Why I am not a Roman Catholic

Earlier in the year my friend Brad Littlejohn wrote an article for his blog titled ‘Why I Won’t Convert’, outlining his continued commitment to Protestantism. Now it’s my turn. Having used my previous post to reaffirm my commitment to Calvinism (kind of), I wanted to use the present post as an opportunity to explain why I am not a Roman Catholic.

First the qualifications. Keep in mind that I am still in the process of learning about Roman Catholicism and I do not claim any expert knowledge. I cannot even guarantee that what I will say is not tinctured with protestant caricatures or inadvertent uncharities. I am hoping my Roman Catholic brothers and sisters will enlighten me on any factual mistakes in what follows. 

The purpose of this post is not to claim any special authority on Roman Catholicism, but simply to explain from a personal point of view why I have not chosen to convert. What follows is not written out of any sense of antagonism towards Roman Catholics. Rather, it was written after feeling pressure from a traditionalist Roman Catholic brother that I should convert to Rome. (No problem there: if someone believes that RC is the true church, they should want to convert me out of love. But equally, it only seems fair I should respond by explaining the reasons I have chosen not to convert.)

Finally, although I will be critical of Roman Catholicism, this should not be taken as overshadowing my strong commitment to ecumenism that I have articulated elsewhere (see my article, ‘Sola Fide: The Great Ecumenical Doctrine’) nor my belief that Roman Catholics are Christians.

One of the primary reasons I have not converted to Rome is because Rome does not seem to be Catholic enough. Consider just three areas where Protestants normally find fault with Rome: (A) Rome’s sacramentalism; (B) Rome’s claims to universality; (C) Rome’s concept of authoritative traditions or the magisterium.

Now these three areas are indeed problems, but not because Rome puts too much emphasis on these things, as Protestants often erroneously claim, but too less. The real reason Rome’s sacramentalism is a problem is not because she is too sacramental, but because she is not sacramental enough. The real reason that Rome’s claim to universality is a problem is not because she claims universality but because she isn’t universal enough. The real reason that Rome’s concept of an authoritative tradition is a problem is because her traditions are not authoritative enough. Let's take each of these in turn.

Rome Trivializes the Sacraments

In practice, Rome seems to minimize the importance of the sacraments. Think of the way the blessed Eucharist was functionally devalued in medieval Europe within a system that was prepared to deny wine to the laity and restrict even the bread to annual services.

Or again, consider the way Rome trivializes the Eucharist by allowing those who support abortion and even homosexuality to have access to Christ’s body and blood merely because they are Roman Catholics. Such people would be quickly excommunicated in conservative Protestant churches and in the early church (see Paul’s correspondence with the Corinthians) and yet are allowed full table privileges in Rome. The patience and slowness of the Roman Catholic church on these matters is an innovation compared to the early church.

Rome is to be applauded for her high view of the Eucharist, but we do right to protest against her for not holding a higher view.

Rome Isn’t Catholic Enough

Rome is right to emphasize the importance of the church’s visible unity and catholicity, and Protestants have much to learn from catholic teaching in this area. Yet when Rome excommunicated many eastern patriarchs in the 11th century and continues to be incredibly slow about pursuing institutional unity with the Eastern Orthodox church since they do not accept the supremacy of the Roman pontiff (though there is some hope things may change during the present millennium), one has to wonder how deep her commitment to visible unity really runs. (The Eastern Orthodox churches came back in union with Rome in 1096, which lasted until 1204 when the horrendous behaviour of the crusaders destroyed all hope of unity. During the 15th century in Florence the Roman Catholic church held a council which decreed the necessity of being in submission to the Roman pontiff, and the patriarchs of the East accepted this while Rome in turn recognized the legitimacy of the Eastern Patriarchs. However, when the Patriarchs when back to the East their people rejected what had been decided and replaced the Patriarchs with bishops who did not accept the primacy of Rome. Even so, to this day Rome accepts the legitimacy of the Eastern Orthodox churches in a qualified sense and allows them to participate in the blessed Eucharist, though the same does not apply the other way round: according to a series of decrees, EO’s can officially have communion in RC churches but RC’s cannot officially have communion in EO churches.)

