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A practicing Catholic cannot invoke 'conscience' to defy what the church
holds as true
Any Catholic on this side of Judgment Day can call himself
a “practicing Catholic”. After all, our earthy pilgrimage in this “valley
of tears” is our one time opportunity to “practice” Catholicism until we
get it right. But “getting it right” for a practicing Catholic means
conforming oneself to the will of God as revealed to us through Scripture
and Tradition and as definitely set forth by the teaching authority of the
Church. A practicing Catholic cannot invoke “conscience” to defy or
disregard what the Church definitely holds as true
— for
a practicing Catholic doesn’t create his own truth but forms his
conscience according to the Truth.
Invincible ignorance, culpable willfulness, or ingrained
habits of sin might explain why a self-described “practicing Catholic”
might dissent from one or more of the definitive teachings of the Church
in word, thought or deed and still think that he or she is a Catholic in
good standing able to be admitted to the Eucharist. One of these factors
may explain such behavior but none can excuse it.
We can explain, for example, why Pontius Pilate, though he
personally was convinced of Jesus’ innocence, could not bring himself to
“impose” his views on the mob. Yet, he did not demand to participate with
the Apostles in “breaking of the bread” as the Mass was first called.
While we do not judge his ultimate fate
— for
only God can judge the subjective state of his soul
— we
nevertheless cannot excuse his cowardice. Had Pontius Pilate shown up and
presented himself for communion, the apostles certainly would had admitted
him to communion
— but
only after he had first repented and reconciled himself to God and the
Church.
Serious sin breaks our communion with God and his Church
as does refusing by one’s dissent obedience to Church definitive teachings
in matters of faith and morals. Before participating in the sacramental
expression of that communion
— by
partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion
—
“practicing Catholics” must be restored to spiritual union with God and
with their fellow believers through Sacramental Confession in which they
repent for the serious sin and express a firm purpose of amendment. Our
admission to Holy Communion depends on our prior “visible” communion with
the community of faith (i.e. that we are in fact Catholics) and of our
prior “invisible” communion with the Lord (i.e. that we are not in the
state of serious (mortal) sin. To insist on partaking in communion in the
first case would be, on the face of it, boorish behavior, (equivalent to a
guest who behaves badly in his host’s home) and in the latter
— at
least objectively speaking
—
sacrilegious (for as St. Paul says, unworthy reception brings judgment,
cf. 1 Cor 11: 23ff).
Bishops as teachers of the faith have no special
competencies in the world of business or politics
— and
in those worlds we have no regulatory or legal powers. We don’t want such
power —
nor should we. But precisely as teachers of the Catholic faith we do have
competence to tell businessmen or politicians or anyone else for that
matter what is required to be a Catholic. It is totally within our
competence to say that one cannot be complicit in the injustice of denying
the right to life of an unborn child or an invalid elder and still
consider oneself a good Catholic. It is totally within our competence to
urge our Catholic people to participate in the political life of our
nation with coherence and honesty. It is within our competence and our
responsibilities as pastors to advocate for laws that protect the rights
of all human beings from the first moment of conception till natural
death.
To be a Catholic is to strive after holiness. This is a
daunting task for us all
—
impossible without the saving grace that embraces us through our turning
to the Lord and walking in his company. The Lord is patient with us
—
after all, we all are still just “practicing”. He warns his disciples not
to be too ready to pull out the tares lest we damage the wheat. For this
reason, when rebukes are necessary, pastors generally strive to give them
in private. But to fail to rebuke when necessary is to fail in the charity
we owe our brethren. (And we bishops will be apologizing for a long time
for the failure to rebuke and apply sanctions to those wayward priests who
criminally sinned against young people and children.)
The Church wants all her members to become holy. To this
end, she offers the examples of the saints to encourage and inspire us.
For politicians, St. Thomas More stands as a role model. He did not draw
any false distinction between his personal morality and his public
responsibilities: he was his king’s good servant, but God’s first. Today,
some self-identified Catholic politicians prefer to emulate Pontius
Pilate’s “personally opposed but unwilling to impose” stance. Perhaps,
they are baiting the Church, daring an “official sanction” making them
“bad Catholics”, so as to gain favor among up their secularist, “blue
state” constituencies. Such a sanction might turn their lack of coherent
Catholic convictions into a badge of courage for people who hold such
convictions in contempt.
But if the whole of point of being a Catholic is to grow
in holiness
—admittedly by practicing a whole lot and making some errors along
the way - then it would be as John Paul II reminds us “a contradiction to
settle for a life of mediocrity, marked by a minimalist ethic and a
sentimental religiosity”. You cannot have your “waffle” and your “wafer”
too. Those pro-abortion politicians who insist on calling themselves
Catholics without seeing the contradiction between what they say they
believe and their anti-life stance have to do a lot more of “practicing”.
They need to get it right before they approach the Eucharistic table.
May 3, 2004
Bishop Thomas Wenski
Coadjutor Bishop of Orlando
Reprinted with permission from
the Diocese of Orlando
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