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L e t t e r s
Let's Cut 'em Some Slack
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This Rock
Volume 17, Number 6
 July-August 2006 
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As a member of the "Kumbaya" generation of the ‘60s and ‘70s and a mother of three children of the ‘80s, I was surprised and dismayed at the vehemence and negativity of the responses to Fr. Robert Johansen’s article ("Why Doesn’t the Pope Do Something about ‘Bad’ Bishops?" February 2006).
I have personally experienced the "turning of the tide" in my own children. They were raised to question and inquire about their faith in a loving and prayerful way. I have done my best to give them a Catholic education in spite of public school educations (kindergarten through college) and the bombardment of secular society. Since leaving home, our oldest son has remained steadfast in his faith, attending Mass regularly and getting involved in ministry faithful to orthodox Catholic teaching. Our oldest daughter has recently entered a Dominican religious order seeking deeper scriptural and pastoral direction in her life. Our youngest is currently attending college and is greatly dismayed at the abuses and misinformation handed out at Mass geared to young adults her age, this in spite of the leadership of a "good" bishop who has demonstrated his faithfulness to the Church.
I think the respondents to Fr. Johansen’s argument miss the point he was trying to make. These men are not bishops on their own power or at their own request. They have been made so by the imparting of the Holy Spirit. They can no more be "removed" from office than a natural father can be "removed" as father of his children. God has repeatedly shown his power through those who directly oppose his will, even as he uses the faithful to promote and defend his teaching.
We do no service to the Church in attacking those who have been assigned as our shepherds, even when they lead poorly. We should be thankful to God that he has given us the opportunity to renew our faith, to grow, to question, to seek his Truth in spite of poor catechesis. I, too, am disappointed that in every homily I hear and every Mass I attend I must be "on my guard" against the sloppy teaching and soft-pedaling of issues that is the standard of our day. But I am also grateful that there are so many resources available (including your magazine) that make it possible for me to study and renew my faith in orthodoxy. Instead of bemoaning our fate and bewailing the state of the Church, we should be praying diligently for our bishops, asking God’s mercy on their souls, and seeking reconciliation among all the faithful. "Be not afraid" was the constant call of our late Holy Father. Let us go forth boldly and without fear into the future knowing that "the gates of hell shall not prevail."
Irene Compton
Bakersfield, California
Taking Sense Perception on Faith
In the March issue James Kidd, responding to a criticism from Fr. Michael Moore, states that we accept sense perception on faith without having any guarantee of its validity.
Neither Aristotle nor Aquinas would buy that proposition. In the first place, faith is an act of the intellect moved by the will to affirm a given proposition. But the very operation of the intellect depends on the assumption of the validity of sense knowledge. We can have no ideas at all, and make no "acts of faith" in anything, without input from the senses. It is not a question of "proving" their reliability; the input of the senses is simply a given—a first principle that permits all other operations of the mind.
In Mortimer Adler’s excellent introduction to Aristotelian (and hence, to a large extent, Thomistic) thought, Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy, he describes the process of acquiring sense knowledge. He then observes: Just as we can sense things because they are capable of being sensed, so we can understand things because they are understandable. If the barking dog and the screeching cat were not visible and audible, we could not see and hear them. Similarly, if the dog and the cat were not understandable as different kinds of things, we could not understand them as having different natures. . . . A sensation is neither true nor false. You simply have it, as when you sense the blackness of a dog. . . . Even when your senses deceive you, as they often do, the sensation itself is neither true nor false. The dog, for example, may have been in shadows. In bright sunlight, it would have been seen as gray, not black. Your sensing it as black when it is in the shadows is not false; but if, on the basis of that information alone, you think that it is black, you may be in error. The error is in your thinking, not in your sensing. Some would take issue with his wording and assert that it is incorrect to say that the senses, operating normally, can never be said to deceive us, since obviously it is the judgment, not the sensation, that is in error. The sense of sight has accurately perceived the dog in the shadow as dark, as Adler admits.
