There is not a Catholic position on everything

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Just wanted to chime in on something I’ve been thinking of lately.

I’ve been seeing more and more threads where people are asking “Is it okay for a Catholic to…” or “What’s the Church’s position on…” followed by something really specific. Like, “What’s the Church’s position on tinted windows for your car?” (I made that one up, just giving a slightly exaggerated example.)

I think it’s great that people take their faith seriously and want to conform their lives to the guidance of the Church. That said, I think a lot of people are under the impression that there is a Catholic “answer” or “endorsement” on every minute detail of life.

The Church doesn’t map out our lives for us in every possible detail. There isn’t an official answer or position on whether you can read “Harry Potter” or whether it’s moral to wear socks with sandals (not immoral, but you’ll look like a dork. 😉 ) The Church gives us general principles, which we then have to use our reasoning and moral intuition to apply.

I wonder if this desire to have everything spelled out is a form of scrupulosity. Like, people who are deeply uncomfortable with even the slightest ambiguity/gray area and want everything spelled out in perfect black and white.

Anyway, just a thought to kick off discussion. Has anyone else encountered this type of Catholic?
 
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There’s nothing wrong with wanting to conform yourself to Holy Mother Church on as many things as possible.
 
While there isn’t a Church “position” on everything, there certainly are underlying moral and theological principles that can be used to arrive at an answer to a moral dilemma. The discussion of the underlying moral principles gets too little attention on this board.

While there isn’t a moral component to tinted windows on your car, there certainly are for questions like the currently running cake-baker thread. Very few people on that thread have tried to apply actual Catholic moral teaching on cooperation with evil and the fonts of morality. Most of the zillions of posts are emotionally driven, not fact based or in any way trying to reason out moral teaching.
 
Spyridon said:
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to conform yourself to Holy Mother Church on as many things as possible.
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Sure, but sometimes there’s nothing to conform to, because the Church isn’t going to able to anticipate and spell out every possible situation you’ll encounter. Conform yourself to the principle, but don’t drive yourself nuts trying to find some official Vatican position on every little thing.
 
Most certainly.

People need to use their discretion and have common sense.
 
I agree. And I think that’s a skill that can atrophy if people try to find Church positions on hyper-specific questions. It’s important to develop the ability to reason through some of those questions yourself (guided by the principles the Church has articulated.)
 
Good points, BoomBoom.

I don’t think it’s scrupulosity in every case. Many people are new to practicing a religion, or have come out of a religious environment where there was a clear “Church position” on a lot of things that one was expected to follow or get kicked out. Others are just young and are trying to figure out where to “draw the line” so they do not commit a sin. In olden tymes, such questions would have been addressed by one’s parents or by the priests or nuns at your Catholic school. Nowadays, parents often don’t have a clue or are not providing religious instruction, the Catholic schools don’t have a lot of nuns or priests teaching there, and the Internet is where everybody goes to ask questions.

As you noted, the Catholic Church gives its members a great deal of leeway to use their consciences. Someone reminded me recently that this is fine for people who have spent years developing their consciences. To somebody who hasn’t had years of practice, this might be difficult or even scary. Especially when they see the long discussions over Amoris Laetitia, which is basically leaving an important issue up to one’s individual conscience, and a lot of people object to that, think it could be misused or that it will cause trouble for the Church.

Adding to the confusion are those Catholics who like to make blanket statements about what they think a good Catholic needs to do, e.g. “Catholics can’t be Democrats”. This is obviously not the official Church position, but somebody who is not well schooled in the faith doesn’t know that.

I think some Catholics actually leave the Church and join other churches because they want a clearer “rule book” as to how to live their lives - check off all these boxes and you are saved and go to Heaven. The Church is very vague by comparison to some other faiths. Even if we try to check off all the boxes, so much is left up to our individual conscience that we still can’t be positive that we won’t at least have to spend eons in Purgatory. It’s a difficult faith in that respect. Especially now that we don’t have village priests who know everybody in town serving as the local moral authority to tell us when we are doing bad.
 
