Introduction
I was received into the Catholic Church at Pentecost 2011
and, in 2016 wrote a blog post titled Pentecost
2016 – Five Years Catholic. Three years later, I wrote this one without
first reading the earlier one. There are a couple of common themes and some new
current thoughts, but I just enjoyed going back and reading the earlier one and
think it was better. I believe there is a lot of truth in the (approximate)
words of Flannery O’Conner: “I don’t know what I think until I read what I
wrote.” But, here goes with the current thinking.
Becoming Catholic
It is common among Catholic Christians, and Christian
Catholics, to share how and when and why we became Catholic. Some are so-called
“cradle Catholics,” born to Catholic parents, baptized and confirmed in a
Catholic church, perhaps educated in Catholic schools and married in a Catholic
ceremony and sometimes with little knowledge about or interest in other
Christian faiths.
Some are convicted, converted, and reborn former atheists or
agnostics drawn into the Church by the Holy Spirit.
And many are
"converts," former Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist,
Episcopalian, Pentecostal, or whatever Christians who became convinced that the
Catholic Church, with all its warts and wounds and problematic history, really
is the Church that Jesus established and left people in charge of when he
returned to the Father and is the Church with which they want to be in full
communion. They too usually credit the Holy Spirit with motivating their
move.
The Question of Authority
Many in that latter group had come to believe that the
Catholic Church has divinely assigned authority, under Holy Spirit guidance, over theological issues and
argue that the Church is not a democracy subject to the whims of its “members,”
many of whom may be still more conformed to the world than transformed by the
Holy Spirit. (And, yes, some Catholic leaders with that authority have been
imperfectly transformed also, but they still bear the responsibility and are
accountable for their actions.)
I have generally put myself in that “looking for authority”
group, having been baptized Baptist and having served and worshiped in Baptist,
Presbyterian and Lutheran churches, experiencing some discomfort with so-called
Baptist Distinctives, Presbyterian Predestination, and Lutheran open discussion
and votes on current theological issues such as requirements for
ordination and holy matrimony.
In my case, that search for authority was not
based on belief that the Catholic Church majesterium is and always has been right all the
time or to relieve me of responsibility for having a well-informed and
well-formed conscience, but to acknowledge the authority and to say to those
Catholic leader/servants, “It is your responsibility to open yourselves to The
Holy Spirit and to understand, explain, and defend true theology. Get to
work!”
Building Christian Unity
There is a second key issue I sometimes forget that
increased my interest in the Catholic Church, and that is the fragmentation of
and competitive squabbling among Christians and the resulting damage to the witness of the
Church. I was reminded of it by the Daily Mass readings for June 6, 2019.
First was from Acts 23:6-11. The “Jews,” the Chief Priests
and the whole Sanhedrin, Pharisees and Sadducees, had been assembled to
confront Paul, recent Christian convert and troublemaker, and hopefully hasten
his martyrdom. But Paul was a very smart guy, a Jewish Roman citizen,
well-educated and familiar with the Hebrew scriptures and all the political and
theological current issues.
Paul went right to the dividing issue, resurrection, which the Pharisees
believed in and the Sadducees rejected: "My brothers, I am a Pharisee, the
son of Pharisees; I am on trial for hope in the resurrection of the dead."
With that comment, the unity of the anti-Pauls was destroyed: "When he
said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and Sadducees, and the
group became divided. “Martyrdom delayed!
And then, in the Gospel reading, there was this from Jesus’s
“High Priestly Prayer,” part of his John 17 farewell to his disciples: Lifting
up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying: "I pray not only for these,
but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may
all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in
us, that the world may believe that you sent me."
Note the last phrase, the evangelistic purpose of Christian
unity: “…that the world may believe that you sent me.”
I first got interested in the idea of Christian unity while
living in Japan (1992-1995), enjoying worship and service at St. Paul’s
International Lutheran Church, and seeing the confusion, in a nation that was
2% Christian, caused by the multiplicity and diversity of mostly western groups
claiming the name of Christ. I specifically remember a co-worker telling me
that, yes, his relative is a Christian, a Mormon, and another co-worker, asking
me what is going on when he sees a Christian church in the USA on TV and
someone is putting his hand on another’s forehead and the latter then falls to
the floor unconscious. Well, how does one explain away those difficulties people
face in believing that the Father sent the Son?
So, a second important reason for my interest in
Catholicism, beyond the structure and authority, was that I wanted to cast a
vote in favor of Christian unity by submitting to and being received by the Church
that Jesus established and left someone in charge of, promising the Holy Spirit
as guide.
Moving in the Right Direction
I have no expectation that all Christians are going to join
together in the Catholic Church anytime soon, but I do have a reasonable
expectation that all Christians, Catholics included, may eventually obey the
two Greatest Commandments and replace criticism and competition with love for
each other. After all, the key theologies expressed in the Nicene Creed and the
Lord’s Prayer, both recited at every Catholic Mass, must be of primary
importance and must provide some common ground that can keep most of us from
arguing more complicated issues which may not be resolved for hundreds of
years.
Resolving Complicated Issues
The primary complicated issue is differences in
understanding of The Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, Eucharist, that, as
explained in John Chapter 6:52-71, has been a dividing issue since the very
beginning. It may keep us from full communion but need not prevent cooperation
in love and service. A key point for meaningful dialogue in the direction of
Christian unity in Truth is that concerned Christians in all faith traditions
should be able to respectfully explain not only why they believe as they do but
also why those in other faith traditions believe as they do. None of the
beliefs are without some, sometimes misunderstood or out-of-context, Biblical
foundation.
The "Full Gospel" Church
I have some hope that more and more Christians will
recognize that my occasional somewhat tongue-in-cheek description of the
Catholic Church as the “full-gospel church” has some merit and will
investigate. After all, we have The Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
the promises of salvation and resurrection, the Greatest Commandments and Great
Commission, The Great Cloud of Witnesses, the saints, daily and frequent Sunday
Masses, Church Fathers, Martyrs, seven Sacraments, The Real Presence, Mary the
Mother of God whom “all nations will call blessed,” Women’s Sodality, Men’s
Knights of Columbus. St. Vincent de Paul Society, abbeys and convents, monks
and nuns, pilgrimages, and enough optional personal practices of piety to suit
any taste.
Since Vatican II, we even celebrate Mass in the language of the
people as recommended 500 years ago by Father Martin Luther. And, we offer
bingo to seniors for fellowship and entertainment, though I’m not sure where
that came from. Finally, we have the 700+ page Catechism of the Catholic Church
which explains the faith in four sections (Creeds, Sacraments, Christian
Living, and Christian Prayer), topics that should sound quite reasonable to any
Christian and to any agnostic or atheist interested in Christianity. At least
the last two should sound reasonable, and those are good starting
points.
Common Ground
Oh, and back to that first, perhaps confusing sentence
containing the terms “Christian Catholics” and “Catholic Christians.” I intend
the first to imply those cradle Catholics who are experiencing continuing conversion,
spiritual growth, and perseverance and the second to imply Christians for whom
reception into the Catholic Church has been one major event in their continuing
conversion, spiritual growth, and perseverance. We all have something in
common, wherever we are right now, the importance of sharing that continuing
conversion, spiritual growth, and perseverance.
