Proud to Be Catholic

In today's and some forthcoming posts I'd like to begin reflecting a little on what it means to be part of "the Church." Although this is of course a complex theological topic that we could spend many weeks on and still not cover fully, I would like to think about it a little in this space in the next few posts.

For those of us who are Christian believers, our spiritual ancestry can be traced all the way back to the first Christians and the original disciples and apostles who first followed Jesus and proclaimed their faith in him as Christ. From the beginning, there has always been a place for pastoral leadership in this community of disciples, including authoritative meetings of those charged with discerning together important doctrinal and moral issues such as the nature of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity, among many others. This leadership plays an important role in helping individuals and communities to follow Christ in ways that both honor the teachings of Christ and adapt them to the needs of each successive age.

Nevertheless, the history of the community of believers has also been marked by some division among leaders and also between leaders and communities or individuals. At times these disputes have centered around doctrinal issues and at times they've also represented more personal disputes that have less to do with teachings or beliefs. What's clear, however, is that there have been times in the history of this community of those who follow Christ when some of the community's leaders have needed to be challenged or even openly defied when their refusal to open their hearts to the work of the Spirit endangers the spiritual good of those placed in their care.

Many examples of this phenomenon are available from history and I'll be referring to a few in coming posts. However, what I'd like to emphasize today are two words often associated with the community of believers and its leaders: "Catholic" and "Church." Although we often refer in contemporary usage to the "Catholic Church" and mean the Roman Catholic Church, what these two words actually refer to is the universality of the church or community of believers - those now living and those who have gone before us. Therefore, when we refer to belief in the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church" in statements of Christian belief, we refer most essentially to the universal community of believers, not so much to any one ecclesiastical body.

Now of course ideally the entire community of believers or church would be fully, visibly united under one set of leaders. This is one of the central claims of the Roman Catholic Church - that all believers should submit fully to its spiritual, moral, and doctrinal guidance since it is the successor of the authority of St. Peter, the first among the apostles. And, while understandable and even perhaps ideal in some senses, history has shown that not all believers in Christ are able in conscience to fully submit to the authority of Rome due to issues of conscience that arise from time to time. For these individuals and communities, until and unless Rome and the successors of Peter prove willing to listen and enter into constructive dialogue over a number of significant concerns, it is not possible to submit fully to their authority.

For that reason, for myself and others who consider themselves Catholic, it is not necessary to submit fully to the authority of Rome as Rome conceives it. Rather, it is possible to remain Catholic and participate in either a Roman Catholic or other local church community without necessarily needing to submit to everything that the Roman Catholic Church teaches. In other words, it's possible to be both Catholic (universal) and participate in the Church (the body of Christian believers dating back to Christ) without necessarily having to submit fully to teachings (such as those on women's ordination or same-sex partnerships, among others) that in conscience one knows to be misguided and spiritually harmful.

Once again, I've probably written too much but I did want to at least present this topic in an introductory way. I will continue to offer some further considerations in forthcoming posts and look forward to hearing from anyone who might have questions, concerns, disagreements, commendations or any other considerations.

Peace and blessings,

Padre Chuck