Labels and Analogies When Discussing the Faith

An exploration of valuable and harmful language

So last week my sister wrote an article titled, Amidst the Storm of Confusion, that served as a warning to all Catholics that if we are not grounded in our faith in the Church we can be rocked by turbulent times and find ourselves separated from the Church. The analogy she used likened Christians being separated from the Church to passengers on a ship being thrown overboard by turmoil. Now I’m going to let all of you into my head and take this analogy to a whole other level. But, before that I wanted to address a comment we had on the last article from S.D. Wright.

The gist of S.D. Wright’s comment was that the usage of the label radical traditionalist or rad trad was uncharitable and possibly even unjust. I believe that the comment could be intended to more broadly apply to use of any labels, and I’ll continue under that possibility. Is there validity to this objection? First, I want to acknowledge that it is absolutely possible to misuse and abuse labels and language. In fact, it has become all too common for incredibly inflammatory labels such as Nazi and insults such as racist against individuals who clearly don’t fit the mold. This along with a direct warning from Our Lord that we will be judged by every word we utter act as very sound advice. However, I want to ask, “What is a label?” It seems to me that a label, at its core is nothing different than a word. Let me explain. I am contemplating an object with a solid bottom surface with walls rising from that solid bottom around the entire perimeter with an opening at the top of the object. The object is most often used to hold liquids from which you drink the liquid. What object did I describe?

Did you say a cup? If so, you would be correct. However, what type of cup were you thinking of? Did you have your morning coffee cup in mind? Hard, ceramic, white, with a curved handle and the message “BEST MOM” emblazoned on the side? Or was it a small, blue and white, plastic, sippy cup with a lid for your young child? Nothing in my description of the mysterious object would have excluded your picturing of either cup, but drinking liquids from the vessel is more in-line with cupness than bowlness making bowl a less appropriate answer. This little exercise is intended to demonstrate that the label cup is able to remove a vast number of objects from your mind while still allowing for a whole host of particular cups to come to mind. In other words, it casts a pretty wide net and requires me to provide greater detail for me to expect a listener/reader to narrow in on type of cup I’m considering if that is my goal. However, if I’m fine with you thinking of any old cup, then I don’t need any further clarification.

At this point, you might be thinking, “Where is he going with this?” Well, when my sister used the term radical traditionalist and then fundamentalist in her article, she provided a definition or sorts that explained how she was going to be using the terms that could possible differ from other common uses. She emphasized that the defining characteristic of people given this label, as she was using it, were individuals that prohibited what the Church allows. If you prefer a different use of the term, you can 1) dispute whether her use is appropriate at all (maybe because it is a radical departure from how the label has ever been used) or 2) temporarily accept her usage and continue to read her message accordingly. What you shouldn’t do, but I find all too common in today’s discourse is for an individual to continue to read someone’s text but continually apply a different usage of the term from what the author or speaker is using. Some examples of terms getting this abuse would include racist, bigot, and even Catholic. To say that Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi is Catholic is both true and false depending upon what I mean. Both were baptized in the Catholic Church receiving an indelible mark on their soul forever tying them to the Catholic Church founded by Christ. However, neither individual’s behavior and opinions align with very significant teachings of the Church with the teaching on abortion being the most prominent. And to be a Catholic is to be an individual that submits to the authority and teaching of the Catholic Church. I would submit that this additional detail is included in the most common usages of saying that someone is a Catholic. We are trying to identify faithful adherents not any baptized believer regardless of their current practice.

To wrap up this section, if you didn’t like my sister’s use of radical traditionalist or fundamentalist, please describe why it was an inappropriate usage in the comments of either that post or this one but accept her definition within the text of her article and know that she isn’t referring to anyone that likes the TLM or is in favor of faithful adherents to centuries old teachings of the Church.

Now, I want to turn to her analogy. The ship that we are all riding on is the barque of St. Peter, the Church. Falling off the left was to believe in progressive heresies. Falling off the right was to believe in fundamentalist heresies. I believe her analogy works well, but I want to expand it with much greater detail in the hope of bringing a greater understanding of the danger present for Catholics in the Church today. In my expansion, the ship will remain The Church carrying us on the rough waters of modern society. Everyone on the ship is a member of the Body of Christ. As long as you are on the ship, you are good!

