Greetings again,
I’ve been thinking about my faith quite a bit lately. I’m getting married in October, I am Episcopalian and my fiancee is Catholic. I grew up in a large suburb north of Boston where the vast majority of the population, not to mention my friends, are Catholic. I have never really liked the Catholic church and until now I could never really put my finger on why (this is totally a “me” issue btw, not on Catholics.) Growing up I could never be a part of parts of my friend’s lives. I couldn’t take part in the Catholic part of their life, couldn’t experience their “1st communion” and largely felt ostricised. Now that I’m an adult and I have chosen my own faith it also deeply upsets me when people (on this site, and else where) say that “such and such” is truer than “such and such.” I guess this idea of, what I have always thought of as arrogance (again, me, not actually probably true) has ultimately pushed my away from Catholicism and I’m writing this for personal reasons as well as to find out if I’m the only one who has had life experiences like this or has met people in similar situations.
You may be glad to know that things haven’t changed much in 2,500 years. People outside the Catholic Church have
always had this attitude toward the Catholic Church (and Christianity in general). In fact, we have many accounts from Roman times of people saying virtually the exact same thing. Romans just couldn’t understand the early Christians. In order to be loyal to the Roman Empire, one had to pledge an oath to it, much like we say the Pledge of Allegiance today. However, the pledge in those days forced one to recognize the emperor as a god, one among the pantheon of the gods. Well, Jews and Christians couldn’t do that. The Romans couldn’t understand that. They felt that both groups were highly intolerant… maybe even atheistic! After all, the enlightened Romans were willing to accept and worship any and all gods, no matter who they might be, as long as the individual could pledge their loyalty to the state. The rituals and practices didn’t matter very much. Christians
denied all gods and religions but one as true. The Romans considered Christians to be traitors to Rome, since they could not pledge allegiance to it. This, combined with their perceived “arrogance” caused them to face merciless persecution periodically throughout Roman history. However, Christianity triumphed and flourished because it actually
stood for something. Most of the other faiths were cold and impersonal, with distant gods that didn’t have much relationship with man. Christians were willing to
die for their faith, and rather than stomp out Christianity, the persecutions made people even more curious, and spread the religion more quickly. Also, Christianity practiced charity, and was one of the first personal religions where
anyone could get to heaven, where God cared about every lowly human, and where a message of peace, love, and goodwill toward others was preached.
But this argument even predates Christianity. Socrates became famous for precisely the same thing. Socrates was infuriated by a philosopher by the name of Protagoras who belonged to a philosophical group known as the Sophists. Protagoras is most remembered for the famous saying, “Man is the measure of all things”. In other words,
morality is relative. Our morality is driven by our personal beliefs, and what might be right for one person is not necessarily right for another. For example, I might personally believe that premarital sex or the use of drugs is wrong, but who am I to say whether it’s wrong for someone else? It’s arrogant for me to think that there’s absolute standards. Socrates disagreed with this idea so strongly that he gave up his life to prove it so. He believed in
moral absolutism, the idea that there are some things that are right, and some things that are wrong. In other words, if something is wrong, it’s ALWAYS wrong; if I happen to believe it to be ok for me, then I’m just plain mistaken. Socrates argued that a government could never function if moral absolutism were indeed true, because who would ever obey the law? Maybe I believe illegal drugs should be legal, and so I go and do it anyway. What if I didn’t think theft was wrong? What about Nazi Germany? The Nazis believed that murdering Jews was ok, but that DIDN’T make them right! Well, eventually, Socrates was condemned to death for “corrupting the youth”, and yet, he WILLINGLY drank a bowl of poison to prove a point. Even HE had to follow the rules, because our individual beliefs
could be wrong. There HAD to be an absolute. We live in a morally permissive, morally relative society. Catholicism is an old school morally absolute religion. It if believes something is wrong, it doesn’t back down from the belief no matter how unpopular it is. Just because people
think something is right, even if they’re the majority, doesn’t necessarily mean that it is.
Catholics believe that Protestants have
part of the truth, but that some of their ideas are mistaken… ideas that matter. For example, there are a few Christian denominations that believe that premarital sex is ok. Well, Catholics believe that either it’s right, or it’s wrong. There’s no middle ground. So… if a group is preaching that this is ok, then that’s a serious conflict with Catholic beliefs. In fact, we would argue that it goes against the very Christian message, in that it promotes selfishness. So, the church is forced to take an unpopular stand. But, don’t confuse this with arrogance. It’s a simple belief in absolute truth, one that was shared by many of the great secular philosophers of the world as well.
Spot on.
I’ve always found it extremely comforting to think that my God had left and establishment in His place to teach me the truth with His authority and not have to rely on my own exegetical ability or the exegetical abilities of others . . .