Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/misc/answers/answers.003

Text File | 1990-07-09 | 16KB | 248 lines

                         More Inventions

     One of Loraine Boettner's key points in his magnum opus, Roman
Catholicism--certainly the key textbook for professional
anti-Catholics--is that Catholicism must be untrue because in so
many particulars it differs from the Christianity of the New
Testament.  Over the centuries, he says, the Catholic Church has
added beliefs, rituals, and customs that often contradict what is
found in the Bible.  He calls this "the melancholy evidence of
Rome's steadily increasing departure from the simplicity of the
Gospel," and he claims "human inventions have been substituted for
Bible truth and practice" (p. 9).
     His point is that Catholicism can't be the religion
established by Christ because it has all these "extras," forty-five
of which he lists (pp. 7-9) under the title "Some Roman Catholic
Heresies and Inventions."  A few of these he examines at greater
length later in the book, but most of them are mentioned once here
and then conveniently dropped.
     Many anti-Catholic organizations have reprinted all or
portions of Boettner's list of "inventions," generally in leaflet
form.  These leaflets are distributed, commonly, outside Catholic
churches after Mass.  Do they produce the intended results?  Yes
and no.  It depends, of course, on the knowledge or sophistication
of the readers.  Some people just laugh at the charges, since they
know what the facts really are.  Others are stumped for answers,
but figure they can establish the bona fides of the Catholic
religion if they have to.  Yet some people are taken in, thinking,
apparently, that no one would go to the trouble of disseminating
such information if it weren't true, if the implications weren't
valid; these people start to think Boettner and his followers may
be on to something.
     Catholics need to realize that professional anti-Catholics
have dozens of charges like these up their sleeves, and they
produce them whenever they think they can make an impression on
people who know even less than they do.  These off-the-wall
allegations sow confusion in Catholic minds.  After all, most
Catholics aren't conversant with the fine points of Church history
or practice (there's no reason they should be), and a confused
Catholic is a ripe target for evangelistic fundamentalists.
     In a tract called Catholic "Inventions" we looked at five of
Boettner's charges.  Let's look at a few more now.  They're worth
examining because they're good examples of bad thinking.  They
aren't really arguments, but mere statements intended to leave a
bad impression.  Throw forty-five of them together in a list, and
readers may think there is more to anti-Catholic charges than meets
the eye--even when there's not.
     Item: "Making the sign of the cross ... [A.D.] 300."  That's
it.  That's the whole charge: that the sign of the cross was not
"invented" until well into the Christian era.  Actually, Christians
began making the sign of the cross at a much earlier date.  The
theologian Tertullian, writing in A.D. 211, said that "we furrow
our foreheads with the sign [of the cross]."  Making the sign was
already an old custom when he wrote.  It may well have been common
even while some of the Apostles were alive.
     But the mistake Boettner makes in the antiquity of the
practice is not the important thing.  The real question is, Why
does he include this point at all?  The answer: because the sign of
the cross is something not found in the pages of the New Testament.
The reader is supposed to conclude that it must thus be contrary to
Christianity.  But that makes little sense.  In fact, that
principle undermines even Boettner's own fundamentalism.
     After all, fundamentalists meet for worship on Sunday, yet
there is no evidence in the Bible that corporate worship was to be
made on Sundays.  The Jewish Sabbath was, of course, Saturday.  It
was the Catholic Church that decided Sunday should be the day of
worship, in honor of the Resurrection.  And what about the form of
fundamentalist services: hymns, readings, preaching?  No mention is
made in the New Testament of the form of worship (other than that
set out at the Last Supper, which gives the outline of the Mass).
     If Catholicism has changed matters of practice or customs over
the centuries, fundamentalism has done the same.  Isn't the proper
question not whether the Church founded by Christ looks today
exactly as it did then (if that is the criterion, then his Church
can't be found anywhere), but whether what purports to be his
Church has kept all the same beliefs, while understanding them
better and drawing out their implications more deeply, even if in
external practices the Church has developed and changed?
     Item: "Priests began to dress differently from laymen ...
500."  So what?  Can't this charge be brought against
fundamentalist preachers who conduct services while dressed in
choir robes?  This statement happens to be quite true, but it is
irrelevant.  The main vestment worn by priests during Mass is the
chasuble.  It is really nothing more than a stylized Roman
overcoat.  In the sixth century, while fashions changed around
them, for liturgical purposes priests kept the same clothing they
had used for some time.  They didn't adopt special dress for Mass;
they just kept to the old styles, while everyday fashions changed,
and over time their dress began to stand out.
