That’s the advice to Cafeteria Roman Catholics from the Boston Globe‘s new website:
Q | Dear OMG,
What of those who cannot accept in good conscience various teachings of the magisterium [official Church policy]? Are we still to consider ourselves Catholic, or should we go elsewhere?
A | Dear Albert,
Ah, the age-old identity questions.
Are we black with one African-American parent? Jewish if we’ve never set foot in a synagogue? Catholic if we oppose the Church on questions of personal morality, such as homosexuality, divorce, abortion, contraception, and pre-marital sex? What degree of observance, adherence, and agreement is required of Catholics to consider themselves Catholic?
This is a difficult question, especially in the US, where a certain tension between teachings and observance has always existed among the faithful, and “conscience” has been the tool people use to justify individual departures from orthodoxy. There are women who, in good conscience, have taken priestly ordination vows and consider themselves Catholic; and (many more) people who’ve had abortions or supported the right to abortion who do as well. These self-defined Catholics defy official teaching and risk excommunication; yet on some level, the choice to be Catholic remains a deeply personal (and private) one.
Perhaps a more provocative question is this: To what extent must the hierarchy heed the consciences of the faithful?
For decades, the bishops have appeared to be a my-way-or-the-highway kind of crew, and Pope Benedict gained a reputation for disdaining the cafeteria approach of American Catholics, wanting instead to build a smaller, purer church.
But Pope Francis has taken a different, and historically significant, tack, says the Rev. Drew Christiansen at Georgetown. For him, the beliefs of faithful Catholics ought to define the faith – at least as much as the hierarchy does.
“The faithful, considered as a whole, are infallible in matters of belief,” Francis told America magazine last year. “This church … is the home of all, not a small chapel that can hold only a small group of selected people.”
My unordained advice, therefore, is this: Hold onto your Catholicism – as well as your conscience – and perhaps your leaders will follow you there.
That’s audacious alright.
Old Life 
“The faithful, considered as a whole, are infallible in matters of belief.”
Perhaps I’m just dense, but I’m having a hard time figuring out how this works.
And did the pope utter those words infallibly, or should we pay them little heed? When do we listen, and when do we ignore?
Perhaps the Callers will clarify.
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The apology of the callers isn’t a very helpful aide to understanding Roman Catholicism. Francis is a much better example of Vat II observance. The Callers are essentially, and in some cases, actual dissenters. Ironically, they benefit from the same opportunity the cafeteria catholics have always taken advantage of, the pope is in Rome, and RC is a big enough tent for me to carve out my own, unique, observance.
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Sean,
Ironically, they benefit from the same opportunity the cafeteria catholics have always taken advantage of, the pope is in Rome, and RC is a big enough tent for me to carve out my own, unique, observance.
Here’s a question that has bugged me for sometime. Is there ANYTHING that could get a RC excommunicated anymore. Seems to me that for al of Rome’s vaunted unity, I could just pack up and go to a different parish that holds my views if I don’t like my current parish or am somehow (unlikely, I know) disciplined by it. I don’t see how that is any different than the member of the Lutheran Church would could go across the street to the Baptist Church, or whatever.
Yeah, I know the Callers will give me the line about self-excommunication and how unity of doctrine and faith doesn’t depend on actual RCs believing the same things (that makes my head spin) because as long as the Magisterium is united on what has been stated, it doesn’t matter. Everyone can interpret the pope differently—even among the Magisterium—but as long as they all sign off on the words of the documents, all is golden. It sounds too much like the liberals who confess the Nicene Creed with their fingers crossed.
The Callers seem to want the Rome of the Reformation Period (though they’ll never admit that Roman unity then was enforced by the sword) without having to give up V2 and all that follows. It makes no sense to me. The position of ultra conservative RCs who reject V2 makes more sense. It’s these seeming “ultraconservatives” who want the church of V2 as well. I mean, I get it in some respects. If you go the former route, you shrink the “church Jesus founded” drastically, and as some callers have pointed out even here, how “catholic” is a church (according to Rome’s view of catholicity) that only has a few thousand members?
