Catholic Response to Conspiracy Theories

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If Catholic Stand included subtitles, this post’s would be “Why Catholics Need to Know Their Faith and History.”  In the past few weeks, I have seen Catholicism dragged through the mud with governmental figures and Hollywood celebrities by conspiracy theorists.  I have seen recent popes accused of being in league with Satanism and pedophilia, saints accused of the same, and Mary portrayed as the modern perpetuation of a pagan goddess.

To the informed Catholic, this is ridiculous.  But to a Catholic who is less informed, or to those outside the Church entirely, these claims can appear true.  In order to keep ourselves firm in the faith but also to help others see our side, we have to know what proof to present to let the truth have a fighting chance.  We can do this by knowing the history of our faith.

Balancing Emotion with Conspiracy

When I see these things, my emotional reaction is anger, sorrow, and impatience.  I want to type harsh things in comment sections and make aggressive posts of my own.  But I have also experienced a dash of uncertainty.  Some of these accounts have shared well-researched facts and interesting perspectives.  When the anti-Catholic posts come up, it is by surprise.  I am open-minded to the author’s perspectives and wonder what he could have read that made him include a saint in his exposure of such grievous sinners.

However, emotional reactions typed in online corners have never won souls or changed minds.  Conspiracy theories are attractive to people searching for the truth.  Some do so out of fear, some out of skepticism, and some do so out of intellectual curiosity.  If we respond with emotion, at worst they will just scroll past and at best they will assume they must have struck a chord with us and found a fault we wanted to hide.  We have to respond with rational truth.

Combating Conspiracy with Truth

In order to respond to these claims with truth, we have to know enough about our faith and its enemies to do so.  For example, knowing the Church’s process for declaring a saint will help you know that certain accusations against Pope John Paul II must be false.  By explaining this and offering examples from his life, you can help others see him in a more honest way.

Similar accusations made against Pope Benedict XVI can be answered with either fact about how much his writing has positively impacted the lives of the faithful, but can also be answered with explanations of the Pope’s role in the Church.  By explaining that Popes lead but do not change anything within the Church without an extensive process involving much prayer and many others, nothing claimed against a Pope can be a substantial claim against the Church as a whole.

Lies about Mary can be answered in the same way: by explaining what the Church actually teaches and including examples from her life or apparitions.  It would be hard for those claiming Mary is a pagan entity to explain away Our Lady of Lourdes and the miracles that occur at the apparition spot, for instance.

Truth Will Set Us Free

By responding with truth rather than emotion to the claims of conspiracy theories, we not only reaffirm the truth of the Church within our hearts, but we reaffirm it for other faithful who may feel confused and hurt by the false claims presented.  We help our fellow Catholics feel justified in their beliefs and more likely to stick to them, knowing they are not alone.  We also publicly take a stand on God’s side, a boost to our own personal faith journey.

By sharing the truth with patience and love, we also offer another perspective to those who are wavering or outside the Church.  If they see your comment, they may go looking into the truths of your claims too, and be surprised by what they find.  As the Catechism states:

Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself nor can truth ever contradict truth (CCC 159).

In other words, God created everything.  He gave humans the power of reason and intellect.  Everything we know, we know because He enables us to see and comprehend.  Nothing we can read or find will ever contradict God, because we would not know anything if He did not will it!  Some things may be confusing at first, but there is always an answer within the Catholic Church, the bride of Christ.

Catholics Must Be as Connected as Conspiracy Theorists

Catholics will always be persecuted and alone.  We do not have a side that will stand with us, because we were called to be different from the beginning.  God’s love is radical.  His Church demands that you change yourself and live for something else.  People do not want to hear that, so they will always attack.  Politically, the left stands for ideals that Catholics cannot support.  However, the right can also support things that Catholics cannot promote.  Conspiracy theorists want to drag down our recent popes and call the Church’s symbolism occult.  It’s nothing new.

If those against us can unite in their efforts to hurt the Church, we must unite in our efforts to defend her.  Be the first to point out her heroes rather than her villains.  If there is something you do not know enough about to defend, take time to learn, and educate yourself.  The Catechism is always a good place to start.  This article by fellow Catholic Stand columnist Scott Davis makes excellent points about our role in responding to current events as well.

