Catholic "Inventions"
There’s a well-known story—probably untrue—about
a U.S. Senate race in a Southern state some years ago. One candidate realized
that he would have difficulty winning if he took the high road, so he decided
to employ the confusion factor.
In the cities, his campaigning was unobjectionable,
but he thought he could fool the folks in the countryside. When he made
a speech in a small town (and when he was sure no journalists were around),
he would refer to his opponent and his opponent’s family using words chosen
to mislead—for example, saying his opponent’s sister was a "thespian" (actress)
and that his brother was an acknowledged homo sapiens (human being).
To the inattentive ear he seemed to be accusing his opponent and his relatives
of all sorts of perversions. Although everything the candidate said was
accurate, the impression he gave was wrong.
Depending on which version of the story one hears,
this man either won the election by a whisker or was revealed to be the
scoundrel that he was.
The Confusion Factor Again
Similar posturing comes from the mouths and pens
of some professional anti-Catholics. Much of what they accuse the Catholic
Church of believing or doing is accurate, but is tainted by innuendo.
The impression is that there must be something
seriously wrong with the Catholic Church if so many of its individual beliefs
or practices are made to seem unusual. Of course, there are also accusations
that simply misrepresent the Catholic Church’s position, and when these
are mixed with the true-but-misleading statements, the Church comes away
looking quite strange.
Does this matter? Of course it does, because so
much of this kind of thing has been going on over the last few years that
many non-Catholics have come to believe it, and many anti-Catholics have
become confirmed in their antagonism toward the Church. Further, Catholics
who lack a good grounding in their own religion find they cannot answer
accusations to their own satisfaction and may fall away from the practice
of the faith or abandon the Church entirely and sign up elsewhere. Non-Catholics
who have always been uneasy about the Catholic Church find their doubts
made stronger, even when they recognize that many of the anti-Catholic
claims are made by people who are careless in their research and biased
in their writing.
The Anti-Catholic Bible
Let’s look at a few examples of misleading charges.
These are taken from Loraine Boettner’s book, Roman Catholicism,
which might be called the "Bible" of the anti-Catholic movement. First
published in 1962 by the Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company of
Philadelphia, and reprinted many times since, this fat book is the source
most anti-Catholic organizations rely on for information about the Church.
Most borrow uncritically from Boettner, seldom giving him credit and never
checking his sources. It must be admitted, though, that Boettner lists
almost no sources for his claims, so the lack of documentation is not completely
the responsibility of the people who have picked up his words.
Early in the book Boettner lists what he terms
"Some Roman Catholic Heresies and Inventions." These consist of beliefs
that were supposedly made up centuries after the New Testament era and
practices or customs that bear little similarity to those mentioned in
the Bible. The reader of these several dozen charges is supposed to turn
from them in such despair that he will abandon the Catholic Church (if
he is a Catholic) or will actively fight it (if he is a non-Catholic).
Here are a few of the "inventions."
Item: "The Latin language, used in prayer
and worship, imposed by [Pope] Gregory I [A.D.] 600."
It is true that Latin was used in worship in the
year 600. The Church spread from the Greek-speaking East to the Latin-speaking
West (for example, to Rome) during apostolic times. One of Paul’s letters
was written to the Christians in Rome. More than one of his letters was
written from Rome. And there were Christians in Caesar’s household in Paul’s
day (Phil. 4:22). Worship, not surprisingly, was undertaken in the vernacular
language, which was Greek in much of the East and Latin in the West (though
at the beginning, Greek was used even in the West because it was then the
lingua franca of the Roman Empire).
Latin was used in worship far earlier than 600.
So what is Boettner trying to say here? Since Latin became the Catholic
Church’s official language (and, in fact, it still is—all Vatican documents
of any importance are issued in authoritative Latin versions), perhaps
we are to conclude that there is some mystery about it? Well, there probably
is, to people who do not read Latin, just as there is mystery in French
to those who know only English. So what is Boettner trying to do with this
"invention"? Perhaps he is attempting to heighten suspicion, even if it
is directed at nothing in particular.
One can make any adoption of an official language
sound sinister. All one has to do is say the language was "imposed"—implying
that it was opposed or forced upon people against their will, no matter
how untrue this may be. Boettner is simply using a cheap rhetorical device.
Item: "Baptism of bells instituted by Pope
John XIII . . . [A.D.] 965."
What is the reader supposed to make of this? Most
non-Catholics realize that Catholics baptize infants, but bells? If Catholics
think they can baptize bells, why not baptize automobiles or any other
inanimate object? The charge, if true, does make the Church look silly.
But what happened was not what Boettner implies. There was indeed a "baptism
of bells," but it was not a baptism in the sacramental sense of the word.
When a church received new bells for its bell tower, the bells were blessed,
usually by the local bishop. Any object can be blessed, a blessing being
a dedication of a thing to a sacred purpose. The ceremony used in the blessing
of the bells was reminiscent in some ways of the ceremony used in baptism,
so in popular usage it came to be called the "baptism of bells," though
no one thought the bells were actually receiving a sacrament. The phrase
is innocent, but when anti-Catholics refer to it in just a few words, it
looks particularly bad.
New Word, Old Belief
Item: "Transubstantiation proclaimed
by Pope Innocent III . . . [A.D.] 1215."
The implication of this is that transubstantiation was not believed
until 1215—that it was, indeed, an invention. The facts are otherwise.
