Wednesday Wordsmithing: What it means to be "Catholic"

THE PROBLEM

Every Sunday we profess in the Creed the mysteries of our faith that all Catholics must believe for all time. One of these mysteries is we believe the Church is "Catholic." We all have been taught in our childhood catechesis the word "catholic" means "universal." But, with the way things are going in the Catholic Church in America, I wonder if any our catechesis has sunk in. Do we fully grasp how important this word means to us? Why does it matter to be Catholic?

The benefits of knowing this allow us to discern what is true or false, good and evil, to know God's will more fully in our lives and how to be intensional disciples in a world that utterly hates Christ. Remove or confuse the meaning of "Catholic" from our minds, and we struggle to know who we are or what we are to do. We become tossed to and fro with every wave of doctrine.

There are forces at work inside the Catholic Church that have been trying to modify the identity of the Church according to a different idea of "universal." These "reformers" are trying to create a type of ecumenism, really a false ecumenism, that is essentially seeking a lowest common denominator among religions, Christian or non-Christian. The standards or principles that mark these differences are made irrelevant for the greater good of "unity", and when this occurs, according to them, we'll achieve this "unity." To do this, certain beliefs and practices existing in the Church stand in the way of these "reforms." These barriers, the orthodox teachings of the Church, and more particularly, our faith in them, is what's keeping the Church from achieving this utopian ideal.

To see this more clearly, I recommend author Allen Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind," where he describes the modern liberal as one who operates within a "cult of indescriminate-ness." If you ask a liberal what is the chief cause of all the injustices and wars we humans suffer, he would say it is in our belief in the existence of capital "T" Truth, mainly religious Truth, and our use of it to discriminate between it and what is false. The modern liberal sees no black or white, only shades of gray. Liberals believe that most wars that have been fought have been fought over the difference in religious ideas, over what is capital "T" Truth. Cease this arrogant and meaningless pursuit of Truth, according to the liberal, and the infinitely higher value of "unity" will end all wars. We will achieve a peace never know before.

See how "wonderful" this works! If Truth is relative, then I cannot condemn you for being in error, nor can you condemn me. You can have your truth; I can have mine, and we can have peace and harmony. No one can claim superiority--no one can feel inferior. Feelings reign supreme at the expense of reason and the Truth. Conversely, look at how the liberal gets angry at anyone who makes a Truth claim. When a Catholic Christian argues that a pre-born infant is a human being, Liberals condemn this person as arrogant and narrow-minded. "Who do you Christians think you are pushing your religious truth down other people's throats?"

As you have observed, and probably experienced, the modern Liberal is not as tolerant and nice as they would like you think. Plus, the absolutism they condemn in others, they do themselves! For them to say and believe that "truth is relative" is NOT a relative truth. And notice also, they apply this universally; it is a truth not just for themselves. No, we, who hold to capital "T" Truth must give in to their ideas. Why? Because they have the capital "T" Truth! Liberals condemn the existence of all captical "T" Truth except their own. Their sophistry hides the double standard so well, that they don't see themselves as arrogant! Everyone who makes truth claims is arrogant except the liberal.

This type of non-thinking has slithered into the Church under the name of ecumenism. So called "Catholics" attack the Church's principles from within, vilifying established teaching as divisive and uncharitable. This is not all.

There is something more insidious happening here in America. With a large number of Catholics who have been on the liberal bandwagon for quite some time, theologians see the need to identify this 'phenomena" as evidence of the Holy Spirit leading the Church, and thus there is a call to develop her doctrine. Imagine...using a pincers movement to manipulate the Church's sacred deposit of doctrine, get a majority of people to believe a certain way and then show this as fulfilling one of the criteria of the infallibility of the Church. In other words, allow for the faithful to be bamboozled with liberal doctrines; show that because this is what the faithful "have always believed" show this to be the work of the Holy Spirit, and because the Church is infallible; then make the case that the current teachings need to be modified to fit what the infallible Church believes. Very ingenious...and very deadly. I wonder...since the majority rules, so to speak, one could have made the same case for Arianism back at the Council of Nicea, right?

This philosophy has damaged the thinking of many professing Catholics. Ever hear things like, "Yeah, I'm a Catholic, but I disagree with what the Pope says about contraception and homosexuality. The Church has no right to tell married couples what to do in bed; they should stop making people feel guilty for a sexual preference that God gave them." Really? If that is the case, then why condemn priests and call them pedophiles when they were acting on the homosexual impulses God gave them. Notice the double standard again?

When people say what we have just describe, they are rejecting the Creed and embracing private interpretation. It is a crisis of faith. People, who call themselves Catholic, have taken charge of their own "truth." They love privately interpreting what is true; and, they hate having to answer to any Pope besides themselves. They become self-interpreting little deities who will not allow their authority to be challenged. Something must change to stop this, or we may lose the Catholic Church in America.

WHAT IS NEEDED

In the face of threat of liberalism, we need to know what it means to be Catholic if we are going to remain Catholic. We can no longer let liberalism define the terms of battle. The quarrel is really about WHO says what is True--the Liberal, or Christ? And if it is Christ who defines what is True, how do we know it is Christ who is defining Himself?

