Making the Case for Biblical Ju-Jitsu

“She asked me, ‘Where is confession to a priest in the Bible?’ I told her, ‘It isn’t.’ It isn’t! That woman became a Baptist, and I had the honor of officiating at her wedding.”

My daughter, who attends the local “World’s Largest Christian University,” recently repeated to me this tale told by her professor, a tale of how he “saved” a Catholic woman to whom he explained the Scriptures. She was contemplating marrying a Baptist, and had gone to this Protestant pastor for guidance. He chuckled as he regaled the class with this story.

I’m STEAMED.

So, the priestly ministry of reconciliation isn’t in the Bible, huh? And what is St. Paul talking about in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20?? And while we’re on the subject of chopped liver, what is going on in John 20:22-23? What were the early Christians thinking when they had public confession of sins and public penance that lasted until the bishop forgave their sins in persona Christi?? And poor St. Basil the Great, babbling incoherently when he wrote:

It is necessary to confess our sins to those to whom the dispensation of God’s mysteries is entrusted. Those doing penance of old are found to have done it before the saints. It is written in the Gospel that they confessed their sins to John the Baptist [Matt. 3:6], but in Acts [19:18] they confessed to the apostles.

Oh, I’m MAD.

Another poorly catechized Catholic leaves the fold, cluelessly relying on instruction from someone who has rejected the teaching of the Church, a man who still chuckles every time he tells her story. Did her family not teach her the basics of Catholic self-defense, or did they not know the basics themselves? Were these basics not taught at her parish? When John 20: 22-23 was read from the ambo, were those verses not explained to her? Was she just not listening?

And what should I do about it?

Back in the early 1960’s a drama unfolded in New Orleans. The archbishop of the diocese, a childhood immigrant from Germany in the 19^th century, had already overseen the desegregation of the parish churches in the early 1950s, declaring “let there be no further discrimination or segregation in the pews, at the Communion rail, at the confessional and in parish meetings, just as there will be no segregation in the kingdom of heaven.” In 1962 the archbishop decided that the time for desegregation of the parish schools had come. Public protests were staged, and a letter-writing campaign was undertaken by those appalled at the thought. Time magazine covered this story:

“God demands segregation,” says New Orleans’ Mrs. B. J. Gaillot Jr., president of segregationist Save Our Nation Inc. She is a Roman Catholic, and when Archbishop Joseph Francis Rummel, 85, ordered full desegregation of New Orleans parochial schools for next fall, Mrs. Gaillot responded with picketing and loud protest….

Last week the archbishop answered some of his loudest parishioners with firm letters of “paternal admonition.” The letter to Mrs. Gaillot, mother of two children in Catholic schools, was a “fatherly warning” of automatic excommunication if she continued promoting “flagrant disobedience to the decision to open our schools to ALL.” Said she nervously: “If they can show me from the Bible where I am wrong, I will get down on my knees before Archbishop Rummel and beg his forgiveness.”

If you are familiar with Holy Scripture, I think you see the problem here. If they can show me from the Bible where I am wrong – slaveholders famously used Holy Scripture to justify their position for hundreds of years. Many Bible verses warn against mixed marriage, and this combination of passages concerning slavery and mixing the races was used to prop up the system of segregation. What does the Bible say about desegregation? Well, it says that “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them,” and that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Up against the many verses decrying intermarriage, and instructing us that God “determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,” the Biblical argument against segregation sounds kind of weak, as Una Gaillot pointed out. If they can show me from the Bible where I am wrong – if the Catholic Church made its decisions based on this reasoning, our parish schools might be segregated to this day. Fortunately, it doesn’t, and they’re not.

The Catholic Church has authority – the authority invested in her by her Divine Spouse when He said, “Whoever hears you, hears Me.” When a judgment call needs to be made, it is her judgment, and not our own, her reading of Holy Scripture and her understanding of Holy Tradition upon which we can confidently rely, because she is literally “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15).

The start of the 1962-1963 school year saw the desegregation of the parish schools of New Orleans. Una Gaillot and two others preferred excommunication to accepting the decision of the Church. “If they can show me from the Bible where I am wrong” led to a tragic end.

But we were talking about John 20 and 2 Corinthians 5 – the Bible passages which support the practice of confession to a priest – what’s the connection? After all, Scripture, history and the witness of the early Church Fathers make this a slam-dunk; confession to a priest is about as “Biblical” as you can get. When confronted with the “If they can show me from the Bible where I am wrong” argument on this one, Catholics have got it made! Yet some Catholics feel that because the Church does not embrace the “sola Scriptura” error of Protestantism, we should not “play their game” by highlighting the scriptural evidence for various Catholic doctrines. After all, reliance on “the Bible alone” has not worked out well for those Luther begat. Protestants are all over the map when it comes to issues such as abortion. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association opines that “Even sincere Christians may differ on whether or not abortion is ever justified, especially in difficult situations such as rape or incest, or when tests reveal that the unborn child has severe abnormalities.” Why do these folks believe that “sincere Christians” can differ on an issue that the Catholic Church deems non-negotiable? Because the Bible simply does not speak directly to the subject of abortion, and if you are of the “If they can show me from the Bible where I am wrong” persuasion, you’re getting scant help from that direction. So don’t encourage Protestants in their sola-Scriptura fallacy! the Catholic argument goes. Teach them why sola Scriptura is wrong, and why the Church as the pillar and foundation of Truth has the God-given right to declare that “God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can under any circumstance claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being.”