What then of Rome’s attitude towards Protestants? Even when Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism acknowledged that some Protestants are “members of Christ’s body” (3.20), part of “Christian communions,” (1) and “justified by faith,” (3.20), Rome still didn’t have the guts to officially retract her earlier sectarian statements to the contrary. Does Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism mean that Pius XII Mystici Corporis Christi is no longer accurate, specifically when it gave submission to the Roman hierarchy as one of the four conditions to church membership? Similarly, since the Anathemas of the Council of Trent and Pope Pius IX's ‘Syllabus of Errors’ still officially stand (both of which gathered together in one spot teaching that was already part of the magisterium), both Protestants as well as Roman Catholics have been struggling to understand just how serious Rome’s claims to catholicity are in the post-Vatican II world.

So while I applaud Rome for holding a high view of catholicity, I think we do right to protest against her for not holding a higher view.

Rome’s lack of catholicity leads to a misunderstanding of the sacraments. Even though the Second Vatican Council’s ‘Decree on Ecumenism’ acknowledges Protestants to be “members of Christ’s body” (3.20), part of “Christian communions,” (1) “justified by faith,” (3.20) and that Protestants as Protestants have “access to the community of salvation,” (1.22) Protestants are still bared from participating in the blessed Eucharist with them, thus introducing an unchurchly division between the rite of baptism and the sacrament of holy communion. This is sometimes defended on the grounds that Protestants do not believe that the Eucharist is really the body and blood of Christ; however, most of the Protestants I know do accept that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ in some sense, and so it is difficult for me to take this argument very seriously.

Make no mistake, Rome does acknowledge the Trinitarian baptisms of Protestants to be valid, which is why Protestants who convert to these traditions do not have to be re-baptized. Yet despite the fact that Rome recognizes Protestant baptisms as being legitimate in a way that the baptisms of heretical sects (i.e., Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses) are not, such baptisms are still seen as being insufficient to establish Eucharistic fellowship. In light of Galatians 2 (which I discuss here), I wonder what would Paul say about a group of Christians who excluded from the Eucharist all other believers simply because they do not believe in doctrines like the immaculate conception or the assumption of Mary or papal infallibility – doctrines which I am quite certain Paul himself never heard of.

Rome Trivializes Tradition
  

Rome is to be applauded for her high view of tradition, but we do right to protest against her for not holding a higher view. Think of the way Vatican II rendered some of the Church’s past tradition meaningless by reinterpreting the meaning of past documents without recourse to authorial intent, rather like liberal judges routinely do with the American constitution. When a Protestant succumbs to the impulse of liberalism, all he has to do is to say that he no longer assents with his church’s historic confessions, whether it be the 39 Articles or the Westminster Confession of Faith. But when a Roman Catholic becomes liberal, he cannot reject the infallible magisterium and so he simply reinterprets it. Hence, a statement like Cyprian’s Extra ecclesiam nulla salus (“outside the church there is no salvation”) which was once used to exclude Protestants, is now interpreted in a way that includes Hindus (at least, according to some of the more liberal interpretations of Mystici Corporis Christi of 1943).

Such fluid hermeneutics are often defended by Newman’s ‘development of doctrine’ theory, though it leads one into cases of serious historical anachronisms. Consider, for example, the Declaration on Religious Freedom known as ‘Dignitatis Humanae’ (and which can be read on the Vatican’s website here). This document, which made its way into Vatican II, says that all nations have a right to public and private worship, thus contradicting (or ‘reinterpreting’ in good Roman Catholic form) Pope Leo XIII’s formal statements to the contrary.

Given this fluidity, I often find it very confusing trying to figure out just what the Roman Catholic church officially believes. I have tried to resolve this dilemma by speaking to Roman Catholic friends of mine, but it is not uncommon that I receive differing, even contradictory, answers. One person told me that if I am confused trying to navigate through all the contradictions and figure out what the Roman Catholic church officially teaches, I should consult the 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church. However, when the Catechism contradicted earlier documents, like it did when it’s statements on religious freedom contradicted Pope Leo XIII’s earlier authoritative statements, or when it incorporated into it Pope John Paul II’s private opinions on the death penalty even though such views were without precedent in earlier tradition, the Catechism becomes as much a part of the problem as the solution.