AN ANALOGY OF "CATHOLIC"

As we said before, the word "Catholic" means "universal", but our current understanding of universal doesn't accurately describe it and leaves itself open to more "subtle" variations of the liberal kind. More accurately "catholic" means "pertaining to the whole." Here's a good analogy that will help us understand the term better.

"Friendship bread" is a type of sourdough recipe that you can distribute to friends so that everyone of your friends can actually eat of the "same bread." In its raw state, the initial batch of "starter", which is a yeasty activator, allows the combined ingredients of the bread to rise. Portions of this starter can be given to other people, whereby they can use it to make their own starter to make their own bread, and divide their starter again and share it with others. With this passing of starter from people to people, it's possible for one single batch of starter to be multiplied and spread to millions of households all over the world if its integrity is maintained.

This analogy works for our purpose; all of these millions of hypothetical loaves of bread come from the one same starter---they are all in essence, "one loaf." Thus, all these loaves are "catholic." It doesn't matter if they are thousands of miles away, or if the starter lives on until the year 2235 A.D.; they all "pertain to the whole."

So let's apply this analogy to our situation. The Holy Trinity, shares Jesus with the world by coming into union with the Church, whereby the "starter", Jesus Christ, is fully alive and living in His Church. This same Church, with the living Christ, passes through all of history up until now, spreading through different lands, impacting different people groups and ethnicities up to and including us today. We are in a true unity with the entire Church, no matter what time or place, from the very beginning with the same "starter", Jesus!

THE CHURCH DEFINES ITS IDENTITY

Here's what the Church has to say about her catholicity. In RESPONSES TO SOME QUESTIONS REGARDING CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE DOCTRINE ON THE CHURCH, the CDC, with the Holy Father approval, repeats what the Second Vatican Council stated, that the Church of Jesus Christ subsists in the Catholic Church. For something "to subsist" means that this something is present fully and completely. So this document states, "‘subsistence’ means this perduring, historical continuity and the permanence of all the elements instituted by Christ in the Catholic Church, in which the Church of Christ is concretely found on this earth." In layman's terms, in all that Christ intended for the Church from the very beginning, in His union with Her, in Her mission to humankind, in Her doctrines, in Her sacraments, in Her liturgies, in Her life-giving Gospel, in Her morals--in Her entirety, no matter where or when, throughout all of history, even unto today, has been present in our world and is fully present in the Catholic Church.

So let's develop this. There never has been a time on earth when the Catholicity of the Church had been lost or violated. There has NEVER been a time when Jesus Christ was not in the Church! People cannot destroy this catholicity; they can only remove themselves from it. Professing Catholics, by their own sins or false beliefs, exclude themselves from the catholicity that is in Christ and His Church. Heretics, who call themselves "Catholic" may come to lead people astray, but the catholicity of the Church is retained. It is the heretic who abandons the Church's catholicity. There is NOTHING, I mean NOTHING that can destroy the Church's catholicity. Jesus is here to stay! Man, oh, MAN, what a Truth!!

Now if the Liberal wants you to "prove" this, don't get flustered. This is not provable by logic, for the Catholic or for the Liberal. It is a matter of faith...the Catholic and the Liberal. To the Liberal, their belief is in the individual's right to privately determine what is true. There is no way that they can prove their own beliefs as true. The Liberal's "truth" is a matter of faith in the individual. And, it must be automatically accepted as True, becoming what is described in the language of logic an a priori. It is self-evident; it needs no proof.

The Catholic, on the other hand, sees the Catholicity of the Church as a mystery; it is a truth from revelation which has no proof nor need of it. There is no logical proof for it. It is a matter of faith. It comes from Christ, and we accept that.

So if the Liberal calls for you to prove the truthfulness of what we believe, tell him to go first, since proof of a belief is so important. And then watch him struggle. Point to the author of his faith, himself, and watch him struggle some more. Show him that his faith is really in himself, and that your faith is in Jesus Christ, who is fully in the Catholic Church. And don't fall for the ploy that if you cannot convince him that what you believe is true, then you have failed to show that what you believe is true. Watch out here. Convincing a liberal of the truthfulness our Catholic faith is not a proof of truthfulness. This is just another schem they use to set themselves up as the final arbitors of truth. They think that they are our judges. Don't waste your time; expose their hypocrisy.

So you see, the clash between the ideologies of Liberalism and Catholicism is and always has been a matter of faith. And when you state this to a liberal, be prepared for a fight. They hate being exposed as dogmatic. They love to condemn US as dogmatists; they are the objective ones! They hide their dogmatism in their sophistry, and when exposed, they turn into vicious animals with no defense against except personal attack. But, that's okay! We fear Christ's final judgment of us more than their judgment. We won't die if they don't like us. We need to be more concerned for their spiritual welfare than whether or not they like us.

So stand fast, my brothers and sisters! BE PROUD OF THE NAME CATHOLIC. It is not the name of a denomination, but it is a characteristic of our Church who is in complete union with her Lord, Jesus Christ from the very beginning. "Catholic" is the characteristic of Christ! And if anyone says they have a "better way" to interpret Christ, or suggest that we deviate from the Pope, the magesterium or any of the counsels, including the dreaded "spirit of Vatican II," know that they are offering you bread from an entirely different loaf.