A Grammar of Dissent: Reflection on Modern Rebellion in the Church

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Context is Key: Thoughts on Misinterpreting the Pope

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Back to Basics: Reflections on Anti-Catholic Attacks

There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church —which is, of course, quite a different thing. These millions can hardly be blamed for hating Catholics because Catholics “adore statues”; because they “put the Blessed Mother on the same level with God”; because they say “indulgence is a permission to commit sin”; because the Pope “is a Fascist”; because the “Church is the defender of Capitalism.” If the Church taught or believed any one of these things it should be hated, but the fact is that the Church does not believe nor teach any one of them. It follows then that the hatred of the millions is directed against error and not against truth.

—Bishop Fulton J. Sheen (Introduction to Radio Replies)

Preliminary Note: Not all non-Catholics are anti-Catholic. This article does NOT intend to accuse all non-Catholics. Rather this article is focused on those who not only disagree with us, but also accuse us of spreading error through ignorance, corruption, and/or malice. For the non-Catholics reading this who may disagree with us but are not anti-Catholic, I do not intend to lump you in with them.

Also, this article involves anti-Catholicism within Christianity. It will not deal with any non-Christian versions of anti-Catholicism.

Introduction

I find anti-Catholic attitudes are similar to anti-Francis attitudes. Both rely on a misunderstanding of what we believe and, instead of determining what we really do believe, presume ignorance, corruption, or malice as the reason for “believing” what we never believed in the first place or “rejecting” what we hold was never part of the faith to begin with.

Under this way of thinking, something the Church has long rejected is accepted by a certain group as “true.” Then our rejection is considered “proof” of our “falling into error.” So long as we refuse to accept how they see things, we are accused of error. But this is the begging the question fallacy. What they assume to be proof of our “apostasy” actually has to be proven.

Separating Anti-Catholicism from Mere Disagreement

Non-Catholics who are not anti-Catholic disagree with us on issues of authority. We hold in common with Protestants a belief in the authority and inerrancy of Scripture, but we disagree that authority stops there. We hold in common with the Orthodox a belief in Sacraments, Apostolic Succession, Councils, and Sacred Tradition. But we disagree that authority stops there. We believe that there can be a legitimate development of Church teaching that does not contradict Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

The Catholic and the non-Catholic (assuming them equally educated about their beliefs) will disagree about what Scripture means in some places. They will disagree about the weight and meaning of Sacred Tradition. They will disagree about who has the authority to make binding interpretation. Of course these differences are contrary to each other and they cannot all be true. At least some of them must be false. But the existence of this disagreement does not mean that the person who disagrees must be anti-Catholic.

The anti-Catholic hates what they (wrongly) think the Catholic Church is. Because they think we embrace error, the anti-Catholic believes that the Catholic Church is a force of evil that must be opposed. Those people who are members of the Church are assumed to be “ignorant” about what the Bible says—deceived by “heresy.” Those people who are not ignorant are assumed to be willful heretics doomed to be damned for spreading error. I’ve encountered some anti-Catholic Protestants who accused me of being a “reprobate” (those predestined to damnation). I’ve encountered anti-Catholic Orthodox who called on God to curse me.

If an anti-Catholic member of one of the Orthodox churches accuses us of inventing Papal primacy, or if an anti-Catholic member of a Protestant church who accuses us of inventing teaching contrary to Scripture, the Catholic must respond, “No, we cannot accept that. We believe what you say is at odds with what the first Christians believed and the legitimate development of doctrine.” We cannot hold that the Pope is merely “the first among equals” as the Orthodox claim. We cannot hold “Sola Scriptura” like the Protestants claim. These claims strike me as a reason created to reject the authority that the Church has always held.

Sincere or not, Anti-Catholicism is Bearing False Witness

Aristotle once defined truth as saying of what is that it is and of saying what is not that it is not. In this context, this means that the person who disagrees with what the Catholic Church teaches has an obligation to know what we believe before condemning us. For example, we do not reject the Bible. We do not believe “earning salvation.” We do not “worship” Mary or the Pope. The person who accuses us of doing these things bears false witness against us. They might not do so deliberately—they might sincerely believe we hold these things—but the fact of false witness remains.

