Make Conservatives Catholic Again (part IV)

“Jesus said to him in reply, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Messiah.

“From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, ‘God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.’ He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do’.” (Matt 16:17-23)

[Part III of the series is here.]

Oh, the mystery that is Peter! In one divine breath, he is appointed the vicar – one who stands in the place of - the King of kings and Lord of lords of the universe. And literally, in the very next breath, he is denounced as a devil/adversary! What does it mean? Are Peter and his successors trustworthy or not? Do they hold all authority over the Church or not? Must we obey them all the time, some of the time, or – as a mere “talking head” - not at all, if we don’t feel it appropriate?

Nowadays, there are countless classifications within the science of theology. References to canon law, "ordinary magisterium", ordinary universal magisterium, ex cathedra teachings, theological certainties, theological speculation, material dogmas, formal dogmas and the list goes on for quite some time. A good many Catholics have never heard of many of these terms and yet all are expected to submit to the pope as to God Himself, according to Pope Leo XIII. (See part I of this series.) How does one parse all of that without an advanced theological degree? A papal bull, an apostolic exhortation, an encyclical; papal phone calls, audiences, appointments, interviews on airplanes, motu proprio’s. How do we give each their proper weight and due response if we don’t happen to be theologians?

How did the Christians of old do it when all Jesus left them with was a declaration that he was giving the keys of the kingdom to Peter, a pronouncement that whatever the apostles bound on Earth would be bound in Heaven, and a simple assertion that whoever listens to the apostles listens to Him and whoever rejects the apostles rejects Him and His Father who sent Him? (cf. Luke 10:16)

I would submit to you that good Catholics kept, and continue to keep, it pretty simple. In a proverbial nutshell, unless the pope is commanding something of you that is truly immoral or impossible in some way (i.e. “Drop and give me 1000 push ups!”), you must obey him. And if he is teaching anything in a formal, official capacity to the universal Church, we cannot question him. At the end of the day, it really is that simple for the vast majority of the Church.

There are times when it can get a little more complicated than this. Maybe the Holy Father is conducting an interview on an airplane with a reporter and he mentions “climate change”, which the pope clearly believes is being caused or strongly influenced in some way by mankind. Let’s say you have reason to believe that no such thing is happening. Are you required to believe in “climate change” because the pope said it’s real? No. Any given pope can speak “off the cuff” at any moment and say things that simply arent true in those moments.

But what if the pope were to write an encyclical in which he references “climate change”? Would you be required to believe in it then? In a case like this, I would recommend paying close attention to the details. If “climate change”, in this hypothetical encyclical, is not clearly defined, then the impact of believing in it or not believing in it is actually not terribly consequential in the first place, for one thing. Because what does climate change MEAN here exactly? And what are the specific practical implications of that, according to the Holy Father? If he doesn’t specify, the rest of us are not expected to “fill in the blanks” for him.

For another thing, be very much on guard against false associations. Some of us hear the term “climate change” and we automatically and immediately associate believers in it with: being Democrats, vegans, “pro-gay”, happy that Macron in the president of France, proponents of the World Economic Forum, and on and on and on, when potentially NONE of any of this follows. I say again – beware of false associations.

Additionally, for something to qualify as official Church teaching, it has to pertain to faith and/or morals in some way. This gets a little tricky sometimes because theology is interwoven into the whole rest of human life. So, there is overlap. For example, the Church insists that all of mankind descended from two original human beings. Their names may or may not have actually been “Adam” and “Eve”, and they certainly do not have to have lived 6,000 years ago. But whatever the case, the fact that all of the rest of us biologically descend from one set of parents rather than multiple is a dogma of the Catholic faith. So, it’s not always easy to parse when an assertion is fundamentally theological or fundamentally scientific (or political or whatever else). But keep this principle in mind.

I again suggest that you keep things simple. Remember that we are Catholics, not Mormons. The Mormon "pope” can change the substance of the Mormon faith at any given moment. A Catholic pope cannot. Note carefully that I didn’t say “is not allowed to”, as if it were possible in the first place but prohibited. Jesus said the gates of hell would not prevail over the Church and he meant it. Not merely in regards to infallible teaching, but ALL official teaching from the magisterium. So, the substance of the Catholic faith never changes. Therefore, there is no need to log on to the internet every day to read the latest from Rome. Not only is it not necessary, be careful that for you it's not an active distraction from living an authentic and productive Catholic life.

Social media and its spotlight on everything, everywhere all the time is a very unique, detrimental component of our modern age. It, along with the spirit of democracy, has given us the very mistaken impression that the rest of us Catholics have not only the option but almost a duty to “police” statements from the pope daily and to rise up against them when we feel he he either misspoken or misstepped in some way. This was absolutely unheard of until modern times – until the pontificate of Pope Francis in particular – and it needs to change.

Michele Dillon, a sociologist and dean of the University of New Hampshire's College of Liberal Arts said it well: “...if Pope John Paul II—considered a more conservative pontiff—had been subjected to a similar form of public dissent by liberal bishops, ‘that would be seen as being heretical by the very same bishops who now seem to be calling out Pope Francis and exaggerating what it is he is doing’.”

Not just “seen as” in some cases...

Is it a mortal sin to publicly dissent from the pope? We’ll take a look at that question in two weeks. In conclusion this round, note that the catechism backs up the simple approach to obedience to the Holy Father when it defines “schism” simply as “the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him” (2089)…Period. No qualification at all.

Canon law does qualifies this teaching some. But those qualifications amount to, “Unless the pope is commanding you to sin, you have to do what he says, and unless he is only acting in his personal capacity as a private theologian, you cant contest what he teaches you.”

Dear conservative Catholics who oppose the pope – It’s time to stop and to become fully Catholic again.