What is Orthodoxy?

From the Sooner Catholic —December 3, 1995

One hears a lot of terminology today pertaining to where one is located on the Catholic map. One of these terms is orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is often incorrectly used interchangeably with “conservative,” “traditional,” or “right wing.” This usage is incorrect because these three terms are relative and indicate a position in reference to something else. But orthodoxy is not relative but specific and objective. It does not refer to something else, but is the thing itself. It is the mind of Christ. Christ said, “I am the way, the Truth and the life.” Orthodoxy is Christ, adherence to Christ, and acceptance of the Church’s discernment of Christ.

Condemnation of the Novus Ordo Mass, for example, is no more orthodox than the use of artificial birth control. Orthodoxy does not consist in running as fast and as far as possible in the opposite direction “those rotten liberals” are headed. I know of people, once considered orthodox, who now don’t even believe we have a valid pope. Most emphatically, this is not orthodoxy.

Christ Himself gave the Church, in the persons of the pope and the bishops teaching in union with him, the assurance of the Holy Spirit to protect them from all error in their discernment of Christ’s will in matters of faith and morals. Orthodoxy is the acceptance of this discernment in both the spirit and the letter. It is important to emphasize that the spirit and the letter of a doctrine or teaching need each other, and neither stands without the other. Orthodoxy keeps both in balance. The spirit of all Catholic teaching is love, but love without reference to the truth of the letter of the law quickly becomes mush. On the other hand, the letter of the law interpreted or applied without love can easily become legalistic rigorism.

Anyone familiar with World War II movies can recognize the scene where two sailors take a cigarette break and comment on their new commanding officer who has just been assigned to their ship. “Ah!” one of them says, “He’s by the book! By the book all the way!” and they both grimace in the grousing disgust of enlisted men on a cigarette break complaining about their officers.

But we should not be quick to dismiss Church leaders as an ecclesistical version of these stiff old skippers. To be orthodox in belief and practice is not to be at one end of a spectrum but to be in the heart of the Church. Orthodoxy is not a “viewpoint” or one opinion among others, it is the Truth. It is not to the left or to the right but at the heart — where Christ is. Christ — the still point in a turning world, as T.S. Eliot said.

I met a young man once who told me quite seriously that he thought God was wrong on a given point. It was very hard to argue with him because he could not be persuaded that he was not the basic premise of the universe, the fixed point, the main criteria by which all reality was evaluated. It was very clear to him. If God disagreed with him, God must be wrong. I soon realized that this young man was not healthy. Certainly thinking yourself right and God wrong is one fast track to insanity.

This confused subjectivism may explain the condition of our world today, not to mention confusion in the Church. But let’s extend this young man’s dilemma. Catholics believe the Father revealed Himself in Jesus, and Jesus selected twelve men and gave them His authority on earth making Peter their leader. Jesus ordained them to a specific task and gave them special supernatural powers, such as the power to forgive sin—the power to perform what we know today as the sacraments.

He also promised them the Holy Spirit to guide them in all things and to remind them and help them understand what Jesus said and did. This is an astonishing gift. The gift of the Peterine Charism of infallibility, and of the Magisterium — the guaranteed divine protection from all error in matters of faith and morals.

No matter how many corrupt, sinful, bishops and popes we can point to down through history, it is striking to notice that they never laid a finger on doctrine. It is plausible, too, that in our time we may well have perhaps the least corrupt hierarchy since apostolic times. How can I say that? Very simple. In today’s secular climate, where media scrutiny follows anyone in authority, and is especially on the lookout for clerical scandal, how could a corrupt bishop or pope ever survive such scrutiny? If bishops today, especially American bishops, have a major weakness, it probably lies in being too tolerant when it comes to protecting the faithful from error. This is often a reaction to the dissenting factions of the Church and their almost non-stop rhetoric accusing Church leaders of authoritarianism — an unjustified charge. I have never met a bishop or cardinal who wasn’t very human—extremely kind and caring for his people—sometimes to a fault—it is often their kindness that makes them so vulnerable to hurtful accusations of authoritarianism. There is no such thing as the “Institutional Church.” There are just people trying to serve the Lord faithfully in the offices God has placed them in.

Anyway, Catholics have this great gift of hierarchy from God—this protection from all error when speaking authoritatively in matters of faith and morals. God did this. He sent Jesus, who commissioned the Apostles, and sent the Holy Spirit, for the sole explicit purpose of helping us to find our way safely through this life and home to Heaven. God did this. It is not man-made. (If it were it wouldn’t have lasted 2,000 years.)

So if we, conditioned by our permissive, short-sighted, instant-gatification culture declare our “disagreement with the Church,” we must be very careful. The Church’s authority is a gift to us from a gracious God who loves us more than we can possibly imagine. Are we declaring ourselves right, and God wrong? There is no shortage of experts who will rush in with a shell game of nuances, but, essentially, isn’t that what we are doing? Are we avoiding conversion? Conversion is what it’s all about—not getting our way but giving God His way in our lives. Conversion is the process during which we recognize that it is we who must to conform to God, not He to us. We do not look to the Church to ratify how we think things should be, but rather we look to the Church to teach us the way things are in the vision of God. In conversion we see it is we not God, not the Church, who must change, and this life-long process is the road to Heaven.

John Mallon is contributing editor to Inside the Vatican magazine and an editorial consultant and contributor to The Daily Oklahoman editorial page. Read more about John here!