Does it really just boil down to a numbers game? They want to be a part of the largest visible church on the planet AND hold to ultraconservative papal theology. Thus the twisting and turning to make Pope Francis into Pope Benedict. It really is the only way to do this.
But maybe I’m just begging the question and failing to take into account the opposing paradigm somehow.
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Darryl,
The faithful, considered as a whole, are infallible in matters of belief,
This statement from Francis strikes me as Protestantish, even quite Presbyterian. Though we won’t admit to being infallible, this sounds much more like a grassroots, connectional view of ecclesiology whereby the informed laity acts as a check against heretics in the clergy. There’s an orderly way of doing this for the laity (assemblies, sessions, and presbyteries), but it is still an ecclesiology that is fundamentally driven by the laity in a way that high papalism is not.
Maybe Francis is learning from his separated brethren…
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sean, so the Callers are still formally Protestant.
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Darryl, they always have been to me and of the fundy variety to boot.
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This is some serious Mt 7:6 stuff, writing to the Boston Globe for advice on Catholicism. #CatholicBibFail, but the media dare not punk any other religion, not Islam, not even yours.
—RBL, I recommend Mark Driscoll’s neo-sorta-Calvinist “Mars Hill.” His church is having great difficulties right now, and after multiple and almost daily leadership purges, there’s plenty of room at the top. Follow your conscience, the Holy Spirit or Jiminy Cricket, it’s all more or less the same.
The best thing about the Reformation you can start your own church or take over another one with barely a raised eyebrow. It’s really cool. The Catholics not so much, although they have better costumes. But a revitalized paleo-neo-Calvinism might just be the good clean scarlet-letter fun you’ve been missing.
Good luck and semper that reformada!
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The rich young ruler (must be a Protestant) is happy:
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Mr. Keener,
You said that that you are having a hard time understanding how, “The faithful, considered as a whole, are infallible in matters of belief,” can be.
While I don’t know the context of what Pope Francis was talking about, I can get the gist of his meaning if I, ( 1. Understand that there is a body of orthodox teaching. (2. Understand that people may, at any given point in their lives, draw close to that teaching or pull-away from a teaching.
Consider the teaching of the “real presence” of Jesus in the Consecrated Host. We can pull away from this teaching that is “a hard saying”, or we can open our hearts more in faith to this teaching as being the absolute truth, since Truth is a person Who will not lie or deceive.
Since transubstantiation is dogma, a real Catholic is bound to believe it by faith. In as much as he struggles to wrap his head around it, but fails because it is something that must be received by faith, he is a good practicing Catholic. If he willfully persists in disbelieving this truth and goes away, he is a person that essentially left Jesus, and is no longer a Christian.
If a Catholic believes transubstantiation, Eucharistic Adoration and all teaches others to love God in the way God has prescribed, then that Catholic is believing and teaching an infallible doctrine/dogma. Since more Catholic people believe this dogma as well as truth concerning other Christian dogmas such as the nature of Christ, the union and work of the Holy Trinity, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Incarnation of the Logos, the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, the intercession of Saints, etc…, they are believing infallibly. In other words, “faithful” and “infallible” are words that go together in Christianity. If one’s ideas about reality are not concordant with reality then that person’s faith is vain and self-seeking. If, however their faith is drawing near to doctrines of the true church, then it is turning towards the source of truth and that person’s understanding is being aligned and made concordant with reality which is the Truth.
Does this help?
Susan
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Susan, you have merely begged the question. The church says so, so it must be true. And here I thought Roman Catholics believed in reason.
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Susan, you’re getting the CtC-speak down pat. You’re nowhere near Francis, but then, you wouldn’t be. Francis, in the America piece, is speaking of religious conscience, even prophetic voice, as recognized among the laity. This is boilerplate Vat II catechism. In fact, in this article, he’s diminishing those who are doctrinaires and thus small-minded and holding back the church and God’s movement among His people. You guys missed the revolution. Sorry.
