But they just know the Church will change!

If there is one sentiment that baffles me more than any other, it's this:

The Catholic Church will be changing her teachings, and I only need watch and wait. I am foolish for not seeing the "big picture" of how it's all going to go down. It's inevitable. The Church will come around, the Church will conform. It's just a matter of time.

In response, I question how many millennia have to pass without the Church changing before they'll concede the point?

Take a look at what a dissenting* Catholic named James said to me just the other day, about the foolishness of faithful Catholics (emphases mine):

It’s just as frustrating to me to see an intelligent person walking a rigid black and white line that will waver and shift in the coming centuries. When I taught each of my girls to drive they all exhibited the same myopic habit of looking 6 feet over the hood. My first correction to them was to look waaaay down the road to get the big picture, to see what was coming so as to be aware, while using peripheral vision to sort out any immediate hazards. Their driving improved immediately.

James believes that he has vision far into the future; he sees what's coming ahead. If only the Catholic Church could see what he sees or could know what he knows.

Well, I agree that somebody is missing the big picture here, but it's not the Church. The Church isn't looking "six feet over the hood", not at all. In fact, she started her engine over two thousand long years ago, and she began her journey looking out toward all of eternity. She was full of confidence in her mission and destiny then (as now), and she knew exactly where she was going. Two millennia later, she sees in her rearview mirror the ruins of every empire she passed along the way, even as she steadily cruises along, undeterred. She has not "wavered and shifted" off of the road and into any ditches, nor is there any credible sign that she ever will.

There is just no sign of it.

Dissenters and heretics and naysayers and ex-Catholics have been predicting "inevitable changes" since the first century of the Church's existence. Yet, they are the ones who took their eyes off the road. While looking sideways to gawk at shiny distractions, or while looking inward to contemplate the lint in their own navels, they lost the "big picture" and ran themselves into a ditch. Ouch.

But that's not how the Church rolls.

Let's walk through it:

The First Century -- Enemies of the Church are smugly predicting her fall, brutally persecuting her, violently trying to force the change themselves.
The Second Century -- Ditto
The Third Century -- Ditto
The Fourth Century -- Violence against the Church eases, but how 'bout them heretics! The Church is wrong, they say, and she must and will change. The heretics gain lots of followers but lose Christ. The Church keeps driving straight ahead.
The Fifth Century -- The Church still hasn't changed her teachings, still going strong. Dissenters, heretics, and apostates see only six feet over the hood, and they lose the big picture entirely.
The Sixth Century -- The Church still had not changed her teachings. Eyes on the road, driving smoothly forth.
The Seventh Century -- The Church continues to outlast her critics, i.e., the ones who confidently predict her inevitable assimilation to the ways of the world or to their own particular heresy. Same story in...
The Eighth Century
The Ninth Century
The Tenth Century
The Eleventh Century
The Twelfth Century
The Thirteenth Century
(Are you still with me?)
The Fourteenth Century
The Fifteenth Century
The Sixteenth Century -- Special note here: A bunch of Catholics disillusioned with sinners in the Church decide to jettison the Church entirely and preach brand new (heretical) doctrines; Church teaching still does not change, even as internal corruption is cleaned up. The Church continues to drive on her divinely appointed path while the Protestant Reformers and their followers splinter endlessly off-course in all directions.
The Seventeenth Century
The Eighteenth Century
The Nineteenth Century
The Twentieth Century
The Twenty-first Century

Still no change. Yawn. Just checking my watch here. Nope, we're good. Still taking the long view and not getting sidetracked.

The spirit and sins of the age in every culture have come and gone a thousand times over, and the Church has not bowed to any of them.

There is not a scintilla of evidence that the Church is about to reverse course.

But still I get, "Oh, it's just a matter of time now. You'll see. The house of cards will fall." And yet, no one ever sees, and the "house of cards" never falls.

My question: How much time must elapse until the critics are convinced?

