General Comments

Hey folks,

A few things before we get to the meat of this week’s issue:

1) Please keep my wife, Janel, in your prayers this coming Thursday. She’s going in for some major surgery and if you could pray that the surgery all goes according to plan, and that her recovery, which could take several weeks, will go relatively smoothly, we would all be very grateful.

2) If you have not yet seen the movie, “October Baby,” you need to go out and see it this weekend if it is showing in your area. It is a wonderful, and very moving, film. This is the kind of movie Catholics need to support whole hog!

3) In the next few weeks, I’m going to be offering some new talks – not by me, but by some names that you may recognize. I’m very excited about this development, and hope to add even more talks from outside sources in the future. I also hope to add some more talks by me, but those are still in the works. So stay tuned…

Introduction

Normally in these newsletters, I deal with non-Catholics who have some sort of beef with the Catholic Church. This week, since I have not heard back from Mr. Weber after my last email to him (see last week’s issue – http://www.biblechristiansociety.com/newsletter_details.php?id=237), I thought I would give you an idea of what we are up against from within the Church. From folks who call themselves “Catholic” and who attend Mass and receive Communion each and every week.

A couple of months ago, in response to the HHS contraceptive mandate, Bishop Baker of Birmingham and Archbishop Rodi of Mobile issued a joint statement speaking of the coercive nature of this federal mandate and in defense of religious liberty and so on. For the complete text of the statement, you can check out this link: http://www.mobilearchdiocese.org/wt/client/v2/story/WT_Story.cfm?SecKey=222.

In the Birmingham News, three “Catholic” couples responded to the Bishops’ statement with a Letter to the Editor that was just beyond the pale. Below is the full text of that Letter to the Editor, and after that the letter is repeated, but with my response to that letter interspersed between paragraphs. My response was printed in a series of articles in our diocesan newspaper over the course of three weeks, so that’s why you will see phrases like, “In last week’s column…”. Even though the names of those who signed the letter are a matter of public record, I have not printed the names here, but if you are curious, you can see the letter and its signees at the following website:

http://blog.al.com/birmingham-news-commentary/2012/02/our_views_disagreeing_with_bis.html

Challenge/Response/Strategy

Letter to the Editor:

Disagreeing with bishops doesn’t make one unfaithful…

Non-Catholics should understand that the Catholic bishops’ recent dispute with the federal government is less about birth control than it is about internal church disagreements over who speaks for the Catholic Church in dialogue with government on matters of faith and morals.  Many of us practicing Catholics adhere to the teaching of the 1965 Vatican II Council that, while the bishops have teaching authority, so their views are entitled to great respect, they do not have exclusive authority to speak to the government for the church in matters of faith and morals. Rather, each member of the church has a duty to form beliefs, to make judgments about faith and morals by following her or his conscience in light of Gospel values and reasoned consideration of both present circumstances and Catholic tradition, and to speak to their lawfully elected government as Catholics.

Many Catholics do not agree that "Catholics consider to be immoral" the birth-control measures provided by federal health care programs, as claimed in the Feb. 3 letter of the bishops of Mobile and Birmingham that was read from the pulpits of most Catholic churches. We are offended by the letter’s suggestion that our disagreement with the bishops means we are not "faithful members" of the Catholic Church. We were not consulted by the bishops nor asked for our views on the matter.  So, the bishops’ cry that the "religious liberty" of the Catholic Church is being challenged raises the question: Whose religious freedom is being threatened? The freedom to choose birth control, a part of the prematernal health care of 98 percent of women in the U.S., is not in any way coercive. In fact, denying a woman access to a fundamental health care service available everywhere is coercive.

The current position of the bishops appears to be an attempt to claim the power to impose their moral judgments not only on the many non-Catholics who serve or are served by institutions affiliated with the Catholic Church, but on us faithful Catholics as well.  We reject the implication that our disagreement with the bishops disqualifies us as faithful Catholics. We are the church, even more so than are the bishops, and we will not abandon, nor be driven from, the beloved community that is the home of our spiritual lives.

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Letter to the Editor:
“Non-Catholics should understand that the Catholic bishops’ recent dispute with the federal government is less about birth control than it is about internal church disagreements over who speaks for the Catholic Church in dialogue with government on matters of faith and morals. Many of us practicing Catholics adhere to the teaching of the 1965 Vatican II Council that, while the bishops have teaching authority, so their views are entitled to great respect, they do not have exclusive authority to speak to the government for the church in matters of faith and morals. Rather, each member of the church has a duty to form beliefs, to make judgments about faith and morals by following her or his conscience in light of Gospel values and reasoned consideration of both present circumstances and Catholic tradition, and to speak to their lawfully elected government as Catholics.”

