No More Church Teaching but Catholic Doctrine! Part I

No more use of the term “Church Teaching,” that is. The Church needs to use “Catholic Doctrine” instead of “Church Teaching,” because the Church needs Catholic Doctrine. Without the deliberate attempt to be faithful to Catholic Doctrine, the effort to be Catholic – as a person, a parish, or an institution – will not consistently avoid errors in belief and practice or commission and omission.

I will make this case in two columns. In this column, I will explain what doctrine is. In the second column, I will show ways the Church needs doctrine and “doctrine.”

Defining “Doctrine”

The word “doctrine” has been used countless times in the history of official Church documents, including official documents from the Vatican during the reign of Pope Francis. Yet outside of official documents, “doctrine” is a word almost unused in the Church since Vatican II. When is the last time you found “doctrine” used in a homily; or in a Catholic radio or TV program, video, podcast, or column; or in the mission statement, promotional material, or instruction of a Catholic educational institution or organization?

Amazingly, there is no official definition of “doctrine.” Therefore I offer the following definition, which I have used in my monthly column on the doctrinal meaning of the Sunday Readings. Catholic Doctrine is the essentially unchangeable clarification of Revelation and Faith that only the pope and bishops in union with him have the authority to make and that must be accepted as objectively true in order to be Catholic. I believe it is in harmony with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, e.g., 85-90, 94-95, and 888-892; the “Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of Professio Fidei” issued under the authority of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as the Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith; and Avery Cardinal Dulles’ Magisterium: Teacher and Guardian of the Faith (Sapientia Press, 2007). I will explain my definition point by point.

Revelation and Faith

Central to understanding Catholic Doctrine is understanding Revelation and Faith because Revelation and Faith are the two sides in the relationship between God and humans. Revelation is what God does, and Faith is what humans do in response to Revelation (Catechism of the Catholic Church 14).

What is Revelation? Revelation is God making Himself known by His words and deeds (CCC 51-53, 142). Jesus Christ is the “one, perfect, and unsurpassable” Revelation of God (CCC 65). The two primary ways God reveals Himself through Christ are the Sacred Scripture (the Bible) and the Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church, the only religion established by Christ himself (CCC 74-83, 770-776).

What is Faith? Catholic Faith is acceptance of Divine Revelation (CCC 143). So Faith is acceptance of the Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church. Faith is acceptance of Revelation with one’s whole being – mind, will, emotions, and actions (CCC 166). The most complete way to respond to God, to have Faith in Revelation, is the creed, worship, morality, and prayer of the Catholic Church (CCC 3, 13-17, 1072, 1692, 2558).

Regarding the mind’s acceptance of Revelation, Faith is knowledge given us by God Himself. Knowledge, not just an opinion! Faith is knowledge we cannot get from Reason (the knowledge obtained from secular evidence and logic). Faith “is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie” even though “revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and experience” (CCC 157). Faith never contradicts Reason. “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).

The Revelation-Faith relationship with God is like relationships with people. We encounter others. We interact with them. We come to know them. Likewise, we encounter God. We interact with Him in worship, morality, and prayer. We come to know God. The best way to know God is Catholic Doctrine (CCC 36-38, 93).

Only the Pope and the Bishops

Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition need to be interpreted (CCC 95). Their meaning is not self-evident, otherwise, everyone who reads the Bible would come away with the same message. “The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or the form of Tradition, has been entrusted [by God] to the living, teaching office of the [Catholic] Church alone” (CCC 85). So, truest Faith is acceptance of the Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church as Scripture and Tradition have been authoritatively interpreted by the teaching office of the Catholic Church.

The teaching office of the Catholic Church is the Magisterium, the office or authority held only by the pope and those bishops in union with him (CCC 75, 77, 85). (The word “Magisterium” can be used both for the office and for those who hold the office.) Only the pope and the bishops can determine doctrine, even though many holy and wise persons who were not bishops, most notably St. Thomas Aquinas, have influenced the Magisterium.

Clarification

In my definition of “doctrine,” I use the word “clarification” instead of “interpretation” (as does Cardinal Dulles, p. 3) because “interpretation” (like “belief”) is commonly understood in a subjective sense – as an opinion, as “my truth” rather than as THE truth. (The Catechism uses the word “interpretation” for the objective meaning of Revelation.) I propose that “clarification” is, well, clearer than “interpretation” – and does not distort the Magisterium’s meaning of “interpretation.”

I also use “clarification” instead of “interpretation” in light of the “Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of Professio Fidei.” Its main point is that there are three orders or levels of doctrine: the first is dogma, which is doctrine that is infallible and “divinely and formally revealed” (“Doctrinal Commentary” 5); the second is doctrine that is infallible but not dogma, and the third is non-infallible doctrine.

