That There Be No Schisms Among You
Jul 7th, 2020 | By Bryan Cross | Category: Blog PostsI started this essay in 2013, and then put it on the back burner. But now in the midst of a global viral pandemic I decided to complete it. This sort of essay is unusual at Called To Communion because in it I intend to write primarily to my fellow US Catholics. However, the problem I am addressing here is directly relevant to the task of pursuing, cherishing, and growing in the unity Christ has given to us through the Church. Here I’m applying the principle that “it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God,” (1 Peter 4:17) in that we Catholics have to get our own house in order with respect to a matter of unity. As usual, I write for those willing to dig and think deeply, not for the rushed or impatient reader. I also presume that the reader is familiar with what I have written about philosophy in my 2017 essay “Evangelism as Cultural Conversion.”1
Pentecost
Giotto di Bondone, 1304-06
In 2005 when I was preparing to be received into full communion with the Catholic Church, I did not yet perceive or understand the magnitude and scope of what I now believe to be one of the most grave and widespread problems in present-day Catholicism in the US. I did not perceive or understand this problem, in part, because I was to some degree ensnared in it myself. Fifteen years later, I am not exaggerating when I say that I see this problem and its deleterious effects around me on a daily basis. The problem I am talking about is that the philosophies in the minds of US Catholics are primarily formed by and drawn from the ideologies of whichever pole of the political binary they inhabit, rather than from the doctrine and philosophical tradition of the Church.
On the Present Polarization
While it would be inaccurate to claim that there are only two competing political ideologies in the US, I need not defend the claim that the US is presently deeply politically polarized, because the latter claim is not only empirically verified but also self-evident to any observer.2
The two primary political poles in the US each embody a distinct general ideology. Commonly these ideologies are referred to with terms like “left” and “right,” or ‘progressive’ and ‘conservative.’ But they are not merely competing sets of answers to policy questions or issues; they are also competing broader ideologies, each with their own principles and ideals about liberty, rights, justice, and national well-being. Like philosophies generally, these ideologies tend to be invisible as ideologies, especially if we grew up immersed within them, and without being pedagogically required to look under the hood, so to speak, to discover what lies beneath these aggregations of positions on issues. As a result, persons who hold these ideologies typically do not see themselves as holding an ideology, but merely as supporting either a set of issues or some general principles they believe to be good and important.
Nevertheless, the deep political polarization in the US creates a tendency toward a tribalism in which, regardless of our religious beliefs, we now tend to see ourselves as members of one of two opposing political teams or sides.3 Tribalism appeals to our natural human desire to belong, and to our sense of loyalty.4 It inclines us to embrace not only the positional package, but also the underlying philosophy of one side of the political binary. But it also inclines us to adopt an us vs. them mentality in relation to this political binary, to conceive of the situation as a contest of ‘right vs. wrong’ or ‘good vs. evil,’ and to categorize every person, article, and action, as motivated by advancing or defending one tribe or the other, and thus as either “with us or against us.”5
When the background framework in which we live is the continual struggle between two political ideologies, and this political struggle is largely viewed as the struggle in our time and place between good and evil, then one of these parties and political ideologies tends to be placed in the category of the good, and the other tends to be placed in the category of the bad, such that the political battle between them is conceived as the earthly instantiation of the battle between good and evil, and thus between the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys.’ So even before bringing in the topic of grace or divine faith, simply considering human nature in the context of polarization we find that tribalism can lead to a propensity toward intellectual vices and fallacious reasoning.6
Political Polarization in the Catholic Church in the US
While the philosophies in the minds of persons in the US are largely formed by and drawn from the ideologies of whichever pole of the political binary they inhabit, this is no less true for US Catholics. For this reason the political polarization in the US leads US Catholics to fall into the very same political tribalism.7 Catholics in the US are vulnerable to falling into this tribalism because we too acquire our moral and political philosophy almost entirely from our political affiliation and partisan identity, rather than from the Church’s social teaching and philosophical tradition.8 And once we fall into this political tribalism, that only compounds the problem, because the ‘us’ side acquires increased perceived authority, and becomes the dominant lens through which we interpret all Church teaching and Church governance.9
The problem is not merely intellectual, but has an important social component, because we humans tend to get our ideology from the community with whom we identify most closely. A Catholic who identifies with the persons on one pole of the political polarization tends to retain and elevate conceptually the functional authority of its political ideology over the Church’s social teaching, rather than by faith allow the Church’s teaching to be the standard by which he critically evaluates his political ideology, and relinquishes it where it opposes the teaching of the Church. But though the cafeteria eclecticism of private judgment is more obvious in other more concrete areas of doctrine, in the area of political ideology this eclecticism as such tends to remain mostly invisible to US Catholics.10
The Catholic philosophical tradition and Catholic Social Teaching differ from and transcend the ideologies of both poles of our present political polarization.11 At Pentecost of 2017, Pope Francis said that when Christians “take sides and form parties, [we] become Christians of the ‘right’ or the ‘left,’ before being on the side of Jesus.”12 The following year he reminded us again that when faced with splits along party lines, including “conservative” or “progressive,” we must choose to belong to Jesus before identifying with right or left.13 He says this because he sees that identifying ourselves with these political poles can lead us to have a mind and heart other than the mind and heart of Christ, found in and through the Church.14
What Causes Polarization Within the Catholic Church in the US?