Transubstantiation is the technical term used to describe what happens
when the bread and wine used at Mass are turned into Christ’s actual body
and blood. The belief that this occurs has been held from the earliest
times. It stems from the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, the eleventh chapter
of 1 Corinthians, and the biblical accounts of the Last Supper. As centuries
passed, theologians exercised their reason on the belief to understand
more completely how such a thing could happen and what its happening would
imply. It was seen that more precise terminology was needed to insure the
belief’s integrity. The word "transubstantiation" was finally chosen because
it eliminated certain unorthodox interpretations of the doctrine, and the
term was formally defined at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. So the
use of the technical term was new, but not the doctrine.
Fundamentalists can’t have a problem with using a new word for an
old belief since they use the term "Trinity" to express the belief that
God is one being in three persons, though this word is not found in the
Bible. Theophilus of Antioch first used it in A.D. 181 (in his letter Ad
Autolycum), though Christians believed in the doctrine from apostolic times.
In the three items mentioned, Boettner has ascribed the actions to
popes. However, he has provided no sources showing that popes did these
things, and at least one of them is demonstrably inaccurate. (It was the
Fourth Lateran Council, not the pope reigning at the time, that for the
first time made official, magisterial use of the theological term "transubstantiation.")
A suspicion is created that, in order to make these developments look like
"inventions," Boettner wanted to name a particular "inventor" and looked
up whoever was pope in the years he wanted to cite.
Not all items in his list refer to popes, however. Some do refer
to councils:
Item: "Bible forbidden to laymen, placed on the Index of Forbidden
Books by the Council of Valencia . . . [A.D.] 1229."
This looks rather damaging, but Boettner has his history completely
wrong. The first thing to note is that the Index of Forbidden Books was
established in 1559, so a council held in 1229 could hardly have listed
a book on it.
The second point is that there apparently has never been any Church
council in Valencia, Spain. If there had been one, it could not have taken
place in 1229 because Muslim Moors then controlled the city. It is inconceivable
that Muslims, who were at war with Spanish Christians, and had been off
and on for five centuries, would allow Catholic bishops to hold a council
in one of their cities. The Christian armies did not liberate Valencia
from Moorish rule until nine years later, 1238. So Valencia is out.
But there is another possibility, and that is Toulouse, France, where
a council was held in 1229. And, yes, that council dealt with the Bible.
It was organized in reaction to the Albigensian or Catharist heresy, which
held that there are two gods and that marriage is evil because all matter
(and thus physical flesh) is evil. From this the heretics concluded that
fornication could be no sin, and they even encouraged suicide among their
members. In order to promulgate their sect, the Albigensians published
an inaccurate translation of the Bible in the vernacular language (rather
like the Jehovah’s Witnesses of today publishing their severely flawed
New World Translation of the Bible, which has been deliberately mistranslated
to support the sect’s claims). Had it been an accurate translation, the
Church would not have been concerned. Vernacular versions had been appearing
for centuries. But what came from the hands of the Albigensians was an
adulterated Bible. The bishops at Toulouse forbade the reading of it because
it was inaccurate. In this they were caring for their flocks, just as a
Protestant minister of today might tell his flock not to read the Jehovah’s
Witnesses’ New World Translation.
A Reasonable Reason
Item: "The cup forbidden to the people
at Communion by Council of Constance [A.D.] 1414."
The implication here is that bishops and priests were trying to keep
from laymen something they should have had by rights. But the real situation
is not hard to understand. The Catholic position has always been that,
after the consecration of the elements, the entire body and blood of Christ
are contained in the smallest particle from the host and in the tiniest
drop from the cup. One does not receive only the body in the host and only
the blood from the cup. If that were so, then for a complete Communion
one indeed would need to partake of both. But if the entire body and blood
are contained in both, then the communicant needs to receive only one—if
there are good reasons for such a restriction, and in 1414 there certainly
seemed to be.
The first reason was that many people misunderstood the Eucharist
and thought it had to be received under both forms for the Communion to
be complete. By restricting communicants to the host only, the Church would
emphasize the true doctrine. The other reason was a practical one. In giving
the cup to the laity, there was a chance the contents would be spilled,
so out of respect for Christ, the restriction was imposed.
These five "inventions" are representative of the forty-five listed
by Boettner. He refers to a few of them again later in Roman Catholicism,
but most make one appearance here and then disappear. No effort is made
to give sources, and little effort is made to say what the significance
of them might be. He suggests that any belief or practice not explicitly
found in the New Testament in plain words must be spurious and must have
been instituted for some nefarious purpose.
What Boettner does not point out is that modern Fundamentalism has
beliefs and customs that are not found in the Bible, either. Many Fundamentalist
churches, for example, forbid the drinking of wine as sinful, yet Christ
not only drank wine (he was accused of being a drunkard; Luke 7:34), he
transformed water into wine (this being a biblical example of a form of
transubstantiation since the substance of water became the substance of
wine, though the species changed, too, in this case) as his first public
miracle, hardly something he would have done had he disapproved of wine
(John 2:1–11). Boettner also notes that priests came to dress differently
from laymen, without noticing that Fundamentalist ministers, who may wear
expensive three-piece business suits or choir robes while conducting services,
also dress differently from their congregants.
The examples could be multiplied, but the fact is, no church looks
exactly the same as that of the New Testament era. Since Christ founded
a living Church, one should expect it, like any living thing, to grow and
mature, changing in appearance while maintaining identity in substance,
holding on to the original deposit of faith, while coming to understand
it more deeply and to apply it to new cultural situations. The real question
is why anyone would think that the Church should have arrested its development
and fossilized in one, immutable form at the end of the first century.
NIHIL OBSTAT:
I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR:
In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004
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