It is not sinful to point out the crisis in the Church

The estimable Boniface at Unam Sanctam Catholicam has a very good post examining yet another false claim – one might even say calumny – directed against those faithful/traditional/orthodox/whatever Catholics who point out and lament the ongoing crisis in the Church.  This false claim states that describing the crisis in the Faith breeches the unity of the Church and results in the sins of discord and contention.  Claims are made back to Aquinas in support of these accusations of sin, and not just sin, but even mortal sin!  I always enjoy when someone from 1000 miles away and over an ephemeral “connection” like the internet can judge the state of my soul, don’t you?

Irrespective, Boniface points out that whoever has been pointing to Aquinas failed to read the whole way, and failed to make critical distinctions which completely alter moral judgment of the matter (I add emphasis and comments):

Recently, I heard a new take on the “traditionalist Catholic bloggers cause disunity” assertion. The argument relied upon St. Thomas Aquinas’ definitions of the sins of discord and contention. Let me phrase the argument in the context in which I heard it:

Catholics should be unified. Unity is one of the hallmarks of Catholicism. Catholic bloggers who frequently write about things wrong in the Church can damage the unity Catholics are supposed to have (because posts about scandals, heresy, etc. can damage the faith of other Catholics, lead to a loss of hope, and be done without charity). It can create a climate of bickering and dissension within the Church. This is bad.

And not only bad, but sinful, perhaps mortally so. Here were invoked the sins of discord and contention as defined by St. Thomas in the Summa. Discord was defined as obstinately clinging to your own way of thinking. [and is most frequently associated with holding obviously heretical views (even after correction, or especially so), and not as much with regard to vague matters of discipline] Contention was defined as putting such discord into speech or writing.

I don’t want to retread a lot of old ground, but let’s at least look at whether Aquinas’ definitions are being used correctly. In the Summa II-II, Q. 37, Aquinas deals with the question of discord and whether it is a sin.  Discord is defined as a disunion of wills (Q. 37 art. 2). Unity of wills can be destroyed by discord two ways – directly or accidentally. Hence Aquinas distinguishes between active and passive discord, the first consisting in actively willing to cause discord, the latter in which discord happens in a way accidental to the intention of the agent. In other words, to cause discord for the sake of creating discord – as when family members create discord by gossiping simply because they relish drama – is certain sinful. This is active discord. [Certainly sinful, but difficult to prove, for one has to know the motivation behind the person who is committing the act, which is very difficult to do especially over the internet]

But passive discord occurs when human disagreement arises from two people disagreeing about the best way to attain a certain good. The object of such discord is not discord as such, but a certain good about which the parties disagree. One co-worker at the office wants pepperoni on the pizza for lunch, the other wants pineapple and ham, and they have a disagreement. Yes, there is discord in the office, but it is of an accidental nature. Aquinas states:

“Hence when several intend a good pertaining to God’s honor, or our neighbor’s profit, while one deems a certain thing good, and another thinks contrariwise, the discord is in this case accidentally contrary to the Divine good or that of our neighbor. Such like discord is neither sinful nor against charity…” (Q. 37 art. 1)

Passive discord is thus not really discord in the fullest sense, since it is not so much a disunion of wills as much as a disunion of opinions. And there is no mandate for unanimity of opinions. Again, Aquinas:

“concord…is an effect of charity, a union of wills, not of opinions.” (ibid)

We all want the good of the Church. We all want to bring souls to Jesus Christ. Our disagreement is on the prudence of what is going on in the Church today. Catholic bloggers – speaking for myself at least – do not will disunity or discord and do not blog in order to create it. When disagreements arise, then discord arises accidentally because we are all of different opinion on these matters. But as Aquinas states, this sort of discord is not sinful nor against charity. [And that is certainly my intent, as well, anything I do on this blog is done for the good of souls to the greatest extent I can manage with my frail faculties]

Another sin was mentioned – contention or contentiousness. This was defined as putting our discordant opinions into speech or writing. St. Thomas takes up contention in II-II Q. 38. Again, he agrees that contention is a sin, and that is principally consists in tending against someone or something in speech or writing. 

