and promised to be with her always, continues to do so? Or do we think the problems we have with the Church means the Church has gone wrong to some extent? I think we must recognize that if we reach the point where we think the Church, in exercising her authority, is wrong or can’t be trusted, we have gone from difficulty to doubt about God protecting His Church.

When facing things that trouble us, we have an obligation not to let our difficulty become a doubt. As the Catechism puts it:

2088 The first commandment requires us to nourish and protect our faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything that is opposed to it. There are various ways of sinning against faith: (157)

Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief. Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately cultivated doubt can lead to spiritual blindness.

 

Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Ed. (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), 506–507.

We’ve had, at this point, 266 Popes. A handful of these have been morally bad. A couple may have privately held error. But despite the existence of bad Popes—and I deny Pope Francis is one—they never taught error. We need to ask ourselves why. Popes like John XII show we can have Popes who care nothing for serving God and the Church. But they didn’t issue any decrees exempting themselves from keeping mistresses or nepotism. How are we supposed to believe that 265 Popes avoided teaching error, but suddenly Pope Francis broke that streak?

Doubts that try to make that argument actually undermine the Church they hope to protect. If one argues Pope Francis is a bad Pope who teaches error, that person will have no reply—without resorting to the Special Pleading fallacy—to the challenge, “How can you say previous Popes did not teach error?” If one argues (and I have encountered some who do), “Francis refused to accept God’s guidance,” then that one has to answer how Benedict IX, John XII, Liberius, Honorius I, etc., managed to accept God’s guidance despite acting wrongly elsewhere. But if God did protect the Church from our acknowledged bad Popes, then the doubter must explain why He chose not to with Francis. It is only when one says, “God always protects the Church from teaching error,” that they can avoid this dilemma.

This is why I have said it is more plausible to believe the Pope’s detractors have it wrong, than it is to believe that the Pope is teaching error. To believe the Pope teaches error, one must doubt Jesus protects the Rock on which He built His Church. That doesn’t mean we won’t have difficulties with what Popes do. There will be gaffes and misunderstood actions. God protecting Popes from teaching error when they use the teaching office doesn’t mean God protects them from sinning or being a bad administrator of the Church. We don’t have to defend the dark spots in the history of the Papal States, or ill-advised concordances. But when the Pope acts in teaching, or administrating the Church, we are bound to give assent (see CIC 747-754). The only way to avoid refusing obedience or fearing the Church can bind us to accept error, is to work to overcome doubts.

We should consider the words of Monsignor Ronald Knox, who pointed out the underlying point that addresses our problems:

Here is another suggestion, which may not be without its value—if you find yourself thus apparently deserted by the light of faith, do not fluster and baffle your imagination by presenting to it all the most difficult doctrines of the Christian religion, those which unbelievers find it easiest to attack; do not be asking yourself, “Can I really believe marriage is indissoluble?  Can I really believe that it is possible to go to hell as the punishment for one mortal sin?"  Keep your attention fixed to the main point, which is a single point – Can I trust the Catholic Church as the final repository of revealed truth?  If you can, all the rest follows; if you cannot, it makes little difference what else you believe or disbelieve.

(In Soft Garments, pages 113-114. Emphasis added).

And that is the ultimate question: Can I trust that the Church is this final repository? Can I trust that God will protect the Church, under the current Pope, from teaching error? If we can, we can trust God to protect the Church with each Pope. But if we doubt these things, the rest which we profess to believe is on shaky ground indeed.

The Church and the Self-Centered Catholic

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On the Outside Looking In: Thoughts on Misinterpretation

Introduction

I was reading a book on how Westerners misinterpret the Bible. It made the point that we have cultural blinders which lead us to give meaning to things that were never originally intended. Ironically, the book gave an unintended example of this when talking about the Protestant Reformation trying to recover the original meaning of words:

Viewed from one perspective, the Protestant Reformation began as an effort to correct a mistaken assumption about equivalency in language. Over time, the Roman Catholic church had developed a doctrine of confession that included works of penance, such as reciting a certain number of prayers (think “Hail Marys” or “Our Fathers”) and, most disturbing, the purchase of indulgences to assure forgiveness of sins. By the late Middle Ages, church leaders insisted this system is what Jesus had in mind when he called sinners to repent—that do penance was equivalent to (meant the same thing as) repent. 

 

E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 76.

The book went on to argue that this was not what early Christianity meant by repenting. The problem is, this is also not what Catholicism means by repenting. The section started with an error and wrote on what Martin Luther was “saving” people from. Except he didn’t.  The authors wrote about how Catholics in the Middle Ages confused the concept of penance with the Greek word for repenting. Except we didn’t. They wrote about how we created this in medieval times. Except we haven’t. The Orthodox churches also have the concept of the sacrament of penance, and some of them have been separated from us since the 5th century

The problem with the authors is they assumed that the distorted vision of Catholicism they received was true, and created a view of Catholicism which had nothing to do with us. They had cultural blinders that caused them to misread us. Catholics have never believed in indulgences being sold, let alone for the forgiveness of sins! When it comes to the Latin word Paenitentia, the meaning is: regret (for act); change of mind/attitude; repentance/contrition (William Whitaker, Dictionary of Latin Forms). Properly going through the sacrament of confession requires us to regret our actions, change our attitude, and intend to do right in the future. In other words, the same meaning as the Greek metanoia. There was no error of understanding on the part of Catholics. There was an error of understanding on the part of those on the outside looking in because they assumed they knew without investigating whether it was true.

