Should dissenting Catholics be encouraged to leave the Church?

[NovusFidem]

It is an official document.

I could discuss this document with you, but another group already did and with better words than I could ever use:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=754926

As interesting as this is, I don’t think this topic is the place to discuss this in depth, so I won’t try to show how the Pope didn’t deviate from Scripture nor taught us error.

But, assuming he did teach us infallibly to do “evils”, I can only say that we are back to “what is evil?” discussion and that, if the Church teaches infallibly, then “heretical BBQ” is no immoral action.

We are going around circles…

 

[josie_L]

I could discuss this document with you, but another group already did and with better words than I could ever use:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=754926

As interesting as this is, I don’t think this topic is the place to discuss this in depth, so I won’t try to show how the Pope didn’t deviate from Scripture nor taught us error.

But, assuming he did teach us infallibly to do “evils”, I can only say that we are back to “what is evil?” discussion and that, if the Church teaches infallibly, then “heretical BBQ” is no immoral action.

We are going around circles…

It was definitely needed in the case of certain heretics, anyways, moreover, a key to understanding this document is putting it in its rightful context, i.e., it cannot be understood with a modern mindset that is used to a pluralistic society wherein church and state are separated.

The condemnation about burning heretics is condemning an absolutist statement. The traditional hermeneutic for condemnations is that they merely affirm a contradictory, not the contrary. The condemnation is therefore true if only one instance of the execution of heretic were justified.

It should be noted that the kind of heresy that was punished in this way was the kind that threatened to destroy society–in a completely Catholic society it amounted to treason and rebellion, which is why the secular power had such an interest in it as well. Given the makeup of society today, such punishments would most certainly not be justified for your average non-Catholic or even dissenting Catholic, but that doesn’t mean some heretics weren’t justly punished in the past (see my next post).

See this part of Archbishop Wilhelm von Ketteler’s 19th century essay on religious freedom. He explains why such things may have been justified in the past, but why they are not generally now, despite the principles staying the same:

opuscula.blogspot.com/2008/07/religious-freedom-part-iii.html

 

[Contarini]

I doubt that you can convince many non-Catholics that artificial birth control is intrinsically evil.

Culture can blind people to particular evils. It’s not about “being able to persuade people.”

Also how do you distinguish between what is intrinsically evil and what is wrong but not intrinsically evil. Take for example, the question of women priests. Is it intrinsically evil to ordain women priests or is it a matter of discipline?

As I understand the Catholic position, it’s neither. It’s not a moral issue, so in that sense it’s not “intrinsically evil.” It’s a matter of divine revelation, not natural law. It distorts the sacramental “grammar” of ordination.

As many here know, I have a lot of difficulties with this.

Edwin

 

[GUYMAN]

I am going to get brave on this one. I have followed the teachings of the Catholic Church, made some mistakes, but am on the ok tract. I watched some you tube videos with a Priest- Ascension , was the name I believe. We are to walk along with all of those who do not follow the rules. I get confused on some of the rules because there are good people out there who do not follow all the rules. We are not to judge. There has been arguments about this. My children learned in Catholic school to do what Jesus would do. We are all made in God’s image. Most of my friends that I could call upon in an emergency do not go to Church. Some are Christian, and some are good people who live a moral life and have beliefs they keep private. We have deep respect for each other and saying God Bless is not uncommon. What would Jesus do? I believe He would be walking with us. The answer to this will be answered, not my man, but by God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus.

What an excellent post. I think people can (and should) live in this way while at the same time following and publicly proclaiming the teachings of the Church

 

[Contarini]

I don’t agree that “It reasonably appeared to people”…

I find no official teachings of the Church demanding, authorizing or even suggesting the burning of heretics.

If it was reasonably accepted by people at that time because they ASSUMED it to be a teaching of the Church…again… I find no official Church documents condemning anyone other than Luther for dissenting against the assumed teaching…

So you just ignore the one very clear document that we do have?

Why does it not count because it’s Luther? This makes no sense.

That document, together with the well-documented practice of handing heretics over for execution, the explicit defense of the practice by theologians, and the clear assumptions by everybody living at the time that the Church believed heretics should be killed, is more than enough evidence for any reasonable person.

People on this forum simply refuse to believe the historical evidence because it messes with their ideology.

