January 2021 Print

By Prof. Felix Otten, O.P. and C.F. Pauwels, O.P.

Editor’s Note: This article continues the series of straightforward responses to frequently-encountered questions and objections concerning the Catholic Faith. The questions and answers are adapted from Professor Felix Otten, O.P. and C.F. Pauwels, O.P.’s The Most Frequently Encountered Difficulties, published originally in Dutch in 1939.

The whole Catholic Faith is against common sense. This is admitted frankly by the ancient Christian writer Tertullian, who confessed: “Credo quia absurdum”: I believe it because it is absurd.

Catholics believe nothing which is to reason absurd or impossible. But they do believe many truths which are mysteries and which go beyond the power of the understanding. These are things of which the mind alone cannot judge whether they are true or not.

Such belief is not unreasonable. For first, the human mind is not so perfect and mighty that it could judge everything. There are things beyond its reach. And secondly, through apologetic arguments, Catholics can justify their faith very well, even to the mind. Therefore, Catholics are sure that they can disprove all troubles that reason would make against faith, and all efforts to prove that the secrets of faith go against reason, science, and philosophy. But Catholics are willing to admit that the truths of the Faith may at first glance seem absurd to someone who is not familiar with their true meaning. So if Tertullian, with his much-quoted statement (which actually reads: I believe, because it is foolish), had really wanted to say: the reason I believe is the absurdity of the truth of the faith, then he would not have been a Catholic. Incidentally, that is not entirely untrue, because later on in his life he actually fell away from the Faith.

However, he meant something completely different than what some assume.Tertullian was someone who liked paradoxes and liked to bring things to a head to express them in an exaggerated way. Moreover, he fiercely and sharply polemicized against the skeptical and rationalist philosophers of his time. And in his book On the Body of Christ, from which the famous quote is taken, he elaborates a whole climax of paradoxes, in which he also says, among other things: “it is certainly impossible.” And from here he concludes with the words: “God’s son has died; I believe that, because it is absurd.” The words quoted must therefore be read in its context, that is, as a climax of paradoxes, which Tertullian throws at his opponents.

No one is obliged to like paradoxes. If one wants, one can safely find the expression of Tertullian less elegant and beautiful than he may have found it.

Catholics, like all Christians, must first of all practice the commandment of love. How, then, is it possible that Catholics are so intolerant, that they condemn dissenters, and that they separate themselves from the others as much as possible?

Undoubtedly, Catholics must first of all obey the commandment of love. But they also have to do that in the right way. And true, good love must be united with the keeping of all other commandments and the exercise of all other virtues. That’s what Catholics have to take care of.

They believe that they have received the truth through God’s revelation and the Church’s magisterium. They must show their gratitude for this by watching for the purity of Catholic teaching. And they cannot do so without rejecting dissent or misrepresentations of revealed doctrine. So, they should do that too. Now Catholics call errors contrary to revelation heresies. That’s not a swear word, but a description. And so, when Catholics call someone a heretic, they are only saying that he does not know the truth. They do not say that he persists in error against his better judgment or through his own fault. They do not claim that he will necessarily perish because he keeps that error. They only say that his view is contrary to God’s revelation.

The Catholics are therefore intolerant of false doctrine. Of course, that is true of any person who believes he possesses the truth. But Catholics are not intolerant to the persons holding wrong beliefs, and therefore Catholics do not lack love for them. After all, the ideal of love is not to cover up the truth!

Catholics must live according to the precepts of the Faith, and so they must live differently from those who dissent from the Catholic Faith. Moreover, Catholics also have to fight to defend their views and stand up for their rights, and for that they need each other’s support. That is why the ecclesiastical authorities have prescribed principles of Catholic organization and action. That does not exclude love for others. It is simply a slander to hold that Catholics wish to force others by violence to convert to the Faith. Rather, leading by example and demonstrating by persuasive argument, Catholics wish for all to come to the full knowledge of the truth.

For Christ, we are all alike: poor and rich. Why, then, does the Catholic Church differentiate between the poor and the rich, not only by letting the people who make large donations sit in places of honor in the church, but also by allowing them larger ceremonies at funerals, weddings, and so forth?

We must emphasize that the Church and its ministers are to be maintained by the faithful, and that everyone must contribute to this according to their ability. Furthermore, the Church must judge for herself how best to entice people to do so. She has to adapt to the circumstances.

Next, we must point out that the poor of the Church, apart from the alms, receive all the spiritual help they need without paying anything. Nothing is paid to the Church for receiving the sacraments. There are free places for the poor in every church and the pastor is obliged to perform a Christian funeral for everyone who dies, free of charge. So nobody in the Catholic Church is short of anything because he is poor.

But in the United States, where the government contributes almost nothing to the Church, where no ecclesiastical tax can be collected, and where men are no more perfect than elsewhere in contributing according to their own ability, the following arrangement is sometimes initiated: Those who would like to have something extra have to pay extra for it. 

Those who would like to sit in a particularly good or honorable place must contribute more to the maintenance of the church building. Anyone who wants additional decoration, lighting, songs, etc. at a wedding or funeral must therefore make a special contribution to the maintenance of the clergy. And the Church can safely do that because the essence and value of the Holy Mass does not change at all by additional ceremonies. 

The rich only get more outward shine than the poor. This arrangement may not be ideal, but it is the best under current circumstances. And so it cannot be said that the Church is contrary to Christ’s spirit in this way.