RCIA talk on the Pope

Covering the Pope in light of scripture and sacred tradition.  Four pages on the Pope.  16 minutes.
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If you’ve been watching the news, you may hear about the United States negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran. Perhaps you’ll hear something like “President Obama has reach and agreement with Ayatollah Khameni over Iran’s nuclear program.” You may also hear a news story about the economic problems in Greece. You may hear something like “Greek Prime Minister Tsipras has negotiated a bailout with German Chancellor Merkel and other European heads of state.” If you’re a sports fan, you hear something like “NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has suspended Tom Brady for four games due to his role in cheating last year.”

All of these stories have a common theme: there’s usually one or two larger than life figures who chart a new course in history by virtue of their authority and office. These issues are likely more complicated than they are portrayed by the media. The essence of telling the news is to tell a story and it’s easier to tell a story when there are a limited number of characters so complex negotiations and teams of analysis, lieutenants and lawyers are compressed to the drama of two or three people sitting at a table arguing over whatever issue is before them.

The deal with Iran is a good example of this. Barack Obama is the president: he has the authority to enter into treaties with other nations. Previous presidents may have had different ideas about how to deal with Iran and the next president may again have different ideas. But whoever the president is, his opinions are ultimately what counts in these situations. Of course, each country has it’s own national security and economic concerns. There are likely dozens of people on each side, perhaps hundreds, who have inputs to the negotiations but ultimately it’s portrayed as a battle of wills between the president of the US on one side and the supreme leader of Iran on the other, with little attention given to the values of either country.

It’s easy to see the Pope in this same way. It’s easy to see the Pope as the king of the Church: ruling with an iron fist and basically doing whatever he wants. We expect our worldly leaders to be innovators: to update things, to put aside structures and ideas designed for an earlier age. And it’s easy to see the Pope in the same light. But that’s exactly the wrong way to look at the Pope.

The Church’s teachings are based on three elements: Scripture, Sacred Tradition and Magisterial Teaching. They all depend on each other. They are often compared to three legs of a stool. If either is taken away, or given undue prominence, the stool will fall over.

Let’s look at the first two. When Jesus was on Earth, He didn’t write a book, nor did He instruct His followers to write a book. Jesus was an itinerant preacher. He traveled from place to place speaking to the crowds. Many of those sayings were written down in the Gospels written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But many weren’t. We know that from the Bible itself. The end of the Gospel according to John indicates that only a portion of Jesus’ teaching and actions were written down and in the book of Acts we have an example. Paul writes in Acts 20:35 “The Lord Jesus Himself said it’s better to give than receive,” but those words don’t actually appear in any gospel. Paul would have had to hear that from one of the original disciples of Jesus, but those disciples didn’t include that saying in one of the Gospels for some reason. But what they did write down, along with the writings of the apostles and the Jewish scriptures is revered by Catholics today. We greatly honor the Bible, standing when the Gospels are read at Mass, for instance.

The Sacred Tradition, then, is the sayings and actions of Jesus that didn’t get written down in the Bible. When the apostles began spreading the word, they had their own disciples that learned about Jesus and wrote down what they heard. And then the disciples of the apostles had their own disciples and on and on. These people who lived in the first few centuries of the Church are collectively called the Church Fathers, and many documents written by them survive today. By reading those documents we can understand what the early Church believed and how they acted and what they valued. The Church Fathers are an important historical record of the faith handed down by the apostles. They are not authoritative in and of themselves. A specific Church Father may write something that’s his opinion and therefore is merely an interesting opinion of an interesting person. But when we read multiple Church Fathers all asserting the same thing, then we can believe that this was the universal faith of the early Church. So things like the role of the Pope, the nature of the priesthood, the duties of Christians in society, how to interact with non believers, the role of men and women are all dealt with by the Church Fathers and are an important part of official Church Teaching.

The magisterium is the third leg of the stool and supports the others. The magisterium is the teaching office of the Church and is made up of the Pope and the bishops in union with the Pope. The bishops are part of the magisterium, but properly speaking, the bishops only make formal doctrinal statements when all the bishops in the world get together in a “Church Council”. The Pope has the authority to speak on behalf of the entire college of bishops. The purpose of the magisterium is to be a living interpreter of the scriptures and Sacred Tradition.

As an example of how this works, consider the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, the so-called Bread of Life discourse. In this chapter, Jesus gives a sermon in which He says that He is the Bread of Life come down from heaven and who eats of this bread will live forever. But what can this mean? Does it mean that we must physically eat a person’s body? Or is it symbolic? It’s not possible to know from the Bible alone: Christians are divided even today upon that point. But it we look at it through the perspective of the Church Fathers and the consistent teachings of the magisterium, it’s clear that Jesus was referring to consuming His real presence in the Eucharist.