I urge you to consult any reputable secondary source on the subject, starting with Brad Gregory’s chapter on “The Willingness to Kill” in his excellent book Salvation at Stake.
Or, on a somewhat more popular level, here’s Taylor Marshall, who says (rightly) that St. Thomas Aquinas was quite confident that his position was Church teaching. Now I recognize that this doesn’t make it so. But Aquinas was no dummy–his impression of the “ordinary Magisterium” would not have been a naive or poorly informed one.

Again, please, note how I’m putting it–I’m saying that most people between about 1200 and 1700, including extremely learned and thoughtful people like Aquinas, assumed that Catholic teaching supported the death penalty for heretics. I am not saying that they were right. I am saying that they clearly thought this, and that they did not think it lightly or carelessly or without any reason.

Hence, I argue that discerning just what is the authentic teaching of the Church is not necessarily always as easy as “conservative” or “orthodox” Catholics claim today.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

This seems to me to be further evidence that “Non-Catholic” (NC) posters are obsessed with what a few Catholics on this forum think or don’t think.

Granted I could be wrong (as implied by the word “seems” ) but I’ve already seen plenty of other evidence anyhow.

Peter, you may be right.

But this forum is an extremely large one that attracts a lot of viewers, and it’s attached to a very powerful, influential Catholic apologetics ministry.

Look at the “five non-negotiables,” a concept invented by CA in direct opposition to the USCCB, but which is now taken for granted as part of Catholic teaching by a lot of folks and frequently ascribed to the USCCB!

I have been inquiring into Catholicism and going back and forth on whether I should personally become Catholic for 20 years now. (Not proud of the vacillation revealed in that figure, but it is the truth.) 20 years ago, relatively few Catholics I ran into in the “real world” had heard of Catholic apologists. Catholic academics sneered at them and wondered why I wasted my time on forums like this. RCIA programs, at least in North Carolina, took a radically different approach.

Now I go into a Catholic bookstore and it’s full of materials by Catholic apologists. I went to RCIA last year and the leaders were citing and recommending CA and other apologetics sources all the time. There’s been a sea change in American Catholicism, it seems to me, and CA and similar organizations have been instrumental, along with the appointment of more conservative bishops by Pope Benedict.

So I think I’m justified in worrying when, on this largest of Catholic online forums, quite a few people openly express support (however qualified) for executing heretics.

Edwin

 

[Tomdstone]

Culture can blind people to particular evils. It’s not about “being able to persuade people.”

But the natural law is supposed to be above culture. A law which is supposed to be above culture should be available for anyone to understand such as for example, the law that in Euclidean geometry the base angles of an isosceles triangle are equal. If contraception is intrinsically evil, then according to the natural law, everyone should be able to see this.

 

[Contarini]

I did.

Firstly that is not a teaching document. It is a condemnation of Martin Luther’s errors.

Pope Leo could have condemned Luther’s constipation…but that would not make it a teaching of the Church.

So even though these condemnations are explicitly said to be binding on the faithful, they still aren’t part of the Church’s teaching?

I am not sure that the distinction you are making between condemnations and teaching documents holds up. Can you give me any kind of authoritative source for your view that condemnations are not teaching documents?

Furthermore other contemporary theologians and Catholic writers had spoken out about killing heretics…yet they were not condemned or censured by Rome…why?

Who, other than Erasmus?

Erasmus was indeed not censured by Rome. He was, however, censured by the University of Paris, which at that time was understood to be an organ of the Magisterium. He responded by modifying some of his earlier statements and taking a position more like the one held by a lot of folks on this forum: church leaders shouldn’t advocate for the execution of heretics, but there might be circumstances in which civil authorities justly executed heretics.

Erasmus had never denied that heretics who caused civil upheavals should be punished. Indeed, why would anyone? As Erasmus himself pointed out, the Circumcellions in North Africa, for instance, did things that would incur punishment whether or not those deeds were attached to heresy (at least they were accused of doing them).

In short, Erasmus’ position was more moderate and nuanced than Luther’s and he still got in trouble.

Certainly Luther attracted the attention of Rome for things other than his position on the killing of heresy. If that had been his only “heresy,” the Pope would probably not have bothered issuing a bull about it. But the fact is that the Pope did issue such a bull and did include this as one of Luther’s errors, and that the response of the Paris faculty and other defenders of orthodoxy to Erasmus’ more nuanced position bears out my contention:

People in the sixteenth century, including extremely learned and well-informed people, generally believed that the Church (via the “ordinary magisterium”) taught that heretics should be executed.

