Why Call Yourself Catholic If You Hold A Dissenting View?

[Brother Vinny]

I just witnessed someone's post in another thread here that, in short, expressed the preference of one's own opinion over that of the Church in a matter on which she has spoken. And, of course, I look over at the member's postbit, and he has "Catholic" listed for his religion.

In this case, the topic was Freemasonry, but couldn't it readily have been about a zillion other things? I mean, c'mon! There is something wrong when there exists in Christendom such a beast as a pro-choice nun, and yet I know they exist.

A large part of what makes a Catholic is what he believes about the Church, to wit, that she is the pillar and bulwark of truth, the defender of the [i]Fidei Depositum,[/i] against which the gates of hell will not prevail. If you believe this about the Church, and if you're going to trust her in matters such as which books are canon, what defines justification, and matters vital to your relationship with Christ, why are you going to quibble when she tells you membership in certain clubs is detrimental to your spiritual formation? If you believe her when she tells you that bread and wine literally become the flesh, blood, spirit and divinity of Jesus Christ, why argue when she tells you a microscopic bundle of cells is a life worth protecting?

And if you are dead set on esteeming your own opinion on these matters over hers, why then call yourself Catholic?

I have many imperfections, and there have been times in my life when I've held dissenting views, but during these times I've at least had the intellectual honesty to call myself other than "Catholic," because the word for me holds the implication of full communion with Rome. When I sin as a Catholic, I am in full agreement with the Church that I have sinned and am willing to take the steps necessary to repair my relationship with Christ. To use the word "Catholic" without deference to the Church is to rob the word of meaning, and I pray for the grace never to do that.

Sorry for soapboxing, and have a nice weekend.

[Nihil Obstat]

It's because they aren't being corrected strongly enough, and when push comes to shove, we've been letting them call themselves whatever they want.


I'm sorry. I'm cynical, frustrated, and grumpy tonight.

[Nihil Obstat]

Off to the LB for me.......

[CatherineM]

This reminded me of a KofC dinner not long after the election. It was a fundraiser for the Seminary I attend, so I had to go eventhough I couldn't eat the food being served. A woman who sat at my table, hearing my Southern accent knew I was American, and started talking about Obama. I explained that I didn't vote for him, and why. I was so tired at this point of the Obama-love Canadians have. She started in about all of Bush's failings, and I reminded her that Mr. Bush wasn't on the ballot. Finally in frustration, I yelled, quite loud apparently, "My bishop said that we could not in good moral conscience vote for Obama, so I didn't. That's what it means to be in communion with your bishop, and if you're not, you shouldn't call yourself a Catholic." She started to argue further, but was drowned out by the clapping of my seminarian classmates. She went back to her spaghetti.

[missionseeker]

I wonder if she gave any money to the seminary after that.

[CatherineM]

[quote name='missionseeker' post='1884845' date='Jun 6 2009, 09:49 AM']I wonder if she gave any money to the seminary after that. [/quote]

She had to pay her money at the door to get the plate of spaghetti. I had never seen her before, or since, so I think she might have been one of the denizens who came in for a cheap meal and to poke some Catholics.

[Maggyie]

Most people do hold a dissenting view or two... even orthodox Catholics (tm) tend to waffle on torture, just war, social teaching (economics) etc. And it's not a horrible thing that people don't understand every teaching from the moment of their first Holy Communion. There is a reason why conversion takes an entire lifetime! No one is ever done converting! And the process of conversion teaches us more about God and ourselves than we would learn if we had a lightning bolt experience in which we were suddenly 100% converted to the Gospel.

I myself have a couple issues that I am intellectually convinced the Church is right on but my heart still rebels. Capital punishment, for instance. I have defended the Church's current teaching in public and in my soul I know it's true, but my first reaction to a murderer is still "fry him!" I have internal arguments with the Catechism (if you have never had an argument in your mind with a book, it's lots of fun lol). Ultimately I know that my heart needs to correspond with what my head knows to be true.