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http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2013/12/09/sensus-fidelium-doesnt-mean-majority-opinion-francis-tells-theologians/
And Benedict in 2012: “Today, however, it is particularly important to explain the criteria that make it possible to distinguish the authentic sensus fidelium from its counterfeit. It is certainly not a kind of public ecclesial opinion and invoking it in order to contest the teachings of the Magisterium would be unthinkable, since the sensus fidei cannot be authentically developed in believers, except to the extent in which they fully participate in the life of the Church, and this demands responsible adherence to the Magisterium, to the deposit of faith.”
Francis and Benedict are on same page – but whatevs – let’s keep the OL narrative of “revolution” going.
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Clete, I’ll put my understanding of Francis against yours all day and twice on sunday. I know my people. Francis’ ‘son of the church’ is shorthand for don’t bother me with your legalism and parsing. He’s a Jesuit, they don’t like closed opportunities. Just ask them. But you keep believing what you need to believe, it’s a lot. Go read the America piece, again. I’ll keep paying attention and watching his appointments. Where did Burke go?! What was that you say, Kasper, about the movmement of God with the divorced?! Excellent.
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sean, the great thing about the contemporary RCC is that every member gets to decide what Roman Catholicism is. I know, blame it on the Protestants.
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Sean and foxy lady, yes, Francis is really only doing what Benedict did:
foxy, This is not an OL narrative. You can find it at a host of RC websites. Get your head out of the Baltimore Catechism.
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Ironically, the only way to take the claims of Rome’s never changing infallibility seriously, you have to go to the dissenters that are honest and admit that V2 was a sea change, and a point when Rome went bad dogmatically.
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D. G. Hart
Posted September 14, 2014 at 9:50 pm | Permalink
sean, the great thing about the contemporary RCC is that every member gets to decide what Roman Catholicism is. I know, blame it on the Protestants.
With the number of Reformed sects numbering into the high 100s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Reformed_denominations
that’s a junky riff, Pope Darryl. You don’t have a chain of cafeterias, you run a coffee shop in a strip mall.
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Tom,
If all of those denominations are united by essential doctrines( because all true Christians must have unity on the essentials. And ascertaining what the essentials must be clear and easy) there would be no need to have different denominations at all,right? There would simply be The Christian Protestant Church Universal; unless God intended us to pick and choose as best we can all the while trying to figure out why we would need to pick and choose in the first place if we all essentially agree.
So what are the essentials and why doesn’t Catholicism fit the bill? This was one of the biggies for me: if Protestantism isn’t a large heterdoxy, what is it? Is there a better definintion for heterodoxy than Protestantism? If I want to safely fall within the pale of orthodoxy( and I did), should I or should I not believe that infant baptism is orthodox, should I or should I not believe in that transubstantiation( all non- Protestants do) is orthodox, and should I or should not have icons in my home or go to churches where icons are displayed( Anglicans, Lutherans, Catholics,and EO have these)? How does one know who is outside the pale of orthodoxy? Or what is nessessary and what is doubtful and who do I trust?
Anyways, I found the right answer, but this nagged me for years and years; especially how in the heck was a canon formed without an extra-scriptural way to determine the canon. Talk about circularity. See comment #45 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2014/09/scripture-and-tradition/#comment-121394
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Darryl,
Actually I haven’t commited that fallacy. Please revisit The Tu Quoque.
I regards to faith and reason Pope John Paul II has written a great encyclical called Fides et Ratio and it is tremendously helpful for understanding how it works together.
From the article “The Tu Quoque”, I grabbed this from Dr. Cross because I thought it spoke to the question of faith and reason that you brought up. I think you are right to ask the questions that you are asking. Keep searching!