So scripture must be interpreted with the help of the magisterium and the Church Fathers, and the Church Fathers have to be read as being consistent with scriptures and the magisterium and the magisterium has to be understood as being consistent with scriptures and the Church Fathers. Neither can contradict the others. The Catholic Faith is summarized in The Catechism of The Catholic Church. All three legs of that stool are brought together to explain the Church’s teachings.

Many of the teachings of the Catholic Church are mysteries that our minds can’t fully comprehend. How can Jesus be God and man? How did he, as a child, learn to walk and talk when He, as God, is omniscient? How could he die on the cross? Can an immortal and eternal God die? You can see how people, in an attempt to explain these mysteries, might “simplify” things a bit so that we could more easily understand them. So you end up with heresies that deny Jesus was human at all. Or you end up with heresies that deny He was really God. Or you get heresies that claim He was a man who was “possessed” by God. These are all wrong. But when the Church says a heresy is wrong, it’s obligated to define what the correct answer is. And so it has to define the teaching it’s trying to affirm, which is what we mean by “defining a dogma”. This is done by the magisterium.

This leads us to the big issue with the magisterium: papal infallibility. The dogma of “papal infallibility” means that the Pope, when speaking on matters of faith and morals cannot teach error. Infallibility does not mean that everything the pope says is correct. It means that the Pope cannot teach error in matters of faith and morals. It is a gift for the benefit of the faithful, not for the benefit of the Pope. The Holy Spirit prevents the Pope from saying otherwise.

In an upcoming class, I’ll discuss the role of Mary in the Church, but I want to touch on one of the Marian dogmas here because it’s an example of the exercise in papal infallibility. At issue is the Assumption of Mary, which is a dogma of the Church that says that at the end of Mary’s earthly life she was raised bodily into heaven. This was infallibly declared by Pope Pius XII in the 1950s. Prior to declaring the dogma of the Assumption, Pius XII had written an encyclical called Deiparae Virginis Mariae in which he raised the possibility of declaring this dogma. He cited support from the council fathers in Vatican I as well as popular support from the faithful. In the encyclical, he asked the bishops throughout the world whether they would assent to declaring the Assumption to be a dogma of the Church. The response was nearly unanimous, so four years later he issued the encyclical Munificentissimus Deus, establishing the dogma of the Assumption.

This is a slow deliberative process. If we look further into the Assumption, we’d find that at the time that Pius XII declared the Assumption to be a dogma, most Catholics believed in it, but they believed a lot of extra details. Some believe that Mary died and after three days was raised from the dead and then was assumed into Heaven. Some believe that Mary did not die, but was simply assumed into Heaven when her time on Earth was finished. Some believe that all of the apostles were transported to where Mary was at the time of the Assumption. Some believe that was in Ephesus, some believe it was in Jerusalem. These beliefs can be cause for division and conflict. Pius XII does not address them at all, and this is the essence of “defining” a dogma. The dogma of the Assumption states that Mary was assumed bodily into Heaven. Period. If you wish to believe that she died first, then that’s OK, but you can’t criticize or condemn anyone who believed otherwise. The Church makes no statement about that, so either view is OK. So in a sense by defining the Dogma, the Church has not imposed a belief on the faithful, but has given the faithful freedom to agree to disagree about the non-essential elements.

If we have to understand the pope and the bishops as being consistent with the Catechism, then it raises a couple of questions. The first one is: why do we need the pope? We can just read the Catechism to know what to do? The simple answer is that the Catechism itself was created by the magisterium and so depends on it. The Catechism that’s currently in circulation was published in the 1990s and is the latest in a series of catechisms published by the Church. Things change and already the Catechism is started to feel a little out of date because it does not directly address some of the issues that are looming today that perhaps were only science fiction in the 1990s: things like embryonic stem cells, “adult chat rooms” on the internet, human cloning and the like. The magisterium is needed to apply the consistent teachings of the Church to the situations that exist in the world today.

The second question that might come up is: if the pope can’t contradict Scripture and Sacred Tradition, what can he do? The pope does possess a great deal of authority. For instance, he names all the members of the curia, the body that runs the various departments in the Vatican which has a great influence on the life of the Church. He also is the supreme legislator of the Church and can update Canon Law and change the disciplines of the Church (for example, fasting during Lent). All of the bishops are instructed to “tend their flocks” and, as such, you’d expect bishops to identify and speak on the issues that most affect their dioceses. A bishop in a border diocese may focus on immigration, for instance. The Pope is uniquely positioned to set an agenda for the entire Church. The Italians have a saying “first a fat pope, then a skinny pope.” One pope may want to focus on a specific set of issues and the next pope may focus on a different set of issues depending on the events of the day, and each person’s natural inclinations.