Diane Moczar
via the Internet
James Kidd replies:
Moczar and I disagree on very little, if anything. Aristotle and Aquinas don’t discuss skepticism because it wasn’t taken seriously until David Hume came along and made it popular. As for Adler, his example assumes that there is in fact a dog that you are perceiving and that you are not dreaming, hallucinating, or simply a brain in a vat. While it is true that the perception of a dog is undeniable, the veracity of the perception—even whether the object of the perception exists—does not go without saying.
A Virgin, But Not a Martyr
Please allow me to make a little correction (or clarification) to Michelle Arnold’s comment about one of my favorite saints, St. Joan of Arc ("Quick Questions," March 2006).
Arnold refers to St. Joan as a "martyr" and suggests she be considered "the patron saint of reluctant martyrs." But the surprising truth is that St. Joan is not, strictly speaking, a martyr at all! Her official title, given at her canonization by Pope Benedict XV and recorded in the Mass and Office for her feast day (May 30) is simply "St. Joan of Arc, Virgin."
Why didn’t getting burnt at the stake, in a terrible act of injustice, earn her the glorious title of "Virgin and Martyr" like St. Agnes, St. Cecilia, St. Maria Goretti, and many other Catholic heroines? Simply because she was not put to death out of hatred of Christ or because she professed the Catholic faith. On the contrary, in one of the supreme acts of hypocrisy in Church history, she was put to death in the name of Christ as a "witch" and "heretic" after being tried and sentenced by ecclesiastical judges. In reality, of course, their true motives were political.
Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S.
Ponce, Puerto Rico
A Resource for Infertile Couples
We’d like to thank Jameson and Jennifer Taylor for their article "Babies Deserve Better" (April 2006). After struggling with infertility for six years and finding nowhere to go for help, we decided to start our own Catholic infertility support group and web site at www.CatholicInfertility.org. We offer couples support, Church teaching on treatments, morally acceptable treatments, and an introduction to the Pope Paul VI Institute.
Infertility is an issue that is rarely talked about by the Church and one that needs to be much more publicly addressed. Many couples struggling with infertility unknowingly walk into the offices of fertility specialists and receive treatments that are contrary to the teachings of the Church. With the desire to have a baby being so great, it’s easy to overlook immoral acts or rationalize them as necessary. With one in eight couples having to face this struggle, it would seem prudent to mention this issue during marriage preparation. If a couple understands the moral issues and the teachings of the Church prior to their struggle with infertility and is aware of effective natural alternatives, it will be much easier for them to avoid the temptation of immoral fertility treatments.
Tate and Lottie Hilgefort
Cincinnati, Ohio
One Door Closes, Another Opens
Thank you for publishing Jameson and Jennifer Taylor’s article "Babies Deserve Better," which etches poignantly the sufferings of infertile couples. How many of those carrying the same cross will relate to them.
I regret, however, that the authors have confused "eternal" and "immortal": The child’s soul is immortal but definitely not eternal; it is created by God. I also regret their words "Although it’s okay to be angry with God, at some point it’s necessary to forgive him." That the temptation of being angry with God can arise in the human soul is, alas, true. But no temptation is "okay." Precisely because it is a temptation, it must be condemned and rejected. To say that "at one point, it is necessary to forgive God" is a very discordant note in a fine piece of music. Who are we to "forgive" the all-loving and all-holy one, whose decisions always express his love and wisdom? True, we often do not understand his decisions, but we should believe that they are expressions of love.
The Jewish convert Roy Schoeman writes: "I saw how everything that had happened in my life was the most perfect thing that could have been arranged for my own good by an all-good and loving God, especially those things that caused me the most suffering at the time" (Salvation Is from the Jews, Ignatius, 2004). This is the Catholic response par excellence. We only need read Job 38:4, when God tells Job: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" We are creatures, and no creature can object to divine choices, hurtful as they might be for our anemic eyesight.
The lives of the saints teach us that when God closes a door, he opens another one. For infertile couples, the opening door may be to have spiritual children: "He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children" (Ps. 113:9).
Alice von Hildebrand
New Rochelle, New York
More on the Sunday Sabbath
Tim Staples fails to make the case for observing the Sabbath on Sunday ("The Sabbath: Saturday or Sunday?" May-June 2006).
