This week, I was called upon to exercise my civic duty and present myself at the federal court for jury selection. While I was there, a woman said what many seemed to feel: “Democracy is about choice. I should get to choose if I want to be called for jury duty or not.” Now, I grumbled with all the rest about being expected to wake up early, drive downtown, and leave my life behind to sit all day in a court room. Her words, however, did not sit right with me. I know enough about the foundation of our country to realize that this kind of “democracy” was a far cry from what the founders had in mind. I also know enough about our culture to know how innocuous, and even commendable they sound to ears accustomed to modern American rhetoric. Americans have become obsessed with choice, and anything that requires the submission of the will to another is viewed with suspicion and even disgust.
We have come to the point in American culture where the ability to choose, regardless of the effect on our own or others physical, spiritual, and emotional health, is seen as a sacred right. How often we hear “just do it,” “it’s my choice,” “do what makes you happy,” “march to the beat of your own drum,” and other such platitudes? Even soda machines trumpet 140 flavor options. But a glut of options does not guarantee happiness or health. They may simply be 140 ways to fill your body with high fructose corn syrup and empty calories, for example. The love of choice extends into American religion as well. If one does not like the music, preaching, people, or doctrines at a particular church, they simply find a new one that speaks to them. The individual, the ultimate arbiter or, at least, interpreter of truth chooses the teachings that align with their own.
This fascination with choice is natural to the human condition. Even my three-year-old loves to list the choices of what he can have for breakfast or which movie he can watch. Free will is a gift from God, something that sets us apart from animals driven by instinct. Without free will, we are little more than pawns in a cosmic game. In fact, Catholicism celebrates our ability to choose to participate in our own salvation — to work with God. We make a choice to baptize our children and raise them in the faith, and they themselves choose again that faith at confirmation. Yet, choice in itself is not seen as a positive good, something to be pursued for its own sake.
When those who do love choice for choice’s sake come into contact with Catholicism, they simply cannot imagine what would possess someone to give up their autonomy of choice to the Church’s authority. The difference is particularly stark during the season of Lent. When the world says, “it’s my body,” the Church says “Fast, abstain, be chaste, and respect the temple of God.” When the world says, “It’s my time,” the Church says, “Attend mass when required, confess your sins often, give to the Church and the poor, and spend time each day in prayer.” The Church insists on helping her members get to heaven, by making good choices a requirement and labeling bad choices what they truly are — sins.
On matters of faith and morals, members of the Catholic Church cannot simply decide what to believe. Despite what so-called “cafeteria Catholics” feel, Catholics are not allowed to pick and choose from the doctrines of the Church. They cannot make the Church into a democracy that will change with times. The Catholic submits not only his soul and his body, but also his mind to the Church. It baffles outsiders that extremely intelligent people could forfeit their choice in this way. But those who accept the Church as the vehicle of God’s truth on Earth, guided by the Holy Spirit, and entrusted with the salvation of men, have already made their decision. As St. Peter said, “Lord, to whom else should we go? You have to words of eternal life.”
To those who belong to the cult of choice, Catholicism seems stuffy and stifling. The narrow road doesn’t attract many who want to go their own way. Yet, to those who have experienced the freedom of following Christ in His Church, the possibilities for loving and serving the Lord are as many and varied as the saints in Heaven. In sacrificing our ego, our desire to control our lives and decide our own right and wrong, we discover the joy of choosing Christ daily.
15 thoughts on “Catholicism Vs. The Cult of Choice”
“They cannot make the Church into a democracy that will change with times.”
I am reminded of Chesterton’s quip that “Those who marry the spirit of the age will find themselves widows in the next.” The problem which goes especially with Democracy is that people want the rights without wanting the responsibilities that go with them.
But JC, what if they had a change of heart and accepted responsibility,
would rights be still an issue ?
I’m not really sure what you are asking me here.
Another way to put it is how far may rights advance before
responsibility becomes too great ?
This is definitely a different question than what I initially thought you were asking. Good thing I asked for clarification. That aside:
It seems to me that the proper way to look at things is to note that we have certain duties, responsibilities, even obligations–to ourselves, to our families, to our community/society, to the Church, and above all to God. “Rights” as such should be largely be tied to enabling us to carry out these duties. I have the “right” to practice my religion, because I have a duty to worship God. I have a right to marriage, because I have a responsibility to procreate (meaning, to have and to raise children as good citizens of the community and subject of the heavenly kingdom). I have a “right” to free speech, because I have a responsibility to preach the Gospel to all men. In this framework–which is a paradigm shift from how most people have been taught to look at “rights” today–the question ceases to really be one of “how far can I press my rights?” Instead, the central question becomes, “what do I need as help in doing what is right, and to help others to do the same?” Hence Pope St. John Paul II’s statement that “Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.”
