It’s the most rare of persons who does not go to others they respect to form their opinions.
I’m not at all ashamed to say that when I’m confronted with something I don’t have a clear opinion on - I go to the Church. I want to see what they say. However, even when using the Church one can come up with a variety of opinion. When this is the case I read closely to see the thought that went into the formulation of that opinion.
Example: Harry Potter
When these books first came out most people (Catholics and Protestants) seemed to be against the books. A show I watched on EWTN was very negative and thought the books dangerous. Then I read an opinion by Archbishop Chaput in a Catholic publication. He didn’t seem to have near the same fears. He gave some common sense guidelines to parents if they decided to allow their children to read to books. Then, an exorcist from the Vatican mentioned again the dangers of the occult in relation to the books. Some people educated in philosophy tried to make connections between gnosticism and parallels with the Harry Potter series. Other philosophers saw it as a classic story of good vs evil.
In taking in all this opinion I learned a lot. I was given many different ways of looking at the Harry Potter books. I learned that always taking the most “conservative” view wasn’t always the view that won the day. — I was Protestant before 2000 and I was conditioned to default to the conservative position on anything. – I learned that even philosophers and exorcists can become “myopic” and misevaluate a topic.
More recent - The Golden Compass
Here the opinion was virtually universal. This was indeed dangerous. The final book of the trilogy actually “murdered God”. Some saw the pernicious and insidious plan to destroy a child’s faith in God. I also learned a bit about those who are supposed to write movie reviews in the USCCB!!
Even though NOT ONE bishop ever wrote a positive review of the movie. As a result I didn’t see the movie – even though I generally love fantasy adventures.
One more example - EVOLUTION
Again, with my Protestant past I was suspicious of evolutiion. Evolutionists were, often accurately, portrayed as atheistic and the evolutionary theory crossed over into the religious realm as a means of creating a world view that didn’t include a deity. Even after becoming Catholic in 2000 I still didn’t buy into evolutionary theory. Some of the Catholic publications I read - conservative, of course, as this is by nature where I fit - were very cautious of Pope John Paul II comments that evolution was “more than a theory” giving it a very minimalistic interpretation.
In time I became more comfortable with how Catholics viewed scripture and how to look at the scriptures without a paradigm of “literalism”. I became more comfortable looking at certain books as “perhaps” being allegorical - e.g. Job. I studied Revelation without trying to predict the future and looked at it more in view of “apocalyptic literature”.
After going through these exercises I was more able to accept the Genesis creation story as an accounts made by an ancient author to bring truth to the fore that was not part of other ancient creation accounts. Science wasn’t even a factor in the writing. So, I could conclude, anything scientifically true would be more a result of hindsight and a proper putting together of faith and reason, that the biblical text giving a science lesson in its first chapter – which now to me seems extremely odd!!
Then I was ready to read a book by then Cardinal Ratzinger on homilies he gave on Genesis 1 - 3. In it he spoke of evolution as a fact of nature. He made a distinct separation between the scientific and the religious/philosophical stating the separation that couldn’t be crossed by the scientific community. God is creator.
This process took me several years but now I could see one could be a Christian and believe in evolution. I think all the above shows on with an open mind. A mind that is normal, healthy and curious to find out what’s what. Changing ones mind is not only an act of the intellect and learning and evaluating information. It’s also an act of the will to decide to go down a path. I clearly remember on my journey to the Catholic faith there were certain parts of the journey that were intellectual in nature – but there was a clear moment when I gave my will to accepting the Catholic faith. That, I’m sure was a moment of grace, but once the will is set everything else following becomes easy.
To recap: EVERYONE goes to sources they consider worthy of their respect to help formulate their opinions. The Church certainly isn’t a monolith so sometimes that is a real winnowing process and one that is done at a frustratingly slow pace at times – but eventually, I can come to a conclusion I feel comfortable in holding. My mind is open - but my will is much more guarded!
MonFrere