My Response:

There is a line from one of my favorite poems, An Essay on Criticism, by Alexander Pope, that came to mind when I read the paragraph above: “A little learning is a dangerous thing, drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring.”  It seems our letter writers did not drink deep enough in regard to the documents of Vatican II, because the claim that there is something in the documents of Vatican II that somehow gives each individual an authority equal to that of the bishops when speaking to the government (or anyone else for that matter) on matters of faith and morals is simply without merit. 

In the Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World), paragraph #77 speaks to the relationship between the “political community” and the Church.  Here is some of what it has to say: “It is of supreme importance…to work out a proper vision of the relationship between the political community and the Church, and to distinguish clearly between the activities of Christians, acting individually or collectively in their own name as citizens guided by the dictates of a Christian conscience, and their activity acting along with their pastors in the name of the Church.”

Christians may indeed speak to their government individually or collectively, but the words and actions of these individual Christians acting on their own, are not to be confused with the words and actions of those Christians acting “along with their pastors in the name of the Church.”  In other words, individual Christians, acting on their own, have absolutely no authority to speak for the Church to the political community on matters of faith and morals.  They do not speak “in the name of the Church” as do the pastors (i.e., bishops) of the Church.  So, contrary to what was written in that letter, there are no “internal church disagreements over who speaks for the Catholic Church in dialogue with government on matters of faith and morals.”  It is the pastors who speak for the Church.  Every Catholic who understands and is faithful to the teachings of Vatican II would agree on this.

Furthermore, paragraph #77 states: “But at all times and in all places the Church should have true freedom to preach the faith, to proclaim its teaching about society, to carry out its task among men without hindrance, and to pass moral judgments even in matters relating to politics, whenever the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it.” 

Vatican II speaks of the right of the Church to “pass moral judgments even in matters relating to politics.”  Note that nowhere does this paragraph, nor any part of this document, nor any Vatican II document, speak of the individual as having the same level of authority as the pastors of the Church “to pass moral judgments” in matters relating to politics.  In fact, as mentioned above, Vatican II makes it quite clear that while the individual does indeed have certain rights and freedoms with respect to activities vis-à-vis government, it is, nevertheless, of “supreme importance” to distinguish these activities from those of the Church.  Vatican II simply does not support the premise of the letter writers.

Now, I do not wish to ignore the role of the individual and their conscience, as each individual does indeed have it within their capacity to form moral judgments in accord with their conscience and to act on those moral judgments.  I will speak to that next week.

Letter to the Editor:
“Many Catholics do not agree that ‘Catholics consider to be immoral’ the birth-control measures provided by federal health care programs, as claimed in the Feb. 3 letter of the bishops of Mobile and Birmingham that was read from the pulpits of most Catholic churches. We are offended by the letter’s suggestion that our disagreement with the bishops means we are not "faithful members" of the Catholic Church. We were not consulted by the bishops nor asked for our views on the matter. So, the bishops’ cry that the "religious liberty" of the Catholic Church is being challenged raises the question: Whose religious freedom is being threatened? The freedom to choose birth control, a part of the prematernal health care of 98 percent of women in the U.S., is not in any way coercive. In fact, denying a woman access to a fundamental health care service available everywhere is coercive.”

My Response:
In last week’s column, the assertion of the letter writers that Vatican II gave individuals an equal standing as the Bishops, in terms of being able to speak to the government on behalf of the Church in matters of faith and morals, was shown to be fundamentally flawed and without merit.  This week it will be shown that their understanding of matters dealing with “conscience,” is equally so. 

The Church does indeed teach that one must obey the judgment of his conscience.  For a man to deliberately act against his conscience is to “condemn himself,” according to paragraph #1790 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC).  So, for the individual, the judgment of conscience holds a place of primacy, in a sense.  However, that does not mean that the judgment of an individual’s conscience somehow trumps Church teaching.  Unfortunately, there are many within the Church who seem to be operating under the mistaken notion that this primacy of the judgment of conscience for the individual, somehow holds a moral equivalency to the teaching of the Church.  That simply is not so. 

The problem for the individual is that even though we have to obey our conscience, we have to first and foremost make sure our conscience is a well-formed conscience.  Because only a well-formed conscience is “upright and truthful” (CCC #1783).  It is indeed possible to have consciences that, not having been properly formed, make bad judgments.  And the judgment of an improperly formed conscience can lead one into sin, even mortal sin.

Since Vatican II was cited in that Letter to the Editor, let’s see what it says about forming one’s conscience.  “In forming their consciences, the faithful must pay careful attention to the sacred and certain teaching of the Church.”  That seems clear enough.  And, if it isn’t, we have this from the Catechism, “…rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching…can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct,” (CCC #1792).  In other words, if your conscience renders a judgment that is contrary to Church teaching, you are operating with a poorly formed conscience.  To continue the quote from Vatican II, “It is [the Catholic Church’s] duty to proclaim and teach with authority the truth…to declare and confirm by her authority the principles of the moral order,” (Declaration on Religious Liberty, #14).   

