“You Catholics are divided, too!”
It’s a common objection from Protestants when confronted with a certain Catholic critique that Protestantism, in its emphasis on the individual’s ability to properly interpret Scripture for himself, and its fundamental opposition to any kind of magisterial authority, necessarily results in an ever-increasing diversity of ecclesial communities and theologies. Yes, the Protestant apologist acknowledges, there are Lutherans, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Wesleyans, Baptists, and a wide assortment of other branches and sub-branches of Protestantism. But self-identifying Catholics disagree about abortion, contraception, homosexuality, female ordination, and even whether Pope Francis is a legitimate pope!
Not so fast. As I explain in my book The Obscurity of Scripture, relying on the excellent work of Catholic philosopher (and former Protestant seminarian) Bryan Cross, we need to first understand what the Church means by disagreements of faith and disagreements not of faith. Disagreements of faith are concerned with what has been divinely revealed either in Scripture or Tradition. The Catholic Church, either by solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, has promulgated teachings from Scripture or Tradition that must be believed because
- they are divinely revealed;
- they have been definitely proposed by the Magisterium regarding faith and morals; or
- they are authentic teachings of the Magisterium—not by a definitive act, but they nevertheless require religious submission of intellect and will.
Disagreements not of faith are
- those pertaining to open theological questions that have not yet been definitively determined by the Magisterium and do not fall within any of the three grades of assent as defined by canon law,
- those concerning prudential judgments regarding the implementation or application of theological or moral truths, or
- those pertaining to matters not theological or moral.
Disagreements not of faith do not undermine the doctrinal unity of the Catholic Church, because they pertain to issues not considered necessary for belief or submission to the Church. These are disagreements over things that remain open and unresolved, such as the historic Jesuit and Dominican debates over predestination.
Disagreements of faith are when one party rejects what the Church definitely teaches. These are properly called dissent. There are varying degrees of dissent; some manifest a breach between the dissenter and the Church, and some do not. The former, sometimes called “radical dissent,” is an open rejection of what the Magisterium of the Church has taught as either divinely revealed (de fide credenda) or as definitely proposed and requiring firm acceptance (de fide tenenda). A person engaged in radical dissent is no longer in full communion with the Catholic Church, because that person has rejected the Church’s magisterial teaching authority.
These distinctions help illuminate how the Catholic paradigm is different from the Protestant one. Yes, there are individual Catholics, and even self-identifying Catholic organizations, that hold opinions at odds with Catholic doctrine. But those persons or organizations are in a position of dissent from the Magisterium. Even if they claim to be faithfully Catholic, and even if, God forbid, their bishop has not formally reprimanded them for their disobedience, they are dissenting from official Catholic teaching.
The question of such groups as Sedevacantists is also answered by a proper understanding of these distinctions. Those who reject the current pontiff and assert either that there is currently no legitimate pope or that some other individual is the real pope are engaged in an act of dissent and/or schism, rejecting the magisterial authority of the Catholic Church as manifested in the Roman See. Such persons are in opposition to one of the core tenets of Catholicism—namely, apostolic succession as it relates to the successor of St. Peter, “prince of the apostles.”
In a sense, this is not categorically different from many heretical or schismatic groups that have existed throughout the history of Christianity. Since the early centuries, there have been various individuals, even individuals ordained as priests or bishops, who rejected the magisterial authority of the Church, of ecumenical councils, and of the bishop of Rome. Marcionists, Montanists, Monarchianists, Novatianists, Donatists, Arians, Quartodecimanists, Macedonians, Luciferians, Appolinarists, Collyridians, Nestorians, Eutychians, Monophysites, Acacians, and Monothelites are all examples of schismatic and heretical groups you may have never heard of, but dissented from orthodox, Catholic Christianity in the first millennium of Church history.
The unity of the Catholic faith does not consist in the degree of doctrinal agreement among everyone who calls himself Catholic, be it a Sedevacantist or a pro-choice politician. Rather, the unity of the Catholic Church consists of three bonds: doctrine, cult, and authority, which derive, respectively, from the Church’s role as prophet, priest, and king. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that those three roles are “assured by visible bonds of communion: profession of one faith received from the apostles [doctrine]; common celebration of divine worship, especially of the sacraments [cult]; and apostolic succession through the sacrament of holy orders, maintaining the fraternal concord of God’s family [authority]” (815).
Anyone dissenting or breaking from these bonds of unity, far from demonstrating Catholicism’s internal divisiveness, only demonstrates that he is at odds with the teaching of the Church. That we recognize such people as dissenters shows that we already know this. Ironically, by their dissent, dissenters testify to the unity of the Church’s faith. That’s not to say that such dissent doesn’t cause scandal and confusion—obviously, it does, as evidenced by the ubiquity of the “Catholics are divided, too” objection we are addressing here.
Nevertheless, the objection (mistakenly) assumes that the unity of the Catholic Church is the amount of agreement regarding matters of faith among everyone calling himself Catholic or who receives the Eucharist. But according to Catholicism’s self-understanding, the unity of the Catholic faith is determined by the unity of the doctrine taught by the Magisterium. Thus, the Protestant who makes this objection is implicitly presupposing that there is no difference in teaching authority between the laity and the Magisterium, and is thus evaluating Catholic unity according to terms that are actually peculiarly Protestant.
In a sense, this is understandable, because the early Protestants claimed that the two marks of the Church were the right preaching of Scripture and the right administration of the sacraments, and thus to observe a dissenting Catholic continue to receive the Eucharist seems like a failure of unity, when in fact it may well be a failure of discipline. And it is understandable because there is no Protestant magisterium providing an authoritative, single body of doctrine by which Protestants could have unity of faith. Rather, for Protestants, unity of faith is attempted by identifying other Protestants who have enough interpretive agreement over Scripture to (for a time) co-exist within an individual ecclesial community, denomination, or para-church organization. I say “for a time” because the lack of a mechanism for adjudicating theological disagreements means Protestants have an “escape clause” to break away and form a new denomination.
In sum, the “Catholics are divided too” tu quoque fails, because it does not properly understand the nature of schism and dissent from the visible unity of the Catholic Church found in the Magisterium. Catholics who dissent from Church teaching, or schismatic groups that deny the authority of the Magisterium, do not undermine the doctrine, cult, and authority that constitute the unity of the Church. Quite the contrary: Their dissent or schism actually reinforces it.