What the heck is so bad about "rules" anyway?

I've never understood why people routinely bash the Catholic Church for having "rules," but it's a classic complaint. 


Recently, I read yet another anti-Catholic comment on a blog, and I thought I would address the main points here. I have edited the original text for clarity and grammar, but it's mostly intact. The commenter's words are in red italics:


I don't want to overstep my bounds here...


(She is about to overstep her bounds here.)


...but I just went through and read all the comments on this post and I have to say, I don’t agree with many of them. 


(Some Catholic commenters had defended the Church's teaching on the immorality of in vitro fertilization.)


I’m not a religious person in the sense that I do not subscribe to any organized religion. 


This line is one of the most common around: "I don't believe in organized religion." I heard a commentator on TV recently make a good observation: Is disorganized prayer somehow more desirable than organized prayer? As for me, I prefer order whenever I can find it, in my home, in my town, in my government and yes, in my religion.


One of the reasons for that is I don’t believe in all the “rules” they make for their followers. 


Who are "they" and what are the "rules"? I wouldn't believe in some random people making random rules, either. However, in the Catholic faith, we believe that truth has its origin in God. If the Catholic Church were just making up arbitrary "rules" willy-nilly, with no basis in reason or objective truth, then there would be no Catholics. I know I'd be gone in a heartbeat.


Many "rules" seem so close-minded and unfair. 


They may "seem" that way to you, but I would bet my last dollar that you haven't studied the reason and meaning behind the "rules". As a random example: If one had no understanding of the beauty of marriage or of the catastrophic damage that results from adultery, one might think it was "close-minded and unfair" that a person can't have occasional sex with the cute man down the street.


I was raised a Catholic... 


Forgive me, but that is usually the signal that someone has no clue what the Church teaches or why, and that some very strong but misguided opinions will soon follow. 


...and even got confirmed (though I didn’t want to). 


Your parish did you a disservice. No one should be confirmed if he or she objects to the sacrament.


I know that the Catholic Church is against IVF, and I have talked with my grandmother (who is VERY Catholic) about it at length. The bottom line is that I just don’t understand how an institution that is supposed to be created in love can deny people a chance at something they so desperately want. 


If you talked about it at length, and yet you still frame the debate as people being "denied a chance at something they so desperately want," then either your grandma didn't have good resources to give you, or you have missed the point. Because "denying desperate people what they want" is not what the Church is about. You wouldn't claim that the Church's teachings against stealing or lying or adultery are simply there to "deny people what they desperately want," would you? Perhaps there are deeper truths that you are missing.


It just seems to arbitrary to me. You can use drugs but not this procedure? What is that? 


"That" is a consistent moral ethic. One may use medication or surgery to restore fertility (i.e., restore bodily health) so that a child may be conceived naturally. But one may not create a child outside of the marital embrace. That's a very clear line. Not arbitrary in the least. 


I feel like the Catholic church is full of discrepancies like that and it makes it difficult for me to take any of their “rules” seriously.


You may "feel" like that, but you need to study more if you are truly interested. The "discrepancies" that you "feel" exist are simply your own misunderstandings based on extremely limited knowledge. I used to misunderstand the Church's teachings, too, and then I set out to learn why the Church teaches what she does. It is the lack of discrepancies in Church teaching, i.e., the breathtaking consistency of it, which convinced me to remain Catholic when I was ready to jump ship.

I’m not trying to be judgmental here, though I’m sure it sounds that way. 


Actually, to me it sounds more like ignorance than judgmentalism.


I don’t presume to say religious people shouldn’t be religious or shouldn’t follow the “rules” of their religion. 


Thank you. (By the way, I'm not sure why you keep putting "rules" in quotes? Do you have something against rules in general? Can you imagine a family, a community, or a nation without rules? I don't think anyone would want to live there.)


But I do think religion should be about spirituality, not a huge bureaucracy that creates endless rules to follow, especially when those rules speak down to some of its followers and keep others from feeling accepted or achieving happiness.


The Catholic religion is based in reason and truth. It has ritual and structure and focus. It is not some fluffy, feel-good, nebulous "spirituality" designed to make us feel giddy. Now, don't get me wrong: Catholicism certainly does have spirituality. In fact, it's the most mind-blowing, transcendent spirituality of any religion I can think of, and you can read the works of St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, or any of the great Catholic mystics to see what that looks like. I think you'd like it. 

I guess what I want to say is that I hope a person's reasons for not wanting to do IVF are her own, and not something that's forced on her by someone else. 


The Church proposes, never imposes. Every soul is gifted by God with free will. It is sacrosanct, and neither God nor His Church will touch it. God forces no one to love Him or do His will, and the Church forces no one to follow her teachings.


If you believe in someone else’s reasons for not doing IVF then that is one thing, but if you feel beholden to an institution and that is why you’re not doing it, even though you want to, well that is a different situation entirely. I hope you can find your own way to your children and feel good about the path you chose.


Can you think of a situation in which what we "want" to do is not what we should do? And, is it possible that an individual could be wrong about something? And could a 2,000-year-old "institution" possibly (maybe even probably) have some wisdom to impart?


I, for one, don't feel "beholden" to the Church. I feel grateful for her clarity, her guidance and the consistency of her teachings, whether in season or out. And yes, I feel grateful for her correction. I love that Church teaching is based in truth and the dignity of the human person. I love that she speaks the truth in love, even when that truth is wildly unpopular and even hated, and when she is the lone voice in a culture which says that anything goes as long as you "want" it desperately enough.


Rules? If they are based in truth and love, then rules are freedom.


Again with my favorite quotes from G.K. Chesterton:


"The Catholic Church is the only thing which saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age."

"[When the convert] has entered the Church, he finds that the Church is much larger inside than it is outside."