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A Christmas Card from Mary
Does Contraception Minimize the Incidence of Abortion?
Secularism, Culture of Death Hothouse
What Religious Liberty?
The Incredible Ever-Expanding Dead End
Anti-Cure, Anti-Life
Whose Values in Education?
Toppling Dominos
Anti-Christians don't have to be Hypocrites but Many Volunteer
Intolerant Tolerance
The Emperor's Clothes or a Cheap Tuxedo
The Myth of Hitler's Pope, Part I
The Myth of Hitler's Pope, Part II
Embryonic Stem Cell Research Again
The Madness of Secularism
"Don't Impose Your Religion on Me"
Dictatorship of Relativism
Two Babies at Christmas
Living Will or Death Warrant?
Court Ordered Slow Motion Torture-Death Sentence
Men in Black
A Lot of Hot Air
The Culture War Battles
"Stay with us, Lord"
Secular-to-English Dictionary
Moral Guidance for Catholics in this Election
Christians Losing America
Stem Cell Wars
Catholic Pro-Abortion Politicians and Communion
Useful Idiots
Who Killed Jesus?
A Primer on Gay Marriage
Whose Side are You on?
Vouchers Revisited
Real and Fake Cloning Bans
Broken Compasses
No Room in the Inn
Killing Fields Revisited
Gay but not Merry
Adam and Steve?
The Battle for the Court
Victimless Crimes
More Salt, Please
The Next Big Fight
When Religion Becomes Evil
Virginity Making a Comeback?
You've Come a Long Way, Baby
The Incarnational Approach
The Many Meanings of ACLU
Things Your Media Never Told You
A Nasty Little Secret
Two Points of View on the Birth of Jesus
You Gotta Kill Them.  How Else Are They Going To Learn?
Perplexing Christmas Questions
How Do You See Christ Today?
Now that there is Another Ewe, will there be Another You?
What is Conscience Anyhow?
Divorce of Love and Life
What Counts as a Mass?
What is a Covenant?
I Wish I had Your Faith
Are there Too Many Decrees of Nullity?
Dutch Treats
Ecumenism
Going from Baby Doe to Granny Doe
Comments of Evangelium Vitae
The Exception Corrupts the Rule
Good Morality or Good Medicine
Generation-X'ers Smart in Every Way But One
A Matter of Good Breeding
Herod and Pontius Pilate at the Polls
Hitler's Pope or Righteous Gentile?
The Unknown God
What exactly is wrong with homosexuality?
Ideology Trumps Science, Reality, and Common Sense
What Exactly is an Indulgence?
Infallibility and Error in the Church
Pilate Asked, "What is Truth?"
The Truth about Families
New Killing Fields
Choice of Language and Language of Choice
A Lexicon for Our Day
Why are there so many bodies?
Marijuana, Medicine or Menace?
Medical Research and Ethics
Meditation
"You Taught me well, Mommie dearest"
Moral Fallout
Neutral on the Wrong Side
"These are the Nineties After All"
Many are Wed but Few are Married
"...Prepare him for additional obligations"
A Useful Lie
A Partridge in a Pear Tree
Religious Persecution in the U.S.?
What Makes a Person a Person?
The Point of a Point of View
Politically Correct, Morally Depraved
Population Controllers out of Control
Practical Dreamers
Social Progress through Immorality
Shall we Do Evil for Goodness Sake?
Reason and Faith
Resurrection Glory
Same Sex Marriages?
Pearl of Great Price
"I used to be schizophrenic, but we're all right now"
Sexual Morality Irrelevant in Judging Public Officials?
Undesirable Side Effects
Some News is Good News
SOSSLQ's, not POSSLQ's
Spoils of Splits
Why Attend Mass Every Sunday?
Is it All Right to Pull the Plug?
An Appeal for Intolerance
Topics Catechetical
A Voting Catechism
A Moral Guide to Voting
Vouchers: Has Their Time Come?
What Child is This?
What did they die of?
You are the Man
You may be a liberal if...
Get Rid of that Worthless Relative
Planned Un-Parenthood
Weighing Pro-Life Issues Prior to Voting

