Rome's Teaching Authority

If you'd have told me four years ago that someday I'd make the switch to Catholicism, I wouldn't have said you were crazy (because I've always had my share of Catholic sympathies) but I would have said that one major problem, a potential deal-breaker even, would've been the Magisterium.

What I have since come to believe though is that evangelical Christianity is mostly an attempt to recreate the Catholic church but almost always using different terminology and frequently without the instruments that make the Catholic church work.

A good example of that is one's own strengths and aptitudes. The Catholics call that "charism". The Protestants call it "spiritual gifts". Same essential concept; different names.

An even better example though is church discipline. If you cross the line at a Protestant church, if you do something you're simply not supposed to do, there are circumstances where you will eventually be called out on the carpet by the church's pastor or, more likely, one of his subordinates.

That's the ideal, at any rate, Lord knows I had a very different experience. But I digress.

However, and this is key, there's a limit to what the pastor will do. Oh sure, he might go so far as to disfellowship you from the congregation... which means you only need to find some other church and place membership there. Nothing that pastor does is especially binding.

The Catholic church, however, has a significantly higher amount of authority that it can bring to bear in such cases. And that's the crux of my entire argument here. The top-down management style of the Catholic church ensures that true oversight and discipline can take place when it's needed. The church is structured so that it can lead a parishioner back into a restored relationship. In the worst case scenario, there is ex-communication.

And that follows you.

The same basic thing can be said of the church's teaching authority. The Catholic church as an institution has had centuries to review and refine their interpretation of the Bible. Some of the finest, sharpest minds in human history, some of whom were Popes, have written commentaries for the church. From the time of the apostles going right up to today, the church has been there to guide the faithful in a true understanding of God's word.

Compare that to some guy who graduated from Bible college specializing in doctrines that didn't even exist a century ago.

As a Protestant, it was very hard to even consider these possibilities. And not because they're all that hard to accept but because they ran counter to everything I'd been taught my entire life. But think about it. Who has the more legitimate claim to truthful biblical interpetation: The group that has existed for 2,000 years or the movement that only came into existence a few centuries ago?

Apaprently we're supposed to believe that people didn't have proper understandings of baptism, communion, the nature of salvation or any number of other key Christian doctrines until a few busy-body rebels made a mess of doctrine just a few centuries ago. Think about the arrogance it takes to believe that.

The other issue though is that the Bible itself clearly gives the church a much higher degree of authority than Protestants usually accept. St. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 5 that Corinth's church should take some pretty freaking drastic measures to restore someone into proper fellowship. If the best the church can do is kicking someone off their membership roles, you can't really say they have very much binding authority.

But St. Paul instructs the Corinthian church to turn the guilty part over to Satan. He doesn't do that himself, you'll note. He instructs the church leadership in Corinth to do and he clearly believes it's possible for them to do.

Show me a Protestant church willing to take measures this drastic.

I mentioned charism/spiritual gifts before. One of mine has always been discernment. And so when I had to teach from 1 Corinthians 5 as a Southern Baptist, I was always struck by the authority that St. Paul wielded and also by the authority he expected the Corinthian leaders to wield as well. It just didn't fit with my evangelical sensibilities. I knew there was a conflict there but I didn't close the loop and consider that the Catholic church has claimed this authority from their inception.

Mea culpa.

All of this is to say that the Magisterium, far from being the divisive stumbling block I'd originally expected it to be, ended up being the easiest church teaching for me to accept. If what the church binds on Earth is bound in heaven and looses on Earth is loosed in heaven then the logical conclusion is (1) the church has absolute authority to teach and guide believers in the faith and (2) the church's pronouncements regarding faith and morals are infallible by virtue of the authority vested in them by our Lord.

This was all absurdly easy to convince myself of. Trust me, people, I've had bigger struggles over some of the doctrines pertaining to Mary than the Magisterium.

As to the Mary doctrines... More to follow.