Regarding the Nature of Catholic Truth

Note: This is a slightly reworded version of a comment I left in a thread from another blog in response to a person who, upon being pressed for a rationale for supporting the actions of Fr. Jenkins in defying the USCCB and Canon Law mandates to honor a man who is hostile to Catholic moral theology, responded with the tiresome red herring of the Church sex abuse scandal, as though this somehow validated Fr. Jenkins' actions. This reworded version first appeared on my Facebook profile.

There is a growing tendency among certain people to assume that sinful behavior on the part of some somehow affects the availability of sanctifying grace for all. My comments address this fallacy as well.


We often speak of finding healing with sins committed by Catholics; but the sins committed by Catholics are precisely the result of failing to adhere to Catholic moral doctrine. It is something we have all been guilty of, as we share the same fallen nature. But healing comes through acknowledging our own errors and seeking forgiveness for them, and to forgive others for the errors committed against us. One need only read the Catechism to see the truth of this. Healing comes by acknowledging what the truth is, and seeking to live by it.

We often speak of unity in the Church, but there would be no divisions among Catholics in the first place if everyone followed the true teachings of the Church. No less a person than St. John wrote in his second Epistle (2 John 1:9-11): “Anyone who is so “progressive” as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him in your house or even greet him; for whoever greets him shares in his evil works.” (NAB translation)

Those are harsh words, indeed; but let us remember that they are, first and foremost, a plea for unity, and a warning against those who, under the guise of being Catholic, seek to distort the Church’s teachings. We are called to pray for those who misrepresent the truth, but not to heed their counsel. Yet when a person speaks the truth, we are called to heed their counsel regardless of the personal sanctity of the speaker. The Church does not teach that a man must be holy to speak the words of truth. Even the priests who committed those atrocious acts of sexual abuse against predominantly teenage boys celebrated valid Masses and consecrated the Eucharist validly, because their ability to celebrate the sacraments depends not on their personal sanctity, but on the faculties bestowed upon them at the time of their ordination. This is not to say, of course, that the sinful behavior of a priest is without consequences. As the 19th century poet Clemens Brentano once wrote: “Just as the sacrifice on Calvary was accomplished by the cruelty of ungodly priests and by the bloodthirsty hands of brutal executioners, so is the sacrifice of the Mass, even when unworthily celebrated, a true sacrifice; but the guilty and unworthy priest who celebrates it plays the part not only of the Jewish priests who condemned Our Lord but also of the soldiers who crucified Him.” St. Paul says that he who eats the True Body and drinks the True Blood unworthily eats and drinks judgment upon himself. Note that he did not say that the unworthy man ate and drank judgment upon others.

Now I say the above things not to encourage people to seek the unholiest of men for spiritual direction, but rather to show that the foundation of the Church and her theology is not the teachings and actions of men, but rather the teaching and action of the God-man, who in His words and deeds – but more importantly, in His person! – was the fullness of Divine Revelation. Had the Church relied on the unwavering holiness of her members, she would have crumbled centuries ago. But the Church stands firm despite the failings of man, and the Sacraments are available to us despite the moral shortcomings of those who confer them. This is because the Church is safeguarded against the gates of hell by the promise Jesus made to St. Peter, and not by the words and actions of men. And as the mission of the Church is to spread the Good News – to spread the truth – it is fitting that God has also given us the assurance of freedom from error when the Church pronounces on matters of faith and morals. This is not to give the temporal leaders of the Church greater power, but rather to assist them in their ability to serve His Church faithfully. That there are those who fail to carry out their obligation to spread the truth faithfully is a sad reality. That this failure often manifests itself in moral failure is also a reality. And the fact that those who remain in the truth are also guilty of moral failure is, likewise, a sad reality. We are a body of sinners, after all. But what separates the faithful priests and faithful Catholics from the unfaithful priests and unfaithful Catholics is the willingness to acknowledge personal errors and to seek forgiveness for those errors. It is the unrepentant man who breaks faith, and it is the unrepentant man seeking to validate his errors rather than confess them who is the true agent of division within the Church.