Paradoxically, by making church tradition equal to Holy Scripture, Rome ends up with a fluid concept of tradition that has the effect of devaluing the authority of tradition in practice. The problem is something that Protestantism avoids, since a Protestant who rejects his church’s past tradition can simply say he doesn’t believe the creeds anymore; however, because Roman Catholics are committed to an infallible church, they do not have that luxury and must content themselves with reinterpreting the meaning of past statements under the banner of 'development.' For Rome, therefore, everything is up for grabs because the interpretation of all authoritative documents is in a constant state of flux.

Rome is to be applauded for her high view of tradition, but we do right to protest against her for not holding a higher view.

Too Catholic to Convert to Rome
 

Given the above, one reason I have not converted to Roman Catholicism is because Rome does not go far enough in the areas she claims to affirm. This may sound trite, but I believe that as a Protestant I can do a better job at being 'catholic' than Roman Catholics themselves. As a Protestant, I believe I can trump Roman Catholics at their own game.  As Peter Leithart wrote in the Foreword to Brad Littlejohn’s book The Mercersburg Theology and the Quest for Reformed Catholicity:

I teach my theology students to be ‘because of’ theologians rather than “in spite of” theologians. God is immanent not in spite of His transcendence, but because of His transcendence. The Son became man not in spite of His sovereign Lordship, but because He is Lord, as the most dramatic expression of His absolute sovereignty. Creation does not contradict God’s nature, but expresses it.

So too with Protestant Catholicism: Protestants must learn to be catholic because they are Protestants, and vice versa.

Apostolic Succession Isn’t That Important
 

What about Rome’s claims to have apostolic succession? Isn’t that a reason to convert? I have numerous questions about apostolic succession that would need to be satisfactorily addressed before I would be convinced that apostolic succession is even in Rome’s favour. However, even if Rome is correct about this, why does it really matter since the Vatican now acknowledges that Protestants, while being outside the chain of apostolic succession, are still fellow Christian “brothers” (albeit “separated brethren”), “members of Christ’s body”, part of “Christian communions” with “access to the community of salvation” and “justified by faith”? Or again: “The children who are born into these [Protestant] Communities and who grow up believing in Christ cannot be accused of the sin involved in the separation, and the Catholic Church embraces upon them as brothers, with respect and affection.” Or again, “For men who believe in Christ and have been truly baptized are in communion with the Catholic Church even though this communion is imperfect. …even in spite of [the barriers] it remains true that all who have been justified by faith in Baptism are members of Christ's body, and have a right to be called Christian, and so are correctly accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church.” If I can have all that as a Protestant by virtue of my Trinitarian baptism (and Vatican II says I can), then why does it matter if my baptism was not performed by someone standing in the link of apostolic succession?

 

But I am not even convinced that apostolic succession even matters, given some of the questions I have raised about it elsewhere.

The Traditionalist's Come-back

Many Traditionalist Catholics have varying degrees of opposition to Vatican II. The traditionalists will be immune to much of the above critique. Many traditionalist Roman Catholics concede that Vatican II could possibly have erroneous statements in it, especially the more generous statements about Protestants contained in the Second Vatican Council’s ‘Decree on Ecumenism.’ Indeed, according to the Traditionalist's more consistent model of Catholicism, Protestants like myself are on a one-way street to hell. The hyper-traditionalist still takes as normative such statements as the following without reinterpreting their meaning in light of Vatican II:

• Pope Pius IX (A.D. 1846 – 1878): “It must be held by faith that outside the Apostolic Roman Church, no one can be saved; that this is the only ark of salvation; that he who shall not have entered therein will perish in the flood.” (Denzinger 1647)
  
  
• Pope Saint Pius X (A.D. 1903 – 1914): “It is our duty to recall to everyone great and small, as the Holy Pontiff Gregory did in ages past, the absolute necessity which is ours, to have recourse to this Church to effect our eternal salvation.” (Encyclical, Jucunda Sane )
   
• Pope Boniface VIII in his Papal Bull Unam Sanctam (A.D. 1302): “We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”
  

One traditionalist catholic quoted the above to me with a number of other citations and said that as a Protestant I should quake in my boots while reading them. If Vatican II makes me feel warm and fuzzy, these quotes make me scared, or should do according to what my traditionalist friend said in an email. (Though thanks to the doctrine of ‘invincible ignorance’, the force of such statements is somewhat mitigated.) In particularly, I should quake in my boots when reading UnamSanctam, Cantate Domino, and Innocent III at the Fourth Lateran Council since these are the three that enjoy infallibility.

