By Bob Sullivan
In my first column of this series on faith, we discussed the difference between the content of revealed truth and the virtue of faith, which is the trust or faith in those truths. In this column we will continue to discuss matters relevant to our trust in the teachings of the Church with Father Matthew Rolling, academic dean and professor of philosophy at St. Gregory the Great Seminary in Seward.
Q. Father Rolling, can someone say that they follow Christ without accepting the Church’s teachings? Isn’t Church teaching just the words of men, whereas the Scriptures are Divine?
At various points in the Gospels, we hear Christ encouraging the Apostles to follow His words. I think in particular of His words in John 8:31-32: “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Remaining in Christ’s word is not merely a mental exercise because we also repeatedly hear His concrete command: Follow me. At another point in His public ministry, He instructed the Twelve: “Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” (Lk.10:16). Immediately before His ascension into Heaven, Christ left the Eleven Apostles with these words: “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
From these few examples of the words of our Lord, we are able to see that Christ intended to pass onto the Apostles the authority He had received from His Father. Most clearly are the words directed to Peter: “…you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church … 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.” Thus, one cannot divorce Christ from His Church because Christ’s words clearly affirm His intention to leave His authority with others who would continue His Mission until He returns.
We affirm in the creed: “I believe in the … holy catholic Church” or “I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.” By these words, we affirm that accepting that Christ founded the Catholic Church is an act of faith as accepting that Jesus Christ is both God and man.
Q. If a Catholic never accepts or stops accepting a doctrine or dogma of the Church, they become a “dissenting Catholic.” What does this mean with regard to their soul and their receipt of the sacraments?
We must first remember that people have all sorts of reasons for not believing. Beyond the ones we spoke of above, there’s also a prevailing mentality in our culture that ‘if I cannot see, measure, or touch something, then it must not be true. If I do not understand or cannot explain it, it must be made up.’ When it comes to the Faith, we speak of mysteries, which are things which no human can fully understand.
St. John Henry Newman, in speaking of his own troubles with the teachings of the Church as he was converting from Anglicanism, wrote in his autobiography: “Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt… A man may be annoyed that he cannot work out a mathematical problem, of which the answer is or is not given to him, without doubting that it admits of an answer, or that a certain particular answer is the true one. Of all points of faith, the being of a God is, to my own apprehension, encompassed with most difficulty, and yet borne in upon our minds with most power. …I had no difficulty in believing [in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist], as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the original revelation. It is difficult, impossible, to imagine, I grant;—but how is it difficult to believe?”
To have difficulties in understanding doctrines or dogmas is part of the common human experience. To voluntarily choose not to accept some teaching of the Church is, in effect, putting our judgment of truth above that of God and His Church. We no longer have faith in Him, but in ourselves as the last word on the matter at hand.
If a person knows Christ and His Church teach a certain point which is to be held by faith and voluntarily rejects that teaching, this is the sin of heresy, which is grave matter (see CCC, 2087-2089). By committing the sin of heresy or apostasy – a total rejection of the Church’s teachings – one puts him or herself out of communion with the Church by that very act (Code of Canon Law, c.1364). This “excommunication” means a person is also in a state of mortal sin and should no longer receive the Sacraments until he or she confesses this in the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. In short, a person who commits such an act cannot receive the Sacraments and puts him or herself in a position to lose eternal salvation. These may seem like strong terms, but we are dealing with serious matters which have serious consequences. All of this stems from the fact that our Lord loves us sinners, but He knows that our turning away from Him only spells disaster for us. Through His Church, He commands us to do that which is good and forbids evils for our eternal salvation.