I like your answer. To clarify my previous post of
rights “being an issue” I will need to take your
second example and extend it to people who do
not choose to marry forthright or not at all. My
purpose is to show the other paradigm that goes
like this. I have the right to pursue healthy and honest, mutually consenting relations with an adult of my choosing.and my responsibility to them is to avoid deceit, harm and jeopardy. Francis’ appeal to cohabiting couples to normalize their relations without condemnation seems to satisfies your central question. The reason I bring this up is that at one time it was against the law to cohabit until becoming a right – but as you said in the beginning “without the responsibility.”. .. .
“ They cannot make the church a democracy that will change with the times.”
So, does this imply that Francis is reacting as if it is, regarding his entreat to
the 65% of cardinals who blanch at the idea of communion for the divorced,
or, is the Holy Spirit leading him and us into a new age ? Being a Jesuit, he
sees the Church as a unique vehicle to bring a world into the Catholic sphere.
He knows that completing its mission to explain the Gospel to a world that speaks in tongues and nuance means dispelling the notion it’s a private club for orthodox thinkers. He understands the remedy for the CC decline in cohesion is theological adjustment. This started with Vat II, when the Church formally hedged its claim to salvation using the sola Catholicism model, which in itself would be utterly rejected, unrecognized by the great Doctors of the Church who conceived that notion in the first place. It’s not about caving into secularism or watering down doctrine and tradition. Its about a holy church that will continue to refine its understanding of God and us in the millenniums to come.
I actually cringed reading your comment.
The last time that happened to me was when George Bush landed
on an aircraft carrier and declared victory in Iraq
If Catholics followed God’s plan for marriage before and after the ceremony, they would not divorce. Premarital relations, cohabitation, and insufficient engagement periods lend themselves to poor relationships and subsequent divorces. People end up being in a poor marriage, then divorce. Jesus said no one (with infidelity an exception) should divorce, because if you should remarry, you are committing adultery. The Church can not change something Jesus instituted.
Bill, the theme of Pope Francis’ Jubilee year is Mercy. The reason he is pushing this reform is the 21st century paradigm shift in how civilization views intimacy. I believe that Jesus’ words have been incorrectly interpreted by a Church that cannot change. In His day multiple wives and easy divorce by the man for a younger model was readily available and this is the abuse, the adultery that was being addressed. In closing, I refer you to the Israeli Best Film winner and Golden Globe nominee GETT: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem. It is about a woman’s attempt to divorce her husband in the religious courts run by Orthodox rabbis ( it is not
a civil matter in Israel ) and adjudicated on the presumption of
the husband’s prerogatives.
James, This is indelible:
The catechism on Divorce:
2382 The Lord Jesus insisted on the original intention of the Creator who willed that marriage be indissoluble.174 He abrogates the accommodations that had slipped into the old Law.175
Between
the baptized, “a ratified and consummated marriage cannot be dissolved
by any human power or for any reason other than death.”176
2383 The separation of spouses while maintaining the marriage bond can be legitimate in certain cases provided for by canon law.177
If civil divorce remains the only possible way of
ensuring certain legal rights, the care of the children, or the protection of inheritance, it can be tolerated and does not constitute amoral offense.
2384 Divorce is
a grave offense against the natural law. It claims to break the contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each othertill death. Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation, of which
sacramental marriage is the sign. Contracting a new union, even if it isrecognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery:
If a husband, separated from his wife,
approaches another woman, he is an adultererbecause he makes that woman
commit adultery, and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress, because she has drawn another’s husband to herself.178
2385 Divorce is immoral also because it
introduces disorder into the family and into society. This disorder brings grave harm to the deserted spouse, to children traumatized by the
separation of their parents and often torn between them, and because ofits contagious effect which makes it truly a plague on society.
2386
It can happen that one of the spouses is the innocent victim of a divorce decreed by civil law; this spouse therefore has not contravened the moral law. There is a considerable difference between a spouse who
has sincerely tried to be faithful to the sacrament of marriage and is unjustly abandoned, and one who through his own grave fault destroys a canonically valid marriage.179
Hooah! Hooah! Hooah!
nicely done
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