It's a serious question, but it's largely rhetorical, of course. The critics will never be convinced in our own time, even as they weren't convinced in the First Century, or the Second, or the Fourth, or the Sixteenth, or the Twentieth.

There have been a million Jameses talking of the Church's inevitable change for centuries on end with not a hint of vindication. Their blinders won't allow them to see the Church that Christ established, the Church protected and charged with teaching the Truth both in season and out.

My advice to James and the others is to take James' advice and apply it to themselves: Stop with the myopic habit of looking only six feet over the hood at the fads and fancies of the day. Look waaaay down the road to get the big picture, use the experience of two millennia to understand what is coming so as to be aware, and use your peripheral vision to sort out any immediate hazards and shiny trinkets that would take you off the steady, narrow road and into a ditch. Your driving will improve immediately.

Your path will be stable, reliable, and clear to eternity.

+++++++

PS: Before anyone challenges me by presenting supposed "changes" in Church teaching, be sure to know the difference between a discipline and a doctrine.



*Updated to reflect that James may not be an ex-Catholic as I had originally believed, but rather a lapsed or dissenting Catholic. I can't really know, since he put a quick comment below and will not be returning to correct me from what I can tell.

Pope Fact: Infallible does not mean sinless

The question I got from Mehridith at the bottom of this older post is a common one:

"I don't understand how one can come to the conclusion that someone is without sin; i.e., the Pope being infallible. Can someone explain this to me, a faithful Protestant?" 

I whipped off a quick answer:

Hi Mehridith! I think I can clear it up fairly quickly. We don't believe that popes are without sin. All of them were/are sinners, and some were grave, horrible sinners. So, infallibility does not mean what you think it means. It means that, sinners that they are, the popes will never teach doctrine which is in error. Like the writers of the Bible who wrote without doctrinal error… the popes cannot teach error on issues of faith and morals. Hope that helps! I will come and write more in a bit if I get a chance. (But basically, infallibility is not impeccability.)

To expand just a bit, here are the facts:

1) All of the 266 popes have sinned, including the first pope, St. Peter, who committed among the worst of sins: He denied Christ three times during Christ's Passion.

2) While all of the popes have been sinners, it's also true that many of the popes have practiced heroic virtue, rising to the heights of great sanctity. The first popes (and several subsequent popes) died as martyrs for the faith, and many popes have been canonized or beatified. Saintly popes are common.

3) Though most popes were good and holy men, there were a handful of popes who were bad, wicked and/or corrupt. A recounting of their personal sin would make your hair curl! It is entirely possible that there are popes in hell.

4) Whether saintly or evil, no pope has ever taught heresy (i.e., no pope has ever taught error as truth). The Holy Spirit guides the Church and protects her so that the faithful will never be led into doctrinal error -- no matter who sits in the Chair of Peter.

5) If you wonder how someone can speak truth while not living it, think of a math professor teaching his students perfectly correct formulas and concepts, while he himself cheats on his taxes and cannot seem to keep a balanced checkbook. Or think of a chronic adulterer who preaches that adultery is wrong. His actions are evil, but what he says is perfectly true.


Just as God protected sinful men from teaching doctrinal error when writing the Bible, He also protected sinful Peter and his sinful successors from teaching doctrinal error while leading His Church.

Infallibility does not mean impeccability.


Related posts:

The Pope is not as powerful as you think

The different types of infallibility

"…and the Papacy remains"

Protestants: It's time to come back



.

The Pope is not as powerful as you think.

Many people believe that the pope wields a strong and potentially tyrannical power over his flock. The concept of an infallible teacher leads them to imagine a dictator (even if benevolent) who can force doctrines upon Catholics at whim, leaving the faithful either a) anxious and uncertain about what dogmatic changes will come next to disturb their lives, or b) ready to run like lemmings off whatever cliff the Supreme Pontiff decides to lead them. Sure, maybe the current pope is mentally and emotionally stable, but what of the next? And the next? Think of the havoc he could wreak! Who in his right mind would put his life under the pope's authority?

