But … here’s the rub. Because I sincerely feel the Church is wrong on this ONE issue (a mortal sin), I sincerely don’t believe that I’m offending God.
Understanding does not precede an act of faith. Rather, faith seeks understanding.
Imagine if everyone picked one sin and chose not to accept it because it was not convenient. How would the catechism then read? Would it read that it’s sometimes ok, or sometimes not ok? Would it read that someone can do something because it “feels good” even though the Catholic Church may have solid reasons for saying “no”. Perhaps someone can justify murder of another for one reason or another.
This is rooted in relativism, the very things that
Pope Benedict has been been diligently teaching about.
Let’s take a simple example: Some would try to defend masturbation. They would reason that it is not affecting anyone else and is a private thing.
However, what is not considered is that it is an act in which a person treats themselves as an object - a sexual object. Sexual pleasure in this case is not linked to procreation, nor is it unitive.
The harm does not end there with this, but that is a blatant example.
Some try to reason that contraception using “the pill” is ok. Yet, how many know that it can be an abortifacient? When it was first created, it was thought that it merely prevented an egg from dropping. But science later showed it didn’t always work and that some egss dropped, and were fertilized, but the uterus (thanks to the pill), would not permit implantation. The Church teaches that we are ensouled at the moment of contraception. (A human embryo cannot develop into an elephant!)
So, if the Church says it’s ok to use the pill, then it says that it’s ok to abort an ensouled human being, whom God created.
Furthermore, it shows how the Catholic Church was protected back when Paul VI wrote Humane Vitae because much was not known about how “the pill” worked when he predicted the very problems we have today as a result of contraception. His message was very prophetic.
I use these examples to show that Holy Mother Church has reasons for her teachings. It is an act of pride to reject those things which don’t fit our lifestyle or thinking. It is an act of faith, and ultimately an act of humility, to obey the teaching while seeking understanding of it. If we wait to obey until we understand, then we do not exercise faith.
The obedient are not held captive by the Church; the disobedient are held captive by the world!
It isn’t like its a big mystery as to what the Church teaches, although having worked under one RCIA administrator whose motto was and I’m not kidding