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bquinnan
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AlanFromWichita
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While we were driving, my 14-year-old daughter read me a proof copy of my last post, and she and I each found a few flaws. I’ll try to do better here.
I think Catholics cannot be obliged, or morally compelled to believe something taught by the Church. She can certainly require, whether as membership or as a requisite to attain a certain status of either religious of lay people, that a person behave and speak in a sufficiently convincing manner that a reasonable observer would likely conclude that the person believes what the Church teaches.
There are at least three bases on which I think it is unreasonable to oblige people to believe a certain way:
- it is impossible to objectively know another person’s heart with certainty, so any status assigned to a Catholic by another is done on the basis of external observation.
- beliefs, even deeply held beliefs, are subject to occasional doubt, and troubling thoughts do occasionally come to even the most devout at inappropriate times. Therefore, it is unreasonable to expect a person to be able to decisively control their own thoughts and beliefs. Again, we can only ask they do so in any measurable fashion which again implies externally observable behavior.
- beliefs are not subject to the will, therefore even if a person truly wished to believe 100% of every infallible teaching of the Church, and joined a monastery and devoted their life to prayer and theological studies and behaved in apparent perfect obedience, there is no guarantee they will end up actually believing what they set out to believe.
She can compel me to attend services, to receive the sacraments, to behave and speak in certain ways, to pay a tithe, to do charity work, but I do not think either she nor I can cause me to believe what the Church teaches unless God Himself calls me to believe.
According to what I recently learned on other threads (from CA apologist) once Catholic, always Catholic. If he was baptized Catholic or received into the Church after a valid baptism elsewhere, then he is, in fact, a Catholic even if he renounces his faith or is excommunicated. Just because he is a Catholic in body, however, doesn’t mean he is at heart. So like it or not, it seems he does, in fact, have the right to continue to wear the Catholic label. That does not imply he will not burn in hell.
I would like to think so, because I would hope the bishops are more advanced in matters of faith than I. The ones I’ve read, though, seem to be concerned with protecting the “sanctity” of the sacrament. If the sacrament needed to be thus protected I don’t understand why Jesus would have given the bread to Judas. Maybe it killed Jesus, but don’t we say something like, “when we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus, until you come in glory?” I wouldn’t think Kerry’s consuming the host would hurt Jesus any more than he is already hurt, and maybe it could help transform him – especially if he realized he was causing scandal.
Alan
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Savagedds
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Hi Alan,
First, let me observe that a human being is absolutely capable of believing anything, without implying that there is any way for another human being to detect what it is… but I claim that it is impossible to know, absolutely, what another person thinks.
Yep. Yet another reason we shouldn’t attempt to judge each other: it’s impossible to do.
in order to be obedient, I would think it necessary that we at least know whether or not our beliefs are in compliance.
With you so far.
Again, I find difficulty at this point because I often do not know exactly what I think or how I believe on any given issue…there are things I’ve struggled with believing and alternately not believing, for years…what about beliefs that change in time, such as something I didn’t believe yesterday, but believe today? What if, whether due to external or internal cause, I cease believing something that yesterday I would have sworn to be true? What if I just question it for a minute, and am truly uncertain?
Questioning is never a sin as long as it is done from the standpoint of faithful submission (involuntary doubt). That questioning can be a path to understanding or even a test from God. It is when we refuse to believe the revealed teaching of the Church that sin is committed (voluntary doubt). That is my understanding of it; see CCC 2087-2089.
Last, in order to be under an “obligation” to believe something, then belief itself must be subject to my will or I would be obliged to perform the impossible…I can choose to cooperate externally, and I can choose to immerse myself in brainwashing, or I can tell myself a hundred times that something is true, but I don’t think there is any strategy that will exactly cancel out doubt except faith itself, which I do not equate to believing.
Giving one’s assent, an act of will, to something he does not understand is a profound act of faith. It is that assent that the Catholic owes his Church: acceptance of doctrines independent of any understanding or sense of belief based upon what he knows. St. John of the Cross taught that faith blinds the intellect. We can’t trust our intellects because they fail us, but we can use the revealed teachings of the Church as signposts to keep us on track.