The traditionalist Roman Catholic will point out that because Vatican II was merely a pastoral council and did not officially decree any new doctrines, the statements made by the above Popes still stand and should not be reinterpreted in light of the more fluid doctrines of 'subsistence', although such statements as the above do need to be seen in light of all eight documents about salvation, some of which allow the salvation of Protestants who suffer from ‘invincible ignorance.’ While this certainly navigates around many of the problems mentioned above, it creates a new network of difficulties.

Traditionalist Catholicism is Viciously Circular

How does the traditionalist Roman Catholic who rejects Vatican II know that his position is correct? The traditionalist Roman Catholics I have talked to tend to answer this question by appealing to Holy Tradition, urging that the truth of statements such as those cited above can be verified with reference to Holy Tradition, which they define as being “what has always and everywhere been believed by all.”

In discussing Holy Tradition Roman Catholics, I have asked whether the Eastern Orthodox church is part of this Tradition. The answer I have received is that it is not because their rejection of the papacy precludes them from being included in the ‘all’ when we talk about “what has always and everywhere been believed by all.”

The circularity here should be immediately apparent. This view of Holy Tradition only works if we start by assuming a Roman riteria for what constitutes genuine tradition. The Eastern Orthodox portion of Christendom, to say nothing of many historic Protestants, would dispute that Pope Boniface VIII’s Papal Bull truly represents church tradition, not least because Eastern Orthodox and historic Protestants employ a different criteria for determining what constitutes Holy Tradition. Now, since the hyper-traditionalist’s criteria for determining what constitutes church tradition is largely dependent on a prior conviction concerning what Holy Tradition is, it is hard for their argument to get off the ground without collapsing into vicious circularity.

The inherent circularity becomes even more obvious when we reduce the Roman Catholic argument to the following premises:

1)    In order for a theological proposition to be true, it must conform to Holy Tradition.

2)    Holy Tradition is “what has always and everywhere been believed by all.”

3)  Because Eastern Orthodoxy rejects the pope’s primacy, as well as Vatican I and Vatican II, these aspects of EO theology are not part of Holy Tradition and therefore falls outside the ‘all’ of “what has always and everywhere been believed by all.”
 

Put the three premises together and what do you get? You get the following:

  
4)    Therefore, in order for a theological proposition to be true, it must conform to Holy Tradition, and in order for it to conform to Holy Tradition, it must be true.

Because this is so viciously circular, it proves that Holy Tradition cannot function as an external authority. Indeed, if we’re going to reason like this, one could prove anything. I could prove that abortion is ethical, that the devil should be worshiped, or that the world is flat!
  

Most Roman Catholics will try to escape from this obvious circularity by appealing to the church fathers. The problem with this approach will be elucidated shortly.

Traditionalist Catholicism is Radically Sectarian
  

Let’s assume the Traditionalist Catholic could overcome this problem of circularity. The problem still remains that the Traditionalist Catholic's ecclesiology is radically sectarian. If we accept that the papal statements cited above accurately reflect Holy Tradition, then we are left with a very sectarian notion of the church, since it questions the ecclesiological legitimacy not only of all Protestants, but the entire Eastern Orthodox portion of Christendom from the second millennium onwards (since they, like Protestants, are also not subject to the Roman Pontiff). This does not in itself prove traditionalist Catholicism wrong, but it is worth noting that it creates the same type of problems inherent in other sectarian models such as American Puritanism.

Consider, traditionalist Catholicism basically tells us that souls are in jeopardy who are not members of the right church. Those who make ecclesiological choices because of nuancing the Consensus Fidelium differently, and therefore dispute that Pope Boniface was doing anything other than talking out of his backside when he declared that submission to the Roman Pontiff is necessary to salvation, are in danger of hellfire; many ‘modernist’ Roman Catholics are in danger of going to hell because have vainly recognized the  of Vatican II to be part of the ongoing tradition; Protestants are in danger of going to hell because they have misunderstood what the tradition of the Patristics really taught. This can easily lead to an introspective crisis similar to that generated by Puritanism. Just as some American Puritans went mad worrying about whether they were among the elect (since they could never be sure if their conversion experiences had been genuine), so traditionalist Catholicism can cause people to go mad worrying about whether they have recognized the right tradition, because we can never be sure if we have. Even if we narrowed it down considerably to one of the ‘apostolic churches’, you would still have to choose between Roman Catholicism, Oriental Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy (saying nothing, of course, of the different sects within these broad groupings).

