What sort of thing is the Catholic Church?
Asking this critical question has never been more critical. It is an intellectual exercise taught by G.K. Chesterton - he takes up this question in some of his written works and comes to very interesting conclusions. It continues to be an exercise which allows both Catholics and non-Catholics to deal with the ever-present Catholic Church. Whether you are looking to enter the Church or leave it, you ought to be asking this question very often and not be satisfied until you get answers.
The question, no doubt, can be asked of many things. But to ask it of the Catholic Church is to venture into the deepest questions about what God is trying to do with the world.
Chesterton would try and find some answers to the question by seeing what others say about the Church. Thus, he finds that some are critical of the Church because it presents such a gloomy image of the world. After all, it is the Church which sees the world beset with Original Sin, divided from God, corrupt in its nature, doomed to death, fraught with terrible things that only scheming, dark-eyed theologians could come up with - like concupiscence. Chesterton recognized that some critics of the Church blame it for painting such a dark picture of the world. And so his conclusion from reading these types of authors is that the Church is somewhat of a pessimistic thing, since in its pessimism it tells the story of the world as corrupt.
But then he reads from other authors giving what seems to be a very different account of the Church's view of the world. These authors make their own attempt to answer the question of what sort of thing the Church is. What they come up with is startling. The Church should not be condemned for its pessimism but rather its optimism. The Catholic Church, in order to fool the masses and present a false reality to men, fills their heads with lofty Platonic ideas of a heavenly Kingdom, of the ability to overcome death by magical grave risings, or with false hopes for holy and virtuous living, immortalized in the annals of the Saints. It paints the world as a place where the mystical realm of grace intersects what is human and natural and creates supernatural things on earth. Mankind is shamelessly forced to look to a dream world - heaven - while attempting at every moment to redeem the goodness within created things. The Church is condemned for painting too pretty a world - too filled with hopes and dreams which will prove false.
This second view on what exactly the Church is is centered on a condemnation of the Church as too optimistic - and the arguments, as Chesterton read them, were equally as compelling as those authors who thought the Church too pessimistic. They each argued at the complete opposite end: one author no sooner finishes complaining that the Church's pessimism keeps men's heads in the mud when another author explains with equal ardor that the Church's optimism keeps men's heads in the clouds. It's not the Church's overbearing pessimism which makes her wrong, but its shameful optimism giving men false hope.
Chesterton began to see that the charges against the Church were often united in the strength of their animosity. But what began to shed light on the nature of the Catholic Church for Chesterton is that those who are united in their animosity for her are most often divided in what warrants that animosity. They agree that the Church should be repudiated, but for reasons that are incompatible. Can the Church be both wholly pessimistic and wholly optimistic? Can the Church at the same time be accused of painting the world too dark and painting the world too bright?
What sort of thing is the Church that it is accused of two completely opposite charges, and instead of agreeing on the accusations the accusers can only agree that the Church ought to be accused?
Now, in today's world, similar situations arise in which more than one party condemns the Church, but for reasons that don't mesh. There are those who fall into the "who are you to judge?" crowd, in which the Church is condemned for speaking out on moral questions such as abortion or homosexuality. For instance, the Church teaches that a person incurs the penalty of excommunication who procures a completed abortion. The "who are you to judge" crowd condemns the Church for pronouncing such judgment. In this instance, the Church is "wrong" because she judges.
But she can be equally as wrong for not judging. Pope Benedict's recent actions to lift the excommunication of the Lefevre bishops was met with a letter from 50 "Catholic" US Congressmen from the House of Representatives condemning the Pope for his "decision to reinstate Bishop Richard Williamson" through the lifting of the excommunication. Well, for starters, the lifting of the excommunication does not reinstate the bishops - they are allowed to receive the sacraments but not administer them, nor are they given assignments as bishops. Nevertheless, US Congressmen (ever heard of separation of powers?) want the Pope, as a "spiritual leader" to keep these bishops, especially the Holocaust denier, under the penalty of excommunication. The Church is wrong this time, not for judging, but for being too lax in its judgment.
(As a side note, the Pope has on many occasions spoken of the Church's constant teaching that all forms of anti-Semitism are abhorrent.* And he has subsequently demanded that the bishop in question repudiate his claims that the Holocaust never occurred or was not as severe as claimed by historians.)
Those 50 US Congressmen prove the point even further by claiming the Pope is not being clear in what the Church teaches on the Holocaust, which he always has been, and at the same time via the mouthpiece of Nancy Pelosi claiming that Church's teaching on abortion has never been clear, either, which it has always been as well. The Church is not clear enough - no, wait - I mean, stop teaching things so clearly. Lack of clarity, here, does not lie in the Church's camp, but in the Congressmens'.
Nevertheless, it leaves us with our question - what sort of thing is the Catholic Church that it is often condemned from all sides but for very different reasons? Chesterton's conclusion was that the discrepancy did not lie in the substance of the Church. The Church was not, in fact, pessimistic and optimistic at the same time. But rather, pessimistic persons saw the Church as optimistic. And optimistic persons saw the Church as pessimistic. Those who don't want to be judged by the Church condemn her for judging. And those who want use the Church to promote their own moral agendas condemn her for not judging enough.
The Church, by Chesterton's analogy of a person, is too fat a thing when seen from the perspective of a slender person, and too slender a thing when seen by a fat person. The faults lie in the point of view - am I projecting onto the Church my image of what the Church ought to be based on my own point of view?
The final point is this: what the Church is does not begin and end with my own point of view. What the Church is should shape my point of view, rather than my point of view shape what the Church is. When done in humility, this exercise can be most beneficial for understanding what the nature of the Church is and it can reveal, in intimate and immaculate beauty, the stripes of an eternal banner which is raised above the Church in her mission to bring God's love to the world. When seen only from my point of view, the Church may be one color - perhaps too dark a color, or too bright a color. But when my point of view is molded by the Church herself - when I allow her to be the refuge from which I view all things - the world gains again those manifold colors of the bow - colors which I could not have seen in her or in the world if I was only limited to the narrowness and limitations of my own point of view. Instead I can see with the eyes of countless Saints, and countless faithful men and women through the ages. I can see the ancient beauty of God.
*see YouTube video where Pope speaks in a Jewish Synagogue in Cologne Germany - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Anmx0vPFV08
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