That is where the “pro-choice Catholic” has gotten off-track: he follows his conscience without first properly forming that conscience by conforming it to Church teaching. He then concludes that since he differs with the Church on a given matter, the Church must be in error or “behind the times.”
So my answer to my own question would be yes, a Catholic is obligated to give his assent to Church teaching and to never contradict Church teaching, even if he has no sense of ‘belief’ in his heart.
Peace,
Jim
First, let me observe that a human being is absolutely capable of believing anything, without implying that there is any way for another human being to detect what it is… but I claim that it is impossible to know, absolutely, what another person thinks.
Yep. Yet another reason we shouldn’t attempt to judge each other: it’s impossible to do.
in order to be obedient, I would think it necessary that we at least know whether or not our beliefs are in compliance.
With you so far.
Again, I find difficulty at this point because I often do not know exactly what I think or how I believe on any given issue…there are things I’ve struggled with believing and alternately not believing, for years…what about beliefs that change in time, such as something I didn’t believe yesterday, but believe today? What if, whether due to external or internal cause, I cease believing something that yesterday I would have sworn to be true? What if I just question it for a minute, and am truly uncertain?
Questioning is never a sin as long as it is done from the standpoint of faithful submission (involuntary doubt). That questioning can be a path to understanding or even a test from God. It is when we refuse to believe the revealed teaching of the Church that sin is committed (voluntary doubt). That is my understanding of it; see CCC 2087-2089.
Last, in order to be under an “obligation” to believe something, then belief itself must be subject to my will or I would be obliged to perform the impossible…I can choose to cooperate externally, and I can choose to immerse myself in brainwashing, or I can tell myself a hundred times that something is true, but I don’t think there is any strategy that will exactly cancel out doubt except faith itself, which I do not equate to believing.
Giving one’s assent, an act of will, to something he does not understand is a profound act of faith. It is that assent that the Catholic owes his Church: acceptance of doctrines independent of any understanding or sense of belief based upon what he knows. St. John of the Cross taught that faith blinds the intellect. We can’t trust our intellects because they fail us, but we can use the revealed teachings of the Church as signposts to keep us on track.
That is where the “pro-choice Catholic” has gotten off-track: he follows his conscience without first properly forming that conscience by conforming it to Church teaching. He then concludes that since he differs with the Church on a given matter, the Church must be in error or “behind the times.”
So my answer to my own question would be yes, a Catholic is obligated to give his assent to Church teaching and to never contradict Church teaching, even if he has no sense of ‘belief’ in his heart.
Peace,
Jim
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Antonio_B
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Precisely because your wife is involved in the pro-life movement, you should be the first one to understand the defense of the unborn has nothing to do with “hate.”
I resent your statement deeply, My wife and I have been involved in the pro-life movement since the middle seventies. We have “literally” saved babies from being butchered by abortion. We have prayed in front of abortion clinics and some women who were about to abort their babies changed their minds and asked us for help and we did help them. Some of our fellow pro-lifers have ended up in jail for defending the unborn, and now you have the audacity of accusing “some” us of hatred? Since when is the defense of the unborn, something all Christians should be involved in, a reflection of hatred?
Antonio :nope:
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Antonio_B
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I have read other posts by you and found them reasonable and interesting and that’s precisely why I was surprised at your position regarding some bishops who have become very outspoken about politicians who favor abortion at the same time that they call themselves “Catholic.”
It took me a while to respond to you because I’ve been rather busy in the Politics forum.
Unlike you I applaud Bishop Gracida, Bishop Sheridan, Archbishop Burke, Bishop Weigand, Bishop Olmstead, Bishop Fargo, Archbishop Chaput, Bishop Bruskewitz, etc, for making it utterly clear one can’t support any pro-abortion politician who claims to be Catholic, nor should a pro-abortion “Catholic” politician have the nerve to take the sacred Body of Christ in Holy Communion. You seem to find this teaching “hard” and I must say that’s precisely why I respect their teaching so much. These bishops are unwilling to be wishy-washy on this matter and I don’t think their position is as much “poor strategy” as it is their moral obligation to speak the truth, and to speak it without ambiguity to a Catholic faithful desperate for moral guidance, particularly in an election year.
