I do not need to tell you about the conflict and confusion that reign in our world, country, and Church. Every day, we see evidence of it.
Many of the Church’s traditional teachings regarding the nature and dignity of the human person, our sexuality, the meaning and purpose of marriage, the sanctity of life, the necessity of the sacraments, the Real Presence in the Eucharist, the importance of Confession, the importance of the Church’s social doctrine are often not known or understood by many of our own Catholics.
When challenged on a particular teaching, many would be hard-pressed to offer an articulate and cogent answer.
Increasingly, our culture rejects the Church’s teachings regarding many of these truths, especially those surrounding sexuality.
The Church and morality never change
Human nature has not changed. The Scriptures have not changed. The Nicene Creed has not changed. The Catechism of the Catholic Church has not changed.
In the middle of the current swirl of conflict and disagreement, these fundamental truths, revealed by God and proclaimed by the Church, stand as a rock of certainty for us.
Modernity insists on fluidity; our human nature is plastic and malleable in this view, which means I can define the purpose of my existence, my gender, my sexual preferences, the humanity of an unborn child, to offer some examples.
Contrast this view of reality with the subjective self at the center, with the Christian view where God is at the center.
My existence and humanity are gifts from God bearing an objective reality which I must respect and am deeply grateful for.
Gender, sexuality, marriage, and child-bearing are given by God for the building of the family, the life of the Church, the common good of society, and the sanctification of every person.
The call to live in solidarity, to embrace a spirituality of work, to serve the poor and most vulnerable, to care for each other and the world is a practical way to build a society where everyone can flourish as a child of God.
Many of the Church’s teachings are based on natural law, the conviction that we can know and understand the essential purpose and meaning of reality by simply studying human nature and the world around us.
Men and women are created for each other in sexual complementarity; parents conceive, nurture, and give birth to children.
Human beings are essentially social and need each other in relationships of mutual service and support.
Birth and death are natural processes and the individuals experiencing either are vulnerable and need our help.
Sadly, natural law is often rejected today as a religious construct, but this exclusion leaves us bereft of a moral language which would enable us to discuss ethical issues and arrive at a certainty of truth and its consequences.
The Church wants to be close to every person, especially the poor, the sick, and the vulnerable, but also those who experience racism and prejudice, those who struggle with gender dysphoria, or are same-sex attracted.
Because someone does not agree with or live by all of the Church’s teachings does not mean that the Church rejects them or stops loving them.
On the contrary, She wants to be even closer to those who have turned aside from faith or do feel rejected by the Church.
Conflicting beliefs
Two extremes seem operative in the Church today: Those who simply want the Church to change, omit, or at least de-emphasize those teachings which they disagree with and those who want the Church to come down with an iron fist on those who dissent from Church teaching. I hear regularly from both points of view.
The former hold up love at the price of truth and the latter embrace truth but often without charity. Jesus always fused love and truth; He loved sinners, accepted and welcomed them, but in order to call them to conversion and the abundance of the Gospel life. He did not leave them in their sin.
Love without truth becomes empty, vacuous, and sentimental; truth without love becomes harsh, judgmental, and rigid. Jesus and His Church always hold them together.
In the light of so much false ideology regarding the human person, gender, sexuality, and life, we owe it to each other, especially our children, to factually know, coherently understand, lovingly articulate, and generously live the Church’s teaching on these matters.
In light of the racial tensions, economic disparity, and global poverty we face, we owe it to each other, especially our children, to factually know, coherently understand, lovingly articulate, and generously live the Church’s teachings on these matters as well.
If you have not already done so, I encourage you to read and study the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
If there is a doctrine or teaching you do not understand or even disagree with, focus on that.
Try to understand the “why” behind the “what” of the Catholic belief.
See the inner theological and moral logic which hold the entire Catechism together as a profound synthesis of God’s Word, spoken to us through Jesus and mediated through the Scriptures and the Tradition.
Today, more than ever, we need to be formed as knowledgeable Catholics in order to go and make disciples.