So, which approach is the right one – should we play up the Biblical evidence for our doctrines, or should we refuse to play “Bible-alone” pinochle?

Both, I say. We Catholics, in my part of the country at least, are fish in a barrel. This “don’t teach ’em Biblical arguments” argument leads to poor catechesis and potential capitulation to Protestant or Jehovah’s Witness reasoning when we’re caught in the crosshairs of the “everything we believe comes straight from Scripture” shotgun. Yes, with Evangelicals at every turn, and “sola Scriptura” like fluoride in our theological water, Catholics do have to be instructed on where and how “Scripture alone” falls flat on its doctrinal face. We must not forget to challenge Protestants regularly on their contention that every doctrine must have explicit scriptural support – show me from the Bible that every doctrine must have explicit scriptural support! But to neglect the obvious, to fail to teach Catholics that confession to a priest has solid Biblical underpinnings (as do the doctrines of mortal vs venial sin, apostolic succession, Church authority, the necessity of final perseverance, the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, and on and on) is to leave Catholics in the lurch. They’re never going to hear this from a Protestant, believe me. Many parishes have Catholic Bible studies, but each Catholic should, as a child, receive instruction in doctrinal self-defense, Biblical ju-jitsu, learning where to find basic Scriptural evidence of Catholic doctrines and how to refute wacko objections like:

“Where’s the word ‘pope’ in the Bible? Huh? Huh? It’s NOT! So the papacy is an invention!”

or

“How dare you call yourselves the ‘Holy Catholic Church’? The Bible says that only God is holy!!”

or

“The Bible says that Peter was married, so the requirement of priestly celibacy is unbiblical!!!”

Too many Catholics wander off, and some for the flimsiest of reasons. God be praised, many do return, but effective catechesis would prevent so many from being lost to the Church, and possibly lost, period. This is spiritual warfare, and in defense of our souls we need to learn techniques to fend off sneak attacks as well as frontal assaults. The first pope insisted that Catholics be always ready to make a defense to everyone; I’m sure he took it for granted that we would teach our children to do the same. Can you make a defense for the hope that is in you? Can your kids? Can the guy next to you at Mass?

I can still hear that pastor chuckling.

On the memorial of St. Stephen

Deo omnis gloria!

A Question of “How?”

As an Evangelical, I would have told you that there was a chasm between Biblical teaching (meaning “the interpretation of Scripture to which I happen to adhere at this point in my life”) and Catholic teaching. To my surprise, after actually bothering to study the issue (Memo to self: Find out what you’re talking about BEFORE you start talking…), many of the differences between Catholic theology and Protestant theology actually boil down to something not all that huge. Many times it is just a question of “How ….?”

When I was a Protestant, the Catholic idea of “going to confession” was something that I was SURE was invented by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages in order to keep the people enslaved. It was a “man-made teaching.” After all, where in Scripture does it tell us that we have to confess our sins to a priest? The Bible tells us that “if we will confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness!” Where’s the priest in that verse? I knew that any Catholic who would just read the Bible (we all know there’s no such thing as a Catholic Bible study!) would come to the same conclusion that I had: confession was something the Church hierarchy had made up because it served their purpose.

When I studied the sacraments, though, and the sacrament of Reconciliation was presented as a “healing” sacrament, suddenly it all began to fall into place….

I attended several charismatic assemblies as a teenager; my mom once took me to a meeting led by Frances Hunter, where several people were healed of that dread malady of one-leg-longer-than-the-otherism. I have never, however, belonged to a church which preached total dependence upon faith healing. As responsible Christians, the folks at the churches I attended always marched themselves and their children over to the doctor’s office if they got sick. If we had appendicitis, we didn’t stay home praying for God to heal us – we prayed as we skedaddled over to the emergency room to have that thing removed before it burst! We did not see this as any kind of “lack of faith.” And yet I knew that that was exactly what some Pentecostals would call it. “By His stripes we are healed!” they proclaimed. “Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise him up.” Where’s the doctor in that verse? they would ask. And we would reply calmly that of course we believed that “the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well.” But we also believed that God was doing that healing through the intervention of trained medical personnel. We told the faith healers the story of the man trapped in the flood, sitting on his roof praying that God would rescue him. A neighbor rowed past in his boat and called out to the man to jump off the roof and climb into the boat. “No!” answered the man, “I’m trusting God to save me!” Another neighbor rowed past in his boat and they had the same conversation; the man would not leave his roof – he was waiting for God to save him. Finally the Coast Guard flew overhead in a helicopter and threw down a rope. “Climb up into the helicopter!” they shouted. “No!” the man shouted back. “I’m trusting God to save me!” The Coast Guard flew off to rescue others, and the man drowned in the flood. The moral of the story? Sometimes God does assist us directly, but very often He uses other human beings to provide what we need. It is not a lack of faith in God if we believe that His divine assistance can be provided through men.