Strictly speaking, the Pope is no different than any other speaker when he strays from the narrow confines of faith and morals. He has the normal human quotient of charisma and dramatic flourishes to make a point. He can give a stirring speech. He can instruct, reprove, guide and comfort. He can also make factual errors, misstate things, and even make errors of judgement in what he chooses to talk about. But the fact that he’s straying from the bounds of faith and morals doesn’t mean his speeches are irrelevant. He’s preaching a message that he thinks is important today, so we should at least give him the benefit of the doubt. If he says something that’s factually wrong, or inconsistent with our experience, we should still try to take his deeper meaning and apply it to our lives. The Pope is the the Vicar of Christ (“vicar” comes from the same latin word where we get “vice” as in “vice-president”) and as such he speaks with great authority even when speaking off the cuff. Put simply, the Pope is the Pope. His opinions should count in our lives, when properly interpreted in light of scripture and Sacred Tradition.

The Difficulties and Opportunities in Defending Marriage

The great Ryan T Anderson has a thought provoking post up at First Things.

The two-thousand-year story of the Christian Church’s cultural and intellectual growth is a story of challenges answered. For the early Church, there were debates about who God is (and who is God). In response, the Church developed the wonderfully rich reflections of Trinitarian theology and Christology. In a sense, we have the early heresies to thank for this accomplishment. Arius’s errors gave us Athanasius’s refinements on Christology. Nestorius’s blunders gave us Cyril’s insights. In truth, of course, we have the Holy Spirit to thank for it all. He continually leads the Church to defend and deepen its understanding of the truth, against the peculiar errors of the age.

He then connects the current confusions about the nature of man, including the nature of marriage, to "the peculiar errors of the age" and proposes that the Church will have to deepen it's understanding of marriage and man himself to combat it.

I can't say I had actually thought of that before.  At least not all of it.  I thought a bit more along the lines of Chesterton.

It is very hard for a man to defend anything of which he is entirely convinced. It is comparatively easy when he is only partially convinced. He is partially convinced because he has found this or that proof of the thing, and he can expound it. But a man is not really convinced of a philosophic theory when he finds that something proves it. He is only really convinced when he finds that everything proves it. And the more converging reasons he finds pointing to this conviction, the more bewildered he is if asked suddenly to sum them up. Thus, if one asked an ordinary intelligent man, on the spur of the moment, "Why do you prefer civilization to savagery?" he would look wildly round at object after object, and would only be able to answer vaguely, "Why, there is that bookcase . . . and the coals in the coal-scuttle . . . and pianos . . . and policemen." The whole case for civilization is that the case for it is complex. It has done so many things. But that very multiplicity of proof which ought to make reply overwhelming makes reply impossible. (Orthodoxy, chapter 6, The Paradoxes of Christianity)

Reading the various responses that Catholics, and Catholic leaders have made to the recent attacks on marriage certainly brings to mind Chesterton's "ordinary intelligent man".  I think it's fair to say that for centuries, no defense of marriage was necessary and so no justification was developed.  When the social justice warriors of the last ten or twenty years started asking sharp questions about what marriage is, no one could answer because they never thought of it. I certainly never did.  A clever rhetorician could demolish most arguments, and there are some very skilled rhetoricians on the other side.

But not all is lost.  The Summer 2014 Volume of Communio is full of thoughtful, beautiful ideas about marriage.  So is the so-called "Five Cardinals book".  Actually, while browsing through those books, I found myself wanting to rush out and renew my marriage vows.  But they are a bit deep.  I'm not sure that the "ordinary intelligent man" will dive right into them.  We need a modern-day Fulton Sheen who can turn the theological and historical (and dry) prose into ordinary rhetoric and can be understood and remembered.

I think that it's clear that the foundation is being laid.  It'd be nice if we had all this done a few years ago so the innovators at the Family Synods wouldn't have such an easy time of it. But as they say: The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago.  The second best time to plant a tree is today.

Today's 2nd Reading in Light of Recent Events

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

7 And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. 8 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. 9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake : for when I am weak, then am I strong. 

It would seem appropriate that this reading be proclaimed in Mass following the Supreme Court decision to impose same-sex "marriage" on the entire nation.  The Church today certainly seems weak: too weak to even count on it's own members to affirm the Church's teaching on marriage.

