What we think is the right road
Everyone should decide for themselves what basic philosophy or worldview they accept. All worldviews are essentially the same, anyway.
But it’s the wrong road
That judgment is not only wrong, it’s wretchedly wrong. Suppose I were to say that everyone must decide for himself what mathematics or science or technological systems he accepts. You think seven times five is 35, but I think the product is, say, 28. If I am free to choose my own mathematical system, then on what basis can you challenge me? That there are certain objective standards in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects does not mean, you may reply, that similar objective standards apply in ethics or literature or politics. We hear that in those and similar fields everyone chooses his own view of right and wrong, good and evil, virtuous and vicious.
It ain’t so! Moral scaffolding, which is based upon relativism, wholly contradicts the teachings of the Catholic faith. If we believe that Jesus Christ is the key to history; if we believe that Jesus Christ is, in fact, “the light if the world”; if we believe that Jesus Christ is the destination of all creation – then Jesus Christ must be at the center of our thoughts, words and deeds. To stray from Christ is to disregard what is eternally true; to ignore His moral teaching is to enter the darkness; to deny His divine view of life is to accept what is wicked or diabolical.
Essential to the faith are belief in the risen Christ as Teacher, conviction that Christ is the Head of the Church He established, and trust that the Church, in its settled Magisterium, will never lead us astray or, through peccant or perverted teaching, imperil the salvation of our souls. Although there are tragic instances of evil bishops and popes in Church history, divinely revealed truth has never been vitiated or disgraced (read Vatican II’s “Lumen Gentium,” 25, and “Dei Verbum,” 21).
Without the “moral scaffolding” of the Church, our beliefs will collapse under the pressures – the temptations – we meet daily in and from the “world, the flesh and the devil.” To put it in maritime terms, unless we have the strong anchor of faith, we will drift away from where we ought to be. There is no doubt that “unless your faith is firm, you shall not be firm” (Isaiah 7:9). As. St. Paul put it, unless we are grounded in Christ, we will be “carried by the waves and blown about by every shifting wind of the teaching of deceitful men” (Eph 4:14; also see Col 2:8 and Heb 13:9).
“My people,” said the prophet Hosea, “perish for want of knowledge” (4:6). Defective catechesis, sophomoric formation, deranged religious education – the elements of inadequate moral scaffolding – comprise the “knowledge” of far too many Catholics who are, in fact, really strangers to the faith they claim. Because they have an errant general worldview and distorted generic principles of morality, they will often misjudge or misperceive particular issues or questions. For instance, someone who does not know and accept Catholic teaching about the sanctity of life is likely to be in error about abortion, euthanasia, the treatment of immigrants, and just war teaching.
A profane and disenchanted world invariably seeks to corrupt the Catholic worldview. We are called, as baptized and confirmed Catholics, “to spread and defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ, to confess the name of Christ boldly, and never to be ashamed of the Cross” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1303). Frankly, this Catholic calling is not an easy matter today, and too many have retreated from the responsibilities of being an ambassador of and for Our Lord (2 Cor 5:20).
Holy Mass, the Eucharist and the other sacraments, especially frequent confession; extensive spiritual reading, complemented, whenever possible, by Catholic courses (such as Lay Ministry or parish lectures); hearing and reflecting upon serious and solid preaching; conversation with good friends in good Catholic organizations – these are some of the ways we build and maintain an unshakable moral scaffolding in a time when, and in a place where, Catholic teaching is under inexorable assault. Not for nothing does Proverbs warn us that “Your education is your life – guard it well” (4:13).
Remember the computer science concept of GIGO: “garbage in, garbage out.” Let us fill our hearts and minds with what is true, noble, right and pure (Phil 4:6). If what we pray, think, see, hear, read and converse about corresponds with God’s eternal will and way, then we “can build the structure of moral rules to guide (our) choices” (CCC 1959). We will then have a secure moral scaffolding that will withstand the tempests of our day.
Deacon James H. Toner serves in the Diocese of Charlotte.