The Reformation is over. Catholics 0, Protestants 1

triablogue ^ | April 13, 2015 | Jerry Walls

[RnMomof7]

I'm going to transcribe an article that Jerry Walls wrote when he was a grad student at Notre Dame:

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I am nearing the end of three very happy (with a brief interlude) years as a graduate student in the philosophy department at Notre Dame. The philosophy department is quite lively and stimulating and I have learned a great deal about my discipline.

Along the way, I have also acquired an education of another sort–namely in the ways of the Roman Catholic Church. My education in this regard has been informal and piecemeal, to be sure. My insights have been gathered from diverse sources: from lectures, from letters to the Observer, from articles in the conservative magazine Fidelity, from interaction with undergraduates I have taught. But most of all, I have learned from numerous conversations with students and faculty in the philosophy and theology departments, many of which have involved a friend who is a former Roman Catholic seminarian. While my informal education in these matters hardly qualifies me to speak as an authority, Roman Catholics may find interesting how one Protestant in their midst has come to perceive them. I can communicate my perceptions most clearly, I think, by briefly describing three types of Catholics I have encountered. 

First, I have met a fair number of conservative Catholics. Those who belong to this group like to characterize themselves as thoroughly Catholic. They stress the teaching authority of the Church and are quick to defend the official Catholic position on all points. For such persons, papal encyclicals are not to be debated; they are to be accepted and obeyed. Many conservative Catholics, I suspect, hold their views out of a sense of loyalty to their upbringing. Others, however, defend their views with learning, intelligence, and at times, intensity.

At the other end of the spectrum of course, are the liberal Catholics. These persons are openly skeptical not only about distinctively Roman doctrines such as papal infallibility, but also about basic Christian doctrine as embodied in the ecumenical creeds. It is not clear in what sense such persons would even be called Christians. Nevertheless, if asked their religious preference, on a college application say, they would identify themselves as Catholics. I have no idea how many Catholics are liberals of this stripe, but I have met only a few here at Notre Dame.

It is the third type of Catholic, I am inclined to think, which represents the majority. Certainly most of the Catholics I have met are of this type. I call this group "functional protestants."

Many Catholics, no doubt, will find this designation offensive, so let me hasten to explain what I mean by it. One of the fundamental lines of difference between Catholics and Protestants, going back to the Reformation, concerns the issue of doctrinal authority. The traditional Roman Catholic view, as I understand it, is that its official teachings are guaranteed to be infallible, particularly when the pope or an ecumenical council exercises "extraordinary magisterium" when making doctrinal or moral pronouncements. Protestants have traditionally rejected this claim in favor of the view that Scripture alone is infallible in matters doctrinal and moral. This was the conviction MartinLuther came to hold after he arrived at the conclusion that both popes and church councils have erred. After this, his excommunication was all but inevitable.

When I say most Catholics are functional Protestants I simply mean that most Catholics do not accept the authority claims of their Church. In actual belief and practice, they are much closer to the Protestant view.

This is apparent from the fact that many Catholics do not accept explicitly defined dogmas of their Church. For example, I have talked with several Catholics who are doubtful, at best, about the Marian dogmas, even though these have the status of infallible doctrine in their church. Such Catholics have often made it clear to me that they believe the basic Christian doctrine as defined in the creeds. But they frankly admit that they think their Church has taken some wrong turns in her recent history. Where this is the case, they do not feel compelled to follow. As one of my functional Protestant friends put it: "I am a Roman Catholic, but I am more concerned about being Catholic than about being Roman."

That many Catholics are functionally Protestant is also evident in their attitude toward the distinctive moral teachings of their Church. The obvious example here is the Roman Catholic teaching that all forms of "artificial" birth control are immoral. The official view was reaffirmed explicitly by Pope Paul VI in his encyclical Humanae Vitae, and has been reiterated again and again by Pope John Paul II. Nevertheless, as the article on Humanae Vitae in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Religion noted, "the papal ban is simply being ignored," and "a concrete authority crisis has thus emerged."

I attended the recent debate on abortion between Fr. James Burtchaell and Daniel Maguire. It is interesting to me that Fr. Burtchaell who eloquently defended the conservative view on abortion, admitted to a questioner that he rejects his Church's teaching on birth control. I could not help but wonder: is Fr. Burtchaell, Catholic statesman though he is, also among the functional Protestants?

This raises, of course, the deeper issue here: to what extent can a member of the Roman Catholic Church disagree with the official teachings of his Church and still be a faithful Catholic? Can one reject the teaching of a papal encyclical while remaining a faithful Catholic? If so, can he also reject a doctrine which the pope has declared infallible?

I have put these questions to several Catholics. Conservative have assured me that the answer to both the latter questions is no. Others insist the answer is yes.

This brings me to a final point concerning functional Protestants: they do consider themselves faithful Catholics. I have  often pointed out in conversation with such Catholics that their views differ little from mine. Why then remain Catholic I ask. In response, these Catholics make it clear to me that they love their Church and intend to remain loyal to it. More than one has compared the Church to his family. One's family makes mistakes, but one does not therefore choose to join another family.

