Book Review: "Teaching with Authority" by Jimmy Akin

To say that we Catholics are living through confusing times will strike many as understatement. Over the past fifty years we have grown used to hearing the Church's faith, especially her moral teachings, disputed by her lay members; but today we encounter such statements from bishops conferences and cardinals. Pope Francis's habit of offering off-the-cuff remarks during homilies and interviews - remarks sometimes wanting in theological precision - have also led to confusion. Further, questions regarding his post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, have gone unanswered for more than two years.  

The majority of serious Catholics are familiar with Vatican I's criteria for recognizing ex cathedra pronouncments; but what about the Council's further teaching that Catholics are bound to believe "all those things" taught through the Church's "ordinary and universal magisterium," since they, too, are proposed infallibly (De Filius, 3)? When is the pope exercising his "ordinary magisterium," and what level of authority is attached to it? Many of today's arguments are heightened by disputes regarding what level of authority must be accorded to various papal and ecclesial statements.

In Teaching with Authority: How to Cut Through Doctrinal Confusion and Understand What the Church Really Says, Jimmy Akin goes to great lengths to bring clarity to these murky waters. I have other books on this topic (H.G. Hughes' What Catholics are Free to Believe or Not, Sullivan's Creative Fidelity, and Gaillardetz's By What Authority?), but I did not find any to be as helpful as Akin's. At 400 pages, his book is double, if not triple, the size of other treatments. (This shouldn't come as a surprise to those familiar with his work at Catholic Answers.)

My overall impressions: I finished the book with the almost paradoxical sense that (1) Catholic faith and morals are exactly what I have always understood them to be; and (2) I need to devote a great deal of time and research to ascertain what exactly has been taught infallibly and what has not. Jimmy Akin is careful in coming to conclusions. As much as we, the faithful, may wish the Church's pronouncements on a given matter to be more definitive, Akin has the integrity to refuse to go beyond what has been definitively stated. 

Teaching with Authority is divided into four sections: (I) The Church as Teacher; (II) Where Church Teaching is Found; (III) Understanding Church Teaching; and (IV) How Doctrine Can Develop - and How It Can't. The first section lays the theological foundation for the Church's teaching magisterium, showing how Christ made it intrinsic to her very nature and the various ways it is expressed through the bishops' individual teaching ministries, bishops conferences, ecumenical councils, and the papacy. It is informative, and I came away with a better knowledge of the Roman Curia.The second section begins with Scripture and Tradition as sources of divine revelation, before turning to the various documents in which the Church offers instruction to the faithful. A few examples of the type of information you'll find:

• The only time documents written by national bishops' conferences "constitute authentic magisterium" is when they are doctrinal in nature and either (a) unanimously approved by the full body of bishops, or (b) approved by 2/3 of the bishops and granted the recognitio of the Holy See.
• At Vatican II, the "constitutions are the most authoritative documents, and the dogmatic constitutions - Dei Verbum (on revelation) and Lumen Gentium (on the Church) - are the most authoritative of all" (p.110-11).
• The names and nature of papal documents have changed over time and are not always consistent.
• Apostolic constitutions are considered the most authoritative papal documents (examples: Ineffablis Deus infallibly defining the Immaculate Conception and Muntificientissimus Deus, defining the Assumption of Mary).
• Pope have used papal encyclicals to reaffirm infallible teachings but no propose new ones.
• Curial documents, even those issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, must carry express papal approval to be considered acts of the Magisterium.
• Simply because a teaching is included in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1997), does not mean it is infallible. As Cardinal Ratzinger noted, the Catechism's teachings "receive no other weight than that which they already possess," meaning that one must look at earlier and later documents of the Magisterium to determine a teachings level of authority.

Akin's third and fourth sections, which constitute the majority of the book, were of greatest interest to me. Akin goes into great depth, exploring the skills needed to correctly interpret magisterial documents: checking the original Latin, a knowledge of technical vocabulary and what it meant in a given century versus today, the need to respect intentional ambiguity in Church teaching and not going further in drawing conclusions than an author intends, etc. They are much-needed reminders for the armchair theologian. He also unpacks the technical meanings of "heresy" and "schism," showing how they are frequently misused. theologian. 

Chapter 12, "The Spectrum of Authority,"and its analysis of Cardinals Ratinger and Bertone's CDF document, Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio fidei, clarified the three levels of authority attached to Church teaching better than anything else I have read. Akin spells out what the Church means by "theological" (or "divine and catholic faith"), "firm and definitive assent," and "religious submission of the mind and will" and the distinctions between them.

Akin's Teaching with Authority is not an "easy" read. He is a gifted communicator, and he writes very clearly; but this is a complicated topic. For anyone, however, who wants to enter into this crucial area of study; I have not seen a more thorough or even-handed introduction to the topic. I call it an introduction, though, since I can't imagine a reader finishing the book without coming to the humbling realization that, however much he has already studied the Faith, a lifetime of work still lies before him. 

Why I'm "No" on the Rapture, But "Yes" on Mary's Assumption

In my last post I shared my reasons for giving up belief in the Rapture.  Introduced to it by author Hal Lindsey, and confirmed in it during my time in a non-denominational church, study brought me to the conclusion that it was not a legitimate element of Christian Faith. Despite its popularity among Christians in the U.S., not only did it have no basis in Scripture, but it directly contradicted what Christianity has always taught - that in the last days, the Church will share Christ's Passion in an intense way, and then at His return, His Resurrection.