Firstly, God’s true Church will teach God’s law. If it does not teach God’s law, it is not holy; i.e., it lacks one of the marks of the true Church. The authority of the New Testament rests on the legitimacy of the Church that endorses it; therefore, we would have no reason to accept the New Testament, which it says is inspired. "God’s law" to which I refer is the one of the Ten Commandments that says keep Saturday holy.
Second, consider Tim’s citations. Most suggest the early Christians observed Sunday; they don’t state that the early Christians stopped observing Saturday. Acts 2:46 is evidence that they still participated in temple worship (maybe on Saturday?). Tim’s citation from Ignatius of Antioch states that the early Christians still observed the Sabbath.
Regarding Colossians 2:16–17 ("Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food or drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath"), if this is the argument against Saturday worship, consider that "Let no one pass judgment on you" means that the Church cannot bind us to observe Lenten fast and abstinence rules (questions of food or drink), holy days of obligation (with regard to a festival) or, indeed, Sundays. When citing Paul, we need to appreciate his teaching style. Consider a couple of examples. Paul wrote, for example, that we are not under the law (Rom. 6:14–15), but Jesus said we are (Matt. 5:17–18). In fact, Jesus emphasized the stringency of the moral law. Paul also taught that old distinctions had passed away (Gal. 3:28) except when there was an advantage (Rom 3:1–2). Paul’s citations are complex and have to be considered in context, so this passage abrogating the Sabbath may not mean what it apparently says.
Saturday and Sunday observances are actually separate issues. One is the Church’s authority to mandate that a particular day of the week be kept holy. The second is whether Scripture and Tradition taught—and the Catholic Church has the authority to teach—that Christians forego a special seventh-day (Saturday) observance and treat Saturday the way we treat all ordinary ferial days. If the Catholic Church is God’s true Church, then it has the authority to mandate observance on Sundays and the holy days of obligation. The question of whether the Church has the authority to forego special observance of Saturday is key.
I’ve used the term Saturday and not Sabbath for a reason: In the liturgical calendar, used by Catholics and major Protestant churches, Saturday is still the Sabbath. Sunday is the "Lord’s Day." My concern is with the Sabbath obligation, not the Lord’s Day obligation.
The major Protestant denominations and most rites of the Catholic Church abrogate exactly one of the Ten Commandments given to Moses—the one that addresses Sabbath obligation—while arguing the others remain in effect, and the whole legitimacy of the Catholic Church stands or falls on whether it has the authority to do this. The most reasonable view in this regard is that practiced in the Ge‘ez Ethiopian rite in the Ethiopian Catholic Church, whose members are in full communion with Rome. This Church mandates Sabbath observance of both Saturday and Sunday.
What would be proof that the Church may abrogate or modify the third commandment? That would require some demonstration from the Old Testament or Tradition that the exact day of Sabbath celebration is subject to the discretion of Church authorities. The New Testament citations, despite which many Christians during the first few centuries continued to observe Saturday, are authoritative only if the Catholic Church is legitimate, so its legitimacy and their authority have to be shown from some other source.
This is not academic. Absent some demonstration that the Church may change one of the Ten Commandments, we should discuss our religion with a local Orthodox rabbi.
Jerome McGlynn
Philadelphia, Pennslyvania
Tim Staples replies:
I thank Mr. McGlynn for his comments because they serve to clarify the Catholic position on the matter.