“Your question requires a little explanation of the relationship between faith and reason, which, as I mentioned in passing in the Wilson vs. Hitchens post (and in this podcast), belongs to the more general category of the relation between grace and nature. There I wrote, “faith is to reason what grace is to nature.” Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it. So, likewise, faith does not destroy or squelch reason, but perfects, illumines, and elevates it. Faith therefore does not cut off or block reason’s pursuit of the truth. The two errors on both sides of the truth here are rationalism on the one hand, and fideism on the other. Rationalism does not recognize a higher authority than one’s own reason. Fideism, by contrast, makes grace destroy nature by squelching or suppressing the pursuit of truth through reason. Genuine faith is neither destroyed by reason nor destroys reason, because the true God we love and pursue is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The only two other options are the rationalism that denies the possibility of sacred revelation, or the fideism which amounts to a kind of Manichean dualism with respect to truth (i.e. there is good truth and evil truth, or there is true truth and false truth).
So our submission to the divinely authorized magisterium depends on the truth that this magisterium is in fact divinely authorized, just as a Protestant’s faith in what the Bible teaches always depends on the truth that the Bible is the word of God written. Cults (in that manipulative sense of the term) often take the fideistic path, by forbidding their members from investigating the authority of the cult. That’s not the epistemic state of the Catholic. Our submission to the Catholic magisterium does not shut us off from the possibility of inquiring into the basis for the authority of the Catholic magisterium. It can’t. Our entire submission to the magisterium is based on it being actually divinely authorized. This is why there can be (and are) so many Catholic universities. But our continuing openness to the pursuit of truth through reason doesn’t make us rationalists, nor does it mean that we are not really submitting to the Church’s magisterium. Our submission is first to God, who is Truth, and who has revealed Himself in His Son, through the Church. And therefore, our submission to the Church is based on the Church truly being what and who she claims to be, the Church that Christ founded.
So the kind of investigation you refer to (examining the Orthodox) is something a Catholic (as Catholic) can do. We can’t just assume that the first claim to magisterial authority we have bumped into is necessarily the right one. But that doesn’t mean that we must remain subordinate to no one, lest we someday happen to come across the real one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. Nor does our willingness to investigate the claims, say, of the Orthodox, mean that we are not truly submitted to the Catholic magisterium. Faith never destroys reason; faith is based on the truth, because grace builds on nature, not on a vacuum (ala Marcionism, in which the God of the NT is not the God who created nature). If a person is not convinced that the magisterium to which he is submitted is the authentic magisterium of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church that Christ founded, he cannot exercise faith in Christ through trusting that magisterium. Faith, to be faith, requires that it be built on the truth. That does not mean that the believer must understand everything he is believing — that would be rationalism, and would rule out “faith seeking understanding.” But he must have good reason to believe that the magisterium he is trusting to speak for Christ is, in fact, the magisterium that Christ authorized to speak for Himself. Hiding evidence from oneself about the the identity and authority of the magisterium to which he is presently submitted would, in that respect, undermine the possibility of exercising true faith in Christ through trusting the magisterium.” ~ Dr. Bryan Cross
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Susan
Posted September 15, 2014 at 12:40 am | Permalink
Tom,
If all of those denominations are united by essential doctrines( because all true Christians must have unity on the essentials. And ascertaining what the essentials must be clear and easy) there would be no need to have different denominations at all,right? There would simply be The Christian Protestant Church Universal…
So what are the essentials and why doesn’t Catholicism fit the bill? This was one of the biggies for me: if Protestantism isn’t a large heterodoxy, what is it?
Susan, Darryl G.Hart’s Orthodox Presbyterian Church of some 30,000 souls is the Only True Way. A billion Catholics and another billion of Protestant this or that or the other things are bogus.
When Dr. Hart and his band of mostly anonymous ding-dingers smirk with each other at your sincere comments, it’s only for Christ. Don’t take it personally. Christ is a tough town.