“To contend is to tend against some one. Wherefore just as discord denotes a contrariety of wills, so contention signifies contrariety of speech.” (Q. 38 art. 1)

He says such contentiousness is mortally sinful. Is this the end of the story? Should all traditional blogs finally shut down under the weight of the argument that we can never express our misgivings in writing? Hardly. Aquinas goes on:

“Now contrariety of speech may be looked at in two ways: first with regard to the intention of the contentious party, secondly, with regard to the manner of contending. As to the intention, we must consider whether he contends against the truth, and then he is to be blamed, or against falsehood, and then he should be praised.” (ibid)

Contention cannot be understood in isolation from what is being contended against. If it is falsehood against which one is contending, it is not sinful; on the contrary, it is praiseworthy. Clearly in the case of Catholic bloggers, we contend not against truth but against error and cannot be charged with the sin of contentiousness. [I certainly like to think so. That has always been  my intent, not to point out error in order to be a gossip or hurt some individual but to, pray God, dissuade any souls who read my junk into avoiding the error that is pointed out.  There can certainly be a great deal of disagreement over whether revealing this error or castigating that priest/bishop is prudent, but differences of prudential opinion are generally not matters of sin among people of good will]

In the case of both discord and contention, Thomas notes that even if we do not sin in intention or content of our words or writings, we may sin in the manner or mode in which they are delivered; i..e, if our mode of delivery lacks charity. Agreed. I have always agreed to this, as do almost all Catholic bloggers I know. Of course, we have different opinions on what is charitable and where the line is. But we all agree that our opinions must be expressed in an attitude of charity, and that this charity is due even to those we find ourselves in vehement disagreement with. [And I will be the first to admit that there have probably been times when I have allowed myself to become exasperated and have, if not failed in charity, at least not been as charitable as I could be.  And that is why we have this glorious Sacrament called Confession, not because sin is something to be toyed with or, God forbid, reveled in, but because we are all human and all make mistakes.  The effort is to try to make those failures more and more rare.]

So, like other variants of the “you bloggers should just knock it off because you are wounding unity” argument, this one from Thomas’ definitions of discord and contention fails as well. It fails because it does not allow for Aquinas’ distinctions between active and passive discord or whether the blogger contends for truth or falsehood. The failure to make necessary distinctions is a common modern pitfall.

———–End Quote————-

Absolutely.  I could not agree more.  Please go by Boniface’s site and read the rest of this very edifying post.

Look, folks, times of trial tend to make for disunity.  They tend to magnify what would be in normal times very small differences of opinion into what seem like mighty gulfs when faithful souls are under duress.  To some degree this can be good and clarifying, but it can also be very painful and even destructive. It all depends on how we react to the differences that arise.

Of late there have been many accusations tossed about regarding “traditional” blogs, whatever that means to you or the next person.  Some people might find CatholicCulture a wacked out traddy blog, while another might find Catholic Family News too “liberal.”  I’m not here to discuss the various merits of this news outlet or that blog, but instead to point out that so much of this is profoundly personal and subjective.  I should probably be the last one to say this, because I favor Church-related matters to be as clear-cut and neatly defined as possible, but there is a lot of room for disagreement among faithful souls and that disagreement does not need to make us deadly enemies.

I have observed a tendency among those drawn to the traditional practice of the Faith……and this includes even very well formed priests………..to so crave precise formulations and clear cut guidelines that they have a tendency to make the prudential into the dogmatic.  They may find some Saint to quote to bolster their position that matter X is really a grave matter and you have to hold opinion Y, but statements of individual Saints, even great Saints I love like Aquinas and Liguori, are not dogmatic. They just aren’t, no individual Saint is endowed with that kind of infallibility, even if they can, of course, repeat dogmatic beliefs left and right.  I love Saint Alphonsus but he makes some claims that are not dogmatic, such as his claim that devotion to the Blessed Mother is morally necessary for salvation. I dearly love the writings of Saint Alphonsus and I think a very strong argument can be built on this claim (and I share it), but that doesn’t make his claim dogmatic!  As great as Liguori, or even some individual pope, is, it doesn’t mean that if someone holds a different opinion they are a sinner or somehow outside full communion.

I get the desire to be able to categorize every behavior we don’t approve of as a sin, but that’s just not always the case.  It sure is a powerful argument and sort of the ultimate trump card in Catholic circles, to call someone out as a sinner, but I fear it is probably unproductive and perhaps a bit spiritually dangerous to the accuser.  And I understand that, for some, this tendency to make the prudential into the dogmatic may be a natural reaction to the chaos of modernism which surrounds us, but it remains a fallacy to do so.

This is not an “let us all get along” post.  We do need very strong and effective critiques of the modernist cabal running the show in the Church.  Ignoring them and pretending everything is just wonderful plays into their hands.  We may even have to point out problematic statements or actions from the pope.  So perhaps it would be better for those critiquing conservative/faithful/orthodox/traditional blogs to direct their fire at the modernists actually driving the Church into the ground rather than engage in the age-old past time of shooting the messenger. Sure, the latter is safer and easier, but it won’t stop souls from falling into hell like snowflakes.