Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

Here is the third in the installment:

I believe that the next issue is perhaps the fundamental reason for any disagreements that we may have had.  I would characterize this as the misconception of a conflict between love and obedience.  Forgive me if I have misunderstood your position on this issue, but I will restate here what I have interpreted it to be based upon your homilies:

Jesus’ Gospel message was one of love.  Love now replaces the legalism of the Old Testament and therefore rules are to be avoided and even disregarded if they seem to conflict with a loving pastoral response in any given situation.  This is exemplified in Jesus’ continual berating of the scribes and Pharisees for their legalism.  Jesus freed us from rules which get in the way of love.

I would argue against this position.  The canard that viewed the Pharisees as rule following legalists was an artifact of Reformation polemics that placed Catholics in the same boat.  In fact, the above reflects view reflects Luther’s “law and the Gospel” dichotomy.  Even among Protestants, this view is beginning to change.  There is a new perspective upon Paul led by scholars such as N.T. Wright and E.P. Sanders that are reevaluating the Reformation’s interpretation of Paul.

Posing “love” against “obedience” is a false dichotomy.  Our culture is dominated by a legalism which presupposes that rules are arbitrary human inventions that necessarily impose themselves upon human freedom.  This is a deficient view of freedom however.  In reality, rules are supposed to be based upon the truth about the way things are.  It is true that we multiply laws in the West at a dangerous rate.  However, this is because we have done away with fundamental moral principles and now we are trying to clean up the mess by legislating against the problems that arise because of it.  When it comes to the Church, rarely does a conflict arise between the Church’s “rules” and a loving pastoral response any particular situations.

Rather, the Church’s canons are aimed at helping the faithful live according to the message of love that Jesus gave us.  Because of this, I think that one needs to be very careful to understand the rationale behind a particular rule before one disregards it.  I know that there are many periodicals, many of them I have seen on your desk, that caricature Church teaching and discipline as arbitrary and archaic human inventions, but for whatever their motivation, the caricature they make of the Church’s hierarchy and Her rules does a great injustice to those who have faithfully labored to instruct the faithful in the ways of the Gospel and an even greater disservice to the faithful for whom these rules are put in place to help them grow in holiness and grace.  The laity needs pastors to love their souls at least as much as the pastors are concerned for their feelings.

The Church teaches there is no difference in God’s message in the Old and New Testaments.  The Old Testament is the New Testament veiled, the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.  Jesus’ message was that love means obedience and that love can only be demonstrated by obedience to His Truth (cf. John 14:15-16,21, 23-24).  Obedience extends beyond just the 10 commandments and mortal sins, but it demands we do God’s will in everything.  Since Jesus’ authority is exercised by the Church in discipline as well as in teachings of faith and morals, obedience to these disciplinary rules is also paramount.

Far from being pharisaical, this is a response of love for God and His Will in our lives.  I see that the teachings of Jesus in Scripture that may seem harsh, make much more sense when viewed from this perspective.  A truism is that ultimately people will only be genuinely moved by the truth, and if this is the truth it must be made part of one’s thinking if he is to motivate others to change their lives.

One note of interest, the drastic decline in Mass attendance and practice of the faith in the West have corresponded very closely to the general trend in homiletics of avoiding discussing the difficult issues and infusing teaching with opinions which contradict Church teaching.  While there may be some negative feedback initially when presenting the difficult truths, the overall positive fruit will eventually eclipse the negatives.

So what is Jesus saying to the Pharisees and scribes if he is not telling them stop pushing the rules?  Jesus is telling them to change their hearts.  His point is that the rules are meant to transform themselves interiorly through observance of exterior behavior.  Both are necessary.  Jesus never said anything close to the assertion that rules are bad or opposed to His message.  In fact He did the opposite, for example He cited some rules (the 10 commandments) to the young man in response to his question about what he had to do to be saved.  Furthermore, Jesus told His disciples that they had to obey the spiritual authority of the Scribes and Pharisees because they sat on the “cathedra” of Moses (see Matthew 23:2).

