Cherry Picking the Faith

My Church maintains that you have to accept all of its teachings. You can’t just choose the ones that suit you. It’s a powerful argument and one modern conservatives use in advocating unquestioned acceptance of the old traditions, for many of them those in place before the Second Vatican Council. They believe Vatican II went too far in bringing a poorly qualified laity into dialog on matters pertaining to faith and Church practice. There is a problem with that. Either ecclesiastical officials speak with authority or they don’t. If they do you have to accept the changes brought about by Vatican II. If you don’t you are by definition choosing what doctrine to accept and what not. You may allow certain trusted clerics to make those choices for you but you are choosing. It is impossible to avoid it. You can’t support all Church teachings for all of history. You would have to accept Pope Urban II’s homily that launched the Crusades. I don’t think even the most ardent traditionalist wants to go back to those days. What about the Inquisition, founded by St. Louis and the institution responsible for so much excess? Surely nobody would have us burning heretics at the stake again. OK, so I’m knocking down straw men but the point is that, holy as it is, the Church is filled with humans that are sometimes capable of some pretty bad stuff. A little healthy skepticism is in order. There’s the rub. Ours is a mysterious faith and it isn’t always clear why we believe what we do. A lot of it we have to accept on faith because we are never going to fully understand it, beginning with the concept of a Triune God. It is beyond human comprehension, or at least beyond this human’s comprehension. We have to believe in it though, it we are to consider ourselves Christians. I guess that’s why we call it faith. I can’t read even a little of the Catechism of the Catholic Church without questions popping up left and right. That’s partly because of the obscure language theologians like to use, but it is mostly because so many of the ideas expressed are really difficult. Some of them are downright strange. That doesn’t mean I reject everything I don’t understand. It does mean I have my doubts about more than a few things. I can’t help that. I pray about it a lot and I find that helps me think things through. I also find it helps to talk things out with my wife Lynne and with friends who often have the same questions. Sometimes I get answers but always some questions remain. So does that make it impossible for me to find my way to God? Some traditionalists would have me believe it does. I don’t buy it. It’s hard for me to believe anyone could accept all of our dogma without question. It is the nature of a healthy mind to inquire. Accept it all? Maybe. Without question? Impossible. None of the teachings at issue sprang from whole cloth. It has taken two millennia and the brilliant discourse of countless saints and theologians to get us to where we are. If such men as Saint Augustine and Thomas Aquinas had not challenged the conventions of their days Catholicism might be very different now. Theologians continue to explore assumptions long taken for granted and Catholics continue to adapt, if at a glacial pace. I don’t put myself on the same level with Augustine or Aquinas and I have no wish to substitute my own judgment for that of the Church. I certainly do not intend to create my own little religion but where I think something looks not quite right or if it doesn’t make sense to me I will challenge it. Surely that’s what God would have me do. I don’t see that I can do anything else.