Divine faith does not admit 'falsification events' for the Church
Divine faith does not admit 'falsification events' for the Church
Today, so few people have faith. They have Christian opinions, or they consider the Church to be the best vehicle for their prior ideas and prejudices. Such persons are in a precarious position.
It has become common to hear contemporary Catholic writers talking about the current crisis in the Church as if what is at stake is the falsifiability of the Catholic religion.
This betrays a very flawed understanding of Catholic fundamental theology and the nature of divine faith.
In a similar way, some of these people also speak as if the process by which we conclude which is the true Church of Christ is like seeing who has won a tight race. In such an analogy, the Roman Church has won; with the runners up being Byzantine Orthodox, Oriental Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, etc.
Along with this way of speaking comes the implicit (and sometimes explicit) idea that if the winner were to be disqualified (e.g., on grounds of having cheated), then the first runner-up would become the new winner by default.
We saw a recent example of this mentality on social media, with various Catholics listing the top five heretical or schismatic denominations they would embrace, if the Catholic claims were to be falsified.
“Popesplaining” and sins against the Holy Ghost
In the flawed paradigm outlined above, one must be always alive to the possibility of evidence which disproves the claims of the Catholic Church, and be ready to accept such evidence if necessary. The alternative is “intellectual dishonesty” and even rejecting the (supposedly) known truth – a sin against the Holy Ghost.
All this is contrary to what is required by the assent of faith, and completely corrosive to the virtue of faith.
It is true that one of the primary problems with modern anti-trads and online “popesplainers” is their rejection of the evidence and known truth about Francis and the post-conciliar period.
But the correct approach lies between these two.
“Popesplaining” and the so-called “hermeneutic of charity” are built on the dogmatic insistence that basically anything coming from Rome must be reconcilable with everything else. Whatever it was that Francis “really” meant must be in line with Catholic orthodoxy – somehow.
In practice, this leads to a denial of the facts before our eyes, which are apparent to everyone who does not have an a priori commitment to the idea that Francis must have “really meant” something acceptable.
The problem here is not the idea that apparently contradictory texts can or must be reconciled. We are obliged to think this about any difficult texts in Holy Scripture (or to conclude that there is a problem with the translations). As St Augustine writes:
If I do find anything in those books which seems contrary to truth, I decide that either the text is corrupt, or the translator did not follow what was really said, or that I failed to understand it.[1]
The same approach must be taken towards the dogmatic and definitive teaching of the Church. It is also fine for this to be one’s default and rebuttable starting-point when faced with other apparent contradictions.
But the problem arises when the “popesplainers” dogmatically insist that this approach must also be applied to such other texts which by no means must be necessarily reconcilable in this way, as well as to plain and evident contradictions.
The fault here is taking a course of action which is proper in some contexts, and applying it in other unwarranted and inappropriate contexts.
Further, given that this hermeneutic appropriate to the Word of God is often applied to whatever Francis says (beyond all teaching contexts, even non-definitive) the popesplainers are ultimately treating him as if he and his words were divine.
On the contrary: we must avoid this error but without falling into the trap of the contemporary writers mentioned at the beginning.
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