Edwin

 

[Tomdstone]

That document, together with the well-documented practice of handing heretics over for execution, the explicit defense of the practice by theologians, and the clear assumptions by everybody living at the time that the Church believed heretics should be killed, is more than enough evidence for any reasonable person.

That is how it looks to me.

 

[Contarini]

But the natural law is supposed to be above culture. A law which is supposed to be above culture should be available for anyone to understand such as for example, the law that in Euclidean geometry the base angles of an isosceles triangle are equal. If contraception is intrinsically evil, then according to the natural law, everyone should be able to see this.

No, because specific cultural prejudices blind people to specific aspects of the natural law.

I don’t think ethical matters can be equated to mathematics. I know that’s one way to understand the natural law, but I don’t think it’s the only one.

Clearly we do have to be inculturated into habits of right reason in order to perceive the natural law with consistent accuracy.

Edwin

 

[Tomdstone]

Firstly that is not a teaching document. It is a condemnation of Martin Luther’s errors.
Furthermore other contemporary theologians and Catholic writers had spoken out about killing heretics…yet they were not condemned or censured by Rome…why?

But people who disagreed with Exsurge Domine were condemned.
“With the advice and consent of these our venerable brothers, with mature deliberation on each and every one of the above theses, and by the authority of almighty God, the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and our own authority, we condemn, reprobate, and reject completely each of these theses or errors as either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple minds, and against Catholic truth. By listing them, we decree and declare that all the faithful of both sexes must regard them as condemned, reprobated, and rejected . . . We restrain all in the virtue of holy obedience and under the penalty of an automatic major excommunication…”

 

[Tomdstone]

No, because specific cultural prejudices blind people to specific aspects of the natural law.

I don’t think ethical matters can be equated to mathematics. I know that’s one way to understand the natural law, but I don’t think it’s the only one.

Clearly we do have to be inculturated into habits of right reason in order to perceive the natural law with consistent accuracy.

Edwin

I don’t think so. Birth control is accepted as acceptable for married couples across all cultures. Can you give us the name of a Buddhist monk who believes that artificial birth control is intrinsically evil?

 

[Peter_J]

I did.

Firstly that is not a teaching document. It is a condemnation of Martin Luther’s errors.

Pope Leo could have condemned Luther’s constipation…but that would not make it a teaching of the Church.

Furthermore other contemporary theologians and Catholic writers had spoken out about killing heretics…yet they were not condemned or censured by Rome…why?

If I might piggyback in what you’re saying … It is possible to formally lift a condemnation, but practically speaking the hierarchy often deems it more fruitful to informally “work around it” as one might say. Or, at least, that’s my theory, though I don’t have any solid proof.

 

[Contarini]

Intrinsically evil acts are never justified by intention, nor by circumstances, nor by other acts.

Of course.

If the circumstance given is such that “God commanded it”, I believe it is pretty much justified and, thus, not intrinsically evil.

But you’e begging the question here. Of course if we grant “God commanded X” we grant that “X is not intrinsically evil.” But how do we know that God commanded X? I am suggesting that our knowledge of basic moral truths is more certain than our knowledge that God has revealed particular things.

Also, I suggest some reading on classical Natural Law by St. Thomas Aquinas.

Don’t assume that people differ from you because they are ignorant. Always be open to the possibility that they just read the sources differently

We actively participate in the eternal law of God (as you correctly put). However, we do this by using **reason **in conformity with the Natural Law to discern what is good and evil.

Basically, by reasoning everything correctly, ALL OF US will eventually reach the SAME conclusions (as there is only one Truth). It is not a mere “gut feeling” that tells us that killing is wrong - it is through **reasoning **that we reach that conclusion.

Indeed. I think you are assuming that “intuition” is a “mere feeling.” But this pitting of reasoning against “gut feelings” is a very modern way of thinking. Precisely because I adhere to traditional natural-law thinking, I reject that dichotomy entirely, as Aquinas did.

An intuition is a form of reasoning. In fact, for Aquinas, the highest form of knowledge is a direct, intuitive vision of what is true and good. In the speculative realm, this is called “intellectus.” In the practical realm, it’s called “synderesis.” The term “intuition” was, I believe, developed by Franciscans just after Aquinas’ time, and the notion of intuitive knowledge was explicitly developed by Scotus. But when Aquinas speaks of synderesis as a direct apprehension of what ought to be done, he’s clearly describing a kind of intuition. This isn’t something separate from or against reason.