In reality, however, the pope is not quite as powerful as one might think.

For example:

They say: "The pope has forbidden Catholics to use contraception!"

The reality is: For twenty centuries, the Church has taught that contraception is wrong. No pope in any era has the authority or power to reverse a teaching of the Deposit of Faith.

They say: "The pope won't allow women to become priests!"

The reality is: For twenty centuries, the Church has never admitted women to the priesthood. No pope in any era has the authority or power to reverse a teaching of the Deposit of Faith.

They say: "The pope says women can't have abortions under any circumstances!"

The reality is: For twenty centuries, the Church has taught that any and all abortions are intrinsically evil (even when there's been debate over the issue of "ensoulment"). No pope in any era has the authority or power to reverse a teaching of the Deposit of Faith.

They say: "The pope won't approve pre-marital sex or homosexual activity!"

The reality is: For twenty centuries, the Church has taught that sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage is gravely sinful. No pope in any era has the authority or power to reverse a teaching of the Deposit of Faith.

They say: "The pope won't let people defraud the poor!"

Wait... what? The Church-bashers don't take issue with that part of the Catholic Faith? Well then, they might be happy to hear this:

For twenty centuries, the Church has taught that defrauding the poor is evil. No pope in any era has the authority or power to reverse a teaching of the Deposit of Faith.

Are you seeing a pattern here?

The pope has no power to change the Deposit of Faith. None. Nada. Zip and zilch. He can't change the moral law. He can't change the tenets of the Creed. He can't touch the truths of faith and morals because he has no authority to do so. 

As my friend Kim relates in her conversion story (a must read!), infallibility doesn't give a pope carte blanche to invent any doctrine he wants to make up; instead, infallibility is actually a highly limiting doctrine. Jesus' teachings are preserved and protected, leaving them intact throughout the centuries.

And our dear pope, thank God, is powerless to change a single truth. 

Answer to Doctrinal Quiz Show, Third Edition... and special Grand Prize!

Well, I have clearly proven that I am not infallible when it comes to writing the DQS questions! Sorry for the confusion, and yet I guess I should have known that was coming, as I did make the wording vague and tricky, on purpose. 

The question was: How many doctrines of the Catholic Church are taught infallibly?

The (incorrect) answer I expected to get: "Two doctrines have been taught infallibly: the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and the Bodily Assumption of Mary, both of which were declared ex cathedra by a pope."

The real answer: We can’t give an exact number, because ex cathedra pronouncements are only one type of infallibility.

To elaborate, there is actually more than one kind (or level) of infallibility in the Church. The Magisterium (i.e., the teaching authority of the Church) can exercise infallibility in two basic ways: 

1. The "extraordinary Magisterium"  

2. The "ordinary and universal Magisterium"

The exercise of the "extraordinary Magisterium" is the one we hear about most.  This is when the Pope acts on his own, pronouncing and defining doctrine ex cathedra, or "from the Chair" of Peter. This has happened at least twice, with the Marian doctrines mentioned above. (These doctrines were already true before the pope declared them, by the way. Popes do not ever "make up" new doctrines.)

The exercise of the "ordinary and universal Magisterium" is less obvious but more common. It is the teaching of the whole body of bishops, in union with the pope. When the bishops and pope speak and teach definitively on something (for example in an ecumenical council) they are teaching infallibly. The day-to-day teachings of the Church, confirmed and reaffirmed throughout the centuries, fall into this category of infallible teachings. "God exists" would be one such infallibly taught doctrine (pretty basic and general!), as would the prohibition of abortion and contraception (never has the Church sanctioned either one). 

(Read more about infallibility from the a document of Vatican II here. And for those who really want to dive in, read more detail on infallibility here.)

