One of the effects of original sin is an instinctive prejudice in favor of our own selfish desires. We see things as they are not, because we see them centered on ourselves. Fear, anxiety, greed, ambition and our hopeless need for pleasure all distort the image of reality that is reflected in our minds. Grace does not completely correct this distortion all at once: but it gives us a means of recognizing and allowing for it. And it tells us what we must do to correct it. Sincerity must be bought at a price: the humility to recognize our innumerable errors, and fidelity in tirelessly setting them right. ― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
Recently we learned that Australia’s High Court overturned a lower court’s guilty verdict against Cardinal George Pell on the charge of sexual abuse. The reactions to this acquittal from Catholics in the United States were all over the map. The website of the journal First Things posted articles praising this exoneration of an innocent man who was the victim, as they argued, of an anti-Catholic lynch mob. On the other end of the spectrum, the National Catholic Reporter published articles and editorials lamenting how yet another high-ranking Church official got away with sexual abuse, and quoted sexual abuse victim advocates who all agreed that justice was not served here.
My point in bringing this up is not primarily to argue for Cardinal Pell’s innocence or guilt. I want to look at how people decide such a thing. Many people have, in fact, come to their own conclusions, despite knowing very little about the trial as a whole or what evidence was available.
How could this be?
Let’s be honest. We do not usually take the time to examine anything like this with the seriousness it deserves. We go for a kind of shorthand. We turn to what people we trust have to say about it. We read essays and articles from people who think as we do, who live in the same political habitats as we do, who speak our language. We end up trusting their judgment, and adopt their opinions as our own. Or, we may be persuaded by seeing that a lot of people on social media are talking about this in a certain way, and so we follow along.
We do this, frankly, because it is easier than actually confronting this issue, or any issue, ourselves. To do that, we’d have to put in the time and effort to learn about the issue. We’d need to consult people who may not always agree with us. We may have to confront our own biases in the process. And this is what we resist most.
One example of this resistance: As you were reading the last paragraph, were you thinking mainly of yourself, or of the “other side”? They, not we, are the biased ones. They, not we, get it wrong all the time. Or so we want to believe! However, in thinking this way, we assume that our side has a copyright on truth, and that the other side’s thinking is filled with lies. It doesn’t work that way in real life, however. No side has a lock on truth. This does not mean that there is no truth, or that someone might not be closer to the truth than someone else. It does mean that if we really want to know the truth, we need to work at it, like we do for anything worthwhile in our lives.
We begin with ourselves. As the Merton quote above stated, original sin skews our perceptions of reality. We see things as centered on ourselves. “Fear, anxiety, greed, ambition and our hopeless need for pleasure all distort the image of reality that is reflected in our minds”. Everything becomes, in some way or another, about me. About my being right. About my side winning. About my agenda going forward. This affects even the way we view our Catholic faith. Rather than having our faith be the center, and then assessing all else based on how it is in harmony with it, we begin to do the opposite. We measure our Catholic faith by how well it supports our own agendas.
C. S. Lewis’ wonderful book The Screwtape Letters presents itself as a collection of letters sent from an experienced demon to an apprentice one. The apprentice has been assigned to a man who has just become a Christian. The experienced demon is offering suggestions to the apprentice as to how to most effectively tempt and seduce this man.
One tool that Screwtape, the experienced demon, suggests is what he calls “Christianity and…”:
The real trouble about the set your patient is living in is that it is merely Christian. They all have individual interests, of course, but the bond remains mere Christianity. What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call ‘Christianity And’. You know—Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform.
About the general connection between Christianity and politics, our position is more delicate. Certainly we do not want men to allow their Christianity to flow over into their political life, for the establishment of anything like a really just society would be a major disaster. On the other hand we do want, and want very much, to make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but, failing that, as a means to anything—even to social justice. The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the Enemy demands, and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice. For the Enemy will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of Heaven as a short cut to the nearest chemist’s shop. Fortunately it is quite easy to coax humans round this little corner. Only today I have found a passage in a Christian writer where he recommends his own version of Christianity on the ground that ‘only such a faith can outlast the death of old cultures and the birth of new civilisations’. You see the little rift? ‘Believe this, not because it is true, but for some other reason.’ That’s the game.