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Hi BoomBoom,

I’m a boxing fan and your userID brought back memories of Mancini’s career! I’m actually a bit like “the type of Catholic” you refer to, but only on the topics of faith and morals which the Church teaches infallibly. On one hand I totally get what you’re saying, but what causes me a tremendous amount of frustration are those Catholics that I’ve heard called “cafeteria style Catholics”…one that pick and choose the beliefs they do and don’t want to believe in.

My frustration stems from the fact that either the Church is authoritative on all matters of faith and morals or it’s not. There is nothing in the Bible or in Church teachings that say that sometimes the Church is authoritative. Jesus gave His Church authority, period. The analogy I use is with any authority figure. Take a parent. How many parents would be cool with one of their kids telling them that they will obey only the rules they agree with? How would a police officer react if you stated that you were driving 15 miles over the limit because you didn’t agree with that particular law? You see where I’m going. I have no idea when Catholics started thinking it was OK to believe what you want…and why does the Catholic Church allow it? To me, it’s a toe in the water toward Protestantism.

Yes, some may go overboard, but on faith and moral decisions I think a Catholic must always look to the Church for definitive teachings and for guidance on what you should do and believe. On certain topics there might not be a definitive decree, but at least you can still find guidance from the Church’s teachings.

That’s my 2 cents at least!! God Bless!

-Ernie-
 
Hey Ernie,

I agree with you in general, but two things spring to mind: first, not every question has a moral component. Some things are morally neutral. Like, “should I order chicken tacos or fish tacos?” There’s no moral or immoral choice there (unless it’s Friday during Lent, of course 😉 ). It’s just personal preference. Or some moral questions are simply so insignificant that they don’t merit an official Church position. For example, “Can I see this movie that has some mild swearing in it?”

Second, there are some moral questions where two reasonable people can disagree, even when they’re both faithfully trying to apply Church teaching on morality. For example, let’s say that someone pulls up to an intersection and there is a disheveled guy holding a sign that reads, “Homeless, please help.”

Person One might say, “I’m morally obligated as a Catholic to give this person some money, if I’m reasonably able. Christ taught us to care for the poor. Me turning my back on this person would be sinful.” Well, that’s a very reasonable take on the question, sure.

Person Two might say, “I’m not going to give this person any money, not because I’m selfish and want to hold on to every cent I have, but because I’m afraid this person is an alcoholic or drug addict who is going to spend the money on drugs or booze. Me giving them money would actually be causing them harm, and harming another person wouldn’t be a very Christian thing to do.” That’s also a pretty reasonable take on the question.

The Church isn’t going to be sitting in the passenger seat with you, ready to tell you the exact right answer in every scenario, because sometimes there isn’t a clear answer with regard to individual situations. You’re going to have to use your own moral faculties and try to do the best you can.
 
Totally agree with your examples. In fairness, when I wrote what I did I was thinking of a stat that I saw regarding Catholic faithful and that nearly 50% of Catholics rely on common sense as their main source of guidance on right and wrong…and only 30% on the Church.

There are scenarios you’ve given and then there are more direct and controversial ones like contraception. The Church has a definitive teaching on that subject and yet many decide for themselves that the Church being authoritative doesn’t apply in that case because they don’t like what it teaches.

But, even in your examples both Person 1 and 2 are using the Church for guidance. Although both interpret and apply the Church’s teachings differently the thought is to align the best they can. I think that’s a good principle in much, but not all areas of life.

Thanks for the discussion…it got me thinking!

-Ernie-
 
A lot of scrupulous Catholics come here to solve their anxiety issues. There are two types of people. CS Lewis described it as people who give up trying to be good and those who make a painful martyr of themselves but in a grumbling sort of way that makes them intolerable to others.

I would clarify his observation further. The Church presents us with teachings that don’t always line up with our innate consciences. We’re called to gradually integrate these teaches into ourselves, but it’s not always easy. So the solution people come up with is to doubt the authority of the Church OR to doubt the authority of their conscience.