One factor contributing to the problem is the assumption that political left and political right correspond to theological liberalism and theological orthodoxy, respectively. Theological liberalism, defined in one sense as dissent from orthodoxy, is thereby associated with being politically left, and being politically on the right is therefore conceived to be theologically orthodox. Moreover, because the threat of abortion remains the USCCB’s “preeminent priority,”15 and because the political right in the US has presented itself as more supportive of protecting the unborn than has the political left, therefore it can seem that the political right is on the side of the Church. This can lead to the unquestioning assumption that the political right’s ideology as a whole is in agreement with Church teaching, especially given that the ubiquitous and continual public presence of the battle between the two political poles also implicitly communicates that these are the only two options.
Inversely, some other US Catholics approach the Church’s teaching through a lens of social justice drawn either from the philosophy of the political left or from part of Church teaching, and rationalize dissent from Church teaching in areas of sexual ethics and marriage on the grounds of what they believe are the implications of social justice, as though they know better than the Church on these matters, and as though it is only a matter of time before the Church eventually catches up to them.16 Here too a driving factor is an operative false dilemma that insofar as political conservatism distorts or denies parts of Christ’s teaching, and central parts of what is known as political liberalism more closely resembles Christ’s social gospel, therefore the political ideology of the left is the one to embrace as a Catholic.
More broadly, insofar as one approaches the Church through the consumeristic paradigm by which one chooses one’s religious practice and affiliation according to its conformity to one’s tastes and beliefs, one will be inclined to distort the Church’s teaching to make it conform to one’s political ideology, rather than allow the Church’s teaching to be the standard by which one evaluates one’s political ideology.17
Epistemic Effects of This Polarization
The problem is not that US Catholics tend to view the Church as a central context for the overarching battle between good and evil. The Church is such a context, and there is truly a battle between good and evil, as the Church herself teaches.18 Moreover there have always been persons in the Church seeking to deny or distort the Church’s teaching. A significant and important component of Church history is that of the role of heresies and heretics. And against their errors the saints must always contend.19
Rather, Catholics in the US, both clerics and lay persons, tend to treat the opposition between left and right political ideologies in the US as the conceptual framework in which and through which to situate and interpret what and who in the Church belongs to the good and true, and what and who in the Church belongs to the bad and false. According to this conceptual framework either the Church becomes the extension of the political war between left and right into the domain of religion, or the political war between left and right becomes the extension into the political domain of the deeper metaphysical conflict between good vs. evil laid out in the Christian metanarrative. Either way, through this lens one is led to construe each event in the Church in terms of a war between left and right Catholicism, and to categorize each person as either ‘us’ or ‘them.’20
From within this conceptual framework one looks for some sign or signs, drawn from the conceptual toolbox of the US political conflict, by which to place each Catholic into one of these two categories: the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys.’ Typically this categorization is already done by others on one’s own side of the political divide. Church leaders and their teaching are conceptually judged and divided as good or bad, on the side of good or on the side of evil, according to the degree to which they conform to the political ideology of one’s group.21
For Catholics who identify with the political left, when Church leaders say something opposing leftist political ideology, then by this lens these leaders are placed in the ‘bad’ category, and their teaching is dismissed as coming from leaders who have ‘sold out’ to wealthy donors on the political right. Conversely, for Catholics who identify with the political right, when Church leaders make a statement that opposes something in the political ideology of the right, then by this action these leaders are placed in the ‘bad’ category, and their teaching dismissed as having sold out to leftist ideology or progressivism. However, when Catholic leaders say something that agrees with or is compatible with one’s own political ideology, it is accepted, praised, and highlighted, as coming from one of the good guys, on the side of the good in the war between good and evil. This is not the carrying out of our responsibility to guard the good deposited entrusted to us (2 Tim. 1:14); this is motivated reasoning in the service of politicized ecclesial consumerism.
In this way this phenomenon causes many US Catholics to tend to construe and interpret Catholic doctrine, including Catholic Social Teaching, so as to make it conceptually fit with and conform to their respective political ideology, affirming that which agrees with their pre-existing beliefs, and at least implicitly ignoring that which does not.22
By adopting such a framework, the paradigm of the US political conflict replaces the Church’s own teaching as the paradigm in which and through which to understand the Church and evaluate what occurs within her, and becomes instead the standard by which the Church’s teaching is judged, which parts of that teaching are accepted and which parts rejected, and how Catholic leaders are to be categorized, so as to be either those counting as approved, or those to be ignored or rejected. In this way can we inadvertently and wrongly treat our political ideology as greater in authority than the teaching of the Church.
When we mistake and construe the conflict between the political left and right as the war between good and evil, we inadvertently advance the cause of evil, in at least four ways. We do so firstly by misidentifying the conflict and where the conflict really lies, thereby further obscuring both good and evil. And evil flourishes and goodness wanes to the degree to which they are masked and thereby made ambiguous and indistinguishable. Secondly, we prevent ourselves from seeing what is bad and false in our own ideology, and what is good and true in the ideology of our political opponent. When error is included in what we set up as our standard, we prevent its being shown to us as error, and when what is good is defined as evil, it cannot be shown to us to be good. Thirdly, we discredit the Church, by driving wedges between Catholics, polarizing Catholics against one another, and reducing the Church to a stage of political conflict when in truth she is the steward of Christ’s gospel and that through which peace and unity are to come to every nation, through the unity we have been given in the Church. Fourthly, we obscure the gospel from ourselves and from the world, by both reducing it to the level of a political ideology and by failing to see that it transcends and judges every political ideology, including our own, not the other way around.