So we see once more that the Church, not the individual, has – according to Vatican II – the authority to teach, declare, and affirm the principles of the moral order, and that the individual, in forming their conscience, “must pay careful attention” to the teaching of the Church.  So someone can still sin, even if they are acting in accord with the dictates of their conscience, if their conscience is malformed and is telling them something that is contrary to the teaching of the Church.  The judgment of conscience is not equivalent to the teaching of the Church.  And, relating to the particular matter at hand, the Church teaches that contraception is “inherently evil” (CCC #2370).  This truth is not going to change no matter how many “faithful” Catholics ignore it or reject it. 

As the Catechism states, “The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings,” (CCC #1783).  We all need to continually educate and form our consciences in a spirit of prayer, a spirit of humility, and a spirit of obedience to the Church that Jesus Christ founded.  Through our obedience, we will enter into His rest, so today, “Harden not your hearts,” (Heb 4:5-7).

Letter to the Editor: 
“The current position of the bishops appears to be an attempt to claim the power to impose their moral judgments not only on the many non-Catholics who serve or are served by institutions affiliated with the Catholic Church, but on us faithful Catholics as well. We reject the implication that our disagreement with the bishops disqualifies us as faithful Catholics. We are the church, even more so than are the bishops, and we will not abandon, nor be driven from, the beloved community that is the home of our spiritual lives.”

My Response:

So far we have shown that the arguments of the letter writers with regard to the teachings of Vatican II, the moral standing of individuals vis-à-vis the Bishops in regard to who speaks for the Church, and the understanding of the formation and workings of conscience are fundamentally flawed and without merit.  This week we will show, once again by using the documents of Vatican II, that their understanding of the Church’s hierarchy, and of the Church itself, is equally so.

According to Vatican II, “Episcopal consecration confers, together with the office of sanctifying, also the office of teaching and ruling…In fact…by the imposition of hands and through the words of the consecration, the grace of the Holy Spirit is given…in such wise that bishops, in an eminent and visible manner, take the place of Christ Himself, teacher, shepherd, and priest, and act as His representative,” (Lumen Gentium, #21).

So the statement, “We are the church, even moreso than the bishops,” is one that does not, in fact cannot, come from the pen of anyone who has actually read the documents of Vatican II.  The Bishops, not the laity, are the successors of the Apostles.  So says Vatican II.  The Bishops, not the laity, have been given the authority of Jesus Christ, by virtue of their ordination, to uphold and defend the truth taught by the Church.  So says Vatican II. 

Since my return to the Church some 22 years ago, I have encountered a phenomenon on too many occasions to count, that absolutely boggles my mind each and every time I run across it.  Not too long after returning to the Church, I started encountering – in Bible studies, small group studies, in “Catholic” periodicals, and in one-on-one conversations – this idea that Vatican II had somehow changed the teachings of the Church.  I was told at various times that Vatican II had changed the Church’s teaching on the priesthood, on marriage, on contraception, on Confession, on the Eucharist, on sin, on the liturgy, on this, and on that. 

But, a funny thing happened.  After hearing all about the things that this Vatican II Council had changed, I decided to actually read the documents of Vatican II.  Imagine my surprise when I found out that this Vatican II thing, while it had indeed changed some Church disciplines and practices, never changed a single doctrine or dogma of the Church.  Not one! 

So, for the last 22 years, I’ve heard or read literally hundreds of people who claim Vatican II teaches things that it actually never taught. This particular letter being yet one more example of this phenomenon – what I find to be a profoundly sad phenomenon. 

So, if you ever hear someone say something about Vatican II changing this or that teaching of the Church, I can guarantee you that you will not get a specific citation to back up the claim.  You won’t get it, because it doesn’t exist.  There is nothing in any document from Vatican II that changes Church doctrine or dogma…nothing. 

I find it a bit ironic, that the Bishops’ response to the government’s attempt to impose its will on the Church, is being characterized as an attempt by the Bishops to “impose their moral judgments” on others. That is completely backwards – the government is doing the imposing here, not the Bishops.  The Bishops are doing what they have been called by Christ to do, and people are reacting accordingly.

As St. Augustine said, “People hate the truth for the sake of whatever it is they love more than the truth. They love truth when it shines warmly on them, and hate it when it rebukes them.”  And what the Bishops of the Catholic Church do, is teach the truth.  They do not attempt to “impose their moral judgments” on anyone.  They teach the truth, and people quite often do not want to hear that truth.  They teach the truth that they have been entrusted by our Lord Jesus Christ to teach, as shepherds of the flock that our Lord Jesus Christ entrusted them to lead. 
 

In Conclusion

As always, your comments are welcomed and appreciated. I read them all, even though it is not possible to respond to them all.

There will be no newsletter this coming week, as I’ll be out a few days due to my wife’s surgery. Hopefully, by the following week, Mr. Weber will have responded to my last email to him and we can continue the discussion on “absolute assurance,” although I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for a response. If I don’t hear back from him, I’ll move on to the next kid on the anti-Catholic block.

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