I am please to know you and I are on the same page when it comes to abortion. We just differ greatly in the way or manner in which the U.S. Bishops should attack this problem. You see it as poor strategy, I see as prophetic action.
Bishops like Egan, McCarrick, Gregory Wilton, and Mahony may still have some moral credibility left in your eyes, but their failure to stand up and proclaim the Gospel forcefully in season and out of season, and their failure to be trasparent in the sexual abuse crisis in this country, has washed away whatever credibility they had with me.
Antonio :nope:
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AlanFromWichita
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Antonio B:
After serving as a duly elected member of the Sedgwick County Republican central committee, and member of the KRA (Kansas Republican Assembly), the conservative, pro-life faction within the party, I came to the conclusion that the pro-lifers were nearly as culpable as pro-aborts for our failure to pass a partial birth abortion ban with a Republican controlled legislature and governor. The governor was a “moderate” Republican who promised to sign the PBA ban only if it was a bit watered down. The conservative pro-lifers refused to “compromise” and passed it in a way the governor promised to veto, knowing they could not override the veto. Now we have a feminist, liberal, gun grabbing, rabid pro-abort governor who worked on Hillary’s campaign and I believe spoke briefly at the DNC, Kathleen Sibelius, and the late term abortions go on unabated.
I think pro-lifers need to learn incrementalism like the communists and the liberals, or they will keep losing the battles for trying to win the whole war in one gulp.
Alan
It’s not so much about “hard” I don’t think as “simplistic.” You might have seen my tale about personally meeting Roger Grund, an ostensibly conservative pro-lifer, who was so slimy and dispicable that I actually voted for a pro-choice Democrat Dan Glickman, and in good conscience. That’s why I don’t completely give away my conscience to a formula devised by a bishop; you could get a computer to take my place if that’s what you want. Good news: Glickman is retired (sort of), Grund is dead, and we now have a pro-life conservative representative Todd Tiahrt.
I’ve softened a bit on the issue of saying the bishops’ positions are “poor strategy” in part due to another poster who ran me through an exercise from another point of view; that is what a Catholic politician’s responsibility should be. After that exchange, I started wanting to excommunicate Kerry myself to save him from the terrible judgment the Eucharist would bring to him. Then after I saw him totally blow the question about taxpayer funding for abortion on the debate last night, I figure he can fend for himself.
After serving as a duly elected member of the Sedgwick County Republican central committee, and member of the KRA (Kansas Republican Assembly), the conservative, pro-life faction within the party, I came to the conclusion that the pro-lifers were nearly as culpable as pro-aborts for our failure to pass a partial birth abortion ban with a Republican controlled legislature and governor. The governor was a “moderate” Republican who promised to sign the PBA ban only if it was a bit watered down. The conservative pro-lifers refused to “compromise” and passed it in a way the governor promised to veto, knowing they could not override the veto. Now we have a feminist, liberal, gun grabbing, rabid pro-abort governor who worked on Hillary’s campaign and I believe spoke briefly at the DNC, Kathleen Sibelius, and the late term abortions go on unabated.
I think pro-lifers need to learn incrementalism like the communists and the liberals, or they will keep losing the battles for trying to win the whole war in one gulp.
I don’t keep good track of which bishop said what. I met Olmsted when I worked as a synod representative while he was bishop of Wichita and I liked him, but I don’t know about the others. We haven’t had a bishop here ever since Olmsted left.
Alan
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rjmporter
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Antonio B:
Please do not presume to tell me what I have or haven’t seen. There is hatred on the part of some in the pro-life movement. And it MUST be rooted out and replaced with love. Replaced with a burning desire to save the children AND a burning desire to save the souls of those who are making this destruction of life possible.
I stand at a clinic every week and pray for an end to abortion. I helped put a sign on our KofC hall that says “Life is a precious gift” because our Hall is next door to the planned parenthood office. I fight daily through information and love to bring about an end to abortion. But if we put on blinders and refuse to see the problem that is in our midst. We will fail in this endevor and that is the ultimate tradgedy.
