There are a lot of prominent American politicians and celebrities who publicly identify as Catholic but subscribe to positions and beliefs that are contrary to Catholic teaching. Virginia senator Tim Kaine, who describes himself as a “devout Catholic,” has repeatedly voted to protect legal abortion, supported the redefinition of marriage, and advocated for LGBTQ+ issues. Former talk show host Stephen Colbert likewise has publicly supported homosexual activism. Comedian Whoopi Goldberg in turn argues for women’s ordination. In what sense, if any, do Kaine, Colbert, and Goldberg represent the Catholic Church?
It’s an important question, especially given Catholic arguments that Protestants such as James Talarico, who espouse what is often described as “liberal Protestantism,” represent Protestantism just as much as their “conservative Protestant” critics, such as Presbyterian Carl Trueman or Southern Baptist Andrew T. Walker. If Talarico represents Protestantism, one might reasonably ask, don’t Kaine, Colbert, and Goldberg represent the Catholic Church?
Well, yes and no. Any person baptized in the Catholic Church—as long as that sacrament is performed validly and licitly—is indeed a Catholic (though perhaps not free to receive the Eucharist). The Catechism says, “Baptism makes us members of the body of Christ: ‘Therefore . . . we are members one of another.’ Baptism incorporates us into the Church” (1267). Moreover, baptized Catholics are expected to represent the Church to the world. Again from the Catechism: “Since, like all the faithful, lay Christians are entrusted by God with the apostolate by virtue of their baptism and confirmation, they have the right and duty, individually or grouped in associations, to work so that the divine message of salvation may be known and accepted by all men throughout the earth” (900).
Yet if baptized (and confirmed) Catholics have the “right and duty” to represent the Church, that doesn’t mean they will perform that function faithfully or accurately. It is possible that such persons will misrepresent the Church, and thus, within the Catholic self-understanding, Jesus Christ, since the Church is his mystical body. How, we might ask, would anyone know if such persons were being faithful or unfaithful witnesses to Catholic doctrine?
The answer is the Magisterium. Sure, there are literally millions of Catholics in the United States alone whose opinions on abortion, homosexuality, or the ordination of women are not sanctioned by the Church. A majority of American Catholics think abortion should be legal; almost forty percent think homosexuality is not a sin. Yet this is despite the Catholic Church in a variety of magisterial documents decreeing precisely otherwise. The Catechism says, “Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law” and that “the inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation” (2271, 2273). On homosexuality, we read, “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. . . . Under no circumstances can they be approved” (2357).
Certainly, Catholics who disagree with magisterial teaching on any subject can hope and pray that the Church will change its mind. One supposes that such Catholics could argue that the Catholic doctrine on these subjects is less than clear—though that is admittedly a difficult position to hold, given the ubiquity of Church teaching in various documents and pronouncements. The truth of the matter is that in most cases, Catholics who reject Church teaching on certain issues know they are defying the Church; they also know that typically there will be little if anything, in the way of repercussions for doing so. (Though, we should note, sometimes bishops do privately tell prominent Catholics they should not receive Holy Communion.)
One of the few recent cases where a prominent Catholic was disciplined for holding a position contrary to Church teaching was Democrat congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, whose bishop, Salvatore J. Cordileone, publicly declared she was not to be admitted for Holy Communion because of her position on abortion. Pelosi did not claim that she was confused about what the Church teaches on abortion, but instead argued that the Church inconsistently enforces its doctrines and that her respect for individual rights prevents her from coercing non-Catholic Americans to accept Catholic teaching on abortion.
What I’ve described above regarding Catholics is categorically different from what is going on in Protestantism. Because Protestants have no ultimate, authoritative interpreter of divine revelation besides the individual conscience of every self-identifying Christian, there is no person or institution who “represents” authentic Christian teaching in the same way that the Magisterium does in the Catholic Church. An individual Christian may read his Bible and decide any number of things, such as universal salvation or that Christ is a created being, or that abortion or homosexuality is permissible. He is perfectly free as a Protestant to do so.
Certainly, that Christian’s denomination may disagree with, reprimand, and even excommunicate him for holding such positions. But if that person’s conscience is persuaded, he can simply find another Christian organization that subscribes to those positions—or, even more dramatically, he may establish a new church. In the Protestant paradigm, all of this is permitted; it’s the reason there are so many different denominations and there is so much theological diversity under the Protestant “umbrella.” One Protestant group may call another Protestant group heretics, schismatics, or dissenters, but since Protestantism as a system defaults authority to the conscience of the individual self-identifying Christian, those labels have no meaning, since the alleged heretic, schismatic, or dissenter can level the same charge!
Not so in the Catholic paradigm. The individual Catholic who disagrees with Church teaching exists along some continuum of disobedience or heresy, and risks being disciplined or excommunicated (which, admittedly, happens less than it used to, but this is a matter not of theology, but of discipline). If he removes himself from the Catholic Church, either joining another Christian organization or establishing his own, he has no right or duty to do so, at least within the self-understanding of the Catholic Church. That person, in the eyes of the Church, is not simply a fellow Christian permissively interpreting divine revelation however he sees fit; he is a dissenter, in grave sin, a heretic, or a schismatic, depending on the circumstances. That person may in turn accuse the Catholic Church of being heretical, sinful, or schismatic—but nothing in the Catholic paradigm permits him to do so. He is now operating according to other rules.
In sum, any self-identifying Protestant Christian truly represents Protestantism, regardless of what he believes or does. The same cannot be said for Catholics.