Our Debate on Church Authority

Our ongoing debate on Church authority is drawing attention elsewhere on the Catholic blogosphere.  Denise Hunnell, at Catholic Mom, encourages her readers to follow the ongoing discussion at Mirror of Justice.  Saying that Mirror of Justice is one of her favorite blogs, sees says tongue-in-cheek that "[f]or a doctor to say she loves reading what a bunch of lawyers has to say is high praise indeed."

Herewith a couple of excerpts from Catholic Mom's post on the Church authority matter:

If I may be so bold as to offer advice to lawyers, I think there has been a loss of the distinction between dissenting from the Church and struggling with a Church teaching. It is common for a Catholic to struggle with one or more of the Church teachings. Each of us will find at least one teaching of the Church that is difficult to fully appreciate or understand. It doesn’t seem intuitive. The easy thing to do at this point is to become a dissenter. We decide that we will disagree with the Church and reject this teaching. We then spend our time trying to bolster our arguments for why we are right and the Church is wrong. Doesn’t that seem a bit arrogant? After all, as Catholics we believe the Church is the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church, founded by Christ, and protected by the Holy Spirit from error in matters of faith and morals. To say we are right and the Church is wrong in matters of faith and morals is in effect to say we are smarter than the Holy Spirit.

The more difficult path, but the one we are called to take, is to embrace the struggle we have with a given teaching. We must pray about it. We must study it. We must reflect on it. We must not reject it! With God’s grace the teaching will grow clearer. This often doesn’t happen easily or quickly. Believe me. I have struggled and still struggle to accept several teachings. It is definitely an exercise in humility. However, I can also say that honest, faithful study with a truly open mind and heart always leads me to the wisdom of the Church. Therefore, rather than expending energy to defend dissent, it is much more valuable to seek to think with the Church. Sentire cum Eccesia.