The recent election brought out the great divisions that exist in our country both within the Catholic Church and outside of the Church. It revealed that we as Americans have a bad habit of putting our politics before Christ and Holy Mother Church. It also revealed the widespread cafeteria Catholicism, which is a fancy term for relativism, that exists in the Church today. The Church is full of sinners. That's the point, we are all sick with sin and need her to guide us to Christ. The problem is that us being sinful has become an excuse for people to blatantly disregard Church teaching and still claim to be Catholics. God loves me, is a cliche and catch-phrase of this sub-culture within the Church. They forget that Christ ALWAYS said to go and sin no more. I am very sensitive to this type of thinking, because I spent my Twenties trapped in this lie and put my soul and the souls of the people around me at risk.
I realized throughout the past few months through my struggles with frustration, and at times sinful anger, at my fellow Catholics who argue in support of candidates who are pro-choice, pro-gay "marriage", euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research etc. where my anger comes from. These very same people are the ones, who because of their picking and choosing of Church doctrine, deeply hurt me at a time in my life when I needed desperately to see what authentic Catholicism looked like. I made some gravely sinful choices. While these people would argue that they did not agree with my choices, they themselves ignored and argued against Church teaching on things like contraception, the necessity of Confession, and papal infallibility. So, how did my immature faith and brain handle this contradiction? I thought what most people think, if I can question a few tenants then I can question them all. That is the whole idea behind relativistic thinking.
It is not that I am condemning these people. I sincerely pray for their conversion. My own conversion into fully accepting the Catholic Church, even though I was raised in the Church on some level, was wrought with mortal sin and pain (I hurt a lot of people). I keep seeing a sentiment within the Church that is false charity popping up. This idea that I have heard more than once that we should accept people's decisions, or recognize that some form of love exists within immoral relationships i.e. cohabiting, same sex, divorce. I don't doubt that these people deeply care for one another. I cared for the man before my husband a great deal, but if I had truly loved him then I would have willed the good for him and not put him in a state of mortal sin.
Our society wants everyone to be "happy" and has a false notion of what love really means. Our society focuses on the feeling and when that dissipates we discard people like garbage. Love is hard, it requires sacrifice, and it demands the good of another, not sentimentality or a false sense of compassion. Society may accept all manner of relationships, but the Church cannot do the same. We are deeply countercultural and God wants what is best for us, not what is socially acceptable. We do not abandon God's law and will in order to make people feel better about their sinful behavior. Do we all fall short? Absolutely, that is why Christ had to redeem us. God's ways are not ours and no matter how much we want to be like our society, it appears that is impossible. Our understanding of love, in its truest sense, to will the good of the other, as St. Thomas Aquinas put it, is not what our society believes in. That, however, is the Catholic view. God's view.
My point is this, we do no one any favors when we ignore their gravely sinful choices. Sure if it ever comes up in our relationships and we warn a person, a lot of people will choose sin. I did for quite a few years. We love people regardless of their choices, but we do not validate them out of a false sense of compassion. We ourselves must take care to live out Christ's call, guided by His Church. If we ignore Church teaching then we are not able to evangelize and help others. The hypocrisy will override any good we try to do. We never know when our example may deeply wound or help another person. We do not want to be an excuse for another person's sin. Thankfully, God led me to my husband, who genuinely desires to follow Christ. I am also deeply grateful for the Sacrament of Confession, which is available to all Catholics at any time. I am thankful for the deeply committed Catholic men and women who are in my life today We must show others that the way is hard, but it is worth everything we have to give. God bless.
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