I bring this up not to ridicule these Protestant authors, but to illustrate a point: We too can go wrong if we either assume others think like us, and focus on what we think it means, and we can go wrong if we get so distracted by the differences that we miss the point behind those differences.

Missing the Meaning

The further we are removed from the original meaning, the more likely we are to diverge from what was meant. These can be linguistic, cultural, historical, or many others. Once we include history, we add the difference of time to the difference of language and culture. What people experienced in AD 17, 517, 1017, 1517 and 2017 are widely different. Laws, government, customs and the like would change over time even in one region. Once we go to a different region in a different time where they used a different language, and there are many ways we can go wrong if we forget these differences exist. 

For example, when an English speaking critic reads a transcript of Pope Francis today, there is a difference of language requiring a translator and there is a difference of culture between a member of the clergy who lived in Latin America and a lay blogger living in the United States. If the critic does not take these differences into account, the odds are good that the critic will get things wrong. For example, when the Pope spoke of a large number of marriages possibly being invalid, and of some couples living together being closer to the true meaning of marriage than some married couples, people went berserk. They assumed he was talking about 21st century American marriages and justifying cohabitation. He was not. He was talking about vicious customs in South America where people sometimes face insurmountable difficulties getting married while others treat the sacrament of matrimony as merely part of the celebration.

In other words, people assumed his words against vicious customs which they never witnessed were about marriage in the United States—which has its own set of problems. They forgot about these differences and thought that what he said must be directed at them. They missed the meaning because they were blind to differences facing Catholics in different parts of the world.

We can learn, despite these differences. But we need to learn the intended meaning, and not assume the people of different times, cultures, and languages think like 21st century Americans. Otherwise we risk attacking the Church because we think the Church is “attacking” moral values when she is in fact responding to cultural problems. For example, the radical feminist who sees “patriarchy” everywhere or the radical traditionalist who sees “modernism” everywhere because they assume that their interpretations are the norm, refusing to consider the possibility of their own error.

Missing the Point

On the other hand, we can go wrong by being distracted by differences of cultures. Sometimes these differences involve the existence of things we today know are morally wrong. We’re offended by the fact that a saint from another century speaks about them as if they were normal, and miss the point he was trying to make. 

For example, in reading some of St. John Chrysostom’s homilies, I’ve come across the reference, in one of his homilies, to the slave market. At this time, the Roman Empire was about a thousand years old and had slaves for the entire time. This can be quite jarring. Because of our experience with the ugliness of  slavery, segregation, and racism in the United States, we are rightly appalled at the evils. So, the fact that a Saint talks about slavery in a matter of fact manner can be shocking. But if we stop at the differences, without understanding them, we miss some real insights.

St. John Chrystostom makes reference to Our Lord being a noble at a slave market asking us (the slave) if we will choose to serve Him. In the 21st century, our egalitarian views balk at this image of Our Lord buying slaves. But in doing so, we risk missing the point that would have been clear to 4th century Greeks. St. John Chrysostom was invoking an image the people of Constantinople could understand with the differences of social rank

That Our Lord, in the role of the noble, offers to purchase (redeem) us from the slave market of sin and asks if we are willing to serve Him showed a difference between God and man that our egalitarian views might misunderstand. Recognizing an image of Jesus as a Noble Lord, us as the lowly slave, and the purchase price being His own blood, we can see an image showing how great God’s love for us is when He is so far above us and is willing to pay so great a price for us if only we will serve Him—a choice that is not forced on us.

If we stopped at the level of being offended with the existence and mention of slavery, we’d entirely miss the point of the homily on what Jesus has done for us in relation to what He asks of us.

Yes, sometimes saints in one era say things in a way that seem cringeworthy or excessively harsh in our time. That doesn’t mean the saint was in error or promoting evil. We have to understand the context and meaning if we are to profit from it, rather than be members of the Church of Perpetual Indignation. Otherwise, we risk accusing the Church (falsely) of supporting evils she does not.

Conclusion

The point of both examples is this: If we stop at what we think is meant and don’t actually investigate what the person we were offended with actually intended, then we do wrong. We judge rashly. We accuse them of supporting things they do not. Whether it is accusing the Pope of contradicting Church teaching or accusing a reformation era saint of holding to a heresy, the fault of rash judgment is with us if we do not investigate what the person we think offensive actually means. If we’re scandalized by a Bible verse, a Church teaching, a saint, or a pope, we need to recognize that the Church was not cruising on autopilot, rubber-stamping error when she confirmed the canon, made a teaching or named a saint. 

If we feel like something the Church has affirmed is error, that’s a warning sign that we need to reassess our own interpretation and see what we missed when viewed in context.

Reflections on Regaining a Proper Sense of Ecclesiology

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