It is important in talking about things like the sex abuse and Notre Dame commencement scandals to explain what exactly scandal is. The modern world would have us believe that scandal occurs when unworthy behavior is made public knowledge. In actuality, scandal occurs when one person leads another into sin. The sex abuse that was committed by some priests – who were predominantly homosexual pederasts rather than pedophiles – is not scandal unless the sexual behavior was willingly reciprocated by the victim. It is, more properly, a violation, because if the victim is an unwilling participant, then the victim is not sinning, since the deliberate intent required for sin to take place is not there. Only the perpetrator sins, and there is no scandal. Where scandal takes place is when a person in a position of authority knows of the abuse and does nothing about it, thus enabling the perpetrator to commit sin. There the higher authority can be said to be giving scandal. And yes, those individuals who allowed it to continue deserve their punishment. They also deserve the same forgiveness accorded to any other sinner, and deserve absolution if there is genuine remorse for the sinful behavior.

The Notre Dame affair is a somewhat different creature. Fr. Jenkins gave scandal to the Catholic faithful by using his authority as President of a Catholic university to publicly honor – in the name of Catholic higher education – a man who betrays the most fundamental beliefs about the dignity and inviolability of human life, thus creating the impression that it was alright to do this. I’ve heard all the arguments about how certain aspects of Obama’s teaching are in line with Catholic teaching. Any heretic can say the same, since all heresy is based on some truth, and is distinguishable from Catholic teaching only by the lies that it propagates. To say that Obama deserved to be honored despite the disagreements is tantamount to saying that the great heretics of ages past – such as Arius and Pelagius – likewise deserved to be honored by Catholic institutions for their commitment to those aspects of Catholic teaching they happened to agree with, despite their very fierce disagreement with the Church on some very crucial and non-negotiable matters.

I’ve also heard the straw man “promoting dialogue” and “other politicians support war and the death penalty which makes them just as bad” arguments used in support of giving Obama an honorary degree. However, Obama is on record as supporting both war and the death penalty, and the speech was delivered to a captive audience with no possibility given for a follow up dialogue, so even if those arguments had any merit in relation to Obama’s honorary degree – and they do not – neither of them is truly applicable in the present discussion.

The point is, Fr. Jenkins knowingly acted not only against the mandates of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (which in and of itself is not necessarily punishable, since the USCCB lacks the authority to either pronounce on such matters or to enforce such pronunciations), but also against canon law mandates (a fact confirmed by the head of the Vatican’s Apostolic Signatura and chief canon lawyer of the Church, Archbishop Raymond Burke; and violation of a canon law mandate is very much punishable). He could have repented and rescinded the offer of an honorary degree and still allowed Obama to speak. That would have ended the scandal (though not the controversy) before it had fairly begun, since no honor would have been bestowed. Instead, he remained obstinate in his error, and continued to use fallacious arguments to support his decision (and dishonestly continued to use those arguments even after his local Bishop, the head of the Apostolic Signatura, and nearly a third of the Bishops of the United States all pointed out the errors inherent in those arguments). Fr. Jenkins is the classic definition of a man who knowingly led others into scandal by creating the impression among Catholics that it was okay – even laudatory! – to honor such a man, and then he proceeded to compound the problem by attempting to validate his error in the eyes of the Church, which makes him the true source of division in this whole sorry affair. We are called to forgive Fr. Jenkins for the scandal that he gave; but we are also obligated to call him to repent, and to pray that he might experience that repentance and to seek absolution for his error.

I have noticed, by the way, that when people are called to explain their support for individuals who oppose the Church’s teachings on the dignity and inviolability of human life, they have a tendency to yell, “sex abuse scandal!” as though this somehow validates their viewpoint. It doesn’t even come close to doing that. The sex abuse issue is indeed a tragic one, but is completely separate from the present discussion. It is not a valid answer to how a person believes that they can in good conscience support an opponent of the Church’s most fundamental moral teachings. That question still awaits an answer…