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Susan, just find a Protestant pastor to tell you what to believe.
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Susan, “So our submission to the divinely authorized magisterium depends on the truth that this magisterium is in fact divinely authorized.”
So Christian truth transcends the magisterium.
But wait. The magisterium has determined what is true for Christians.
I’m sure Bryan can help you out to make this circle square. But why not simply admit that you accept a lot more on faith than a Protestant or Mormon needs to.
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More on Pope Francis performing weddings:
Does the definition of sin transcend the pope or does the pope have the power to act as he pleases?
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I’ll keep looking for the wide open superhighway that Scripture teaches gets into heaven.
I seem to recall it was narrow and a gate, not accessed by a Saganesque billions and billions of McDonald’s customers.
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Pretty sure that I could go to almost any of those churches and take communion. The relationship among these denominations is more similar (though of course not identical) to the relationship between the Jesuits and Benedictines than it is between the Roman church and Presbyterian church. Of course the tiny, fractious body to which I belong takes catholicity more seriously than Rome – we welcome all baptized believers who are members in good standing with a Christian church to our table.
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“With the number of Reformed sects numbering into the high 100s ”
i’m not going to take any responsibility for kooks that keep splitting, “preachers” who can’t handle a congregation unless they have the right to slap any dissenters across the face at the dinner table.
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But sdb, does your pastor marry couples that are living together? There’s catholicity and then there’s catholicity.
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Cognitive Dissonance & Willful Ignorance — thy names are Rome.
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With the number of Reformed sects numbering into the high 100s
Tom, the RC who in good RC fashion refuses to submit to the “infallible magisterium,” is insightfully showing us the real appeal of RCism. It’s really, really big. And we all know, as good Americans, that bigger is always better.
Meanwhile, in a church like the OPC, an elder would be going after Tom out of concern for his soul. Back in Rome, Francis is trying to figure out a way to baptize cafeteria RCism officially without making the conservatives to mad. But it must be the church Christ founded, regardless of its internal division and abject pastoral failure, because it’s so big.
Rome really has something for just about everyone.
For the CTC types, you’ve got an endless labyrinth of documents calling for the exercise of one’s mind (or is it credulity?) to make Francis and Innocent on the same page.
For those who just want to feel a little religious, you got your elaborate rituals that you really only need to attend once and a while.
For those who don’t want the pressure of taking responsibility for their souls, you’ve go implicit faith that allows you to say on the last day “But God, I was only doing what the church told me to do, so you can’t hold me accountable.”
For those who are more culturally oriented, you’ve got half a dozen expressions that weld ethnicity and religion.
For the more “enlightened” folk like the leaders of the political left, you’ve got plenty of justification for socialism.
For the people on the the far, far right, you’ve got plenty of justification for outlawing all forms of contraception.
For those on both sides of the abortion debate, you have have plenty in the tradition to affirm either position. Pro-choicers get the infallibility of the laity as Darryl has cited, plus different elements of tradition that don’t agree on when ensoulment happens. Pro-lifers get what the Magisterium is saying today, which will almost certainly not be what they say in a few decades.
For the universalists, you’ve got V2 and the “all dogs go to heaven unless they are really firm against Rome, and even then there’s wiggle room.”
For the arch-papalists, you’ve got the “well, everybody is kinda saved through Christ anyway, wink, wink.”
A church in which both Mother Teresa and Nancy Pelosi are fully orthodox members really is an amazing place—if you don’t mind contradiction.
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There’s hundreds of RC churches, too, if you break it down by country.
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How long before we get 10,000 words from Bryan on why the marrying of cohabitating couples is fully in line with Roman practice because, after all, no one said Francis COULDN’T marry cohabitating couples? Oh, and don’t forget the charge of begging the question by because we’re measuring Rome by traditional Roman standards, which we have no right to do because only those with advanced degrees in philosophy and who teach at RC universities truly know traditional Roman standards.
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