Why Catholicism isn't Universal

 Ever since the time of the Apostolic Fathers, there have been divisions in the Church. Usually, minor differences could be overlooked, but occasionally, some opposed beliefs could cause major effects. For a thousand years, those problems were dealt with by convening councils of bishops to discuss whether some clarification or compromise of terminology could mend them. If not, the dissidents could be labeled as heretics and excluded, or put down if necessary. One such heresy, Arianism, insisted on denying the divinity of Christ, which obviously would have had pivotal consequences. 

But there had also been, for centuries, a not-so-subtle competition for the authority to lead the Church. Five major metropolitan cities, Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and of course, Constantinople, each wanting to surpass the others in influence, were leading their own factions, and struggling to impose their own interpretations upon the others. Thus, not all ecumenical councils ended peacefully, and at least one had to be annulled and redone a generation later. Even so, the practice of calling a worldwide council kept the Church in unity, even when they had to fight the heretics. 

As early as the 7th century, tensions over the use of art, specifically statues, in the churches began to highlight cultural differences. This led to a separation of political powers, as the Pope decided to crown Charlemagne as the head of the Holy Roman Empire, no longer beholding to the Byzantine emperor. To this, he added, without consultation, a phrase to the Nicene Creed, stating that the Holy Spirit came from the Father "and the Son." It was a rebuke to the Arians, with whom the West was still struggling. And finally, in the 11th century, the Eastern Churches accused the West of "judaizing" and trying to be more Jewish than they thought was appropriate, because they were using plain unleavened bread to celebrate the Eucharist, like the Passover feast. 

This brought to a peak the real issue that had been rising: the right of the Bishop of Rome to stand on his own authority, without having to bow to the majority opinions of the other bishops. Indeed, after the Creed issue, he thought that they should accept his rulings as authoritative for themselves as well. This unyielding stance, plus a diplomatic incident, caused the envoys of Rome and Constantinople to excommunicate each other. And then, when the Crusaders put Constantinople under seige a few decades later, the bitterness became fixed and permanent. There is no way forward if Rome insists on being more important than simply first among equals. 

So these are the main differences, as they stand today, compounded by the further schizm with the Protestant churches. The Catholic Church still holds to the arrogant assumption that the Pope is the authoritative head of all Christians, and has the right to dictate tradition. These "talking points" represent an opposing point of view, sometimes offering a compromise. 

1. Papal authority 

   - The Bishop of Rome is just one among many. The arrogant assuming of leadership authority was the primary cause of the Catholic/Orthodox Schism of 1054 AD. Authority and right teaching are to be determined in ecumenical council, according to the agreement and respect of the assembled Bishops.

2. Added traditions 

   - Catholics teach things not found in the Bible. The accumulation of traditions based on unwritten sources is the same "leaven of the Pharisees" that Jesus warned us to avoid. For example, extreme Marianism, confession, indulgences and purgatory.

3. Grace vs Works

   - Works are simply the fruits and sign of justification, and not a means of the preservation or increase of grace. If you don't have them, God isn't working grace in you because you have no faith. We are saved by grace, through faith, and its evidence is works. (contra Trent, 24.) Perhaps an abundance of works may enhance your status in Heaven, but they do not effect your entrance therein. That is due to God's grace alone.

4. Mediation of grace via sacraments 

   - Grace comes as fully as you have faith, to the degree that you are open to it. It is mediated by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, in response to prayer. It is not dribbled out by drops in ritual acts. All churches have services, ordinary or with rituals, which act out the functions of the sacraments, as needed, but they don't all assume the unique authority to distribute grace to those who obey the church. 

5. Need for confession to a priest 

   - We can always confess directly to Jesus. He is our High Priest. If we need advice, we can seek out a priest as a counselor, and elders in the church can advise and warn sinners to reform. A priest can recommend conscientious penance, but our confessions, in any case, are effective only when we are truly sorry for our sins, and when we honestly declare our repentance and intention to avoid repeating our sinful behavior. If we then fail again, we will need to confess again, and make some effort to perform effective penance so as to transform our lives. But Jesus is always willing to hear our confessions, and to offer us the strength to overcome them. 

6. Mary as mediator

   - Mary does not mediate either God's grace nor His salvation. Neither perpetual virginity nor a sinless life are in the Bible. If God wanted to remove her original sin, in response to her agreement to bear his Holy Child, so that the Holy Spirit would not be defiled, that is His right. Her faith is accounted to her as righteousness. Her mission in Heaven, the same as all the Saints, is to pray for us, and Jesus listens with sympathy and agreement to his Mother.

7. Transubstantiation 

   - The transformation of the elements in the Eucharist occurs for the benefit of the people in the Church, according to each individual's faith. Insofar as the believers acknowledge that what God says does happen, then the bread and wine do become Christ's body and blood, and not mere symbols of remembrance. However, the body of Christ cannot be corrupted by being received unworthily, nor does the priest perform a miracle where faith is not present. 