     On very formal occasions today, such as a presidential
inauguration, the principal players wear top hats and tails.  You
don't otherwise see that kind of clothing anymore, but remember
that Abraham Lincoln used to wear the equivalent all the time.
That is another example of dress for a special occasion being
frozen in a particular style.  It just so happens that priests'
vestments are much older than top hats.
     Item: "Extreme Unction ... 526."  This single line by Boettner
is no doubt intended to make the reader believe the Catholic Church
invented this sacrament, which is also known as the Anointing of
the Sick, five centuries after Christ.  But notice that Boettner
makes no effort to give the Church's explanation of the sacrament's
origin.  Why?  Because the origin is found in the New Testament
itself: "Is one of you sick?  Let him send for the presbyters of
the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in
the Lord's name.  Prayer offered in faith will restore the sick
man, and the Lord will give him relief; if he is guilty of sins,
they will be pardoned" (James 5:14-15).  This scriptural injunction
was followed from the earliest days of the Church.  If Boettner
wanted to say this sacrament was invented, at least he should have
said it was invented while the apostles were still alive, but that,
of course, would simply give the sacrament legitimacy.
     Item: "Worship of the cross, images, and relics authorized in
... 786."  What's this?  Do Catholics give slivers of wood,
carvings of marble, and pieces of bone the kind of adoration they
give God?  That's what Boettner seems to say.  What if a Catholic
were to say to him, "I saw you kneeling with your Bible in your
hands.  Why do you worship a book?"  He'd rightly answer that he
doesn't worship a book.  He uses the Bible as an aid to prayer.
Likewise, Catholics don't worship the cross or images or relics.
They use these physical objects to remind themselves of Christ and
his special friends, the saints in heaven.
     The man who keeps a picture of his family in his wallet does
not worship his wife and children, but he honors them.  The woman
who keeps her parents' picture on the mantle does not subscribe to
ancestor worship; the picture just reminds her of them so she can
honor them.  (Remember Ex. 20:12: "Honor thy father and thy
mother.")  No one really thinks the pictures are themselves objects
of worship.
     The origin of Boettner's allegation is this: In the Byzantine
Empire there developed what was known as the Iconoclastic heresy,
which held that all images (statues, paintings, mosaics) of saints
and of God must be destroyed on the theory that they were meant to
be worshiped.  Eventually, around 786, this heresy was defeated,
and the old custom (going back to the first century) of permitting
artistic representations was again allowed.  Boettner has the date
right; he just doesn't understand the story.
     Item: "Celibacy of the priesthood, decreed by pope Gregory VII
(Hildebrand) ... 1079."  Anti-Catholics take considerable delight
in noting that some of the apostles, including Peter, were married
and that for centuries Catholic priests were allowed to marry.
Catholics do not deny that some of the early popes were married and
that celibacy, for priests in the Western (Latin) Rite, did not
become mandatory until the early Middle Ages.  Anti-Catholic
writers generally fail to note that even today many Catholic
priests in the Eastern Rites are married, and that is the way it
has always been.  Celibacy in the Western Rite is purely a matter
of discipline.  It came to be thought that priests could more
perfectly fulfill their duties if they remained unmarried.  This
follows Paul's advice.
     After saying he wished those to whom he was writing were, like
he, unmarried (1 Cor. 7:7-9), Paul said he thought celibacy was the
best state to be in (1 Cor. 7:26), noting that "he who is unmarried
is concerned with God's claim, asking how he is to please God;
whereas the married man is concerned with the world's claim, asking
how he is to please his wife" (1 Cor. 7:32-33).  When a man becomes
a priest in the Western Rite, he knows that he will not be able to
marry.  Marriage is a good thing (in fact, Catholics acknowledge
Christ elevated marriage to a sacrament), but it is something that
priests are willing to forgo for the sake of being better priests.
      No one is forced to be a priest (or a nun for that matter:
nuns don't marry either), so no Catholic is forced to be celibate.
Those who want to take the vows of the religious life shouldn't
object to having to follow the rules.  That doesn't mean that the
rules, as found at any one time, are ideal or can't be modified --
after all, they aren't doctrines, but matters of discipline -- but
it does mean that it's unfair to imply from the rules, as Boettner
has, that the Catholic religion scorns marriage.
