If impure throughts enter our minds, we are not to entertain but resist them. This is simple. However, what are we to do when critical thoughts against the Catholic Church arise?
Are we to quuckly abandon them?
Are we to follow them to their ends?
Are we to reason whether the Catholic Church is true or false?
Isn’t belief in the Catholic Church am article of faith?
As a Catholic, I have to admit that much of what the clergy on one hand and laity on the other do makes me question the truth of the Catholic Church. I don’t struggle with the truth of Catholic theology or Scholastic philosophy, but with the but with whether these systems of thought are actually the systems of thought held by the visible “Catholic Church” in 2025.
Most of the laity knows nothing of the theology taught by the doctors of the Church through history. Most couldn’t tell who St. Augustine or St. Jerome, St. Albert the Great or St. Thomas Aquinas are. After all, most of them were educated in public schools.
The clergy seem, almost universally, seem to be political liberals who believe that the beliefs of the Church through history were ignorant and incorrect, while the consensus of secular academics is infallible.
For example, the Catholoc bishops side with illegal immigrants against the lawfully elected government enforcing the country’s laws. Am I to take this position seriously? Christ obviously taught no one that laws may be ignored, but that we must “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s”. St. Paul clearly taught that we are to obey existing governments. The support of illegal immigration is embarrassing.
I could list a dozen issues like this that I simply ignore every day because I dont want to criticize the Church.
Am I wrong to not criticize the Church? I feel that if I were to begin doing so, I might not stop. I suppress so much frustration with the practical decisions of the clergy and the neglect of formal education. If the “trad Catholics” weren’t demonstrably ignorant and if my experience with them wasn’t so bad, I might cinsider moving in that direction, but I know they are equally wrong and offer no positive solution to the real issues.
It’s easy to attack the Church, and doing so is not necessarily virtuous. As one responsible for the direction of a Catholic organization, who knows the real-world challenges of such work, I won’t do so. At the same time, I have to be honest that its very hard to defend the clergy.
WCM
Comments are closed.