The doubted conscience leaves us with little personal ability to make our own decisions as we’re constantly fretting over whether or not we’ve sinned. And in many ways, our obedience to Church teaching often becomes sinful as we’re often willing to violate our own consciences rather than recognize that moral situations touch upon a lot of principles at once and thus often don’t lead us to purely black and white situations. But as I used to say when I was younger “Gray is just another shade of black. Only if it’s purely white should I do something.” And I became very good at avoiding sin by cutting myself off from people and failing to acknowledge all my sins of omission that weren’t listed in confession guides.

Scrupulosity is a hard tin to point out to people because they know they’re being really hard on themselves and assume that any correction means they must mean they need to be even harder. So especially if they see you as being less hard on yourself, they’ll assume you’re trying to justify sin and will be very suspicious about your ulterior motives. These are people purely blind to their sins, unable to confess their actual sins that they can’t see while believing that they’re jumping in and out of mortal sin in other ways when they’re actually not.

It can come in varying extremes and can be a bit contagious when someone convinces you that the Church teaches that all of us should be so scrupulous.
 
Also, in the multicultural US, we are surrounded by various opinions on the right and wrong way to do things–it’s pretty natural that some of it would leach into our spiritual lives.
 
The Catholic position on everything is: love. It alone must guide and rule, according with the teachings of Christ through His Church.
 
BoomBoomMancini said:
The Church doesn’t map out our lives for us in every possible detail. There isn’t an official answer or position on whether you can read “Harry Potter” or whether it’s moral to wear socks with sandals (not immoral, but you’ll look like a dork. 😉 ) The Church gives us general principles, which we then have to use our reasoning and moral intuition to apply.
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Yep to me this is proof that the Church is being guided by the Holy Spirit.

One example that comes to mind is the dreaded Galileo Controversy that many anti-Catholics like to throw in our faces, that the Church abhors science, refuses to abandon outdated teachings and is not infallible.

However, to me the fact that the Church did not accept Galileo’s proposed heliocentricism as truth. (for those not aware that is the reason the Church denied Galileo, because he insisted the Church accept it as Truth and not just his theory). Anyway, the fact that the Church did not make an infallible ruling (taking a position) on Galelio’s truth actually proves infallibility in my book. The reason being is that Galileo was partly right and partly wrong. Galileo believed that the sun was not just the fixed center of the solar system but the fixed center of the universe

Had the Catholic Church rushed to endorse Galileo’s views, the Church would have embraced what modern science has disproved. Could you even imagine the uproar over that one.

Gotta love the power of the Holy Spirit.

God Bless
 
BoomBoomMancini said:
I wonder if this desire to have everything spelled out is a form of scrupulosity. Like, people who are deeply uncomfortable with even the slightest ambiguity/gray area and want everything spelled out in perfect black and white.

Anyway, just a thought to kick off discussion. Has anyone else encountered this type of Catholic?
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No, 🤔

I think it is MORE the result of very poor catechesis; over a prolonged period of time.

Now [recent years] as more and more parishes are taking their responsibilities with gusto; and a variety of programs to educate their flocks, we are seeing an awakening of desire to actually KNOW WHY we practice as we do and believe as we do on WHAT evidence.

And that is God’s Grace in Action

Thanks for your post
Partick
 
1ke said:
While there isn’t a Church “position” on everything, there certainly are underlying moral and theological principles that can be used to arrive at an answer to a moral dilemma.
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Very true, though often such analyses will come down to prudential judgements, with the consequence that good and reasonable people applying the same principles can come to different conclusions.
 
po18guy said:
The Catholic position on everything is: love. It alone must guide and rule, according with the teachings of Christ through His Church.
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Yes, I believe this too, but the problem is when we get into some of those “love the sinner, hate the sin” situations.

Some people take it too far and have a hard time separating the sinful person from his or her purported sin.
At the other extreme are people who believe that love means you should just tell everybody that whatever bad thing they are doing doesn’t matter, because Jesus loves them.

Some people believe that “love” is best expressed through “fraternal corrections” or even through punishments of some type. Other people would give everybody an ice cream cone and give the sinner a double scoop because Jesus loved sinners and always ate dinner with them and not Pharisees, etc.

Love gets complicated in a hurry…
 
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