We have an obligation to learn what is true instead of assume that what has been told to us is true. Unfortunately, some people who do not know what Catholicism teaches are willing to believe any number of accusations against us. They assume we are ignorant. They assume our Church is willing to do evil if it serves our purpose. So, when someone tells them something false about us, they believe it to be true... sometimes to the extent of assuming the Catholic trying to correct their false understanding is either deceived or lying.

A variant of this is the “horrifying past history” tactic. Let’s face it, by 21st century standards, crime and punishment of past eras was barbaric. Much of it came from the Germanic barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire (trials by ordeal, burning at the stake etc. are Germanic, not Christian in origin), but even the Romans did some pretty barbaric things. The thing to remember is this: The Catholic Church did not invent and impose these barbarisms. It was not a case that some bishop said “Hey, why don’t we set people we dislike on fire?” Rather, it was a case of governments changing but the means of punishment remaining constant. My point here is, when we hear about horrifying things in history, we need to understand why things were done that way without making excuses for it.

This means when someone says a thing about the Church that sounds horrible, people have an obligation to get to the truth of it before spreading it around. Do you hear someone say that we believe that we can earn salvation? Before you spread it around, you have an obligation to find out if it is true—and the truth is we do not believe that.

Does it Cut Both Ways? A Warning to Catholics

Our Lord, teaching the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31) tells us we must do to others what we would have them do to us. If we would have others stop speaking falsely about us, we must be sure we speak truth about others rather than assume the worst is true. For example, I have encountered incredibly vicious members of the Orthodox Church online. But I learned that these individuals generally came from a small faction within the Church. It would be wrong if I portrayed the wrongdoing of this faction as if it was practiced by all members of the Orthodox churches. Likewise, not all Protestants believe in things like the “prosperity Gospel” or “Once Saved, Always Saved.” It would be wrong if I accused all Protestants of believing it. 

It is not intolerance to believe that the Catholic Church is the Church established by Our Lord. It is not intolerance to believe that where non-Catholic churches disagree with the Catholic Church, they are wrong. But it is wrong if we are willing to believe the worst about them without discerning if those accusations are true. It is wrong to act with a lack of charity towards non-Catholics.

Whatever level of culpability those who broke away from or opposed the Catholic Church at the time of a schism may have had (something I will NOT discuss), the modern non-Catholic was not party to those actions and should not be treated as if they shared that guilt. We should avoid debating “body counts” and whether actions done in the brutality of the 16th century were “justified” or proof of the other side’s barbarism today.

In short, we should not use the tactics that offend us when they are used against us. Regardless of how anti-Catholics may act, we have an obligation to respond in charity.

Conclusion

My point on writing this is not to shame non-Catholics or to claim that the Catholic Church is impeccable. Rather I hope people reading this might reflect on their assumptions and ask whether what they think about us is really true. Obviously we can’t hold to a form of relativism that says “what we believe doesn’t matter. But I do hope we can respond to each other in charity while learning what is true.

A Different Approach

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Countermagisterium

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The Sinners and the Self Righteous

When Our Lord was teaching here on Earth, two of the things He made clear were:

1. The salvation of sinners was not unobtainable as they feared
2. The self-righteous were not as close to salvation as they presumed

When Jesus spoke and dined with sinners, they responded with joy but the self-righteous resented it. They did not recognize their own need for salvation, thinking their beliefs and behavior guaranteed them a place in God’s kingdom. Despite the warnings that all of us needed mercy and, therefore needed to repent, the self-righteous assumed they were good enough but Our Lord must not be from God because He showed mercy to the lowest of the low—the prostitutes and tax collectors.

Flashing forward to 2017, I am inclined to think that Our Lord is permitting His Vicar, the Pope, to experience (in a small way) what He experienced on Earth. The Pope is emulating his Master in offering mercy to the sinners and warning the self-righteous. He is telling both groups to turn back to the Lord. With those who are our lowest of the low: the divorced and remarried, those involved in abortion, those involved in homosexual acts, that mercy is possible to them if they seek it. He has urged the clergy to reach out with compassion to helping them (and the rest of us as well) to return to the faith—or at least start them on their way back to God. He held a Year of Mercy seeking to remove barriers that kept people from seeking forgiveness.

