You Catholics are stupid you know? You mindlessly believe
whatever the Church tells you to and do whatever the Pope tells you to do. You
are sheeple.
I cannot tell you how often I hear something along these
lines. Are we required to believe whatever the Church tells us? Well, as with
most things with our faith the answer is a mix between yes and no.
Catholics are required to believe 100% of what the Church
teaches on faith and morals. This is a nonnegotiable. You cannot believe
something contrary to what the Church teaches in these areas and still be
Catholic no matter what you call yourself. We believe this because we believe
the promise Jesus made to this Church, his Church, that he would be with us
until the end of the age and that even the gates of the underworld would not
prevail against us. We believe that the Church is infallible in these matters
because Jesus would not allow her to enter into error.
Infallible is a word that means without error. We believe that our Pope, by his appointed position
as head disciple of the disciples, is infallible. Does this mean that we
believe that the Pope is without error in all things? Absolutely not. The Pope’s
infallibility only extends to his official teaching done from the Chair of
Peter in union with his bishops on matters of faith or morals. When it comes to
something like the sanctity of human marriage he cannot be wrong. When it comes
to something like what flavor of ice cream is best, what color papal robe to wear
to bed after Labor Day, or in the case
of Pope Francis, global warming, he is subject to the same possibility of being
wrong as any of us.
The Church has never changed a single one of her teachings
in the area of faith and morals, ever. What Jesus taught the twelve is the
exact same thing the Church teaches today. A truth is a truth and, like God, is
not subject to change. The Church may use different words today and may have
clarified teachings but the teachings themselves are the same. Words and
definitions of words change with the culture and so the Church must always
update her teachings with each generation. An author who marries himself to a
generation will be widowed in the next.
As Catholics we are required to believe 100% of what the
Church teaches. That does not mean we cannot question those teachings. Indeed,
the path to understanding comes through question, through seeking to
understand. The Angel of the Lord declared to Mary that she was to conceive Jesus.
She did not blindly say ok. She asked how. How can this be? How, why, and who are all valid
questions anyone who is seeking knowledge should ask but we do not start with
rejection. We start by accepting a statement and then seek to understand it.
God is good. Ok. Why is God good?
Unfortunately in the culture in which we live in today,
especially in America, everyone is their own pope. Everyone is an expert in
every subject even if they know absolutely nothing about the subject at hand.
It must be true; I read it on the internet. Instead of seeking to understand a
truth we form our own opinion on it based upon what is most desirable to us.
Then our opinion becomes fact for us and nothing sways us from it, even the
truth. We have an entire generation of people who now stand up and say “I believe” in Mass on Sunday but then
get to the parking lot and say “But the
Church is wrong on…”
Are we called to have blind faith? Not at all. The truth is
out there. We just have to open ourselves up to it. Not only does the Church
teach what Christ passed down to us but she goes to extremes to teach the hows and the whys. Many
people don’t want to know the whys because then they wouldn’t have an excuse to
disbelieve. The more I learn about this faith the more beautiful and
brilliantly genius it becomes. The more I learn the more it becomes abundantly
clear that it was the hand of God who designed this faith. I want to proclaim
from the mountain tops so everyone can find what I have found.
Instead, what I encounter most of the time are closed minded
people who have already determined for themselves what truth is and will not seek
to understand. Who really has the blind faith?
My heart is full because the tomb is empty.
