Karlo Broussard addresses a common concern for potential converts to Catholicism: what to do when personal beliefs clash with Church teachings? Karlo explains the distinction between infallible and non-infallible teachings, outlining the different levels of assent required for each.
Transcript:
I am a Protestant as of currently, but I am considering converting to Catholicism. But there’s one concern I have, and it’s what if I am morally driven to believe in something, but the church is asking me to believe in another thing.
Why should I submit to a church or to the Catholic Church if my heart, let’s put it that way, tells me that they are wrong?
Okay. All right, this is a very good question, Orlando. I’m going to take a step back to try to articulate one principle, and then I’m going to try to hit your specific question particularly. Okay, so if it’s taken a step back, whenever church teaching is infallible, so we have two categories. Let’s just do two basic categories. Infallible teaching, it’s without error, it’s definitive, it ain’t changing, we can take it to the bank, take a bullet for it, die on that hill. And then you have non-infallible teaching. Okay, so let’s think about the category of infallible teachings. When the church proposes something that is infallible, Orlando, we are expected to assent. Okay, if we do not assent to that infallible teaching, that would be constituted as grave matter. So that’s a serious situation that could incur the guilt of mortal sin. It could put one’s soul in the jeopardy of damnation, okay? But remember, Orlando, in order for that grave serious offense, namely, I’m not assenting to an infallible teaching of the church, one would have to have full knowledge of what the teaching is, that it is infallible, that rejecting infallible teaching is grave matter, and then one would have to have full consent of the will. There’s no mitigating factors or coercion or anything like that that would mitigate one’s culpability.
If those two conditions are met, then one’s rejection of an infallible teaching would incur the guilt of mortal sin. And if one did not repent of that mortal sin upon death, damnation would be their lot. But notice, Orlando, full knowledge and deliberate full consent would have to be met in order for that rejection of the infallible teaching to incur the mortal guilt. And so it’s possible that you can have a scenario where you have an individual who is presented with an infallible teaching.
And then that person says, “You know what? In my heart and in my conscience, I cannot see the truth of this. I cannot bring myself to a sense to it.” That would be grave matter. But God knows, Orlando, exactly what is in the person’s mind, what’s the target of the intellect, that the will is actually rejecting. And it’s possible that what the intellect is presenting to the will is a skewed, flawed understanding of that infallible teaching such that when the person says no to the teaching verbally, in reality, they’re not saying no to that teaching and thereby not meeting the condition of full knowledge and thereby not incurring the guilt of mortal sin.
Only God can judge why that person would not be able to see with clarity exactly what the infallible teaching is and what he or she is rejecting.
So practically speaking, if you become Catholic and you got an infallible teaching of the church, you need to…we as Catholics must be disposed to say, “Yeah, I’m going to submit.” But if something happens like, “I just can’t see it,” of course we can’t go contrary to our conscience, but then the question becomes, “Am I honestly forming my conscience? Am I open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit through the church? Or am I obstinately opposed?” Those are questions that one would have…that God would be taken into consideration, quote, unquote, consideration in order to determine where the heart is relative to faith in our Lord and the church that he gave us, okay?
Now, when it comes to non-infallible teachings, well, those are teachings that are technically subject to error, technically subject to being changed and non-definitive. However, Orlando, the church still does require that we give a qualified assent to those non-infallible teachings like…it’s basically like this, “Holy Mother Church, you’ve been around for a long time. You have a heck of a lot more wisdom than I do, and I’m going to submit, although it’s qualified, I recognize it could possibly be in error.” So it’s a qualified assent, but let’s say, Orlando, that for the non-infallible teaching, you wouldn’t be able to assent. So then the question becomes, “Well, would you incur the guilt of mortal sin?” And the answer would be no.
If in your heart of hearts you’ve done what you can, you’ve done everything in your power to try to see the position of the church for a non-infallible teaching, and you just simply can’t see the truth of it, and so therefore you can’t assent to it by movement of the will, well, then you, in your heart of hearts, you would not incur the guilt of mortal sin. And of course, you wouldn’t be able to go out and publicly assent against it, but your salvation would not be in jeopardy when it comes to that non-infallible teaching, although at the same time we need to have a disposition to be willing to give that qualified assent. So notice how drawing that distinction between infallible teachings and non-infallible teachings and what those teachings require with the conditions that need to be met for incurring the guilt of mortal sin, hopefully that’s enough information, enough data for you, Orlando, to sort of think through the issues that you’re struggling with as to whether you’re going to assent to church teaching or not. The bottom line is we ought to assent, but if we do not or cannot assent, then the question becomes why, and that’s where the inner movements of the heart and the mind come into play, and only God can have access to that ordinarily speaking.
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