Tragically, the self-righteous treated these acts as laxity, not mercy. His call for bishops and confessors to assess the individual culpability instead of assuming that all the conditions required for mortal sin were present was treated as “opening up the Eucharist to public sinners,” unwittingly echoing the rebuke the Pharisees gave to the Apostles: Why Does Your Master Eat With Tax Collectors and Sinners (cf. Matthew 9:11). They see the Pope washing the feet of convicts, showing mercy to public sinners, and assume that this means sanction of their behavior instead of reaching out the way that Our Lord did.

Of course, we should note that the self-righteous do not exist only in one faction of the Church. The Social Justice Warrior who tolerates some evils while looking disdainfully at other Christians who oppose those evils are just as much a part of the self-righteous as the anti-Francis Catholics. They are simply self-righteous over different causes. The attack of “anti-abortion but not pro-life” is just as much a label of contempt as the Pharisee reserved for the tax collectors, and just as much contempt as the anti-Francis Catholics apply to the sincere divorced and remarried who are trying to find the way home but are finding it difficult to extract themselves from sin.

Any time we are willing to look at others and write them off, while thinking of ourselves as righteous in the eyes of God are greatly deceived. That’s true if one scours the minituæ of ancient Church documents to find ways to condemn others, and it’s true if one assumes that working for social justice makes them superior to their fellow Christians and other sinners. While some sins are greater evils than others, the deadliest sin for each individual is the one that sends them to hell. That may be divorce and remarriage. It may be abortion. It may be homosexual acts. But it may also be refusing to follow the Church teaching on other parts of social justice. Matthew 25:31-46 points out that many will be damned for what they refused to do to help others in need.

The point of this is we need to recognize that all of us are sinners and all of us are in need of mercy. This does not mean we ignore warning a brother or sister in danger of losing their way. But it does mean we must not view ourselves as “better” and others as “worse” in doing so. It especially does not mean that so long as we do not perceive ourselves as bad as others, we are guaranteed a spot in the Kingdom of Heaven. We must constantly turn back to The Lord and away from sin.

Who Are You Listening To?

When it comes to dissent—conservative or liberal—in the Church, I’ve noticed one factor. People quit listening to the Church as Mother and Teacher and instead listen to individuals or groups that say what they want to hear about the Church. This transforms the Magisterium into a group with an opinion and elevates the group with an opinion into the Magisterium. The danger of course is that these individuals or groups do not teach with authority. That falls to the Pope and the bishops in communion with him, as well as those the Pope delegates (See Code of Canon Law 752-754). 

These individuals or groups tend to appeal to a higher cause, overlooking or ignoring the fact that Scripture or prior magisterial teaching is not being questioned. What is being questioned is whether these groups are properly interpreting Scripture and Tradition in arguing that a conflict exists and that they must disobey the Church in order to be faithful to God.

What these people are doing is committing the Begging the Question fallacy. Their claims are what have to be proven. But instead, they act as if their assumptions were true and interpret whatever the Church does through that unproven assumption. The problem is the Magisterium of the current Pope and bishops are the ones who determine how Scripture and Sacred Tradition are to be interpreted and applied to the conditions of this time. So any appeal to the Scripture and Sacred Tradition against the Magisterium has no authority whatsoever.

The arguments some use, appealing to certain bishops, cardinals, or popular theologians in the Church against the Pope is the Appeal to Irrelevant Authority fallacy. These individuals do not have authority to overrule the teaching of the Pope. If they teach in opposition to the Pope, it is a personal opinion without authority [†].

Unfortunately, a theology of dissent is being invented that misinterprets history and the words of the saints. Yes, we’ve had Pope John XXII who held a position that was later defined as an error. But the issue was not defined at the time, and he did not teach. He merely gave a homily. Yes, we’ve had Liberius and Honorius I who were suspected of privately holding heresy. But that is disputed and even if true, it was never taught. Yes, we’ve had morally bad Popes like John XII and Benedict IX. But their wickedness was in their personal behavior and not their teachings. Even citing St. Paul rebuking St. Peter (Galatians 2:11-14) is a case of irrelevant authority because this incident involved personal behavior causing scandal, not teaching.