The difference is that people who truly understand what it means to be in the Body of Christ don't publicize their dissension. They struggle in private through prayer, reading, and working with a spiritual director or confessor. They understand that forming one's conscience is a lifelong endeavor and it's not a matter of reading about the Church's teaching, praying for a couple years and then saying, "ok that's enough discernment, I'm right and the Church is wrong." They know that the process of forming one's conscience is actually a process of learning humility and trust in God and the protection of the Holy Spirit that He promised the Church.

Catherine I will never stop being confused by the 08 election. My bishop basically came out and said people were misusing Faithful Citizenship to justify a vote for Obama, but I know there were bishops who themselves voted for him! What a mess.

[HisChildForever]

A lot of it has to do with pride.

I think there are two kinds of dissenting Catholics, and in my opinion one is worse than the other. The worse one is those Catholics who KNOW and UNDERSTAND the teachings, but refuse them because they are "outdated" or, to be more precise, not convenient. The other kind of dissenting Catholics are those who are truly ignorant of the teachings. We can break this group into two sub-groups: sub-group 1, when they are properly taught the teachings, rebel. Sub-group 2, when properly taught the teachings, may struggle at first but due to their faith they slowly come to understand and accept (whether or not they want to).

A lot of the faithful today have found themselves in "sub-group 2" at one time or another. But we all know that we have to die to ourselves. We know it's not an easy road and we accept this. I feel that the "true" dissenting Catholics are the ones who WANT that easy road and refuse to accept otherwise.

[Brother Vinny]

[quote name='Maggie' post='1884858' date='Jun 6 2009, 11:19 AM']Most people do hold a dissenting view or two... even orthodox Catholics (tm) tend to waffle on torture, just war, social teaching (economics) etc. And it's not a horrible thing that people don't understand every teaching from the moment of their first Holy Communion. There is a reason why conversion takes an entire lifetime! No one is ever done converting! And the process of conversion teaches us more about God and ourselves than we would learn if we had a lightning bolt experience in which we were suddenly 100% converted to the Gospel.[/quote]

To be fair, I was referring to Catholics who know/have been informed of the truth about what the Church teaches on a subject, but have decided to go their own way regardless. Also, I'd like to point out that there is room for disagreement on those things which the Church has not made dogmatic statements. If a person disagrees with a Catholic dogma, though, he becomes a [i]de facto[/i] Protestant.

[quote]I myself have a couple issues that I am intellectually convinced the Church is right on but my heart still rebels. Capital punishment, for instance. I have defended the Church's current teaching in public and in my soul I know it's true, but my first reaction to a murderer is still "fry him!" I have internal arguments with the Catechism (if you have never had an argument in your mind with a book, it's lots of fun lol). Ultimately I know that my heart needs to correspond with what my head knows to be true.[/quote]

I don't think a dogmatic pronouncement on capital punishment has been made (but welcome correction if I'm in error), so this is an issue that allows for some disagreement. Personally I lean toward having the death penalty, although with judicial reforms that I won't go into detail about here. While the Church is the pillar of truth and the gates of hell will not prevail against her, it is unfair to say that she is not influenced by whatever [i]zeitgeist[/i] is prevalent at a given time. The current spirit of the times has swung towards the anti-death-penalty stance, and many of those within the Church have swung with it.

If the issue ever were to become dogmatic, I would accede to her authority. But I would also have several questions about those times in Church history when the death penalty was sought for heretics.

More later, as this post was meaty, but I have to be off.

[Nihil Obstat]

I think that specifically in regards to capital punishment, the official position is that differing views are allowed, however the right of the State to use capital punishment is affirmed.
In terms of economic and political systems, even our current pope has said that there is no one right system. As long as you're not socialist, communist, or fascist.

[Jaime]

So what do you think of the 70%+ people who sit in our pews but don't believe in Transubstantiation?

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='hot stuff' post='1885190' date='Jun 6 2009, 10:08 PM']So what do you think of the 70%+ people who sit in our pews but don't believe in Transubstantiation?[/quote]
Heartbreaking.

