The tyranny of time so limits what we can know and should know. By the choices we make, we control what seeps into our minds. Where we devote our time and energy ensures that so much out there will never reach us to be digested or to be understood. Our ignorance and our knowledge are demarcated by what we read, hear and focus on.
Cynthia Toolin, professor of dogmatic and moral theology at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Conn., writes a stern message to Roman Catholics in the March/April issue of Social Justice Review magazine, a 100-year-old magazine by the Catholic Central Verin Union of America. She titles it The Goal of Religious Education and complains that Catholics are amply provided strong opportunities to be indoctrinated and taught, but too many are being selective as to what they accept or they are absorbing theology from the non-Catholic culture.
A person cannot become a good Catholic without undergoing this learning process, Toolin insists, noting that the same is true for a Hindu, Muslim, Jew, Wiccan or anyone else. Within each tradition, a person must learn what it means to be a proper adherent of that religion. Unless one follows a rigorous learning experience, a follower is one in name only, she said. His life cannot be called a way of living as a Catholic. The intensity of a Catholic school education, for example, can meet that goal. As a result, the student should develop a truly Catholic world-view and moral stance, Toolin explains.
The complexity and vastness of Roman Catholicism teaching is daunting. So the chance that Catholics will fail to learn and retain the essentials seems high. Many Catholics are ignorant of, and misinformed about their own religion, she said. They often fail to understand the perpetual virginity of Mary, the mother of Jesus; or the existence of hell; or the infallibility of the pope or the right and duty of the Magisterium (the pope and bishops) to speak on moral issues. She notes how commonplace is the failure of some Catholics to not understand immaculate conception. It doesnt refer to Jesus conception as free of sin. It applies to Mary and holds that she was the one fully human being who was preserved from original sin because she is the mother of God.
Another issue Toolin raises is that other Catholics clearly understand what the churchteaches, but are not willing to accept her teachings. To some extent, this lack of acceptance is willful disobedience born of a desire for the church to be a democracy where the majority opinion rules. Thats a strong statement. It boldly suggests that what comes down from church hierarchy is not-to-be-challenged truth. And, it follows, if parishioners dont buy it, they are disobedient or poorly taught or indoctrinated. Or, additionally, their thinking has been diluted or permeated by outside doctrine what can only be described as a syncretistic mess.
Oh, really? Such an argument flies in the face of enlightened reasoning and the sovereignty of the human mind and conscience. It suggests Catholics best hope for a happy life is keeping wholly and narrowly immersed in all that is Catholic, thanks to the fact that God has blessed that church with his flawless teachings. Such top-down flow of knowledge and thought is inconsistent with the Western experience.
Toolin insists a Catholic be well-grounded in church teachings and the Catechism of the Catholic Church before the troublesome worlds stuff come challenging. Then, and only then, should the student be introduced, in an academic manner, to the other major world religions, she said. A vigorous presentation of other religions history, beliefs and practices can follow, along with a comparative examination of Catholicism vis-avis the others for their relative strengths and weaknesses. The professor ends the piece with what seems again like a Catholic elitist position: If this process is followed, the student should be able to evaluate these religions and see the range of the acceptance of truth among them, as well as to understand the inaccuracies, insufficiencies, deficiencies and errors present in them.
Do I interpret them to be all the examined religions, including Catholicism? Probably not, for that would infer inaccuracies, insufficiencies, deficiencies and errors present in them mean some might exist in the Church of Rome as well. No chance of that.
Certainly this church, which claims one in four Americans, is far from alone in claiming the corner on theological truth and flawless teaching. But such a position seems self-righteous in a religious marketplace where many other faiths can legitimately claim meeting universal tests of spiritual integrity, love of God, ministering to needs and placing value in the discerning power of the individual.
Many Catholics in the pews or out of which 20,000-30,000 a year are getting advanced degrees in their religion know more about their Faith than their pastors and surely more than the young programmed celibates coming out of the non-gay seminaries these days. “Believe it all or nothing as we tell you” does not work any more; it is not an immigrant uneductaed laity!