McGlynn seems to be equating God’s immutable law with the "Saturday" Sabbath. He repeats this error when he presents Christ’s statement that he has fulfilled the law in Matthew 5:17–18 and Paul’s emphatic statement that we are not under the law in Romans 6:14–15 as somehow opposed. God said to keep holy the Sabbath day. Why? The Old Covenant Sabbath, as I said in my article, was given in the context of the old creation and the old law. However, there is a "new creation" in the New Covenant and, therefore, a new law and a new Sabbath. The Church is not failing to teach the law; it is teaching the law of Christ in the New Covenant. McGlynn inadvertently falls into a type of "Judaizing" error that plagued the Church for many decades after Christ. The Catechism of the Council of Trent stated, in the section on the Third Commandment:The other commandments of the Decalogue [except the third, or Sabbath command] are precepts of the natural law, obligatory at all times and unalterable. Hence, after the abrogation of the law of Moses . . . the commandments contained in the two tables are observed by Christians not indeed because their observance is commanded by Moses but because they are in conformity with nature, which dictates obedience to them. Christians must keep moral precepts found in the Old Testament only because they are also found in the natural law (Rom. 1:19ff). We owe God worship because he created us. That is part of the natural law that cannot change. What day we should do so is not part of the natural law. That day is subject to change by him "to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons" (Dan. 2:20–21). The Church exercises that divine authority in teaching us that God has in fact changed the day that we observe the Sabbath—to Sunday. And remember that the Church has changed the entire liturgical calendar, not just the Sabbath. We do not observe any of the Old Covenant feast days. All have been fulfilled in the New Covenant Passover, who is Christ (1 Cor. 5:7–8).
McGlynn’s second point asserts that the New Testament and the early Church never said they stopped observing the Sabbath. While it is true that the early Church permitted the observance of certain Jewish rites and rituals out of respect for our Jewish heritage, the Church always drew the line at what was salvific and what was not. In some areas of the Church, the Sabbath was set aside as a special day and even observed as a holy day (not a holy day of obligation, but a "special" day), but never was it necessary for salvation. That was Paul’s whole point in Colossians 2:16. The Saturday Sabbath has passed away along with the entire Old Covenant law with the advent of Christ (Heb. 7:11–12).
Third, McGlynn argues that my interpretation of Colossians 2:16–17 would eliminate the Church’s ability to command holy days, the Lenten fast, etc. This does not follow. Paul was specifically dealing with the Judaizers who were claiming that Gentiles had to keep the old law that has passed away. This text has nothing to do with the Church establishing the New Covenant "law of Christ." That argument goes far "beyond what is written" (1 Cor. 4:6) to the point of distorting the meaning of the text. The Church established dietary laws at the Council of Jerusalem in A.D. 49 (Acts 15:24–28), and it can do so now. That is not what Paul was condemning.
Fourth, I should point out that in saying the Sabbath "has been replaced by Sunday" (CCC 2190), the Church does not dismiss the significance of the Jewish Sabbath. "Sunday is expressly distinguished from the Sabbath, which it follows chronologically every week" (CCC 2175). The Jewish Sabbath is acknowledged and respected for what it is—the Jewish Sabbath. But the Church distinguishes between the essential and immutable aspect of the Sabbath as "the moral commandment inscribed by nature in the human heart to render to God an outward, visible, public, and regular worship" (CCC 2176) and the "ceremonial observance" of that commandment, which would be the day on which that commandment is observed. The essence of the moral law cannot change. For example, God himself could not say, "Starting tomorrow, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’ is going to read, ‘Thou shalt commit adultery.’" But God can certainly change a ceremonial law or an.aspect of a law that is ceremonial. And that he did through the Church. "This practice of the Christian assembly [of the Sunday fulfillment of the Sabbath] dates from the beginnings of the apostolic age" (CCC 2178). The apostles established this practice with divine authority.
Finally, consider 1 Corinthians 16:1–2:Now concerning the contribution for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that contributions need not be made when I come. Paul informs us that first-century Christians were meeting on Sunday for the collections. You know that’s church! It ain’t church without the collection! When you consider that Paul had just spent the majority of six chapters correcting abuses in the Church (see 1 Cor. 10:14–31), teaching about the proper ordering of authority "when you assemble as a church" (1 Cor. 11:18), correcting more abuses in church gatherings—specifically with reference to the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:17–34)—and teaching about the proper ordering and use of spiritual gifts in the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12–13)—specifically with reference to their usage in church (1 Cor. 14)—it fits the context that Paul would be talking about the central gathering of Christians when he then teaches about "the collections" at church in chapter 16. Over these six chapters, Paul does nothing but teach about church and the church gathering (except for chapter 15, where he teaches on the bodily resurrection of Christ and Christians). Considering the fact that Sunday is the feast of the Resurrection, this is not a surprise either. In all these chapters on the Church and church gathering, the specific day that is given for the gathering is the first day of the week.
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Catholic Answers