The traditionalist Catholic might give the rejoiner that it is not hard to recognize what is Holy Tradition, because there are levels of authority within the teaching of the catholic church ranging everywhere from the general teaching of the church fathers to infallible decrees. Moreover, he will assert, there are clearly defined criteria for determining which is which. The problem is that to accept such criteria as being genuine is already to presuppose (at least to some extent) the view of Holy Tradition for which the traditionalist catholic is arguing, thus causing his entire argument to collapse into a petitio principia fallacy.
 

Further Problems with Holy Tradition

 
But this is not the only problem with Holy Tradition. Appeals to Holy Tradition are also problematic because there is no consensus even among the most ancient traditions of Christendom (Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholicism and Oriental Christianity) for even identifying Holy Tradition. The traditionalist catholic compounds this problem by making the right identification of Holy tradition a potential salvation issue (assuming that responsible ecclesiological choices follow such identification). If this was correct that our standing before the judgement seat of God really did depend on being able to correctly recognize the church, then Patristic historians would have a better chance of salvation that those who (like myself) specialize in modern history. If it was correct, then we should mortgage our houses to study history; we should take drugs to keep ourselves awake so we have more time to master  the languages of the Patristics so that we don't have to read them in translation, thus increasing the statistical likelihood of being able to recognize which of four competing groups who claim to speak for Holy Tradition (Traditionalist Roman Catholics, non-Traditionalist Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Orientals) do in fact speak for church tradition.

Even just sticking with the church fathers, which the Traditionalist and non-Traditionalist Catholics appeal to, hardly gives us a clear idea of how to navigate the confusing waters of church tradition. I'll admit, when I read the church fathers, sometimes they seem to be saying things that sound very Catholic (for example, their views on the Eucharist) but at other times they make statements that sound very non-Catholic (for example, when they say things that sound like sola scriptura). At other times they say things that sound very Eastern Orthodox-ish, while they sometimes make statements that sound quite Protestant.

There is a deep irony to the fact that there are numerous different ways to interpret the church fathers, and a number of different lenses through which we can read them. In other words, it is reminiscent of the complaint that Protestant critics make about sola scriptura. And here's the rub: if the Bible is so confusing that the private individual cannot interpret it without reference to the church fathers, then why does the private individual suddenly become immune to this same problem when it comes to interpreting the church fathers? And if I'm able to interpret the church fathers on my own, and to use the intellectual judgements this generates to determine which contemporary ecclesial tradition has genuine apostolic authority, then why should I believe the Protestant critics who say I'm unable to do the same thing with the Bible? If they respond by saying that we do not interpret the church fathers on our own, but in the context of the ecclesial tradition, then this amounts to miserable circularity: we know which ecclesial tradition has genuine apostolic authority because of our reading the church fathers, and we know how to read the church fathers because of how a certain ecclesial tradition tells us to read them.

 

Maybe it’s not that complicated. Maybe the Ecumenical councils are our key to determining what constitutes Holy Tradition. If true, that severely limits the claims of Roman Catholicism (both Traditionalist and non-Traditionalist) since the ‘infallible’ decrees of Vatican I were not ecumenical (to say nothing of Vatican II which did not even claim infallibility).

One Roman Catholic friend told me that participation by the Eastern Orthodox churches cannot be a criteria for determining whether a council is truly ecumenical or not because “if the Pope has called it an ecumenical council, then it is.” However, since this is at variance with the criteria used by the early ecumenical councils, it can only work if one has started by already assuming one’s conclusion. But to assume one's conclusion is to reason in a circle.

Suffice to say, I am not planning on converting to Roman Catholicism.

Further Reading

Debate: Is Protestantism Heretical?


Why You Shouldn't Pray to Saints


Sola Fide: The Great Ecumenical Doctrine

Questions about Sola Scriptura

Sacred Times and Seasons Part II

Questions about Ecumenical Councils

A Critical Absence of the Divine: How a ‘Zero-Sum’ Theology Destroys Sacred Space

Are Calvinists Also Among the Gnostics?

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