Effects of This Polarization on Evangelism
This problem does not falsify the essential visible unity of the Catholic Church we confess in the Creed, for reasons I have explained elsewhere in 2012.23. Nevertheless it wounds that unity, and in multiple ways is a stumbling block to Catholics, to Protestants, and to non-Christians. Not only does it make Catholics opposed to each other politically, but it brings that conflict into the Church and applies it to all things Catholic. It makes the faith we have received from Christ itself something to be weaponized and exploited within a broader political war, rather than allowing it to be that by which we beat our swords into plowshares, and our spears into pruning hooks.24
We Catholics then as a result fail to show to the world the unity of love Christ has called us to show to one another (John 13:35). We also fail to show the Church’s teaching, because we reduce it to something that does not challenge our respective political ideologies, and falsely imply to the world that the gospel of Christ just is our political ideology.25
Catholics caught up in this polarization think that they are “fighting the good fight” as, for example, they share items daily on social media that score rhetorical points for their side, when in actuality they are fighting for their political ideology, and the “good fight,” which is to be conducted in an entirely different mode, is neglected or even harmed as a result. The gospel of Christ is something beautiful and inviting, but the war as presently waged between political ideologies is ugly and off-putting. And the appropriation of the Catholic faith to advance one side or other in the political battle between left and right is uglier still, making the Catholic faith out to be something ugly and repulsive. Those who sink into this fight and this mode of fighting it tend to become in a certain respect corrupted and tainted by it, losing in a long-term way both within themselves and in the eyes of others the moral credibility needed to share effectively a divine message that transcends these two political ideologies.26 In short, ideological polarization among US Catholics weakens our gospel witness.27
Transcending Politicizing Polarization
“[Christians’] adherence to a political alliance will never be ideological but always critical ….”28
I am not saying that Catholics should not be involved in politics, or that Catholics should not participate in political parties. Nor am I saying that there are no persons within the Church seeking to water down, distort, or corrupt her teaching, and that those attempts must not be faithfully resisted. But participating politically and upholding the deposit of faith does not require falling into the problem described above.
To avoid falling into this polarization we must first recognize it as a grave problem, and become aware of it.29 In parishes, Catholic schools, RCIA classes, and seminaries, we need formation in Catholic social teaching and the Catholic philosophical tradition. Catholics need to be taught both in word and through example where Catholic teaching does not line up with the political ideologies of the US political polarization.30 We need additional tools for examining ourselves to help us recognize when we are falling into this error. We need our priests to recognize this problem, teach us how to avoid it, and live out what it looks like to transcend it.
Without such formation converts to Catholicism are vulnerable to this error. I have seen this many times over the last fifteen years. Converts are vulnerable to bringing with them into the Church their own philosophy, not knowing that they are doing so, and especially not knowing that they should be revising their philosophy according to the Church’s social teaching and philosophical tradition, in part because even with an otherwise good RCIA program, RCIA teachers are typically and understandably overjoyed if the catechumens simply learn the theological basics laid out in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. We need to be teaching those coming into the Church how to avoid allowing our nation’s political polarization to commandeer their practice of the faith.31
If we love Christ and love His Church, then we must love the peace and unity of His Church. And that means also praying for and building up the peace and unity of the Church. That does not mean uniformity. Disagreements of a certain sort, debated in respect and charity, are healthy for the Church in this pilgrim way, and have always been part of her history. But allowing our nation’s political polarization to become the paradigm through which we see the Church is a philosophical error that creates unhealthy division and keeps us from entering fully into the supernatural peace Christ has already provided to His Church.32 We grow in our participation of this supernatural peace through acquiring the mind of Christ.33 And we find the mind of Christ in His Body, the Church.34
O Lord Jesus, Who said to Your Apostles; Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; regard not our sins, but the faith of Your Church, and grant her that peace and unity which are agreeable to Your will. Who lives and reigns, Lord, God forever and ever. Amen.
- Note there in particular what I say about philosophy not only being unavoidable, but tending to be invisible to us, both in those around us and within ourselves. Note also what I say there about the Catholic philosophical tradition. The reader will also be aided by familiarity with my other essay from 2017 titled “Speaking the Truth in the Beauty of Love: A Guide to Better Online Discussion.” [↩]
- See “Republicans And Democrats Don’t Agree, Or Like Each Other — And It’s Worse Than Ever” (NPR, October 5, 2017). Sam Rosenfeld has argued in his recent book that our present political polarization was intentional. See his The Polarizers: Postwar Architects of Our Partisan Era (University of Chicago Press, 2018). [↩]
- On the way in which we as individuals contribute to the polarization, see “Who is the cause of society’s polarization? All of us” by Matt Malone, S.J. (April 20, 2018). [↩]
- See “Revisiting Robbers Cave: The easy spontaneity of intergroup conflict” by Maria Konnikova (September 5, 2012). [↩]
- A number of authors have written recently about political tribalism in the US, including Jonah Goldberg Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Nationalism, and Socialism Is Destroying American Democracy (Crown Forum, 2020), Ezra Klein Why We’re Polarized (Avid Reader Press, 2020), Amy Chua Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations (Penguin Books, 2019), Steve Kornacki The Red and the Blue: The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism (Ecco Press, 2018), Stevan E. Hobfoll Tribalism: The Evolutionary Origins of Fear Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), and Sarah Rose Cavanagh Hivemind: The New Science of Tribalism in Our Divided World (Grand Central Publishing, 2019). [↩]