The mistakes of past Catholics are not the Church’s mistakes.  The Church is the one, true Church.  Her leaders can be flawed without tainting her validity.  Do not allow conspiracy theorists to convince you otherwise.  Scott Davis’s rule of thumb included in his article mentioned above is: “not to subscribe to the teachings of any group in its entirety outside the body of the Church, but instead to examine all issues on their merits.”  If you choose to respond, do so in charity and with the truth.  Then let God do the rest.

 

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11 thoughts on “Catholic Response to Conspiracy Theories”

  1. This piece might have more validity if it cited specific examples rather than making broad generalizations about “conspiracy theories” and alleged false allegations. But what really doesn’t make sense is it omits the apologies of John Paul II in 2000 to racial minorities, other religions, women, and others, on behalf of the church. He was clearly apologizing on behalf of the institutional church and not just for himself or other individuals associated with the church in response to then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s oversight of a report entitled, “Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past”

  2. The only problem of The Church is it’s members are human. Millions and millions go to Sunday Mass and believe in the teachings of the Church. We pray and try to follow the teachings of Jesus. Some times we fail and humbly ask God for forgiveness. I can not control what happens in Rome. I can only control what I Do. We are the Church.

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  4. So… according to you, things like the SECRET PACT OF ROME WITH CHINA are “normal” and in “best intererest” for the chinese AND the “catholic church” ???

    And to tell that WOJTYLA is a FALSE SAINT just because he HELPED TO SPREAD THE HERESY AND THE ISLAM (did you remember him KISSING coran? and ASSISI?) ARE “conspiracy” to “undermine the church” ???

    and to tell that the closure of the temples was MAINLY MADE IN ROME (long before the govermnents!) and to tell that “rome” are HELPING those “virus pople” to CONTROL the population via (false) vaccine is “to lie” ??

    U live in DreamLand, where “the church is clean” and those things are “bad stories”…

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    1. O.K., I might have been harsh on Ms. Gripshover. My comment was not directed at her piece but at this site in general.

      But . . . conspiracy theories are encouraged by a Church which is 1) overly secretive at every level, though particularly in the Vatican, and 2) really bad at p.r. Whenever they say they’re investigating something, it sounds like they’re going to cover something up. Whenever they deny something they do it in a way that makes it sound true. Whenever they promise to change something it turns out they didn’t really change it. It’s a fog that breeds the quest for alternate explanations.

    2. Captcrisis, it sounds like you get all of your information about what the Church says and does from our hysterically Catholic-hating media which bends over backwards to portray everything the church says or does as suspicious, untrustworthy, incredible or stupid. Try going to the actual source for the true information. Yes there are some incompetents in the Church’s hierarchy, and even some rogues white-anting her from within, but don’t condemn the whole of catholicism because of these people working against what she stands for.

  6. Excellent piece. Today it has become almost fashionable to hate on the current Holy Father, Pope Francis, and to question everything from the validity of his papacy to the authority of his universal encyclicals, as well as his modifications to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, all within his right by virtue of the office of the papacy.

    We have the right to disagree with his off-hand statements, as we do with any Pope. But we are called to respect the office of the papacy, and to follow his teaching authority. The same goes for Vatican II. People sometimes state that, since this Council was not designed nor claimed to change Church doctrine, we have the right to ignore the parts that, without changing basic teaching, give us a new and fresh perspective on how to apply those teachings to our lives. Implementation is another question, and can be revisited, but not the infallibility of the basic conciliar teachings.

    If we are not careful, we can implode within, and you rightly state that this affects both the left-leaning and far-right. Conspiracy theorists exist both outside of the Church and directly within the hierarchy.

    Your perspective is appreciated.

  7. Josephine Harkay

    Indeed the institution of the Church itself is holy, it is the people in the Church that are the sinners. However, people expect from their Church leaders a much higher standard of behavior than from the average John Doe. There is no excuse for week or sinful Church leaders; they have to go, otherwise they undermine the reputation of the Church. Many people do not have that kind of supernatural faith that can keep the two things separate.

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