     Item: "Auricular confession of sins to a priest instead of to
God, instituted by pope Innocent III, in Lateran Council ... 1215."
It is charges like this that make one doubt the good faith of
professional anti-Catholics.  It would have taken little to
discover the antiquity of auricular confession--and even less to
learn that Catholics don't tell their sins to a priest "instead of
to God," but to God through a priest, appointed by our Lord as an
alter Christus or "other Christ," an official stand-in for Christ.
     Origen, writing his Homilies on Leviticus around 244, referred
to the sinner who "does not shrink from declaring his sin to a
priest of the Lord."  Cyprian of Carthage, writing seven years
later in The Lapsed,  said, "Finally, of how much greater faith and
more salutary fear are they who ... confess to the priests of God
in a straightforward manner and in sorrow, making an open
declaration of conscience."  In the fourth century Aphraates gave
this advice to priests: "If anyone uncovers his wound before you,
give him the remedy of repentance.  And he that is ashamed to make
known his weakness, encourage him so that he will not hide it from
you.  And when he has revealed it to you, do not make it public."
     These men, writing as much as a thousand years before the
Lateran Council of 1215, were referring to a practice that already
was old and well-established.  Christ commissioned the Apostles
this way: "When you forgive men's sins, they are forgiven, when you
hold them bound, they are held bound" (John 20:23).  Clearly, no
priest could forgive sins on Christ's behalf unless he was first
told the sins by the penitent.  Auricular confession is implied in
the very institution of the sacrament.  The Lateran Council did not
"invent" the practice; it merely reaffirmed it while emphasizing
the importance of penance.
     Item: "Adoration of the wafer (host), decreed by pope Honorius
III ... 1220."  What the reader is supposed to think, apparently,
is that Catholics worship the bread used at Mass.  They don't.
What they worship is Christ, and they believe the bread, along with
the wine, is turned into his actual body and blood, including not
only his human nature, but also his divine nature.  If Catholics
are right about that, then surely the host deserves to be worshiped
since it really is God.  A pope would be perfectly correct in
decreeing that the host should be worshiped, just as he would be
right to say Jesus should be worshiped if he walked in the room.
Boettner should direct his complaint not at some non-existent
worship of ordinary bread, but at what Catholics think that bread
becomes.
     Item: "Apocryphal books added to the Bible by the Council of
Trent ... 1546."  This reminds one of a famous comment made by a
writer (obviously not a Catholic) who said, in discussing the
English Reformation, that "the pope and his minions then seceded
from the Church of England."  It was not the Council of Trent that
"added" what Protestants call the apocryphal books to the Bible.
Instead, the Protestant Reformers dropped these books from the
Bible that had been in common use for centuries.
     The Council of Trent, convened to reaffirm Catholic doctrines
and to revitalize the Church, proclaimed that these books always
belonged to the Bible and had to remain in it. After all, it was
the Catholic Church, in the fourth century, at councils held in
Carthage and Hippo, that officially decided what books belonged to
the Bible and what didn't.  The Council of Trent came on the scene
about thirteen centuries later and merely restated that ancient
position.
     Bishop Fulton Sheen once said that few people in America hate
the Catholic religion, but many people hate what they mistakenly
believe is the Catholic religion--and that if what is hated really
were the Catholic religion, Catholics would hate it too.  Confusing
lists--lists intended to cause confusion, like the one published in
Roman Catholicism--have done much to foster this kind of hatred.
What's more, they have discouraged fundamentalists from finding out
what the Catholic religion really is, and that's a disservice both
to fundamentalists and to Catholics.
     Like others before him, Loraine Boettner has found an enemy of
his own fashioning.  He castigates it, misrepresents it, ridicules
it, but it is not the Catholic religion as Catholics know it, and
the "history" he presents is not the history of the Catholic
Church.  Fundamentalists who are curious about the Catholic
religion do themselves no favor by allowing themselves to be
hoodwinked by such lists of "inventions."  If they want to know
what really happened, how Catholic beliefs and practices really
arose, they will have to turn to writers not tempted to pull a fast
one.
                                        --Karl Keating
                                          Catholic Answers
                                          P.O. Box 17181
                                          San Diego, CA 92117