“Accept” means that you believe it to be true because of the authority of the Church, but not necessarily that you personally believe it. In other words, you realize that the Church must be correct because She has divine authority and knows better than you or I. You could privately doubt or disbelieve any matter of doctrine without incurring mortal sin, as long as you realize that your disbelief is a fault that you should (and do) try to correct.
Some of what I’m going to say has been stated in my other posts, but I think they would be appropriate here as well. As far as “accepting,” if Jesus, Himself, told me that the moon was made out of cheese, then I would have to accept that statement. Although I would be uneasy with that statement, I know that Jesus is the creator of the universe and therefore, what He says must be true. As far as accepting the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings, Jesus NEVER promised that they would be error free or that they would be expressed in a way, which would allow for their correct understanding by the people.
A recent example is Pope Francis’s statement about atheists and the counter-response given by Vatican representatives:
washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/24/pope-francis-suggests-atheists-good-deeds-gets-the/. Whether or not Pope Francis had the idea correct in his head, he clearly expressed it incorrectly and his statements were QUESTIONED. If Pope Francis’s statements were questioned by true believers (assuming the Vatican representatives weren’t heretics), I don’t see why true believers couldn’t also question anything else presented by the Roman Catholic Church (ie the Catechism, Lumen Gentium, etc.) since the Pope Francis example shows that things that come from humans may not be error free or may present the truth inaccurately.
I admit that Jesus promised to preserve His Church in the Bible. Many Roman Catholics will use that verse to say that the Roman Catholic Church must be infallible or error free due to the preservation. However, I’d like to argue that this interpretation, itself, may actually be wrong or definitely, needing clarification.
I’m open to the possibility that the Church being referred to is the invisible Church. I think we can all agree that the invisible Church is distinct from the Roman Catholic Church. This means that the invisible Church will include all true believers in Jesus Christ, whether they identify themselves as Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, etc. The Roman Catholic Church as well as other churches (churches with a lower case “c”) will have members who aren’t true believers and these aren’t members of the invisible Church.
Preserving the invisible Church may actually mean that Jesus will use the Eastern Orthodox and Protestants to bring up ideas that the RC Church should consider, so that steel can sharpen steel. Of course, the Eastern Orthodox and Protestants aren’t perfect themselves and they probably shouldn’t have let their egos cause them to cut off communication completely with the Roman Catholics or one another. At the same time, Jesus uses imperfect people all the time, like Paul, to bring up important matters, so the ideas of the Eastern Orthodox and Protestants should at least be considered.
Looking back at Church history, it seems like this might be the case anyway. The Roman Church may have had prominence, but there were also other Christian centers in Antioch, Alexandria, etc. It seemed like these churches were in different degrees of communion with one another depending on the political situation at the time, but they didn’t necessarily submit to the Roman Church. Even the specifics of the Trinity weren’t identical amongst these churches and that’s why there were so many councils, like the Council of Nicea, to iron out the differences. To me, this shows that Christendom is bigger than the Roman Church. Instead you had people UNITED IN THEIR ACCEPTANCE OF CHRIST who were loosely joint together and sharpening one another.
Going back to “accepting” the RC Church, how do you honestly and practically do that? With your definition of acceptance, I can see how it would be easy for someone to deceive himself and not truly accept. Just from personal experience, when I used to identify as Roman Catholic, I thought I accepted the Church’s teachings, but I didn’t even put effort into exploring any teachings other than those taught at Catechism classes. In fact, I’ve learned MORE about RC teachings, as well as Church history, as a non Roman Catholic in an effort to defend my ideas. How do you assure yourself that you did truly accept the RC Church? Is this assurance even possible?