- The left-right “package deal” way of thinking is the “black or white” fallacy applied to political polarization and so internalized as to become an intellectual vice disposing its possessor to oversimplify positions repeatedly by (a) conceiving them or those who hold them as necessarily belonging to one of those two packages, even when in fact they do not, and thus failing to see even as possibilities third and fourth options beyond those contained in the two packages, (b) assuming on the basis that some parts of the package one has chosen are true and good that the other parts of the package must also be true and good, and defending these other parts without questioning or verifying them, even when these other parts are false and harmful, (c) assuming that the only alternative to a good in one’s chosen package must be an evil in the other package, rather than a greater good, (d) assuming that an error in an opposing package negates the whole opposing package, and thereby verifies the truth of the whole of one’s chosen package, and/or (e) treating a criticism of one component of one’s chosen package as a criticism of the whole package, and therefore of all that is good in the package, and thus as unjustifiable and readily dismissible, (f) grasping at anything that will defend one’s anything in one’s package and criticize something in the opposing side’s package, and (g) treat a criticizing of some component of one’s own package a personal attack and as identifying the critic as an enemy to be entirely distrusted and opposed. One symptom of this way of ‘package’ way thinking is that once one discovers which side a person is on, one can accurately predict all of that person’s positions, because their positions line up perfectly with those of the package. [↩]
- On this problem see the following: “A View From Abroad: The Shrinking Common Ground in the American Church” by Massimo Faggiolo (February 11, 2014), Polarization in the US Catholic Church: Naming the Wounds, Beginning to Heal, Edited by Mary Ellen Konieczny, Charles C. Camosy, and Tricia C. Bruce (Liturgical Press, 2016), “Christianity’s Grand Canyon” (by Fr. Dwight Longenecker (February 15, 2018), “American Catholicism: How to Mend the Fences” by Fr. Dwight Longenecker (February 23, 2018), “Overcoming Polarization in a Divided Nation Through Catholic Social Thought: Bringing the Joy of the Gospel to a Divided Nation” (June 4, 2018), “Georgetown summit looks to Francis in overcoming polarization” (June 7, 2018), “Like Americans overall, U.S. Catholics are sharply divided by party” (Pew Research Center, January 24, 2019), “A Closer Look: Resisting Partisan Identification for Faithful Discipleship” by Kenneth Craycraft (January 10, 2020), “Pope, US bishops talk about political polarization infecting the Church” (January 27, 2020). [↩]
- See Michele Margolis’s book From Politics to the Pews: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity, (University of Chicago Press, 2018), discussed in “How partisanship drives religious attitudes” by Yonat Shimron, July 31, 2018. [↩]
- See, for example, Ross Douthat’s 2016 First Things article titled “A Crisis of Conservative Catholicism.” Throughout the article Ross repeatedly divides Catholics into “liberal Catholics” and “conservative Catholics.” He is not merely referring to Catholics who happen to be politically on the right, and Catholics who happen to be politically on the left. For Ross these are kinds of Catholicism. But there is no such thing as “conservative Catholicism” or “liberal Catholicism.” These are political terms artificially (and falsely) imposed on the Church. And this is so common that no one blinks an eye. [↩]
- And that too is again in part because instead of seeing these underlying political ideologies as ideologies, many Catholics see within the political sphere only sets of issues loosely related under broader freedoms and rights. And when these ideologies remain mostly hidden to those who hold them, these ideologies are not held up to critical evaluation, either to that of reason or Church authority. [↩]
- On the Catholic philosophical tradition in view of Fides et Ratio, see my 2017 essay “Evangelism as Cultural Conversion.” Recognizing the underlying philosophical dimensions of the “left” / “right” divide in the US is important in part because the philosophies of the left and of the right are neither identical to nor in complete agreement with the Catholic philosophical tradition and Catholic Social Teaching in particular. For the purpose of this essay, this claim will serve as a working assumption, largely because substantiating it would require another whole article. But for example, forms of nationalism, economic liberalism, utilitarianism, expressive liberal individualism, and sexual liberalism are incompatible with the Catholic philosophical tradition and Catholic Social Teaching. See Dennis Sadowski’s “Catholic social teaching held up in efforts to overcome polarization” (December 29, 2018) on the “Overcoming Polarization in a Divided Nation Through Catholic Social Thought” conference at Georgetown University in June of 2018. [↩]
- “Avoid becoming Christians of the ‘right’ or the ‘left,’ urges Pope Francis during Pentecost Homily by Gerard O’Connell (June 4, 2017), “There are no Catholics of the ‘Left’ or ‘Right’. Here’s why.” (June 15, 2017). [↩]
- Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to WCC Ecumenical Centre, Thursday, June 21, 2018. [↩]
- The problem I am describing in this essay is such that for Catholics ensnared in it on one of the two political poles, the problem itself makes it more difficult for them to hear Pope Francis’s voice with credibility or receptivity, and therefore to be corrected by him. It also for them makes this essay at least suspect and on the ‘them’ side of “us vs. them.” [↩]
- USCCB, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” November 12, 2012. [↩]
- This is contrary to faith, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, as explained in “St. Thomas Aquinas on the Relation of Faith to the Church.” [↩]
- See “Ecclesial Consumerism.” (July 5, 2010). [↩]
- See CCC 409. [↩]
- See St. Augustine’s comments on why divine providence permits many heretics, in Two Books on Genesis Against the Manichees, 1.2. [↩]
- See Robert G. Christian III’s “This is What You Get When Politics Invades Our Political Lives.” [↩]
- Usually this conceptual framework does not exist so clearly distinct on its own, but is also conceptually mixed together with concepts of theological orthodoxy and theological progressivism. [↩]
- “The political crisis of ‘Conservative Catholicism’” by Stephen Schneck (January 4, 2016) [↩]
- “The “Catholics are divided too” Objection” [↩]
- Joyeux Noël. [↩]
- See “Bishop McElroy to address partisan polarization in lecture at Loyola in Chicago” (April 17, 2018), “Bishop McElroy: Catholic Teaching Has Been Hijacked by Partisans” (April 30, 2018). [↩]
- “Why the Culture Wars Don’t Evangelize Souls” by Constance T. Hull (June 21, 2018), “Polarization of Church and Society “discouraging” for millennials” by Charles C. Camosy (June 23, 2018). [↩]
- “How partisanship is ‘weakening the Gospel witness’ in America” by Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble (July 2, 2020). [↩]
- Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 573 [↩]
- “Catholic virtues necessary to address political polarization, bishop says” (April 19, 2018). [↩]
- “Civic Virtue and the Common Good: Forming a Catholic Political Imagination” (May, 2018). [↩]
- See Desiree Hausam’s “How to Avoid Catholic Camps — A Franciscan Word to New Converts” (December 12, 2019). [↩]
- Philippians 4:7. [↩]
- Romans 12:2. [↩]
- 2 Cor. 2:16. [↩]
Thank you for this, Bryan.