And teaching is exactly what the issue is with Pope Francis. While there is an attempt to take the various levels of Papal documents and draw a line on where they bind, the anti-Francis faction shows itself to be inconsistent. They reject Amoris Lætitia on the grounds that it is “merely” an Apostolic Exhortation. But they also say that we must obey Familiaris Consortio—which is also an Apostolic Exhortation. By denying (wrongly) the authority of one, they logically must deny the authority of the other. We can likewise point out their (rightful) insistence on obeying encyclicals like Humanae Vitae is inconsistent with their refusal to accept Laudato Si [§].

In addition to the inconsistent obedience that coincides with personal preferences, we have to consider the track record of those who allege the Pope is promoting error or confusion. The fact of the matter is the critics have made many dire predictions that turned out to be false. They claimed that the synod on the family would legitimize homosexual relationships. It did not. They claimed that the Pope would ordain women deacons. But Gaudete et Exsultate shows that he does not view the possibility of deaconesses to be on the same level as ordained deacons. 

The fact is, every “controversy” that arose alleging “error,” was disproven by a reading of a transcript of his actual words. The controversies arose from partial quotes ripped out of context (for example, the “Who am I to judge” comment of 2013). Yet people repeat these debunked claims, and when disproved, argue that the Pope is to blame for “not speaking clearly.”

When it reaches this point, the person of good will must start asking questions about the usual suspects making the same mistakes and the same accusations. Why do we give credibility to the angry bloggers and borderline schismatics (see canon 751) when they allege the Pope is in error instead of the successor of Peter who has been given the authority to bind and loose.

And before one says, “that doesn’t happen if the Pope teaches error,” let me point out that the charge of the Pope teaching “error” is unproven. It’s based on the interpretation of those who do not have the authority to contradict the teaching of the Pope who has power over the entire Church and all parts and whose decisions cannot be appealed (canon 333, 1404). To make the argument that one can reject a “false teaching” by the Pope is to show that the claimant has a fatally flawed understanding of Church teaching.

Nobody who is informed claims that when the Pope gives a homily or holds.a press conference that he is teaching. A Pope can be mistaken about some details (like St. John Paul II kissing the Qur’an because he mistakenly thought it was a token of respect), or express himself poorly (like Benedict XVI and his unfortunate comment on a “gay male prostitute with AIDS” which many misinterpreted as changing Church teaching. A Pope might be unable to remember the details of a CDF study made decades before (like Pope Francis calling for a study on deaconesses). These were mistakes. They were not teaching error.

Yet the critics of the Pope falsely claim he is teaching error in these situations too. And this leads us to the decision we must make. Will we listen to the Pope and give a “religious submission of the intellect and will” that is even required with the ordinary magisterium? Or will we listen to some angry blogger, or a churchman who rejects what the Pope teaches?

When we think about the religious obligation in place since the first century AD, it would be foolish to listen to those who say we can disobey. So each Catholic needs to stop pretending that their disobedience is really a “higher obedience” to God. Our Lord told us that rejecting the Apostles was rejecting Him (Luke 10:16). Since we profess Apostolic succession, Our Lord’s words must apply to the successors of the Apostles as well. 

For two thousand years, the Pope has been the standard of orthodoxy. In the case of bad Popes, they failed to teach when they should have, but they never taught falsely. We can either continue to believe that, listening to the magisterium that interprets how Church teaching is to be applied. Or we can stop believing that, and choose to follow whoever tells us what we want to hear.

But the person who does that is being deceived.

_______________________

[†] Given how badly Catholic dissenters on social media misinterpret and misrepresent the Pope, it’s only fair to consider the possibility that they also misinterpret the Churchmen they cite against the Pope and these Churchmen do not approve of it. Hence, I have no intention to name or accuse individuals in this case. I leave it to the magisterium to judge their orthodoxy.

[§] The same can be said for Catholics who accept Laudato Si and reject Humanae Vitae.