St Paul said that he was given a "thorn in the flesh" but we don't know what it is.   Paul calls it "the messenger of Satan", and the Navarre Bible speculates that Paul is talking about some sort of physical defect that would make evangelization difficult, something that Satan would certainly want.  Perhaps it was a physical abnormality that would cause people to look away when Paul was near: an open wound, perhaps, or warts on his face.  Or perhaps it was a speech impediment.  There is some evidence in Paul's writings that he was a better writer than a speaker.

Paul prayed to God to have whatever this was removed from him, but God responded that His grace was sufficient for Paul.  We can imagine Paul having the best of intentions for seeing this thorn removed: he'd be a better evangelist.  It's only logical that if he were to be an evangelist that God would help him out.  But that would not be. 

God's grace was sufficient for Paul, and His strength is made perfect in weakness.  God's grace is sufficient to do what?  To endure the thorn?  To overcome it?  To evangelize in spite of it?  How does His strength demonstrate itself in weakness?  The classic understanding of this is that when we put our trust in ourselves, or in other people, we will be let down. Every time.  But in the struggle, we can see God's power.  When we acknowledge our own limitations, then it's clear that every success we have is through God. But as long as we think that our success is due to to our own skills, then our pride will block God's glory from being seen.

So what does that mean for us today?  Certainly, we have a militantly secular government in the US and that could be seen as a thorn in our side.  It does certainly seem to be an impediment to evangelization: the government does not recognize that the separation of Church and State and will eventually seek to impose it's will on every aspect of Church life. Today it's contraception and abortion coverage in health insurance. Soon it may be forcing priests to marry homosexuals.  Soon it may be prosecuting priests with hate crimes if they speak out against the gay agenda (though that won't be an issue in my parish, I'm afraid).  These efforts deliberately seek to marginalize the Church and turn opinion against it.

The Church has prayed for relief from this thorn.  It has just completed another Fortnight for Freedom.  And the effect of these annual prayer campaigns has been that things have gotten worse, not better.  It seems that God is saying "My grace is sufficient for you and my power is made perfect in weakness."

Benedict XVI's prophesy is coming true.  The Church will lose it's edifices and structures.  Catholic hospitals may need to be sold off to avoid cooperation with evil. Catholic charities may shrink from their public service as they are forced to embrace contraception, abortion, gay marriage and the rest.  Should the Church lose it's tax exempt status, the physical structure of the Church will shrink as some parishes will close and others will be forced to sell off their parish centers and auditoriums to bring their property tax bill in line with their ability to pay. 

In short, the Church will lose it's power to enforce it's teachings on it's own members and indirectly on society.  The Church will be a humble organization with little official influence and will have to rely on the power of persuasion and not on social conformity and good manners to get it's message across.  It will have to propose these beliefs with conviction, but also with humility.  For instance, it won't be enough for Father Barron to explain why the Church should have the right to believe what it believes.   In the future, Father Barron might have to explain why the Church believes what it believes.  That has been lacking.  And in the future we'll have to explain the Church's teaching without schools, without organized charity, without publishing houses, without universities and without hospitals.  All those things, that should have made it easy to evangelize have been judged by God to be unnecessary at best and a distraction at worst.  He has given us this thorn to focus our attention on what's important.

Old Words from Frank Sheed about the New Ideas on Marriage

I heard a priest reference this in a homily last night, applying them to the recent SCOTUS decision to impose same-sex "marriage" on all fifty states.

Man is taken simply as a word, the label for a particular kind of being (the kind to which we belong ourselves), and nobody stops for any serious consideration of what the word means. We proceed immediately to consider how to make the creature happier without ever asking what the creature is. It should be just the other way round. When some new proposal is made which affects the way men live, our immediate reaction is always to ask, Will it make men happier? But this should be the second question, not the first. The first question should be, Does it fit the nature of man?

The total ignoring of this question runs all through modern life. Education provides an illustration perfect enough to be almost farcical. Throughout most of the Western world, the State is regarded as the normal educator. Schools not conducted by it are regarded as eccentric, and in most countries they exist only precariously. This situation, I say, is taken as normal, whereas in fact it is grotesque. There are hundreds of definitions of education. But one may take as a minimum definition, one which would be accepted by practically everybody, that education is to fit men for living. Supposing you were to write to the Education Department of your State something to this effect: “I note that you are in the business of fitting men for living.  Would you mind telling me what a man is?” The only possible answer would be that we live in a liberal democracy: every man is entitled to accept any religion or philosophy he pleases, and according to its teaching hold his own view—that man is matter, or spirit, or both, or neither: the State does not decide among them, it is wholly neutral, it does not know what a man is.  If you were then to write further and say: “I note that as the State you do not know what a man is. Do you know what living is for?” the answer could only be the same—that it is a matter for each citizen to decide for himself, the State is neutral, the State does not know. I have called this grotesque, and that is to flatter it. To be fitting men for living, not only without knowing what man is or what life is for, but without even thinking the questions relevant, indeed without ever having asked them—it is odd beyond all words.
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At every turn, not only in education, but in the whole life of Society, the treatment of human beings by one another and of the citizens by the State needs testing by the question, What is man? And it is never asked. The State does not know what man is, and is taking more and more control of man’s life.
Excerpt From: Sheed, Frank. “Society and Sanity.” iBooks. 