Thank you so much–very helpful.
Bryan, thank you very much. I certainly agree that this is a big problem, in need of being addressed.
I wish to ask a follow-up question with respect to the division of political ideologies, and how (as a practical matter!) one even can be formed by the philosophical tradition of the Church, on the questions which divide the political left and right in the U.S. and their matching subdivisions of the American Church.
It seems to me that persons on the political right in the U.S. reflexively make certain distinctions which are not, so far as I can discern, as instinctively made by those on the political left…and, that these distinctions are pertinent to the right’s practical ability to find questions adequately answered within the Catholic tradition.
The first distinction I have in mind is “By force, or by exhortation?” Let us say that there is a public good to be pursued, such as the goal of ensuring that poor people have housing. The right (including, for the purpose of this question, the libertarians) might say, “We agree that’s a public good; but, to what degree are we authorized to point guns at one another in pursuit of it? If the answer is Not At All, then government may not be involved in the solution, inasmuch as tax-payment is a forcible matter. This would leave the project to be managed by voluntary-membership organizations, such as churches, and to be funded by voluntary contributions. If the answer is Force Is Entirely Warranted, then government can not only fund the entire project through taxation, but conscript labor for its completion. If, as is most often the case, the answer is Somewhere In-Between, then perhaps all funds from the public purse ought to be distributed only as matching funds for voluntary donations, as a sort of compromise.” It does not seem to me that the left are much interested in the distinction between the involuntary/forcible public action, and the voluntary/exhortative sphere.
The second distinction I have in mind is: “Even if we wish, for the sake of achieving some goal, a particular Branch of Government to act in such-and-such a way, what should we do if, strictly speaking, that power has not been delegated to that branch?” It is, for a certain type of personality, a non-starter that one should ask judges to make law, or the Federal government to arrogate powers reserved to the states. For other types of personalities, such quibbles seem to be exasperating roadblocks between us and Getting Important Stuff done. I think the former personality is more common on the right and the latter on the left…but there is also hypocrisy on both sides when their usual stance becomes inconvenient.
About this second distinction, it is important to note that it presupposes the validity of the American Constitutional system. If one could show that, according to Catholic teaching, it is morally permissible (or obligatory?) and prudentially advisable to override that system in pursuit of one’s desired policies, then Catholics should certainly prefer to seek policy-implementation at the expense of adhering to the niceties of separated powers. If, however, the Catholic teaching holds that the details of such a system, provided they cohere with Natural Law and the prudence proper to statecraft, ought to be followed, then it seems that those who work within the system (even when that system makes the desired policies harder to achieve) are being “more Catholic” than those who would ignore its restrictions.
The third distinction I have in mind is between “Subsidizing or Mandating the Desired Phaenomena” and “Divising Systems to Indirectly Produce the Desired Phaenomena.” Given a certain desired outcome, and a set of measurable phaenomena taken to indicate success in achieving it, some (most often on the left, I think) prefer to directly subsidize those measurable phaenomena, whereas others (most often on the right) ask what system (of incentives, institutions, and processes) would sustainably produce that outcome, as a natural societal change over time. Objections from the right about Perverse Incentives and Moral Hazard and Tragedy of the Commons associated (correctly or not) with proposed policies from the left are a result of this kind of thinking. One great example is when lawmakers noticed that certain middle-class bourgeois behaviors like home ownership tended to be associated with long-term family success (e.g. avoiding poverty, jail, and mental illness). They responded by incentivizing lenders to give easy home loans under the slogan “The Dream of Home-Ownership.” Outside observers warned that the family success factors didn’t stem from home ownership per se, but from bourgeois cultural habits like staying in school and getting good grades and avoiding consumer debt, none of which was likely to come from incentivizing Adjustable Rate Mortgages for persons with a FICO under 500. I don’t suppose anyone who saw movies like “The Big Short” and “Margin Call” is unaware of the outcome.
And the fourth distinction I have in mind is “Speaking Sweetly and Gently, Eliding What Is Harsh, Allowing Our Language To Flexible And Up-To-Date With Popular Usage” versus “Calling Things By Their Right Names (Truth First, Compassion Second…because Truth is Intrinsically Compassionate and Unchanging).” The left-right alignment here is obvious without saying more.
I think that covers all the distinctions. Let me now ask: What, for practical purposes, is to be done about it?
I haven’t tried, in describing these distinctions, to disguise my own more-rightward inclination. As I tried to “Catholicize” my thinking in the ten years since crossing the Tiber, I assumed I ought to try to find ways that Catholic teaching requires me to self-correct leftward.
But when I look at actual Catholic teaching over the last thousand years (and I have!) to find opportunities for the Church to broaden my thinking in a leftward direction, I’m often stymied. I find that the relevant matters are either unaddressed (or addressed ambiguously), or else the Church’s teaching would, if anything, would lead me further to the right. How, then, can my faithfulness to the teaching traditions of the Church ever serve to bring me into further unity with my leftward brethren?
