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I mentioned on my
Journey Home episode that while examining my own faith, I came to the realization that Protestantism was a theory (at this point Catholicism was not on the radar yet). A few commenters have asked me about this. Recently while reading Hilaire Belloc's book,
The Great Heresies, Belloc says something very similar:
"[Protestantism] did not, after the various heretical propositions had been condemned, set up a separate religion over against the old orthodoxy. Rather did it create a certain separate moral atmosphere which we still call "Protestantism". It produced indeed a crop of heresies, but not one heresy. The Protestant attack differed from the rest especially in this characteristic, that its attack did not consist in the promulgation of a new doctrine or of a new authority, that it made no concerted attempt at creating a counter-Church, but had for its principle the denial of unity. It was an effort to promote that state of mind in which a Church in the old sense of the word--that is, an infallible, united, teaching body, a Person speaking with Divine authority--should be denied; not the doctrines it might happen to advance, but its very claim to advance them with unique authority." (pp. 97 & 12; Tan Books & Publishers, 1991).
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A Shocking Image to Our
21st Century Sensibilities |
By denying a Magisterial Authority in the Church Jesus established, one denies the unicity of the Church (
Ecclesiae unitatem). One of the most important factors in being able to identify any thing at all is its unicity. We cannot find
a thing if it is disintegrated. Or rather, what we will find is a disintegrated thing, but not the thing
per se. Therefore,
if the Church is not united to one head, Christ, and that is manifest visibly by a Magisterial Church invested with the same authority as Christ, then one has no hope in identifying the Church Jesus established. She is a chimera at worst,
only invisible at best. If either, one would never know if he were leaving Her thus eliminating the possibility of "
schism from". This is why the Holy Father calls Protestant churches "
ecclesial communities" since they are merely a group of Christians choosing to form a community around their shared theology. They can leave that community and start another if they like, since there is no visible church and therefore no sin in leaving (schism) that community to start or join another. Thus, what one finds is a disintegrated thing (
res dis unitatem)--not an "infallible, united, teaching body, a Person speaking with Divine authority".
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Church Board:
"We all agree, so we joined this club that runs a church" |
Ultimately, when I was a Protestant, I joined a church based upon a shared theology--theory--about Christianity. A theology is a theory when it is merely the by-product of human artfulness. Thus, as I learned more things, I changed my community to one that shared my theory (or was really close to it). When one identifies the Church Jesus founded, he will find that she teaches things that he does not agree with and that he may never fully understand or accept
on the grounds of his own intellect. Nonetheless, he does not join her ranks because it is a church of men convinced of the same theory. No, it is a Church united visibly as a "thing" in reality (
res Ecclesiae), whose existence can only be explained by Her head's (Christ) divine intervention and providence (will). That is precisely what the Catholic Church proclaims to be:
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CCC 831. Secondly, the Church is catholic because
she has been sent out by Christ on a mission to the whole of the human race:
All men are called to belong to the new People of God. This People, therefore, while remaining one and only one, is to be spread throughout the whole world and to all ages in order that the design of God's will [not human invention or artfulness] may be fulfilled: he made human nature one in the beginning and has decreed that all his children who were scattered should be finally gathered together as one. . . . The character of universality which adorns the People of God is a gift from the Lord himself whereby the Catholic Church ceaselessly and efficaciously seeks for the return of all humanity and all its goods, under Christ the Head in the unity of his Spirit.
Amen.
