I agree that not everything that comes from the Church is an official teaching on Faith and Morals. Prudential decisions of the Pope, such as altering the liturgy after Vatican II, are not infallible and can in fact be mistaken or imprudent.

However, there are teachings, such as on the sacraments, the Blessed Trinity, Ex Cathedra pronouncements, contraception, abortion, etc. which are infallible and true whether Catholics or non-Catholics recognize them as true or not.

The claims the Church makes for herself as the definitive interpreter of Christianity is also objectively true whether others recognize it or not.

And while someone of course cannot be forced to believe, or continue to believe it, there is plenty of evidence that has been provided throughout history to show that she is a divine institution founded and maintained by Christ and that her official teachings on Faith and Morals are true.

This would have to do with miracles such as at Fatima, the holiness of the Saints, the nature and unalterability of her official teachings, her apostolic succession, and other evidence.

Granted, scandal, pure ignorance or prejudice against the Church can make it difficult for someone to see the divine nature of the Church. It also has to do with the will. If someone does not want to know or seek the truth then certainly no one can force them.

Brennan,

First, not everything that comes from the Church is an “official” teaching, guaranteed to be true. As I am sure you know, there is a “hierarchy of truths”:

• dogma
• definitive doctrine
• authoritative doctrine
• provisional applications of Church doctrine, church discipline, and prudential admonitions

I think may Catholics were rather taken aback to find out a few years ago that the Limbo of Infants was not an official teaching of the Church. I would hate to have seen what would have happened to me if I had told my grade school nuns I didn’t believe in Limbo!

Second, if you are not Catholic, then the Catholic Church claims to be the definitive interpreter of Christianity, but there is nothing that can compel a person to believe that, or that can prevent a Catholic from sincerely ceasing to believe it. The claims the Catholic Church makes for itself may be true, but there is no conclusive proof so compelling that those who do not become Catholic or who cease to believe can be demonstrated to be wrong.

If there’s a conflict, it might be your conscience that needs reforming and not the other way around.

The Church is the conduit, in her official teachings on Faith and Morals, for Christ’s teachings.

Dan in RVA,

I suppose this wouldn’t be offensive if Catholics making such statements didn’t use the word Protestant in much the same way Muslims use the word infidel.

It reflects the same mindset of Cardinal Newman in the piece quoted by Richard M. Newman says people who do not embrace Catholicism are not merely rejecting the Catholic faith. They have no faith at all, not even in the religions they profess, for anyone who had “real” faith would become a Catholic.

It is one thing to acknowledge that Catholics and, say, Lutherans or Evangelicals, in this ecumenical age, have “agreed to disagree” about certain issues, to engage in dialogue, and to find points of agreement. But what Newman is saying is that Lutherans and Evangelicals really have no faith at all.

They [Protestants] have not in them the principle of faith; and I repeat, it is nothing to the purpose to urge that at least they firmly believe Scripture to be the Word of God. In truth, it is much to be feared that their acceptance of Scripture itself is nothing better than a prejudice or inveterate feeling impressed on them when they were children. . . .

I know that Cardinal Newman is a major figure in Catholicism, and he was a great man and a profound thinker. But this essay (like, say, the anti-Semitic beliefs of Aquinas) belongs to a different era and must not be seen as representative of Catholic thought today.

Richard M,

It seems to me if one reads certain documents of Vatican II (Nostra Aetate comes to mind), Newman’s attitudes in Faith and Private Judgment come across as not only seriously dated, but arrogant, condescending, and un-Catholic. For example,

Perhaps you have felt this surprise yourselves; especially those of you who have been recently converted [to Catholicism], and can compare it, from experience, with those religions which the millions of this country choose instead of it. You know from experience how barren, unmeaning, and baseless those religions are; what poor attractions they have, and how little they have to say for themselves.

It is certainly not the teaching of the Catholic Church today that other Christian denominations and non-Christian religions are “barren, unmeaning, and baseless.” I wonder how the Jewish and Protestant readers of First Things would react to this statement of Newman’s. And this:

And they have it not; they are living, they are dying, without the hopes, without the aids of the Gospel, because, in spite of so much that is good in them, in spite of their sense of duty, their tenderness of conscience on many points, their benevolence, their uprightness, their generosity, they are under the dominion (I must say it) of a proud fiend; they have this stout spirit within them, they determine to be their own masters in matters of thought . . . .

It seems to me his entire premise is off base. The first-generation Christians put their faith in Jesus and the apostles—that is, in people—not in an…

Can someone be Catholic and deny transubstantiation, the Real Presence, and the sacrament of “Extreme Unction” (Anointing of the Sick)?

Let’s ask Bl. John Henry Newman, everyone’s favorite misquoted “doctor of conscience”:

“In the Apostles’ days the peculiarity of faith was submission to a living authority; this is what made it so distinctive; this is what made it an act of submission at all; this is what destroyed private judgment in matters of religion. If you will not look out for a living authority, and will bargain for private judgment, then say at once that you have not Apostolic faith. And in fact you have it not; the bulk of this nation has it not; confess you have it not; and then confess that this is the reason why you are not Catholics. You are not Catholics because you have not faith.” – Discourse 10, “Faith and Private Judgment”