In the “unaddressed (or addressed ambiguously)” category: Either the political institutions and limited powers of the American federal system (with powers delegated to it from the states and the people, see Amendments 9 & 10) constitute a permissible structure of governance under Catholic teaching, or not. If it’s valid, then it seems I must join the right in advocating most welfare-state action be pushed into the voluntary or state/local spheres. If not permissible, then I suppose I must maintain its integrity so long as it remains preferable to the alternative (e.g. something Marxist) while looking for some future circumstances in which it might be replaced with, say, a Catholic Monarchy (presuming, for the sake of argument, that the Church prefers that over a Republic, which some claim but strikes me as non-obvious). I don’t see that the Church has ruled definitively on such questions, but I also don’t see that any of the alternatives allows me a comfortable rapprochement with my lefty-er brethren!
In the “well-addressed” category: What am I to do with the Ratzinger CDF’s declaration on the non-equivalence of abortion to capital punishment (and other, even-more-prudential issues!) when it comes to voting? What am I to do about a Catholic priest who, apparently with the permission and indulgence of his bishop, repeatedly teaches ambiguously-heretical things and refuses to clarify his words in ways that would avoid scandal? Such things, I suggest, are well-addressed in the teaching of the Church: But my tutelage at the knee of Mother Church is unlikely to better unify me with the Catholic “left.”
Bryan, I actually don’t have social media accounts. So I’m not part of the problem, in that sphere. And when I post in comment-boxes I try to be analytical, not a rock-thrower.
My primary contribution to both political and ecclesial division in the U.S. is that I pray the Psalms…and when King David expresses grief that others falsely accuse him of evil while themselves showing little regard for God, it mostly reminds me of how I’m called “racist” for having pale skin, and how my job is threatened if I balk at affirming some of the verbiage in a corporate “diversity and inclusion” statement. Further job advancement is probably impossible, now, for both reasons; but perhaps I wouldn’t merit further advancement anyway. I can’t say I’m always happy about being blessed this way (not being ironical; I’m thinking of the Beatitudes), but I try to remember that I’m supposed to be. I’m unaware of having ever returned evil-for-evil, and I keep repenting of the times when wishing to do so is my first instinctive reaction to injustices.
So it appears I’m stuck. In trying to not be divided from the left, I have no remaining options. I’m not causing division online. I’ve looked to the teaching of Holy Mother Church to lead me out of any right-side myopias only to find that any changes I may need to make don’t lead me any closer to the left. I can’t, given the American Constitutional system, validly advocate for any governmental changes the left-Catholics would like to see, and at an individual, family, and local level I already take action to alleviate social ills as best I can. As I do so, I find myself in working in cooperation with a pantload of Southern Baptists and Non-Denoms and relatively Traddy Catholics, so that’s not unifying me with the left any better. They’re not at the soup kitchen or the Red Cross donation center or in front of the abortion clinic. When they aren’t writing for America magazine or badmouthing me (by association) online, I frankly don’t know where to find them.
What remains?
Thank you for this article. I found this link you cited very helpful:
https://dwightlongenecker.com/american-catholicism-how-to-mend-the-fences
I wonder who falls into the epistemic trap or if most don’t just struggle like in RC’s comment in 10:51 pm. Fr. Longenecker’s distinction between contemporary and historic Christians is helpful, and in some sense, you could say progressive and conservative pair nicely with contemporary and historic as concepts. The problem is that America is not founded on inerrant documents with leadership that are promised infallibility. It is a soup of ideas, some very foreign to Catholic teaching. Nonetheless, as Tocqueville and Maritain noticed, there is something uniquely beautiful about our founding principles, something best-yet, and insomuch that those principles stand in for “conservation” and “history,” it is hard – I think – for the average person to figure out the baby versus bath water.
You have rightly challenged us to examine ourselves and make sure that our beliefs are informed by The Church and not merely by political expediency or party ideology.
This article expressed what I’ve felt for a while, too many well meaning Catholics view things not through their faith but through their politics. Thank-you a million
– Jason Blakely, “A Plague of Catholic Cafeteria Consequentialism” (December 2, 2020)
Hi Bryan,
I see a worrisome trend about Catholics, denying the validity of the Second Vatican Council. I just finished reading your great article about “Ecclesial Deism” and I was wondering if you think that those who are taking that stance fall into that Category?.
Thanks
Bryan,
There’s a weird amount of “bulverism” in that article. Anti-lockdown folks push “browner people” in harm’s way? Yikes. The obsession with skin tone would get a lot of laughs here on the border, but it’s not good for much more than that. Also, I find it ironic that the author fails to note that the lockdown measures were done with a consequentialist framework in mind, too. It was argued that fewer people would die if we locked-down than if we stayed open for business. That doesn’t make the other consequentialist argument for staying open good, but it does indicate a possible lack of self-awareness.
On a happier note, I wanted to say thanks again for your help recently. I’m far more at ease with those intellectual hang-ups you helped me work through. I reached out to my contact for RCIA again. Still on track!
Dylan
Hello Hugo, (re: #7)
Certainly we are obliged to “adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman Pontiff or the College of Bishops enunciate when they exercise their authentic Magisterium….” (Profession of Faith) And the Second Vatican Council certainly met the conditions for being an ecumenical council, although as a pastoral council it did not intend to define doctrine. So we are obliged to adhere to its teaching with nothing less than religious submission of will and intellect. A theologian may legitimately raise objections to particular statements in V2, because it did not define doctrine infallibly. But treating the whole council as invalid is problematic and unjustified. A discussion about the relation of this to ecclesial deism would be better in the thread under that article.