And, again, if the Church is infallible (as all Catholics are called to accept), then She alone can declare with certainty what is moral and what is not.

Non sequitur. It follows that if the Church is infallible, then whatever the Church declares (solemnly and definitively–and a major purpose of this thread for me is to show that this is much more difficult to define than people realize) to be moral is moral, and what it declares to be immoral is immoral.

It does not follow that we have no other way to know with certainty that something is moral or immoral.

And again, you run into the problem that your confidence in the Church rests on certain judgments of the intellect, aided by faith, which are less certain than the intuitive apprehension of basic moral principles which all human beings have even without divine revelation.

Edwin

 

[CatholicHockey7]

Back to the original question: Should dissenting Catholics be encouraged to leave the Church?

No, they should not. They should be encouraged to humbly seek out answers to why the Church teaches what is does rather than assume they personally know better than Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Gregory the Great, Albertus Magnus, Athanasius, Ignatius of Antioch, etc.

If they will not be convinced through solid apologetics and historical facts, they should be encouraged to refrain from communion so as not to imply a communion that doesn’t exist.

Those who do not dissent should be encouraged to constantly enter dialogue with those who do.

A priest I met once said evangelization is like a progressive slot machine. You might pull the lever 100 times and not win anything, but the next person pulls it twice and hits the jackpot. The same is true with evangelization. You might not convince someone in 100 conversations to accept the Church’s teaching. But you might plant a seed which enables the next person to convince them.

And above all, pray for those who dissent. “Pray as if it all depends on God, work as if it all depends on you.”

 

[Contarini]

I don’t think so. Birth control is accepted as acceptable for married couples across all cultures. Can you give us the name of a Buddhist monk who believes that artificial birth control is intrinsically evil?

Buddhists don’t object to birth control, because they view birth as a misfortune. They do generally condemn abortion, because once a new consciousness has formed it should not be harmed.

Most cultures have seen fertility as a good.

But I agree that birth control is a difficult issue to make the case for.

Is it Catholic doctrine that birth control is a matter of natural law?

I.e., could one be an orthodox Catholic and hold that the wrongness of birth control was purely a matter of divine revelation? I’m not sure that’s true, just inquiring into the possibility.

Edwin

 

[Tomdstone]

Buddhists don’t object to birth control, because they view birth as a misfortune. They do generally condemn abortion, because once a new consciousness has formed it should not be harmed.

Most cultures have seen fertility as a good.

But I agree that birth control is a difficult issue to make the case for.

Is it Catholic doctrine that birth control is a matter of natural law?

I.e., could one be an orthodox Catholic and hold that the wrongness of birth control was purely a matter of divine revelation? I’m not sure that’s true, just inquiring into the possibility.

Edwin

The Roman Catholic Church has been engaged in comprehensive discussions with the Eastern Orthodox church about reuniting the two Churches to establish full communion. Already, the Roman Catholic Church allows members of the Eastern Orthodox Church to receive Holy Communion in the Roman Catholic Church without being required to convert to Roman Catholicism. But generally speaking, the Orthodox will allow a married couple under certain restricted conditions, to use artificial birth control For example if the married couple had four children and was experiencing financial difficulties, and consulted with their priest, the priest may give them permission to use ABC. If ABC is intrinsically wrong, then why would Eastern Orthodox be allowed to receive Holy Communion, since it appears that they have a different teaching on this?

 

[Contarini]

The Roman Catholic Church has been engaged in comprehensive discussions with the Eastern Orthodox church about reuniting the two Churches to establish full communion. Already, the Roman Catholic Church allows members of the Eastern Orthodox Church to receive Holy Communion in the Roman Catholic Church without being required to convert to Roman Catholicism. But generally speaking, the Orthodox will allow a married couple under certain restricted conditions, to use artificial birth control For example if the married couple had four children and was experiencing financial difficulties, and consulted with their priest, the priest may give them permission to use ABC. If ABC is intrinsically wrong, then why would Eastern Orthodox be allowed to receive Holy Communion, since it appears that they have a different teaching on this?

It’s a question of “economia” for them.

You are obviously very concerned with the birth control issue. This is not, to me, one of the more obvious cases of something against natural law.

Edwin

 

[Tomdstone]

It’s a question of “economia” for them.

You are obviously very concerned with the birth control issue. This is not, to me, one of the more obvious cases of something against natural law.

Edwin

I think that the question of “intrinsically evil” because of the natural law is something that may not hold up.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

It is an official document.

So…?