by Monsignor James C. Brunner

Faith Points

Truth, a correspondence between reality and the mind, has always been hard to find. There was a time when people looked to the magisterium or teaching authority of the Church for truth, but many do no longer. There are those who reject the magisterium because they dislike what they hear from it. Many dislike its teaching on contraception, abortion, pre-marital sex, permanence of marriage, capital punishment, euthanasia, acceptance of immigrants, etc. and have decided for themselves that truth does not lie within the Church. Many others who still look to the Church as guide are confused by what the massive disarray that exists within the Church among its supposed experts, priests and theologians. They reason that if the "experts" cannot agree among themselves, what chance have they to find truth? They will simply have to decide that for themselves as best they can. And often what they decide is directly contrary to the magisterium especially in areas such as contraception where they find the ambiguity of voices within the Church a decided convenience. After all when it comes to living out marriage they are the experts and not the celibate clergy.

And yet the bible calls the Church "the pillar and the foundation of truth." (I Tim. 3:15) In a multiplicity of texts Paul calls the Church the Body of Christ. It is inconceivable that the Body of the one who is also named the Word of the Father, the wisdom of God, the Truth who came to bear witness to the truth should be in error about the will of God. Jesus condemned those who refused to believe in the gospel and accept baptism. How could anyone be compelled to believe without a certainty that the Church speaks truly?

What would have been the point of Jesus’ giving his teaching if he made no provision for it to be transmitted untainted by error to all ages? The fact is he did make provision for its unpolluted transmission. He taught the truths of God with a visible body and a human tongue. He continues to teach in our day through a visible body and human tongues, those of the successors of his apostles. As the Father had sent him so Jesus sent the apostles. He gave them the same mission that he had. He promised to remain in them to the end of time and promised that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, would be in them forever reminding them of what he had said. He would guide the apostles and lead them to all truth. Basing itself on the Last Supper of promises of Jesus to send the Spirit as guide, the Church has always had the conviction that it possesses the Spirit of Truth. It showed this at the first Council of the Church in Jerusalem when it decided that Christians were not required the keep the Mosaic law to achieve salvation. In announcing the decision they said, "It is the decision of the holy Spirit and of us…." (Acts 15:28) They made the decision but they attributed it to the Holy Spirit. It is not enough to say that the Church reflects and echoes Jesus’ teaching accurately, but more a question of Jesus’ teaching us through his Church. "Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me." (Luke 10:16)

The Church must be infallible, as Jesus himself is infallible. Otherwise the Church would not be the pillar and the foundation of truth, Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit would be unfulfilled and the Body of Christ would contradict the Head. The Church instead of the being the guardian of the faith delivered once and for all to the saints would no longer be an instrument of salvation, but a source of error and contradiction of Christ’s truth. If the Church is not trustworthy in its official teaching it is not merely useless but harmful.

Persons interested in finding the truth will look to the Church and ask only who speaks the authentic mind of the Church and therefore the mind of Christ. The answer of the New Testament to that question is the leaders or shepherds of the Church. The original apostles and Paul united a shepherding and teaching mission. Paul charged the overseers at Ephesus with concern about purity of doctrine. The Pastoral Letters (I and II Timothy and Titus) combined the functions of leading and teaching. The duty of authentically interpreting the word of God whether oral or written is entrusted solely to the living magisterium of the Church, the bishops in communion with the successor of St. Peter, who exercise the duty in the name of Jesus Christ. This role may not be usurped by theologians or by the faithful. Thomas Aquinas, arguably the foremost theologian produced by the Church, advised the faithful: "In those matters which pertain to faith and morals no one may be excused should be follow the erroneous opinions of some magister (master, teacher)…. One should consult the rule of faith, perceivable in the clear passages of scripture and the authority of the Church."

In our day not many leave the Church because of difficulty with the creed but because of difficulty with the commandments. A crisis in moral observance by members of the Church has led to a crisis of authority within the Church. This is not surprising. Jesus said, "People preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil." (John 3:19) Pilate asked, "What is truth?" and ended by crucifying it. For those interested in the truth it can still be found in the Body of Christ, Truth itself. The truth may be difficult to bear but it is best to accept the truth because it is the truth that makes you free. Catholics looking for true freedom and not enslavement by passions will take as their attitude toward the authentic teaching of the magisterium of the Church, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening." (I Sam. 3:9)