Hello Dylan, (re: #8)
My posting an excerpt from an article does not entail that I agree with everything in the article. Nor is it an invitation to debate everything in the article, especially if the material is unrelated to the thread or CTC’s purpose. Here we keep the conversation on the topic of the article at the top of the thread. (I made a large but temporary exception in my prior conversation with you.) At this site, accusations/criticisms must be accompanied by substantiating evidence, because although sophistry relishes unsubstantiated accusations and criticisms, that’s what good faith dialogue avoids. In good faith dialogue, claims like “there’s a weird amount of bulverism in that article” are not made to stand by themselves without accompanying demonstration. Regarding your “Anti-lockdown folks push “browner people” in harm’s way” question, in support of his claim Blakely cites evidence from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, and helpfully provides a link. Whether a claim would “get a lot of laughs” is irrelevant to whether it is true and supported by the evidence. (But evaluating a claim by whether people would laugh at it is textbook sophistry.) Referring to a claim about the effects of a public policy on an ethnicity as an “obsession” is engaging in the bulverism fallacy. Lastly, regarding your claim that “the author fails to note…”, looking at the consequences of an action or inaction as part of the reasoning by which to determine public policy, is not the same thing as embracing consequentialism.
I’m glad to hear that you reached out to your RCIA contact. Thank you for letting me know.
In the peace of Christ,
-Bryan
Hi Bryan,
Thank you for your answer. Very succinct yet very helpful.
I see a lot of people raising a similar question, and this is certainly exacerbating the division that you talk about in your article. Hopefully you can write an article about this in a near future.
Further confirmation of the thesis in my essay:
Source: “8 facts about Catholics and politics in the U.S.” (Pew Research Center, September 15, 2020)
“Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Roman Curia”
Monday, 21 December, 2020
“The Catholic Writer Today” by Dana Gioia (First Things, December, 2013)
“Politics divides, but Christ unites: Madison bishop confronts Catholic ‘acrimony’” (Catholic World Report, January 29, 2021)
“America’s Churches Are Now Polarized, Too” by Francis Wilkinson (February 21, 2021)
Bishop Barron, “Catholics, Media Mobs, and the Culture of Contempt” (2021 LA Religious Education Congress): Uploaded March 25, 2021
– Cardinal Cantalamessa’s Homily at the Papal Good Friday liturgy (April 2, 2021)
“”What is the most common cause of the bitter divisions among Catholics? It is not dogma,””
Rather, first it is actually dogma and doctrine, for while you would exclude those who disagree with Catholic teachings that require assent, both of faith and those of mind, Scripturally what one does is what manifests what one believes, (James 2:18) and Rome manifestly counts proabortion, prohomosexuality public figures as members in life and in death, as well as cultic TradCaths (although the status of latter seems to the more tenuous: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-pope-plane-schism/pope-says-he-prays-us-led-schism-can-be-thwarted-idUKKCN1VV2I8?edition-redirect=uk) short of RadTrad schismatics.
For instance, E. Christian Brugger in ” Is the Catholic Church in De Facto Schism?” asks,
“Although Cardinal Kasper, and other episcopal defenders of granting permission to civilly remarried divorcees to receive Holy Eucharist, affirm the wrongfulness of adultery and the indissolubility of marriage, their affirmations would seem to be incompatible with the permission they defend.”
Yet what has the magisterium done with such, let alone with so many Catholics who were coddled by Rome ( Teddy K., after basically writing how he kept the faith, even received a nice publicly read letter back from Benedict that thanked him for his prayers and who received a ecclesiastical funeral, therewith telling the masses how liberally canon law could be understood)
I am sure you are familiar with Dwight Longenecker who affirmed (https://cruxnow.com/church/2015/10/is-catholicism-about-to-break-into-three/),
“It is certainly possible to discern three tribes within American Catholicism. However, using the Jewish terminology is confusing. “Orthodox,” “Conservative,” and “Reform” do not translate well into American Catholicism. Clearer titles for the three tribes might be “Traditionalist” which correlates with the Jewish “Orthodox.” “Magisterial” because “conservative” Catholics adhere to papal teachings and the magisterium, while “Progressive” reflects the “Reformed” group in Judaism.”..
Broadly speaking, “Traditionalists” adhere to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, the Baltimore Catechism, and Church teachings from before the Second Vatican Council…
“Magisterial” Catholics put loyalty to the authority of the pope and magisterial teaching first and foremost. They are happy with the principles of the Second Vatican Council, but want to “Reform the Reform.”…
The “Progressives” are vitally interested in peace and justice issues. They’re enthusiastic about serving the marginalized and working for institutional change. They are likely to embrace freer forms of worship, dabble in alternative spiritualities, and be eager to make the Catholic faith relevant and practical…The three groups exist within the Catholic Church in an uneasy alliance, and that’s how it has to stay.
[within each group] a plethora of groups have already parted ways with the Catholic Church, and set up shop as “independent Catholic Churches.”
And while the latter who let his “conscience be his Vatican” and join or start one of the independent Catholic Churches are manifestly schismatic, concerning diversity of opinion overall, Longenecker states,
The Catholic Church needs diversity of opinion. It’s healthy for family members to disagree, and debate is one of the ways the Holy Spirit leads the Church. But both progressives and traditionalists must constantly measure their personal opinions and preferences against the magisterium of the Church and her authority.
However, the reality is that one cannot avoid the reality of variant interpretations of “the magisterium” and of which era is determinitive. TradCaths judge V2 in the light of former teachings, while Progressives (if they care about magisterium sanction at all) see the V2 “clarifications” and some subsequent teachings as allowing for progressive interpretations of historical RC teaching.
And which your current social activist pope has implicitly supported, and increased the number of traditionalist “true Catholics” who relegate Francis to being a heretic (though he cannot actually be deposed with his consent), to the exasperation of apologists trying to minimize the popes liberal leadership.
