The Catholic History "Nerd"

The Catholic History "Nerd"

I admit it, I love the Catholic faith and I am happily becoming a Catholic History Nerd. What I am discovering in my quest for Catholic nerd-dom is that I don’t have to be a theologian in order to explain or defend all aspects or doctrine of my faith. A lot of times, History has a way of speaking on the Church’s behalf, but only if we know in which direction to point our critics towards so they can go and see for themselves! If there is one thing that Catholics know by experience, it is the criticisms that the Church often faces. We hear it from all sides; the secular media, atheists, Protestants, the misinformed and the uninformed, even from academia. If you are anything like me, you’ve shrunk under the pressure of supposed facts or interpretations thrown at you because you just didn’t have an answer. I dare you to shrink no more fellow history lovers! Read on and dare to discover the Catholic faith from a new angle. There is much to discover and I am on my way to doing so, but for now here are my three favorites…

The Church Hierarchy Critic

The Pope and hierarchy of Bishops is one of the most often, if not the most often, criticized aspects of the Catholic Church. Both theology and history are on the side of the Church on this criticism, but let’s stick to the history side of things beginning with St Ignatius of Antioch. This beloved Saint was a direct disciple of the Apostle John who was head of the church in Antioch.(1) This being the case, he would have passed on what he was taught by the Beloved Apostle and we find evidence that he did just that as early as 110 AD; “His advocacy of a hierarchical structure of the church with emphasis on episcopal authority…are subjects that have generated much discussion(2) as he wrote about each of the local church’s being “led by a single bishop”(3) in one of his seven letters. He also wrote about the primacy of the Roman Church(3), which was initially led by Peter until his martyrdom, which is some of the basis for the Bishop of Rome’s primacy as successor to Peter. There is also early writing and evidence about the priests and deacons and their roles in the Church. This indicates a definite hierarchical structure that began with the primacy of Peter and continued through apostolic succession, which is yet another fact documented by St Clement as early as 95 AD.(4) This succession through the laying on of hands has continued through-out the Church’s two-thousand-year history with a Bishop of Rome always at the helm. Therefore, to argue against the need for the hierarchy of the Church is to argue against those who started it in the first place, which was the Apostles themselves.  

The Church Corruption Critic

In the wake of the recent sexual abuse crisis, we are still reeling and trying to heal as a Church. And while I am not at alltrying to downplay the horrible things done to the victims spanning a fifty-year period that we have all learned about recently, I’d like to echo what Bishop Robert Barron has pointed out in his recent Letter To A Suffering Church (2019)and that is;from Genesis 19 onward, scripture teaches us that sexual immorality has plagued fallen man and continues do so today. But besides sexual immorality, corruption in general has been a major criticism against the Church of the last two thousand years. But again, I say, one just needs to look at scripture to find that even in the time of St Paul, there have been disputes and questionable actions by supposed leaders (1 Cor 8, ), immoral behavior by those who had already been baptized (1 Cor 5), and even division about who had Apostolic authority over the Gentiles, Paul or someone else (Gal 1:11-25, Gal 2:1-10). We Catholics admit that the disputes and corrupt individual behavior didn’t end with what’s found in scripture; the bad apples in the history of the Catholic Church have given the critic ample ammunition. But, what they might not realize is that historically, there have always been those who called and fought for renewal within the Church, just as Paul and the other Epistle writers did. For example; Pope Gregory VII, who became Pope in April 1073, demanded faithfulness and condemned simony(5) upon all priests and bishops and Innocent III (Pope from 1198-1216) continued this reform and renewal in the thirteenth century with his approval of the mendicant orders of St Francis of Assisi and St Dominic.(6)  Other reformers followed, such as Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), and the Jesuits of the sixteenth century. If we learn from history, then this is a case that we should consider; that the Church is, and always has been, made of imperfect people. If everyone was perfect, we wouldn’t need a Church in the first place! The take away should be this; God will never allow evil immoral people to destroy his Church (Mt 16:18). Rather, he will call, sanctify, and make Saints out of those who stand in between the Holy Catholic Church and evil itself.  

The World War II Critic

To this day, there is harsh criticism for the Church’s decision to remain neutral during World War II. One such critic, Richard Bosvorth, wrote in one book review; “the Vatican proves more effective in giving sanctuary to paintings than to Jews.”(7) To some, this neutrality legitimized Hitler and the horrors committed by the Nazi party since the Pope chose not to take the side of the Allies. What needs to be understood is that the Popes who endured the Nazi and Mussolini regime were wise enough to know that the dictators would have had no issue in persecuting andexterminating Catholics had the Church outright and harshly condemned their actions to the entire world by choosing a side. Also, the accusation that the Church was totally silent is also inaccurate. In fact,there were German Bishops as early as 1930 who were condemning German nationalism, going so far as to refuse Holy Communion to Catholics who embraced Naziism.(8) Pope Pius XI also worked within the German Catholic Church to condemn Hitler’s racial superiority propaganda by having the encyclicalMit Brennender Sorge (With Burning Desire)secretly distributed in 1937 by an “army of motorcyclists”(9) to be read from the pulpit at mass before the Nazi’s could stop it or sensor it. This letter, among other things, condemned racial superiority. Pius the XII also wrote a condemnation in Summi Pontificatusin 1939 but the Nazi’s banned its publication.(10) Speaking against Hitler’s ideology did not stop with the Popes; an estimated two-thousand priests were put to death in Nazi Germany and another twenty-seven hundred in Poland for resisting the Nazi regime.(11) And finally, what most history books don’t tell you is that the Church saved up to an estimated 400,000(12) Jews by working underground to move them and hide them, sometimes within monasteries. The Pope’s decision to remain neutral in the eyes of the world did not mean that he and the Church did nothing. The diplomatic move by the Pope aided the Church’s ability to do this work since they were not under the microscope of suspicion by Hitler or Mussolini. 

Sources

(1)     John Vidmar, The Catholic Church Through The Ages, A History(New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2014),42.

(2)    St. Ignatius of Antioch, Britannica Academic, Encyclopedia Britannica, 5 Aug. 2019. academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/St-Ignatius-of-Antioch/42060. Accessed 13 Aug. 2019.

(3) John Vidmar, The Catholic Church Through The Ages, A History, 43.

(4) John Vidmar,The Catholic Church Through The Ages, A History, 42.

(5) Alan Schreck, The Compact History of the Catholic Church, 46.

(6)Alan Schreck, The Compact History of the Catholic Church, 55. 

(7) Van Dam, Herman, 2013, “Singled Out,” History Today63 (10): 66, at: search.ebscohost.com.

(8) John Vidmar, The Catholic Church Through The Ages, A History, 331. 

(8) John Vidmar, The Catholic Church Through The Ages, A History,339.

(10) John Vidmar, The Catholic Church Through The Ages, A History,340.

(11) John Vidmar, The Catholic Church Through The Ages, A History,342

(12) John Vidmar, The Catholic Church Through The Ages, A History,344.