Jesus was trying to change the Pharisees’ hearts and to help them to realize that they could not save themselves through external observance of the law without a corresponding interior transformation.  Moreover, they needed a Savior Who would give them the grace enabling them to reach perfection.  He, likewise, showed them the rules they were implementing were not in fact carrying out God’s plan.  Not that all rules were bad.  It is a logical fallacy called a “hasty generalization” to say that because the Pharisees and scribes went astray with their rule making that everyone who makes up rules does the same thing. Thus, comparing the number of canons in Canon Law with the number of laws the Pharisees imposed is not a valid argument for disobeying Church discipline.

What the Church has that the Scribes and Pharisees did not is God’s grace and the protection of the Holy Spirit and this should give us confidence that the Church, in general, applies rules in the way God wants, in order to carry out the Gospel message.  But even for those few cases where Her disciplines are not the most well advised, we still have to go back to Matthew 23:2, and do what the Church says because She has God’s authority.

Only in those rare cases where following a rule would in reality contradict what the Church really directs because of some uniqueness to the situation, should a rule be dispensed with and then discreetly so as to not scandalize (in the true sense of the term) the faithful.  I don’t think this applies to minor inconveniences and dispensing of Church discipline definitely is not justified due to preference or the desire to avoid hard feelings.   It also requires a thorough understanding of the intent of the rule and the ramifications of dispensing with it.  In truth, almost every canon in Canon Law provides for these eventualities anyway.

If we look at the source of this dichotomy between obedience and love we will not find it Scripture, nor in the writings of the Fathers of the Church.  It is not in the saints or the mystics writings.  Rather, we find it in faulty philosophies of Nominalist voluntarism, in Reformation extrapolations upon this, and in Enlightenment rebellion against authority.

All the evidence throughout Church history show me that it is safest to stay close to Mother Church because she always leads us in the right direction.  If I am left to my own devices, I can see that I make more mistakes in a week than even the worst critic of the Church says She has made in Her 2000 year history.  Without reliance on the authority of the Church we are left with the confusion seen in Protestantism today, perhaps around 40,000 different communities/denominations all teaching different things.  This confusion, I fear, is what we effectively have among so many Catholics today.

I have no illusions about convincing you, but I could at least hope you might see this from another perspective rather than dismiss it as rigid legalism.  In the end, I think that the chances of convincing your listeners to allow God’s grace to change them will only be successful when they are convinced with rock solid certainty that they are being given the truth and can trust in it.  Otherwise, they are being asked to go completely against what their culture says is good with no reason to think that the message they hear from the pulpit is any more certain than the message they hear from the television.

I want to courteously suggest that obedience also applies to the priest in the liturgy.  The lack of apparent concern that too many priests seem to have for the rubrics of the Mass is the perhaps the most significant thing that grieves so many of us, and for which we feel obligated to dedicate much of our reparations.  I am not talking about the legitimate selection of options, but changing of words in the Mass for a variety of reasons (inclusiveness, attempts to be clearer, to save time, or for personal preference), the dropping of required parts of the Mass, etc.

The Vatican II Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum concilium paragraph 22, subparagraph (3) says specifically, “…no other person, not even a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.”  The CDF has called these changes grave matter and therefore this appears to me to be one of the most serious issues, potentially undermining many of the intentions of the Masses themselves.  I cannot imagine a greater slap in the face of Christ.  To take His perfect act of obedience and turn it into an act of disobedience (to a greater or lesser extent) is the very definition of sacrilege. There is probably nothing else that undermines a priest’s authority in the eyes of the laity than for that priest to ignore the authority from which he derives his own authority.  Having said this, I am not making any judgments of anyone’s intention in this.  Personally, I honestly believe that most priests sincerely do not believe their adaptations are considered serious.  Most probably do not consider the gravity of what they are doing.  However, because of these disobedient changes are objectively grave, great harm is done.