8. The existence of purgatory 

   - There is no such place in the Bible. If a person needs to be purified of "dross" before entering Heaven, it can be accomplished instantly. The soul can be transformed by grace, even as the body is transformed by resurrection. God has no need to impose temporary punishments. 

9. Indulgences 

   - A way for the Catholic Church to make money by selling the forgiveness of sin, or sidestepping a moral dilemma by pronouncing forgiveness of needful acts before they are committed. Either way, the institution is morally questionable. 

10. Papal infallibility 

    - No Human being can be infallible, nor can the Chair of St. Peter. We have had bad Popes in the past, as well as good ones. The Pope's words can not be declared as perfect without thorough examination, experience, and prayerful discernment after the pronouncement. Just as we don't declare living Saints, we cannot declare perfect doctrines before they have been proved. Jesus never said that Peter was always going to get everything right. Rather, all of the apostles would agree together in council. 

There have been some recent gestures and efforts to reconcile the Catholic Church with those in the East. Pope John Paul II began to build some bridges toward the Eastern Orthodox Churches, beginning with the agreement to not say the Nicene Creed with the phrase "and the Son" when in Orthodox company. And the Orthodox bishops seem to accept the distinction between the "veneration" of artworks being acceptable, as opposed to worshipping them as idols. We don't put offerings before statues. But there is still a long way to go before we have a true reconciliation, and negotiations with the Protestant churches have barely begun.

God saw that it was "Good"

 In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth. And He saw that they were "good." And then He created the Garden of Eden, and He put Adam and Eve in the middle of it. And that too, He called "good." God Himself walked in the Garden, enjoying the sights and sounds of his creation, as well as the company of his first man and woman. And it was good, at least until something went terribly wrong. 

And so we have a question here. What does this word "tov," which we translate as "good," really mean in its original language, in this case, Hebrew? It can be translated in a number of related ways:

1. Functioning properly 

2. Aesthetically pleasing 

3. Well organized 

4. Useful for a purpose 

5. Morally good 

But, rather than pick one, let us say that the Garden of Eden was an archetype of ALL of these "good" values. It had everything that human beings could imagine that they need to live well. They had clean air, sweet water, edible plants, companion animals, a desirable mate, a relationship with God, and eternal life. Indeed, Adam and Eve had no reason to ever think about leaving this place. And as long as they continued to live in parallel, by will and thought and action, with God's hopes for them, they never would have to leave. The Garden of Eden was, among the other meanings, useful for a purpose. It was the perfect place for humans to learn to love, trust and obey God, until they could be elevated to heavenly status.

But Adam and  Eve imagined that the one thing they were forbidden might offer them access to great thoughts that God was not sharing with them. They had been told not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And one of God's angels, who did not agree that humans could be worthy of God's plan to bring them into Heaven, decided to tempt them to disobey. So that tree's fruit appeared beautiful to their eyes, and it seemed likely to taste sweet upon their tongues. The "angel" suggested that its secrets might make them as great as God Himself. So, they listened to the Betrayer, and sought the forbidden knowledge, so that they might become their own authority. Thus, when they diverged onto their own path, they parted ways with God, and learned that they had to leave the Garden. 

And once they had left Eden, they discovered that they were not sufficient to sustain their own lives, and they were going to die. They found that they had to labor for their food, which was now less dependable and less nutritious than what they had known before. Plus, the animals no longer trusted them, and stayed away from them. Nor could they trust even each other, as blame and pride and jealousy divided their willingness to share and cooperate, and to live together in peace. 

But the one lack that they noticed above all others was the absence of an intimate relationship with God, and they did not know how to mend the rift that that loss had left behind in their lives. Indeed, it was the loss of God's continual presence that was causing the sense of endless longing, which was slowly causing them to die. They were, by the exercise of their own wills, outside of God's willing them to live. 

Part Two:

So, we all agree that God is good, by a priori definition, because we, as creatures, measure goodness by the standard that God reveals to us. But perhaps we may dare to ask, how does God measure what He decides is good? Is "good" an absolute kind of Being-in-Itself, or is it simply whatever God feels like He wants it to be, just because He gets to define it to suit Himself? Does God refer to a clear and specific, standard definition that states what kind of thing, in what kind of relations, is to be the measure of "good" by which everything else must be judged, including his own divine behavior? Or does He and, by default, do we have to merely observe how He speaks and behaves and declare: God said it, God did it, therefore it must be "good," no matter how strange, or even possibly repulsive, it may be? 

I believe that the Bible, as God's Word, gives us the answer to this question. Indeed, once we have received his Holy Spirit into our hearts, we will know, by our consciences, that there is an objective standard, by which we must judge our own thoughts and actions. You will object, not everyone will agree on what their consciences say is right and just. But that is because we are still sinful, fallen creatures living in a fallen world. Our minds have not been fully regenerated, nor shall they be in this life, although we can try to clear our hearts of selfishness and fill our minds with God's Word, so that we can better reflect his image and likeness. Such is the life mission for which we are created, to be as a lens or mirror through which the world can see the Presence of God with us. The world as it is now, including the materials of which we are made, obscure and defile our ability to reflect God. But God knows that, and He knows how to fix it, to clean and polish and purify us, when we have passed through this world. And then we shall see clearly, and not as through a glass darkly, what He wants us to see. We will see God's righteousness. 