Please accept my apologies as I did not intend to offend anyone but rather to offer my oberservations of where the pro-life movement could make great strides forward. I have seen hate. I have seen it exhibited to a great degree by those who claim to be pro-life. Hatred of the mothers who will not approach them (I have heard them called names, heard racial epiteth shouted at them and heard them belittled and de-humanized.), hatred of the clinic workers (spurious rumors spread about particualr workers involvement with witchcraft and child sacrafice with NO EVIDENCE whatsoever presented to attest to it), hatred of the abortionist performing the operation (even hearing one protester equate this man to Satan – The personification of evil).
Please do not presume to tell me what I have or haven’t seen. There is hatred on the part of some in the pro-life movement. And it MUST be rooted out and replaced with love. Replaced with a burning desire to save the children AND a burning desire to save the souls of those who are making this destruction of life possible.
I stand at a clinic every week and pray for an end to abortion. I helped put a sign on our KofC hall that says “Life is a precious gift” because our Hall is next door to the planned parenthood office. I fight daily through information and love to bring about an end to abortion. But if we put on blinders and refuse to see the problem that is in our midst. We will fail in this endevor and that is the ultimate tradgedy.
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michael_servant
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I find it interesting that the imparative expression of the Church’s truth regarding its position on abortion should come under attack as insensitive. Read what Christ said in Revelation 3:15-16 “I know your works; I know that your are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth”. My God, where is your compassion? What Christ is speaking is the truth…His truth. The consequences of not speaking His truth are self evident and His compassion is His leading us to that truth not to some watered down version of it.
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Teresita
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I think, Alan, that part of your problem when discussing ‘belief’ is that you are confusing the intellect and the will. You’re quite right in stating that the Church can’t force anyone to believe, if by ‘belief’ you mean ‘intellectual assent’: the bit of us which is deeply, emotionally convinced. But the Church asks for assent of the will: after that, it’s up to God to give us the faith to believe with the heart, if that’s His Will.
I had to work through this situation myself. Coming from an Evangelical background to be received into the Church just over six years ago, I found that I could accept without a problem almost everything the Church taught, save infant baptism. For 28 years I’d been taught (and accepted) that baptism was merely a symbolic act which the believer undertook to witness to his faith in Christ: now I had to assent to the idea that baptism of itself was salvific, and could be given to babies with no understanding or belief. This was very difficult! In the end, I had to say to myself: “In all the other things the Church teaches, I am sure that she is right; therefore in this area, whatever my convictions, I must accept that I’m wrong, and she’s right.” And it took years before I could accept infant baptism on an intellectual/emotional basis. But I had the will to accept it, and God granted me the rest in His own time.
The problem with dissent is that it begins with the assumption that individual conviction is the most important thing, and all else (including some of the most fundamental doctrines of the Church) has to give way to that.
I won’t comment on Kerry, since (being British) I have no personal involvement in the US election. I wish that the abortion debate was alive in this country (though one of our newspapers has been trying to make it so recently).
Sue
I had to work through this situation myself. Coming from an Evangelical background to be received into the Church just over six years ago, I found that I could accept without a problem almost everything the Church taught, save infant baptism. For 28 years I’d been taught (and accepted) that baptism was merely a symbolic act which the believer undertook to witness to his faith in Christ: now I had to assent to the idea that baptism of itself was salvific, and could be given to babies with no understanding or belief. This was very difficult! In the end, I had to say to myself: “In all the other things the Church teaches, I am sure that she is right; therefore in this area, whatever my convictions, I must accept that I’m wrong, and she’s right.” And it took years before I could accept infant baptism on an intellectual/emotional basis. But I had the will to accept it, and God granted me the rest in His own time.
The problem with dissent is that it begins with the assumption that individual conviction is the most important thing, and all else (including some of the most fundamental doctrines of the Church) has to give way to that.