My point in even asking the question was to make clear that an ex cathedra pronouncement (extraordinary Magisterium) is not the only kind of infallibility on the block, and definitely not the most common. Many dissident, unfaithful "Catholics" will use the bogus argument that "the pope only declared two things infallibly!" to justify their rejection of a hundred other Catholic truths.


Now, on to the real reason you are here... 

The Bubble Awards!! 

(Some have earned more than one award, and all have earned at least one, even some who did not participate. I was feeling extremely generous this time around, since I complicated the question and messed with your heads.)


The Excellent Knowledge of Chronology by a Not-Quite Catholic Award goes to Karen! And a special bonus comes with this award: You get to become Catholic in two days! {wild applause from the blogger ladies!}


The You Are an Award Hog; Isn't a National Award Enough for You? Award goes to Jenny! She also gets the Little Miss Catholic Smarty Pants Award for making good points and distinctions, as well as the Suck-Up Award for her final comment.


The Hey, That's a Good Answer and You are Pretty Much Right (and Your Dad Must be a Hit at Parties) Award goes to Adrienne!


The Sarcastic But Lovable Catholic Daughter Award goes to Cecily! (I taught her everything she knows... about sarcasm.)


The De-Lurking Award goes to My Heart Exults! Welcome out from the shadows, and please keep frequenting the Bubble!


The Giving the Wrong Answer I Was Looking For Award goes to Beth!  (Impressive!)


The That's a Great Way to Think About it Award (eerily similar to Adrienne's award, but without the dad part) goes to Callmemama!


The Best Use of a Pop-Culture Reference Award goes to Grace In My Heart!


The Unintentionally Making Leila Feel Guilty for Posing a Confusing Question, But Giving it the Old College Try Anyway Award goes to Wheelbarrow Rider and Rebecca!


The Well-Catechized Catholic Husband Award goes to two non-participants: the husbands of Ann and Karen! 


The Never Say Die Award goes to those contestants who came back twice, three times, and even FOUR times (cough, TW, cough) to comment! These passionate players are: TCIE (missed the last DQS, was the first to answer this time... way to come back!), Kaitlin, Barbie, Brenda, Jenny, Lauren, Shannon, Ann and Tridentine Wife! (And a special shout-out to old friends but first time participants, Barbie and Brenda, who also get the Where Have You Been? Award.)


The Sew, I Knew You Would Be Upset About That, But I Hoped You Would Remember That I Will Always Give You An Award Because You Are Sew Award goes to Sew!


The Very Thoughtful and Impressive Answers, But I Had Written Out The Awards Last Night Before Your Answers Came on the Scene, So I Don't Have Enough Time to Give You Clever, Detailed Awards or Else I Will Never Be Able to Publish This Post Award (a.k.a. the Latecomers Award) goes to Little JoAnn, Bonnie, Allie, Mrs. Blondies, Mrs. Mike, Joseph's Mommy, and Lisa!






And now... the GRAND PRIZE WINNER, for actually guessing the GRAND PRIZE is... Amazing Life!!!!  She has won an ergonomically-correct, waste-reducing exfoliating body cleanser with a hole in it!  Holey Soap, congratulations!!!! (For a testimony of how that soap works, click here!)

Thanks again, everyone, for playing Doctrinal Quiz Show!!!  See you next time, with a better formulated question!

Doctrinal Quiz Show, Third Edition! Infallibility

Welcome back, fans! I do love hosting the DQS and I am so excited for you to play along!

Today's subject: Infallibility.

Today's tricky question:

How many Catholic doctrines have been taught infallibly?

Remember, NO cheating, googling or copying other commenters! If you are thinking of cheating, remember that Jesus is sitting next to you and He sees all.

As an extra fun incentive, I have a special Grand Prize that I will be sending the winner!! Trust me, it's a prize you all want. 

In addition to the Grand Prize, I will also be handing out the usual slate of awards.

Okay, give me your best answers!