I am not sure what to make of this response. It is not clear to me that one can line up behind Luther in holding that the Popes and councils have erred in their doctrinal and moral pronouncements, and still be a faithful Catholic.  But on the other hand, things have changed since the 16C. It is no longer the case that a Catholic will be excommunicated for holding what Luther held. Perhaps this is just another sign that the Reformation is–despite the pope's best efforts–finally taking hold within the Roman Church. 

Jerry Walls, "Reformational Theology found in Catholicism," The Observer, Thursday, April 23, 1978, p8.

[RnMomof7]

interesting read

[miss marmelstein]

There's only Catholicism. There ain't Liberal Catholicism or Conservative Catholicism. Just as there is only right and wrong.

[2ndDivisionVet]

[Alberta's Child]

I believe that what the author of this article describes is a uniquely American phenomenon: the desire of many people to retain a nominal Catholic identity without caring much about it in their habits and practices.

I give Europeans credit for at least being more honest about it. People who would fit this description over there don't even pretend to be Catholic anymore.

[CynicalBear]

>>Perhaps this is just another sign that the Reformation is–despite the pope's best efforts–finally taking hold within the Roman Church.<<

Now that outa make some heads spin!

[HiTech RedNeck]

That’s a perception that the Roman Catholic organization labors hard to maintain.

Truth be told there IS one church, which is the body of all believers. Sadly, they now fall into contentions based upon what shingle is outside the door of their worship halls. Yes, doctrines are disputed too, but in practice it is the name — the denomination — that gets the highest level of concern. Get the right NAME and then you can sail along blindly with the DOCTRINE local to that NAME. Or so the purveyors of NAMEs would tell you.

[LurkingSince'98]

have know Catholics just like you for years...

I have always called them protestants, because that is exactly what they are.

One thing is for sure they certainly aren’t Catholic.

Ad Majoram Dei Gloriam

[HossB86]

>>Perhaps this is just another sign that the Reformation is–despite the pope's best efforts–finally taking hold within the Roman Church.<<

Now that outa make some heads spin!

One can only hope...I pray that many will be called out of the apostasy and heresy that is Catholicism!

Hoss

[chajin]

My quick reaction to the article: it is not that the Catholics are "Protestant" per se, but that they are Americans. Part of what it means to be American, however, is the willingness to reason for oneself on the basis of evidence and logic, and if one aspect of acceptable evidence is what is found in the Bible, in that sense Americans think like Protestants, even when they believe like Catholics.

I would add that this is why so many of us on FR despair of the future of America, because what we see in the administration in particular, and progressivism in general, is an unwillingness to reason for oneself. Liberals today are like the Catholic Church was at the height of its post-medieval corruption and depravity--the corruption and depravity that led to the rise of prophetic utterance culminating in the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. OTOH, this should give us a sense of hope, since it was when the Church was at its worst that God raised up those who would prophetically speak to reform it, and it did reform: not only the Protestant denominations that came from the Reformation, but the cleaned-up Catholic church that then set about evangelizing the world.

[CynicalBear]

>>have know Catholics just like you for years...<<

You thought I was a Catholic? ROFLOL!

[LurkingSince'98]

hi Hi,

I don’t believe you are even close to being right.

While there IS One Church, no NAME on that Church has anything to their beliefs, nor whether those beliefs are anything close to what Christ asks us to believe.

DOCTRINE has everything to do with faith.

NO DOCTRINE, no FAITH, no matter what NAME you put on it.

Ad Majoram Dei Gloriam

[LurkingSince'98]

NO I know you to be prot thru and thru.

However my point is I know lots of nominative Catholics just like you which I have always call protestant.

AMDG

[Resettozero]

There's only Catholicism. There ain't Liberal Catholicism or Conservative Catholicism. Just as there is only right and wrong.

Just as there is only one approved flavor of ice cream, miss marmestein. There is no other flavor than your favorite that will gain your approval. Just the one you like is right and others are wrong.

[elhombrelibre]

Yes, those Catholics should join the billion plus protestants. Oh, that’s right. After 500 years, the Protestants keep splitting and are in aggregate still much smaller. I guess the “gates of hell” have not prevailed, but we do have plenty of diversions from preachers that handle snakes, to Bill Clinton claiming (Sola scriptura, as “everyman is his own priest” Bill sees it) that fellatio isn’t a sin or adultery, to a million other crackpot theories. It seems the only thing holding some of these people together is their contempt for Christ’s Church.

[CynicalBear]

>>NO I know you to be prot thru and thru.<<

Nope, sorry, wrong again.

[Resettozero]

Now was a wild bronco of a post!

[Resettozero]

Now THAT was Galaxy Quest type of post. One end of the universe to another.

[elhombrelibre]

The constant Ian Paisley wing, the Westboro wing, the weird chauvinism threads is getting old. These people split Christianity into a thousand pieces and now want to bring that hairsplitting to FreeRepublic to split it up too. They’re short on Christ and long on rancor.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Birth control reduces marital relations to mutual masturbation. Protestants apparently do this a lot, and now thousands of Catholics are following suit and likewise engaging in what amounts to mutual masturbation.

Yeah, that's definitely a win worth crowing about. Whoever said victory had to be glorious.

What the author cannot change is Church teaching, which remains constant regardless of whether people follow it. His insistence that popular opinion de facto amounts to the teachings of the Church is both laughable and erroneous.

"The truth is the truth even if nobody believes it, and error is error even if every everyone believes it." ~ Bishop Fulton Sheen.