I won’t comment on Kerry, since (being British) I have no personal involvement in the US election. I wish that the abortion debate was alive in this country (though one of our newspapers has been trying to make it so recently).
Sue
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rjmporter
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michael servant:
Tell me, does God love a person who performs abortions? How does one image God’s love to that person? By shouting in anger “Your going to hell!” or by pleadding in love “Stop! I don’t want you to go to hell, because I love you” The difference is in the motivation. Do I operate from a motive of love or a motive of hate. Christ operated from a motive of love, always. Even in revelation, he is pleading wit us to be on fire, to be hot. To be on fire with what? Hatred of the sinner? No, with love! Love that says, “You are too important to me and to God for me to continue allowing you to endanger your eternal life.”
I don’t want to be standing in Heaven dancing and laughing because you are suffering in hell, I want to be rejoycing, because you, like me, have called upon and received the mercy of God. To call being loving to sinners wishy washy is rediculous and an affront to the God who is love.
I am not certain if your post was in reply to mine, but in the event that it was, I do not recall ever saying that we should not speak the truth, but rather that we need to stop speaking the truth with hatred and start speaking the truth in love. If those who put so much effort into ending abortion by shouting “Your going to hell.” would spend just an hour praying for the salvation of those people, the world could be changed. But those with whom I have interacted are too giddy at the thought of the abortionist and his assistants burning in hell, to make such an effort.
Tell me, does God love a person who performs abortions? How does one image God’s love to that person? By shouting in anger “Your going to hell!” or by pleadding in love “Stop! I don’t want you to go to hell, because I love you” The difference is in the motivation. Do I operate from a motive of love or a motive of hate. Christ operated from a motive of love, always. Even in revelation, he is pleading wit us to be on fire, to be hot. To be on fire with what? Hatred of the sinner? No, with love! Love that says, “You are too important to me and to God for me to continue allowing you to endanger your eternal life.”
I don’t want to be standing in Heaven dancing and laughing because you are suffering in hell, I want to be rejoycing, because you, like me, have called upon and received the mercy of God. To call being loving to sinners wishy washy is rediculous and an affront to the God who is love.
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Savagedds
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Hi Alan,
Sorry it took 3 weeks to get back to you on this, I hope your’e still checking in on this thread.
I believe we are saying the same thing here, but expressing it in different ways. You acknowledge that a Catholic should at least refrain from publicly disputing the Church on a matter of faith or morals; that is what I meant by submitting to the Church.
You are right that we can’t be required to possess a “feeling” of belief, but then the Church does not require us to have a “sense” or “feeling” of belief on any given matter. The Church can only require us to act, as you stated above, but consider this: we demonstrate our faith by placing our trust in Christ and His Church. And that is more easily done when we feel it in our hearts than when we don’t. And doing the right thing when it is hard is more virtuous than doing so when it is easy.
Indeed, God sometimes allows our faith to be tested by being challenged in just that way. We are always free to question and wrestle with an issue. I believe spiritual growth can come from that as long as one willfully maintains his submission to the Church.
In your example, the person has taken the correct action by choosing to submit rather than to openly defy. And in my opinion, he has demonstrated greater virtue in so doing than another person who strongly believes, precisely because he has exercised his will over the objections of his emotions.
Think about what you just wrote, Alan! It won’t hurt Jesus any more than he is already hurt??? Is that what you want to hear your loved ones say about you? Now I have a series of questions for you:
1.Should we be in the habit of offending Jesus deliberately, since He’s already been offended anyway?
2.Is anyone, even a senator, entitled to partake of the Eucharist, or is the Blessed Sacrament more properly looked upon as a privelege?
3.I think we would agree that the Body and Blood of Jesus should be approached with extreme humility on our part. Don’t you agree that one demonstrates grave lack of humility when he demands to receive Him in open disobedience to His Church? And I’m talking about the action here, I’m not suggesting we attempt to judge anyone’s intentions.
4.The idea that taking communion illicity might “help transform him,” is counter to scripture: 1 Cor 11:29(RSV) For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.
Can it ever be wise to directly disobey the Church and go against scriptural teaching?
Peace be with you,
Jim
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