We can easily translate this into “Catholicism and…” for our purposes. Every one of us feels a natural attraction to the Catholic Church for some specific thing that has caught our attention. The Mass. The Real Presence. The saints. Devotion to the Blessed Mother. Social justice. Morality. Service to the poor, the sick, and the disabled. Each one of these is good, and is part of what the Lord has given us. The trick or temptation is that we are drawn to love the Church not because it is the Body of Christ by the Lord’s own doing, but because of this aspect that has attracted us. We stay with that and go no further. Then that aspect gradually becomes the center. It can even become an idol that can blind us to the fullness of truth. It becomes no longer a means of grace but a source of division between Catholics, a reason to condemn. “Oh, you like the Latin Mass, so you must be…” or “Oh, you want to help immigrants, so you must be…” rather than seeing both as included when one is Catholic.
Back to our Merton quote: “Grace does not completely correct this distortion all at once: but it gives us a means of recognizing and allowing for it. And it tells us what we must do to correct it”.
The Lord is not satisfied to give us only that one aspect of our faith that naturally attracted us in the first place. He wants to lead us into all truth, and to shower us fully in His love. He means to open our hearts and minds to the fullness of what He has given us through His Church, a process that will last for this lifetime and beyond. How can we follow Him in this? How can we open ourselves, by grace, to the grace that seeks to heal us and raise us up?
We begin with ourselves. We ask the Lord to give us wisdom and discernment, so that we can become better aware of our own starting point. Each one of us has a primary inclination to being liberal or conservative or moderate. We may have some ideas or opinions that don’t fit our primary inclination, but for the most part, we feel more at home in one rather than the others. That’s just where we begin. As such, it’s not a bad thing. The question is: will we insist on staying there, or will we allow the Lord to lead us into more truth, even if some of it is not in agreement with our inclination? We also begin by noting what teachings of the Church we can easily accept, and what ones we struggle to accept. Is our struggle mainly because other people who share our inclination do not agree with that teaching? Can we find other Catholics who will support us in our faith and help us to better understand and believe in these teachings that don’t come naturally to us?
Then, we ask for the grace to step back from whatever group we are naturally comfortable with and look at it through the eyes of faith. What aspects agree with our faith? Which ones do not agree?
Then, we read not only things we know we will agree with, but also books or articles by people we may not fully agree with. We allow our assumptions to be tested. We may decide that we still don’t agree with the author’s main argument, but that author may offer us points we hadn’t thought of before and thus may help us to make our understanding of our faith better. We may see that, in at least one area, the author may be closer to our faith than we are, even if the author misses the mark in other ways.
Learning to do this with the written word may help us to do this with real people – those we naturally agree with, and those who see at least some things differently. Remember that the goal is to grow in truth. It’s to understand our faith, our Church, our vocation, and Our Lord better and better. It’s not primarily to prove ourselves right or win an argument, even if arguments may be necessary sometimes. Remember also that truth includes not only what we believe but how we express it. Truth spoken with sincere love is the best argument. You aren’t trying to beat someone else; you’re trying to win them over and offer them the most precious gift imaginable.
I strive to follow this in my own life. I scan several Catholic periodicals from various perspectives regularly. Some I like more than others. Some, I find, are closer to the truth than others. None have it all, though. But I learn from each one. I’m aware of my own inclinations, but strive to show hospitality to people of various viewpoints. If I am willing to listen and take them seriously, they are more willing to listen and take me seriously. Nevertheless, I remember the main point to all this – making the Lord and the Church the center of my life and learning every day what that means.
So, where do you fit in this picture? Have you been a “Catholicism and…” kind of person in that you stick with the Church only as long and as far as it upholds what you see as important? Or, do you see the Church, the whole Church, as the Bride and the Body of Christ, as the primary means the Lord has given to us to know Him, to serve Him in serving others, and to respond to Him in embracing our individual callings within the Church? If you find yourself sliding into the first category, it’s not too late to slide into the second!