John Martignoni: Response to letter to editor of Birmingham News re. HHS mandate (part 1)

There was a “Letter to the Editor” in a recent edition of the Birmingham News written by three Catholic couples that used the issue of the Health and Human Services contraception mandate to basically say that one can dissent from Church teaching and yet still be a “faithful” Catholic.  I would like to take the next few weeks to answer several of the points made in that letter.  Each week I will quote a section from the letter and then give my response.  If you would like to read the letter in its entirety, you can do so by going to this website: http://blog.al.com/birmingham-news-commentary/2012/02/our_views_disagreeing_with_bis.html

Letter: “Non-Catholics should understand that the Catholic bishops' recent dispute with the federal government is less about birth control than it is about internal church disagreements over who speaks for the Catholic Church in dialogue with government on matters of faith and morals. Many of us practicing Catholics adhere to the teaching of the 1965 Vatican II Council that, while the bishops have teaching authority, so their views are entitled to great respect, they do not have exclusive authority to speak to the government for the church in matters of faith and morals. Rather, each member of the church has a duty to form beliefs, to make judgments about faith and morals by following her or his conscience in light of Gospel values and reasoned consideration of both present circumstances and Catholic tradition, and to speak to their lawfully elected government as Catholics.”

Response: There is a line from one of my favorite poems, An Essay on Criticism, by Alexander Pope, that came to mind when I read the paragraph above: “A little learning is a dangerous thing, drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring.”  It seems our letter writers did not drink deep enough in regard to the documents of Vatican II, because the claim that there is something in the documents of Vatican II that somehow gives each individual an authority equal to that of the bishops when speaking to the government (or anyone else for that matter) on matters of faith and morals is simply without merit.  

In the Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World), paragraph #77 speaks to the relationship between the “political community” and the Church.  Here is some of what it has to say: “It is of supreme importance…to work out a proper vision of the relationship between the political community and the Church, and to distinguish clearly between the activities of Christians, acting individually or collectively in their own name as citizens guided by the dictates of a Christian conscience, and their activity acting along with their pastors in the name of the Church.”

Christians may indeed speak to their government individually or collectively, but the words and actions of these individual Christians acting on their own, are not to be confused with the words and actions of those Christians acting “along with their pastors in the name of the Church.”  In other words, individual Christians, acting on their own, have absolutely no authority to speak for the Church to the political community on matters of faith and morals.  They do not speak “in the name of the Church” as do the pastors (i.e., bishops) of the Church.  So, contrary to what was written in that letter, there are no “internal church disagreements over who speaks for the Catholic Church in dialogue with government on matters of faith and morals.”  It is the pastors who speak for the Church.  Every Catholic who understands and is faithful to the teachings of Vatican II would agree on this.

Furthermore, paragraph #77 states: “But at all times and in all places the Church should have true freedom to preach the faith, to proclaim its teaching about society, to carry out its task among men without hindrance, and to pass moral judgments even in matters relating to politics, whenever the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it.”  

Vatican II speaks of the right of the Church to “pass moral judgments even in matters relating to politics.”  Note that nowhere does this paragraph, nor any part of this document, nor any Vatican II document, speak of the individual as having the same level of authority as the pastors of the Church “to pass moral judgments” in matters relating to politics.  In fact, as mentioned above, Vatican II makes it quite clear that while the individual does indeed have certain rights and freedoms with respect to activities vis-à-vis government, it is, nevertheless, of “supreme importance” to distinguish these activities from those of the Church.  Vatican II simply does not support the premise of the letter writers.

Now, I do not wish to ignore the role of the individual and their conscience, as each individual does indeed have it within their capacity to form moral judgments in accord with their conscience and to act on those moral judgments.  I will speak to that next week.

Next: The role of conscience…

About John Martignoni John Martignoni is the Director of the Office of Evangelization for the Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama and also the President of the Bible Christian Society. John's column, Apologetics 101, appears regularly in the diocesan newspaper, the One Voice.  If you have a question about the Catholic Faith, please send an email to: jmartignoni@bhmdiocese.org.  And check out John's free audio and written apologetics materials at: www.biblechristiansociety.com.