The “Doctrinal Commentary” shows that the second and third orders of doctrine are clarifications of Revelation. It also shows that dogma should not be equated with Revelation Itself. Dogmas are “formulated” and “defined” and thus clarifications of Revelation, albeit the most fundamental clarifications of Revelation on which second and third-order doctrines rest.

Whoever disagrees with a particular dogma, the first order of doctrine, “falls under the censure of heresy.” Whoever disagrees with a particular doctrine that is infallible but not dogma, the second order of doctrine, “would therefore no longer be in full communion with the Catholic Church.” Whoever disagrees with a particular doctrine that is not infallible, the third order of doctrine, is in error (“Doctrinal Commentary” 5, 6, 10).

Unchangeable

It is “by virtue . . . of the Holy Spirit who has been given to them [that] bishops have been constituted true and authentic teachers of the faith and have been made pontiffs and pastors” (CCC 1558). Catholic Doctrine is formulated “by the power of the Holy Spirit who guides [the Church] into all truth” (CCC 1117). Doctrine expresses the reality of who God is and the reality of what God wants. God and His will do not change. God is absolutely trustworthy and reliable. Catholic Doctrine cannot change.

More accurately, Catholic Doctrine’s substance or content is unchangeable. “It remains for Christian faith to grasp [Revelation’s] full significance over the centuries” (CCC 66). A doctrine can be worded better as an understanding of God deepens. Newer wording that contradicts the substance of previously taught doctrine is not a development of doctrine but a corruption of doctrine.

Doctrine is so essential to the Catholic Faith that not even the pope and the bishops have the authority to contradict it. “Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It [has the authority to teach] only what has been handed on to it” (CCC 86). A statement is not a doctrine just because a pope or bishop or one’s favorite priest or deacon says it.

If the Magisterium made a mistake about doctrine in the past, how would we know it is not making a mistake now – including when it says that a previous doctrine was mistaken? If, say, the Magisterium was mistaken about sexual doctrine, maybe it was mistaken about the Trinity, the Resurrection, Transubstantiation, the need for an ordained ministry, apostolic succession, papal primacy, and infallibility. If the Magisterium has been mistaken about doctrine in the past, all Catholics should become Protestants.

There are Magisterial instructions which are changeable. A major category of such Magisterial instruction is “discipline,” which in the Church means “rules for discipleship.” Highly important examples of discipline are canon law and liturgical rubrics. Although they are not doctrine, canon law and liturgical rubrics are rules that must be obeyed in order to be a good Catholic. They are not to be changed even by a bishop acting on his own, let alone by a priest, deacon, or layperson. Even though the Magisterium can change discipline, any change must be in harmony with Catholic Doctrine.

Objectively True

Catholic Doctrine describes reality. It is objectively true. It is true always and everywhere. It is true for everyone even if it is not true to everyone in a psychological or sociological sense.

To disagree with Catholic Doctrine is to be mistaken. Like any mistake, disagreement with Catholic Doctrine might be through no fault of one’s own, or it might be one’s own fault. But even though one might not be at fault for one’s mistake, or if one is unaware one is mistaken, a mistake is still a mistake.

A common mistake is to consider Catholic Doctrine as true only for those who choose to agree with it. Catholic Doctrine is not “true for me” but “not true for you” – as though it does not matter whether one is Catholic. Catholics should be united on the need to evangelize (CCC 846-856, 905), which means that Catholics respectfully do what they can to persuade non-Catholics to convert to the Catholic Faith, including assenting to Catholic Doctrine.

The Exciting Adventure

There are those who disparage doctrine, who seem to think the Church has somehow progressed to a point where doctrine can be left behind. To paraphrase G. K. Chesterton, there are only two kinds of persons. The first kind of person is one who accepts doctrine and knows it. The second kind of person is one who accepts doctrine and doesn’t know it.

The second kind of person is both outside the Church and inside the Church. Outside the Church, the most self-styled free thinker or pragmatist or social justice warrior who has rejected Catholic Doctrine is living according to some other “doctrine.” Who is more dogmatic than a Woke person? Inside the Church, that second kind of person is found among those, including some clergy, who emphasize “the heart” or “love” or “the Spirit” or something else as a substitute for doctrine and end up promoting a doctrine that is not Catholic.

Again, the great Chesterton:

There was never anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy [that is, right doctrine]. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. . . . To have fallen into any of those open traps of error and exaggeration which fashion after fashion and sect after sect set along the historic path of Christendom—that would have indeed been simple. It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. . . . to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot [of right doctrine] flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect” (Orthodoxy in Volume I of The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, Ignatius Press, 1986).

The Church needs to be on this exciting adventure, as I will show in my next column.