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F e a t u r e A r t i c l e
THE DEAD SEE SCROLLS
By JOHN MALLON
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This Rock
Volume 4, Number 8
 August 1993 
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BY now it is common knowledge that since
the close of the Vatican II there has been an effort underway to erect
a parallel magisterium comprised of dissident theologians. The battle
cry for this movement has been "The Spirit of Vatican II,"
a phrase recognized by orthodox Catholics to mean that a stream of
claptrap is about to follow.
It is significant that the cornerstone of dissenting theology has
been opposition to Pope Paul VI's prophetic 1968 encyclical that reaffirmed
the ban on contraception, Humanae Vitae--significant
because, in contrast to authentic Catholic teaching, dissenting theology
is not life giving. In contrast to the Holy See, the parallel magisterium
could be called the Dead See and its teachings the Dead See Scrolls.
These flaccid teachings not only emasculate Catholic thought where
they influence it, but they also manage to take the fun out of Catholicism.
Not only do they fail in spiritual procreativity, they are disunitive
as well. They eviscerate the very teachings that strike joy in the
Catholic heart. They are denials instead of affirmations.
Commenting on Dead See catechesis for children, Peter Kreeft once
cried, "Oh no! Don't take angels away from children; children
love angels!" More importantly, angels love children (a sentiment
hardly expressed in the use of artificial birth control). More dangerously,
most Dead See mariners deny the reality of demons and the doctrine
of a real and personal devil, thus falling for Uncle Screwtape's oldest
trick. Pastorally the effect has been catastrophic, for the Dead See
Scrolls not only fail to give life--they deal death.
I was told of an instance of a young man who appeared in the office
of his chaplain friend and confessor at the Catholic university from
which he graduated. He announced to the priest, "I'm dying of
AIDS. I wouldn't be in this position if you had told me the truth--with
firmness." From that day forward that priest resolved to teach
what the Catholic Church teaches.
Dissenting moral theology is as old as mankind, and Adam was its first
practitioner. "She made me do it!" was his cry as he stood
before God. (It makes one shudder to think how many bishops who have
caved in to pagan feminist pressure may one day be in the same position.)
Intellectually, dissent, as it has come to be known, is hardly
worthy of the name. It has become a form of academic bigotry. Its
dogmatism, rigidity, closemindedness, and intolerance (of orthodoxy)
would put an inquisitor to shame, abusing power while claiming to
be the underdog. If it were only a matter of intellectual discussion,
it would be one thing, but people are literally dying physically and
spiritually as a result of bad theology. There is no future in dissent
from reality, and Catholic teaching is the road map of reality.
A former Protestant minister, who is now a Catholic layman, asked
a dissident theologian what the difference was between a dissenter
and a Protestant. As the dissenter began to get huffy, the convert
gave his opinion: The Protestant has integrity.
To the non-believer the claims of Catholicism are wildly arrogant.
It claims to have the full truth about all reality. So how does the
believer respond to those charges? To claim to have the fullness of
truth is not to say the we understand it all yet, but that we have
received it. One may receive love, know it, but not
understand it. We will be unpacking it forever.
The truth is a Person--actually three Persons--whom we worship.
The truth is not just an idea. To worship anything less than these
three Persons in one God is idolatry. The need to worship is built
into man; if he does not worship God he will worship something else.
Ultimately we become what we worship. If we worship what will be ashes
someday, we too will be ashes. But God is more than man and is perfect,
so if we worship God we grow more and more like him and ultimately
find the fullness of our destiny through having been made in his image.
That which is not God is less than God, so if we worship anything
else we become less than what we might be. If we worship man we remain
less than perfect, and we ultimately disintegrate.
Ideology is the worship of an idea. The Catholic Church is not an
ideology because it mediates the true God. It holds the divinely revealed
truths about God and the reality set up by him. A sect is a group
that holds less than the fullness of God's revelation, and a cult
is a group that claims more revelation than the public revelation
that ended with the death of the last apostle. Subsequent private
revelation does not add to public revelation, but develops understanding
of it and highlights it.
The magisterium of the Church (the pope and the bishops teaching in
union with him) claims authority from God and is able to distinguish
what is truly part of God's revelation and what is not. To some this
is an arrogant claim that appears to beg the question. But would God
give us truth without also giving us the ability to distinguish it
from non-truth? What a mishmash otherwise! A Catholic, by definition,
believes the magisterium has this power. Dissent attacks this authority,
but being a Catholic believer means acceptance of it. To reject the
magisterium, either explicitly or implicitly, is to fall into heresy,
idolatry (worship of one's own ideas by placing them above revelation),
a sect (accepting less than is revealed in the Church), or a cult
(claiming to know more or to "know better" than the Church).
To claim to be a Catholic and yet reject the magisterium is either
to be ignorant or a liar. Is it the Church or the dissenter who is
arrogant here? It is not a question of honest disagreement--dissent
as we now know it moved beyond that long ago. It is obstinate, ideologically-based
disagreement based on Enlightenment thought and a 1960s ethos which
enshrined indiscriminate rebellion as a heroic virtue.
The Catholic faith is precisely that--faith--but it is not
fideism. It is not blind belief. There are
answers to questions. A Catholic may not see the reason for
a particular teaching, but, no matter how poorly a particular teacher
in the Church may have articulated a particular mystery at a given
time, the Catholic knows, or ought to know, the Church zeroes in on
the answer. It falls to that Catholic to seek out and reconcile his
difficulties with seeming contradictions through prayer and study
(in that order). Real understanding requires faith, and faith requires
conversion.
A man may be at sea, clinging to the flotsam of his capsized life,
praying desperately to find land. By the grace of God he washes up
on a desert island. He may not know the lay of the land yet, but he's
happy to be no longer adrift. As he begins to explore he finds this
is not just an island, but a continent--and not just any continent,
but his homeland. The strange people are not so strange after all,
but are his people. This is like Chesterton's man who comes ashore
on Brighton Beach. How did he ever get so far from home? In any case,
the land offers infinite opportunities for exploration. He does not
understand everything he sees, but he knows he loves it and belongs
there. He is the learner, not the teacher. He rests on the land and
has no need to make it resemble the flat salt sea on which he was
adrift.
Dissenters who want to run the government of the continent have not
awakened to the experience of being adrift at sea, in a dead see.
They need to come to the Living Water.
John Mallon works at the Franciscan University of
Steubenville in Ohio.
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