On assenting to the Church

On the question of how far one must one assent to the Church.

It has always been rather simple for me. Precisely because I am not an expert in the vastness of what encompasses our faith (as I’m sure none of us are), is one good reason why we must assent. At the very least passively should be the default.

On many occasions I've noticed the people (of the traditionalist flavor typically) that rehash this issue in what they term as false obedience seems to be entangled with the idea of how they view the Church and authority. Specifically in the need of always knowing who exactly is in the visible Church and who is not; particularly with clergy.

I like to think of assent to some of the lower levels of Church teaching as something rather practical in the real world. Say for example you are about to enter a restaurant and have concerns of COVID so you ask politely if they have taken any measures to make the place safe. The place isn't dirty or shiny necessarily but in your mind, you expected laboratory-style clean room and are a bit suspect but give assent anyway because quite frankly the task of knowing for certain is daunting. If in some rare chance you do get COVID after practical precautions were taken, then you may die, but chances are very low for the majority of people.

This correlates nicely in my opinion with how we assent to the lower level teachings of the Church; with the glaring difference being that if you do assent in Church teaching, you will not die. This part right here is often missed by some of my more Traditionalist leaning friends. We are held more accountable for obedience than we are understanding.

As a note, those who push this false obedience narrative open a can of worms because they themselves disagree with each other on when is proper to disobey. It quickly becomes a cancer that they cannot cure. No mechanism exists in such a scenario to cure it; and they know it.

Imagine your kids having that conversation? On when it is appropriate to disobey and creating entire theological points on that exact topic. It is not incomprehensible to imagine a situation where one can question or ask for clarification while still assenting to the Church.

See the different levels of teaching authority:

https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/most/getwork.cfm?worknum=4

 

 

 

On the Eucharist being Physical

The below is a more nuanced explanation of what occurs during the Eucharist: 

I'm going to attempt to explain the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist with a bit of hesitation. Some of this gets a bit abstract and unless you have a bit of training in aristotlean-thomistic philosophy can go over people's head but here goes for those interested.

This is only an attempt at explain what it is and not what relationship we should have with Him. For if Catholics are right, the type of relationship we should have..........should be obvious.

First off, it's important to clarify this first, there is no tangible test (weight, chemical composition or properties) that can detect a difference before and after the consecration (the act of turning it into body and blood). The only exception to this is Eucharistic miracles.

There is however a "material" change in the sense that what was once bread and wine ceases to be bread and wine. There is what the common mind thinks of as "physical" and "material," and then there is what a philosopher means by them. Both the matter and form of the bread and wine are no longer there in transubstantiation (once again, what you call communion); they are replaced with the matter and form of Christ. So it would not be proper to say wheat, carbon, and the entirety of what makes up bread and wine or anything of that sort is still there. The accidents, however, remain (the bread and wine). When the accidents disappear (whether through eating) the real presence ceases. What exactly happens after that is open to discussion and has never been settled by catholic thinkers.

By accident, we do not mean material parts. It’s a language limitation with the English. Modern men use physical and material interchangeably. By accidents we mean anything which exists only in something, and unable to exist outside of it. Like color or size, etc. You cannot have blue existing by itself, there must be something that is blue. And so on.

To expand further; Christ's proper place, as we all know is heaven. His body is physically present there. If He were to be physically present here with us, it would mean that all 6’-0” 175 lbs (just a guess) of Him taking up that space here on earth is right here and not in heaven. It does not quite work that way.

Rather, it means (as noted above) that the matter and form of bread become His body (but not physically in that He does not subsume the physical accidents of the bread nor does He move from heaven). Rather, His body and His body alone are made present by the force of the sacrament and, since they are necessarily joined to His Body, His soul, divinity, blood, etc is present with it. But not His accidents as those are separable.

I know this gets abstract, but I didn’t know how else to talk about it without getting philosophical.