As much as many Evangelicals try to pretend that our Christian experience boils down to “just me and Jesus,” in practice that idea falls apart. Protestants recognize this principle of relying on others as mediators of God’s gifts when they evangelize. Why do people need to tell their neighbors about Jesus? Why do missionaries go to the other side of the world to bring the natives to Christ? Because God has honored us with the responsibility of helping each other to Heaven – He does not send angels to proclaim the Good News; He leaves that job to us. We are all indebted to someone, some person, who brought us the Good News. God uses people to do His work. This is part of the Catholic teaching on justification by faith. Christians must “walk in the works which God has prepared for us to walk in”(Eph 2:10). If we aren’t doing our part, others will suffer from our negligence. Pope Pius XII put it like this:

“As He hung upon the Cross, Christ Jesus not only appeased the justice of the Eternal Father which had been violated, but He also won for us, His brethren, an ineffable flow of graces. It was possible for Him of Himself to impart these graces to mankind directly; but He willed to do so only through a visible Church made up of men, so that through her all might cooperate with Him in dispensing the graces of Redemption. As the Word of God willed to make use of our nature, when in excruciating agony He would redeem mankind, so in the same way throughout the centuries He makes use of the Church that the work begun might endure.”

God’s plan is for us to do His work. We as Catholics believe that the same wonderful plan – God’s grace poured out in our lives through the work of human instruments – is evident in the sacrament of reconciliation. In the Evangelical forgiveness formula, though, the Church is left out entirely. My sins are between me and Jesus! says the Evangelical.

Let’s face it – the Church isn’t the only thing that is left out of the Evangelical forgiveness formula. John 20:22-23 is a passage that is seldom-to-never brought up in Protestant preaching, I think for obvious reasons:

“And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.'”

It’s pretty obvious that Jesus gave His apostles the right and duty to forgive and to refuse to forgive sins. That’s what this verse says. And the Church has always understood it to mean that the men whom the apostles laid hands upon also have that right and duty, cf. St. Basil’s fourth-century insistence that “It is necessary to confess our sins to those to whom the dispensation of God’s mysteries has been entrusted.” We see in the historical record that the early Christian church believed in public confession – about as far from the Evangelical “just me and Jesus” approach as you can get! Nowadays of course we confess privately, but the concept remains the same.

Confession is a healing sacrament – that means that God uses the priest to forgive sins similar to the way He uses a doctor to bring healing. The doctor treats us, but God heals us. The priest absolves us in the person of Jesus, just as St. Paul declared that “To whom you forgive anything, I forgive also: for if I forgave anything, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes I forgave it in the person of Christ, lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices.” (II Cor 2:10-11) In other words, the priest declares to us that we are forgiven based on his authority as God’s representative and on God’s promise to forgive. The priest declares God’s forgiveness – it is God who forgives us.

So the seeming chasm between the Protestant theology of “how one receives forgiveness” and the Catholic theology of “how one receives forgiveness” is not really much of a chasm at all. We agree that we receive forgiveness from God. We agree that Jesus wants His disciples to walk in His footsteps, i.e., to be the hands and feet of Christ in this world. Where we disagree is on the issue of “how” forgiveness comes to us. Just as Catholics do not believe that God desires all of us to be healed directly by Him with no intervention on the part of medical personnel, neither do we believe that God has left His Church out of the forgiveness equation. God forgives us using His instrument, the Church. And this process of confession, by the way, beautifully provides for the accountability that Evangelicals are always talking about (and bemoaning the lack of).

All of this, as we see, ties in closely to the doctrine of the “Communion of Saints,” which is also the basis for the Catholic veneration of Mary. This seemingly huge divide between Protestant teaching on “the saints,” and the Catholic understanding of the issue, is also more of a question of “how?” How is the body of Christ composed? Are we all a “hand?” (1 Cor 12:20-25) Are not some parts weaker and some parts stronger? Are not some parts more deserving of honor? Are there not some whom the King especially wishes to honor? (Esther 6:6) Again, not that far from Protestant belief when you look into it. The same can be said on the subject of Purgatory: we all believe that those who die in a state of grace will enter Heaven – it is a question of “how?” Will we enter Heaven with muddy feet, or will Jesus meet us at the door with a basin of hot water and a towel?  

On the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows

Deo omnis gloria!