[Brother Vinny]

[quote name='hot stuff' post='1885190' date='Jun 6 2009, 11:08 PM']So what do you think of the 70%+ people who sit in our pews but don't believe in Transubstantiation?[/quote]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat']Heartbreaking.[/quote]

What Nihil said.

Where does this statistic come from?

[CatherineM]

[quote name='hot stuff' post='1885190' date='Jun 6 2009, 10:08 PM']So what do you think of the 70%+ people who sit in our pews but don't believe in Transubstantiation?[/quote]

I've never heard that stat before. Yikes. I guess my question would be, why are they receiving? I guess habit.

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1885497' date='Jun 7 2009, 10:03 AM']I've never heard that stat before. Yikes. I guess my question would be, why are they receiving? I guess habit.[/quote]

That and the desire to feel like they are part of the community, I would assume.

Edited June 7, 2009 by Resurrexi

[Maggyie]

It's definitely not 70 percent. I remember a survey from 15-20 years ago that said 25 percent but I think it was shown that the methodology was skewing the numbers a bit. In most of these cases it's not a matter of rejecting the Real Presence but simply not understanding the teaching. Or a case of not being able to explain it to the person taking the survey. What people mean to say is "I don't believe I'm chewing on a chunk of human meat" but what they end up saying is, "it's a symbol."

[Jaime]

"its a symbol" means they don't believe in the real presence.

the 70% was a stat from a study I found back in the early nineties.

this one is much more optimistic and more current.

[quote]Eucharist and Belief in the Real Presence
Nine in ten weekly Mass attendees (91 percent) say they believe that Jesus Christ is really present in the Eucharist, compared to two-thirds of those who attend Mass less than weekly but at least once a month (65 percent), and four in ten of those attending Mass a few times a year or less (40 percent). Among Catholics attending Mass at least once a month, the youngest generation of Catholics (born after 1981) has similar beliefs about the Eucharist as Pre-Vatican II Generation Catholics (born before 1943).[/quote]

[rkwright]

[quote name='Brother Vinny' post='1884921' date='Jun 6 2009, 11:37 AM']To be fair, I was referring to Catholics who know/have been informed of the truth about what the Church teaches on a subject, but have decided to go their own way regardless. Also, I'd like to point out that there is room for disagreement on those things which the Church has not made dogmatic statements. If a person disagrees with a Catholic dogma, though, he becomes a [i]de facto[/i] Protestant.[/quote]

Its amazing. If you hang around here long enough you'll find that even very orthodox people will argue that some dogma doesn't apply to them for some reason - much less any of the non-dogma stuff.

There is a good topic around here called "Can we ever dissent from the Magisterium?" It explains some of this.

To be fair, there does seem to be many things which we are allowed to have different opinions on.

I just hate seeing those arguments about how the catechism doesn't apply\its fallible or this and that dogma don't apply to me because it wasn't actually infallible\whatever the excuse is.

Edited June 9, 2009 by rkwright

[Nihil Obstat]

In terms of doctrine, the fact that it isn't dogma doesn't necessarily mean that Catholics may enjoy a range of opinions.
Political systems and the death penalty on one side, diversity of opinion is perfectly acceptable. In terms of, say, the gifts and fruits of the holy spirit though, because that's the first thing that popped into my head... is this defined infallibly? I don't believe so. Should you disagree with the Church about it? I'd highly recommend that you don't go there.

[cassandragirl]

[
I myself have a couple issues that I am intellectually convinced the Church is right on but my heart still rebels. Capital punishment, for instance. I have defended the Church's current teaching in public and in my soul I know it's true, but my first reaction to a murderer is still "fry him!" I have internal arguments with the Catechism (if you have never had an argument in your mind with a book, it's lots of fun lol). Ultimately I know that my heart needs to correspond with what my head knows to be true.


[/quote]

You prove yourself to be a faithful catholic here. Remember Christ said"Not everyone who keeps saying to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will get into the kingdom of heaven, but only the person who keeps doing the will of my Father in heaven." Obedience is the higher virtue (even if we feel otherwise)- it leads to humility. Most of the saints struggled with similar things and it was their obedience to legitimate church authority that set them apart.