Where does this "righteousness," this good standard come from? Jesus told us this, so that we could try to apply it, even in our fallen state. No other religion has the Golden Rule. "Do unto others what you would have them to do unto you." It is the rule of loving each other with the compassion of knowing how they will feel in response to your action as it affects them. This is not merely theoretical, but a lived experience of being a Trinity, a Triune God. It is difficult for us, but its vistas expand far and wide for God, applying not only to us but also to the lesser creatures, so that they too may not be made to suffer unnecessarily. As three divine persons in continuous intimate relationship with each other, intimately affected by every thought and every decision, every plan made and action done by either or both of the other two persons with whom One shares the Infinite introspection and projection of compassion and love, by which the entire Cosmos of the Heavens and the material worlds were created, God knows how to consider the feelings of another person before He acts. He knows what is pleasing to each other, and what is sorrowful, or even offensive, to them. 

And still, He can be impulsive, especially in his judgment of what He finds provocatively offensive in the contemptuous actions of his creatures. That is what happened when the first peoples chose to ignore Him, and decided to define their own morality after their own understanding of good and evil. Their iniquity so offended God, All Three of Him, that He decided to wipe them off from the Earth, all but a chosen few, and start over again. The result was the Great Flood that drowned the entire world, and wiped out the first beginnings of civilization. There are a half dozen stories about this around the world, which suggests that maybe Noah was not the only nearly righteous person God could find, but they were truly few and far between. And the new beginnings elsewhere didn't fare much better than the one which remembered the story we now keep. 

But despite his impulsive capacities, God does not act capriciously. God has a standard for an objective measure of what He should consider to be good. When the flood was over, and the devastation was assessed, God knew that it was not good. The Bible records that God repented what He had done. It was not all humanity, and certainly not all of his creatures, that was wrong. They had been declared good when they were created. So God reconsidered what He had done, and promised that He would never do that again. The rainbow in the sky, after it rains, is the sign of his promise to forbear in his anger and judgment. It will last until He can bear our insolence no longer, at which point, He will make everything new, to make the final outcome something of a better kind - all cleansed of the contamination and contagion of the Fall. 

Part Three: 

But in the meantime, we here on Earth continue to try God's patience. We disregard his Word in the Bible, and act like we don't care that He is calling us to an eternity where we will be blessed. John the Baptist proclaimed to all who would listen that God was giving us one more chance to change our hearts and follow the right path. He told us to repent our willful defining of whatever we thought should be good or evil, according to our own understanding. God's patience was not going to last forever. He said that we should "flee from the wrath to come." And some believed. So that when Jesus came to be baptized, John pointed him out. "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world." And some heard, and followed Him. 

And so Jesus taught them about what the Father had decided would be the eternal standard of what is "good" so that they could be saved. And when He was done preaching, He himself became the sacrifice to bridge the awesome gap between humanity and God, so that those who believed in Him would be reprieved from the curse of sin, and they would not die like Adam and Eve who were cast from the Garden. And his disciples told as many people as they could, and wrote the Gospels so that we can hear the story even today, and know what is good.

But the Day of the Lord, and his judgment is still coming. Our civilization is growing ever more prideful, assuming for ourselves that we know what is good, and what is evil. And our ways are not God's ways, nor are our thoughts like His thoughts. We take pride in behaviors that He has called abominations, and declare our freedoms to be more important than the respect for life. Even when God sends us warnings in the form of diseases that assault those who are too proud to accept reproof, we deny that it has any relation to our lack of morality or humility. And so, the day when God's forbearance ends will inevitably arrive, and we refuse to expect it.

When that second calamity arrives, those who do what is offensive to God, and mock his attempts to call them to repentance shall be destroyed, as well as all of their works that propose to defy Him and his plans. We cannot achieve by pride what He plans to do for us. But God will still have mercy for those who have placed their trust in Him. He will save as many as have believed in his Son. It will not be just an indiscriminate incineration of every last sinful being, of every nasty thing, everywhere on the Earth. He will rescue everyone who has listened to Him and responded with faith, who loves Him and each other as He requested to the best of their capabilities. And for those whom He chooses, He will create a brand new starry Heavens and a clean new Earth, for us to begin a new life. And there, we shall find it possible to know and do what is right. We will no longer be constrained by a fallen nature, and we can be truly loving with each other.

And then God will have what He wanted all along, a species of sentient beings, humans, to know and love Him, to be the reflection of his image and likeness, to carry his Presence within them wherever they go in their world. And we will have eternal life, sharing the Garden of Eden with God, and all of his creatures, in the full knowledge that we are blessed, and called according to God's purpose in Heaven ... even so far as to be called to rise to the Heavens and take our place among the angels.