And despite the apologetical appeal to “the magisterium,” this entity had hardly provided timely solutions to this divisiveness, with perhaps the most significant action being that of changing the CCC to unscripturally unequivocally disallow capital punishment but rightly unequivocally affirming that same-sex marriages cannot be blessed.
However, regardless of the recourse of Catholic apologists to dismiss those who disagree with their interpretation of what binding Catholic teaching is and means, again the reality is that Rome manifestly counts even proabortion, prohomosexual (Teddy K Catholics) public figures as members in life and in death, and it is her manifest judgment on who is a Catholic that matters, not those who the laity.
But of course I write that as a former devout RC, altar boy, CCD teacher and lector, who continued as a weekly Mass-going Catholic for about 6 years after being manifestly born again thru repentance and faith in the gospel of grace, and prayerfully was led out into evangelical fellowship (mainly because therein is where i found actual fellowship with those who had realize the profound basic changes of Biblical regeneration that I had, as well as basically more sound teaching).
And have found that distinctive Catholic teachings are not manifest in the only wholly inspired substantive authoritative record of what the NT church believed (which is Scripture, in particular Acts through Revelation, which best shows how the NT church understood the gospels).
May God peradventure grant you “repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.” (2 Timothy 2:25)
Hello “Peace by Jesus,” (re: #18)
Welcome to CTC. I wrote this essay primarily for my fellow Catholics in the US. But I’m glad to discuss it with you.
You wrote:
The “Scripturally what one does” criterion presupposes the Protestant paradigm, and in this way your objection commits the fallacy of begging the question, by presupposing the very point in question, i.e. the truth of Protestantism. In the Catholic paradigm the authority is not your interpretation of Scripture but Scripture as understood through the Apostolic Tradition, as explained in the “VIII. Scripture and Tradition section of my reply to Michael Horton. Certainly some Catholics disagree with pastoral decisions regarding some Catholics being permitted to receive the Eucharist, some arguing that those decisions are erring on the side of laxity and others that those decisions are an expression of mercy and patience. But that disagreement has been around for many years, whereas the polarization I’m writing about in the essay above, is a more recent phenomenon, and is intrinsically bound up with political ideologies.
As for what Fr. Longenecker wrote, I think that’s fully compatible with the thesis of my essay being true. In fact I cite him in footnote #7 of the essay. And the notion that these disagreements among Catholics in the US undermine the Catholic claim to unity is addressed in the link at footnote 23.
You wrote:
Certainly that’s true. The Catholic claim is not that having a Magisterium removes all variant interpretations of the Magisterium. Rather, having a divinely instituted Magisterium makes resolving interpretive disagreements possible. There have been interpretive disagreements throughout Church history.
You wrote:
Again you commit the fallacy of question-begging by presupposing the Protestant paradigm in using “scripturally” to refer to your own interpretation of Scripture as the standard of authority to which the Catholic Church should be subject. In addition, the Catholic position is not that the Magisterium provides “timely” solutions to disagreements. That would be a straw man. Replies or solutions from the Magisterium can often take many years. And the unity of the Church (with respect to the three bonds of unity described in CCC 815) remains while the faithful wait for a Magisterial answer to a question. On matters of discipline or undefined teaching, there can be changes and even reversals. And history shows that these are typically accompanied by confusion and uncertainty.
You wrote:
Baptism is indelible, both in this life and in the next. That is Catholic doctrine. Being in a state of grace is not indelible. But membership depends on baptism, not being in a state of grace. Any good apologist will certainly acknowledge this.
You wrote:
If you use the criteria of the Protestant paradigm in order to judge the doctrine of the Catholic Church, then unsurprisingly you will find her wanting. But you will have committed the fallacy of presupposing the very point in question. That’s why judging the Catholic Church by way of the principle of sola scriptura is a logical blunder; it presupposes the answer to the very point in question.
As for your journey, mine was almost exactly the opposite. If you’re interested, you can watch me explain my becoming Catholic in my interview with Marcus Grodi at the video available here.
Thank you. May God grant you the same, and a return and reconciliation to holy Mother Church.
In the peace of Christ,
-Bryan
“US Bishops launch initiative to address polarization in society” (Sept. 8, 2021)
This article resonates with me, and I have been returning to it lately for comfort. I find the current polarization in the American Catholic Church to be distressing. It is becoming increasingly difficult to escape the totemic thinking that clouds so much of our communication. If I express a sincerely held view and would like to dialogue with a fellow Catholic about it, I may be dismissed as a member of this or that undesirable “camp.” People like Fr. James Martin or Dr. Taylor Marshall or even Bishop Robert Barron have become totems of these camps, rightly or wrongly, and no one seems to be talking to each other, despite communication being easier in this day and age than ever before. The silence just has to be intentional; there does not seem to be a desire to reach across these divides so that we could be a more united family in the Church.
The pontificate of Pope Francis lies on this very fault line, sadly. The Holy Father will do and say something, and these different “camps” will seize on it and dig into their positions. Personally, I think there really are things that are worth talking about with respect to Pope Francis, both good and not so good, and it’s a shame that the conversation often dies before it starts because of the polarization that exists among Catholics. When you want to talk about the “good,” one camp will dismiss you, and when you want to talk about the “not so good,” another camp will dismiss you.
I find this situation intolerable, I pray that we can at least begin to talk to one another.
The polarizing phenomenon I described above is not limited to the Catholic Church in the US. It is also afflicting Evangelicalism in the US.
“The Evangelical Church Is Breaking Apart,” By Peter Wehner, The Atlantic (October 24, 2021)
It is happening in New Zealand, as well. Not, thank God, as extreme as the US seems to be, but still very real – and very concerning.