It's hard to argue with that.  It's clear that there's no consensus on "What man is." Perhaps there never was, but for the purposes of politeness, the Judeo-Christian image was accepted in the West.  But today with the secular redefinition of everything, including the nature of man, the role of religion, the idea of gender and the concept of procreation, the redefinition of marriage is not surprising.

AD. Season 1

The first season of NBC's mid-year hit AD: The Bible Continues wrapped up a couple of weeks ago. I've been watching it and as the season went on my enjoyment of the series went down with it. 

First of all, I feel guilty even saying that.  With such shows as Keeping Up With the Kardashians on TV, I feel blessed that something like AD is on at all.  And it's earnest in it's portrayal of early Christianity. It's respectful of the faith of the apostles and their sincerity in preaching the Gospel.  It is a dramatization of the Book of Acts, so I can forgive some artistic license with historical facts.

But it's a deeply Protestant show.  Again, I don't exactly care about that, but there are some things in the show that seem to be in direct conflict with the Book of Acts and all those things seem designed to highlight the Protestant version of early Christianity.

Acts 5:42 says that the "And every day in the temple and at home they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ." However, in AD, the apostles are only occasionally preaching.  In the short season that just ended the apostles are typically depicted hiding in the Upper Room with the windows drawn, pacing back and forth debating what they should do.  Then one will say: "We need to preach!" and they'll spill out into the streets preaching about Jesus by they the next episode they are back in the upper room.  The depiction of the apostles huddled together is consistent with the Book of Acts before Pentecost, but there is nothing in Acts that would suggest that situation after Pentecost.

But there's one exception: Paul.  Paul is on fire, man!  He's hot for blood before the road to Damascus incident and he's hot to win souls afterwards.  He's not one to let moss grow under his feet! Nosiree!  In fact, according to scriptures, Paul spent 3 years in instruction before he took off to preach the Word.  This is one of the "Protestant" things in the show: highlighting the work of Paul as superior to the efforts of the other apostles.  There's an evangelical theme here as well: preaching from the heart with the trust that the Holy Spirit will provide the words.  Never mind all that book learning: I have the Spirit.

Also Acts 2:46-47 says "And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people."  But in AD, there's only one scene so far where they celebrated anything like the Eucharist, and in that scene, it's unclear that they meant anything by it except a symbol.  There's also plenty of baptisms but no confirmation, though the depiction of Cornelius and his family receiving the Holy Spirit was interesting.  This downplaying of the sacraments is, again, pretty normal from a Protestant standpoint, but it's not consistent with the Bible.

The Book of Acts does not mention the apostles leaving Jerusalem to go their own ways.  In the show, the apostles seem to be drifting away one at a time, and that's probably OK from a narrative standpoint.  It might have happened that way.  But it gives the impression of more or less constant discord in the group of apostles.  Almost as if one by one, they are leaving Peter to go out on their own.  Hmm...

I should mention that the same people behind this series produced The Bible a few years back and in that show there was much more emphasis on the sacraments and the Apostles all split up at the same time by mutual accord to spread the Gospel to the ends of the Earth.  I think the one-by-one departure of the apostles in this series is a dramatic device to keep the story in Jerusalem. It's easier to depict the various struggles and intrigues if everyone is in the same place.

Finally, I do like the characters of Pilate and Caiaphas. I'm less sure about their wives.  I'd defer to someone else to tell me if that's an accurate or reasonable depiction.  But the depiction of how those two interact with each other and their motivations and the means by which they rule is interesting.

I'm also happy to note that there's no stuffy feminism or other modern hangups in this series. No crypto-women priests or ministers.  No claims that Mary Magdalen is Jesus' wife, or a leader of the apostles, nor is she depicted as being oppressed by the apostles.  And there is a subtle sacramental nature to the film as when it's time to baptize or cure someone or raise someone from the dead, people go find an apostle to do it.  And it's the only show on TV that's not advocating for gay marriage.

I read that the series was renewed but I don't know when it will start. I've been wondering how much longer they will go with it: how much material is there in the Book of Acts?  And I wonder if they'll spin off a series following Paul on his travels.