Your position on the deck of the ship represents the “type” of Catholic you are. Do you prefer more praise and worship music at your Sunday service? That probably puts you more on the left side of deck whereas the organ and Gregorian chant lovers can be found on the right side. How about your stance on appropriate attire to wear to Church? Do you put on your 3-piece suit every Sunday morning and put a clip-on bowtie on your 4-year-old son while your wife and 4 girls all veil or is Patrick Mahomes jersey displayed so prominently from the middle of your pew that you may as well prophesize that God has destined the Chiefs’ three-peat this season or maybe somewhere in between? The Sunday-best right side is objectively more well-dressed than the come-as-you-are left side, but, once again, everyone is on the boat. Now what if someone on the right side shouted out that, “The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives chant and the organ pride of place for the worship service, and we should dress in such a way that signifies reverence to the Lord.” He would be right that the Church does say these things and should be taken seriously by the faithful. But what if he added, “That hippie music and secular dress violates the commandment of keeping the Sabbath holy.” He has gone too far and accusing an individual of sin when the Church has permitted these things as acceptable practice. However, he isn’t done. The gentleman dressed to the nines finishes with, “No real Catholic can attend a Mass featuring a banjo.” There he goes, right over the right side of the ship. Our radical traditionalist has just committed the sin of schism by separating himself from a member of the Body worshipping in a more modern but still valid way. The same exact process could occur with a Progressive Catholic on a different topic. You cannot say that people who are on the deck, i.e. holding to Catholic teaching and practice, are not actually Catholics lest you be thrown off yourself.

Now, I want to move away from properly identifying what somebody is and towards the realities of what people are doing on the deck of this ship. One group that my sister labeled was the progressive Catholics. She said that these individuals/groups are in favor of practices, beliefs, or behaviors contrary to official Church teaching. I see this happening in a number of ways. First, individuals will talk about a settled issue in the Church’s teaching as if it were still open for discussion and could possibly change one day. The ordination of females into the clergy is one of these topics. I liken this to someone standing on the left edge of the ship and telling individuals that given enough time the deck could be expanded out past the edge of the hull. Second, individuals will undermine or contradict what the actual Church teaching is. This might take the form of equating the protecting of the unborn from the violence of abortion to the providing of free child healthcare or green energy policies. They take the most direct attack against the life of an individual and act as if that is of the same moral consideration as quality-of-life issues. This is a false dichotomy and failure to recognize a hierarchy of good and evil. I liken this to someone who is removing or weakening the railing at the edge of the deck. It prevents the safeguard designed to keep us within orthodoxy and jeopardizes the safety of someone thrown up against the railing. Third, individuals blatantly flaunt ideas the Church declares to be clearly sinful. I see this on issue of same-sex relationships. False teachers will just dismiss the seriousness of the sinful nature of actions and behavior and encourage people to commit grave sins. This, of course, is the equivalent of shouting for people to just go diving off into the rough waters.

Meanwhile, the leader on the right side of the boat is seeing these poor leaders on the left and finds himself backing away with all of his followers not realizing they all may fall off the opposite railing. They might just be separating themselves from the people who are not committing these errors but just are more comfortable on the left side of the deck as I mentioned earlier, or they might begin to question whether this is the right boat to be on anymore. They might believe the captain has failed to maintain control of his crew or passengers or ship, and they would be better off getting on a lifeboat and rowing to look for another ship. People who question the validity of Pope’s since the Second Vatican Council, sedevacantists, or the legitimacy of Pope Francis’s election, Benevacantists, or the Old Catholics that predate both groups when they separated themselves from the Catholic Church following the First Vatican Council. Each of these groups seemed to be too worried that the deck was bigger than what they were comfortable with that they decided to deny the ship that Jesus cast-off was the ship they were on.

Lastly, the captain of our ship is the Pope. We can see him at the helm, and he turns the wheel navigating us across the sea. However, the pope is not just a random passenger that we asked to take control all by himself. The Holy Spirit protects our captain. He prevents the captain from sinking the ship and ensures that guardrails on the deck aren’t in error. Alright, I’m pushing the analogy to its limits now. I hope that my flushing out of my sister’s analogy is helpful for thinking through the turbulent times we live in. In conclusion, I want to assure you that unlike the Titanic, the ship of the Catholic Church is unsinkable so stay on deck, hold on tight, and enjoy the ride.