By way of introduction, let me say I am a recent convert. A lifelong seeker who found a profound answer in Catholicism, which is, a person cannot find Grace. God’s love, His providence and His grace are gifts; we as His children, we can only receive and accept the design of His creation. More precisely, as children in the twenty first century, we know and love God in His singularity, while we struggle with all our facets, our passages and often times the resulting duplicity.

There are times when the dogma of the Church or the passage from scripture didn’t ring true for me. At those moments, I asked myself what it is I don’t understand and looked deeper into my thinking before I declared a point of departure. Being a believer forces me to reconsider, study and contemplate looking for what is right in scripture and what runs parallel with my thinking. Many times, an explanation from a priest’s point of view, or an insightful homily is all it took to show me the wisdom of scripture and the wisdom of the Church. However, as a Catholic writer I give myself the latitude to begin the dialog, realizing my obligation is not to lead the reader away from the Church or into sinful behavior. Using this as my standard, there are many times when I do find a point of departure in the interpretation or point of view of other Catholic authors.

To his credit, Russell B. Connors in his book, Christian Morality said, “in my view”, as he described the meaning of CCC #2343, Laws of Growth. He went on the say, “We are called to be and to do the best we can—no more, no less.” For me, this statement is not only a point of departure, it is also troubling. On reading CCC#2343, I find clear direction that chastity has Laws of Growth which progress through stages. The CCC continues, a person builds himself through many free decisions, and so knows, loves and accomplishes moral good by stages of growth. Clearly, Laws of Growth encompasses moral good and moral good encompasses many other Christian virtues including, compassion, integrity, and kindness to name a few. Implying an individual could be his or her own judge as to what is the most one could do at any given time, in any given virtue, including chastity is not consistent with Catholic teaching. The standard is set by Christ Jesus, through His church, the magisterium and the CCC. A person’s accomplishments or limitations at any of the stages of growth does not affect the teachings or the authority of the Church.

The first century Christian could legitimately struggle with what to believe. In an effort to make a radical idea more understandable, many well intentioned clergy and scholars scuffled over the nature, meanings and teachings of Christ Jesus. Saint Thomas asked Jesus to help him with his unbelief as would many followers going forward. As practicing Catholics in the twenty first century, our dichotomy is not belief or unbelief, it is belief or disobedience. We have the magisterium and the Catechism giving clear direction. To imply an irregular relationship, adultery, genital contact outside of marriage or the idea of contraception being acceptable because it is the best we can do at the moment, denies the magisterium its authority in our lives, and more importantly we are putting ourselves ahead of Christ and the design of His creation. In all fairness to our psychological make up and our spiritual nature, we will certainly agree, everyone falls short in the eyes of Jesus. Given this inevitable situation, Jesus also provides a remedy which is glorious, for sure and for certain, that is confession. As the author suggests, it would be trite and unreasonable to think our confession would carry the burden, I’ll never do this or that again. However, confession does mandate, by its very definition, that we will go beyond our thinking and turn away from the direction which is leading us into harmful behavior. This ideal is a long way from subjectively accepting our current circumstances as the best we can do. Matthew Kelly proposes constant learning and the implementation of best practices. Joyce Meyer puts it this way, “I know I’m not where I should be, thank God I’m not where I used to be.” I believe these reflections of the CCC better capture the Laws of Growth rather than the presupposed disposition of an individual at a certain time.

So, is there a fatal flaw in our author’s thinking, or perhaps something not so nefarious? Could a study in hermeneutics be a simple solution? Isn’t there a presupposition at play here, something built into the language or depth of understanding which brings a certain bias to the forefront? It occurs to me both the CCC and the author’s point of view, points to the truth and for the betterment of the individual. The CCC from a principled and rigorous doctrine of spiritual understanding, and the author’s from a softer psychological frame of reference underscoring tolerance of a fragile psyche struggling for forgiveness in a difficult situation.  I find it very telling as the author describes the advice of a good pastor; we learn to refrain from judging others. Certainly, good advice considering our judgments would be mostly if not purely subjective. Saint Paul took it a step further, preaching one should not judge themselves. The conclusion I find is pretty straightforward, its never about us, our evaluations, our frames of reference or our calculated concoctions; it is about His timeless message, His guidance and His direction.