How do I know when to believe my priest’s advice?

[CuriousInIL]

The thread “But that’s what my priest told me!” in Liturgy and Sacraments (forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=123339) got me thinking (again) about the issue of how one is to know if advice given to you by a priest is “proper” and “orthodox.”

I have tried to address this before; but, the quick answers usually seem to be something like:
Is it in accord with the CCC?
If you are not sure, ask another (more orthodox) priest?
In your heart you know if he is right.
You must properly inform you conscience.

While these may all be correct (at least to a degree) they are not particularly helpful in real life to me. Moreover, for me, while I do not want to get into the specifics of the particular advice I was given lest this thread focus on that specific advice rather than the general topic of “How do I know when to believe my priest’s advice?”, I can say that it was not some “off the cuff” remark, nor did I have any concerns about the propriety or orthodoxy of the priest in question. In fact, the advice was specific to the interpretation of a CCC section and was in the nature of “this must be read in context of the CCC and its nature as well as in the greater context of the Church and Catholicism.”

So, how am I to judge this advice? He is not contradicting the CCC by any means. It is his interpretation of a CCC section. And, I have heard other priests say very similar things; and yet other priests quite the opposite. Let’s face it, the CCC in many areas is not a model of clarity and much interpretation is necessary (at least for me).

So, how do I know when to believe my priest’s advice? How does one inform the conscience? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[jprioli]

Our lives, education, and experiences provide us with a working model of things, which we may call a “schema”.

When seeking advice, clarification, explanation we should approach someone that we know to be knowledgable, and whose bias (yes, we all have bias) we trust.

We receive the explanation or advice. We compare it to what we know, looking for inconsistencies. Where an inconsistency is found, we seek more information to determine if it is our previous data set that is in error, or this new information.

We contrast the new “datum” to our existing schema, and look for places where it it not contradictory (as in the previous paragraph), but where it is revealing… ie, where it turns up something new to us. Perhaps a new way of looking at a situation. This also leads us in directions to seek new information, to test out this new point of view.
:twocents:In other words, if we are serious enough about a question that it really matters to us, then we can be serious enough about it to try to track down more information.

:twocents: In short, the advice we give can inform us and our consciences, but as mere advice or interpretation it does not bind our consciences.

If the advice we receive satisfies us (whether it is good advice or bad), then we add it to our schema. When new information comes our way, we may re-evaluate the advice, indeed the whole schema. (It happened to me!) But once something gets added to our schema it is hard to “shake it loose.”

(I hope this explanation does not seem to “out there.” )

 

[jprioli]

Reading my last message, it occurs tome that I left out something important -something that you mentioned in your original message.

How else do we inform our consciences?

The basic answer is: the living tradition of the Church.

We have so much data available. We have, as you noted, the Catechism of the Catholic Church. We have Conciliar documents, the writings of the Saints and the Doctors of the Church. We even have the writings of theologians.

At some point, one might say that we have too much data available. And one might be right. Everyman would have a difficult time wading through all of that when he is trying to cope with his daily responsibilities.

We are only responsible for what we can honestly cope with. If someone gives us bad advice, and we have honestly and earnestly sought the best advice that we can get, then we are in good conscience and not culpable for following that advice.

As Chesterton said, It is not so much that Christianity has been tried and found wanting, it is that it has been found difficult, and left untried.

Or as Thomas More said in A Man For All Seasons: “God made the angels to show Him splendor, as He made animals for innocence and plants for their simplicity. But Man He made to serve Him wittily, in the tangle of his mind.”

Pax,
Joe