The wild thing is, at the same time that I believed so whole-heartedly in the Rapture, I also argued against the Catholic belief that Mary was assumed into heaven.  Do you see the irony?  I was absolutely convinced that Jesus was going to raise the entire Church up into heaven, but totally opposed to the Catholic dogma that Jesus had already done so for His Mother!

My change of heart occurred long before I came to have a positive view of the Catholic Tradition regarding Mary's assumption.  My thought process went something like this:  

• The Bible does not say that Mary wasn't assumed into heaven.

• The Old Testament does speak of two other people having been assumed, Enoch (Gen. 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11-12).If it was true for them, then couldn't it be true of Mary?

• Matthew's Gospel states that at the moment of Jesus' death, "The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people. (Mt. 27:52-53).  Wasn't it reasonable to believe that after these appearances they too were assumed into heaven?  Again, if it was true for them, then why not for Mary?

• If the assumption occurred at the end of her life, then wouldn’t portions of the New Testament already have been written? Did the Bible have to explicitly say it for the event to have occurred?

• There are tons of things not explicitly recorded in the Bible; the Holy Spirit moved John to end his Gospel with that very thought, "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written" (Jn. 21:25)

• The Assumption coincides with, dovetails into, Scripture; whereas a pre-Tribulation Rapture is in contradiction to the overall picture of the last days painted by the New Testament.

• Belief in Mary's assumption is witnessed to in writing prior to 400 A.D. (although it claims to go back to the apostles), while the Rapture does not make an appearance until 1850.  

• The Assumption squares with the Christian reality that glory follows suffering (Mary's share in Jesus' Resurrection came only after she shared in His suffering upon the Cross [Lk.2:35; Jn.19:25-37].)  The Rapture on the other hand, holds out a false expectation regarding freedom from suffering and persecution.

Catholics and Orthodox Christians have of course always said that the Christian Faith was not be limited to those things explicitly stated in Scripture.  (No legitimate point of belief could ever contradict Scripture, but there is not a requirement that it be explicitly stated in Scripture either.)   

If you, however, object to Mary's assumption because you are a "Bible-only" Christian, then you really ought to take a second look at John's vision in the Book of Revelation.  And as you read, please keep in mind how the Gospel of Luke's identified Mary with the Ark of the Covenant (compare Luke 1:39-45,56 with 2 Samuel 6:2-3,6-12,16) and how in the Gospel of John, Jesus always addressed His Mother as "Woman" (Jn.2:1-5; 19:25-27):

"Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake and heavy hail. And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. And another portent appeared in heaven; behold a great red dragon…the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne ... " (Revelation 11:19-12:5)

Something to consider. Catholics do not appeal to any particular verse of Scripture as a proof text for the dogma of the Assumption; but the above verses certainly do not hurt their case! As I looked more into the foundations of Catholic belief in the Assumption, I discovered that it had a much more ancient pedigree than whatone could find for the Rapture.Once Constantine became Emperor and Christianity was no longer a persecuted sect, Christians were able to erect churches over the sites sacred to them (such as the Holy Sepulchre in 336 A.D.). These sites had been preserved in the local church's memory throughout the centuries. One of the sites, close to Mount Zion where the first Christian community had lived, had always been reverenced as place of Mary's Dormition ("falling asleep). It was not the place where Mary's body resided however - only the place where it had temporarily rested before Mary was raised body and soul into heaven.   

Although different local churches could point to the tombs of the Apostles and martyrs and boast of having their relics (bodies), there was never any such claim made in regard to Mary.  Had their been a body, the early Church would have cherished it.  But instead of a body we have this memory, this witness, from the time of the apostles, ingrained within Christians in and around Jerusalem.  Just a little research on the web can provide early witnesses:

"If therefore it might come to pass before the power of your grace, it has appeared right to us your servants that, as you, having overcome death does reign in glory, so you should raise up the body of your mother and take her with you, rejoicing into heaven. Then said the Savior [Jesus]: 'Be it done according to your will" (Pseudo-Melito The Passing of the Virgin 16:2-17; 300 AD). 

"Therefore the Virgin is immortal to this day, seeing that he who had dwelt in her transported her to the regions of her assumption" (Timothy of Jerusalem Homily on Simeon and Anna; 400 AD).

"And from that time forth all knew that the spotless and precious body had been transferred to paradise" (John the Theologian, The Falling Asleep of Mary; 400 AD) 

"The Apostles took up her body on a bier and placed it in a tomb; and they guarded it, expecting the Lord to come. And behold, again the Lord stood by them; and the holy body having been received, He commanded that it be taken in a cloud into paradise: where now, rejoined to the soul, [Mary] rejoices with the Lord's chosen ones..." (Gregory of Tours, Eight Books of Miracles, 1:4; 575-593 A.D.)

 St. John Damascene, living in the desert outside Jerusalem in the early 700's, gave the same testimony:

"In the Holy and divinely-inspired Scriptures no mention is made of anything concerning the end of Mary the Holy Mother of God; but we have received from ancient and most truthful tradition ... the Apostles ... opened the coffin.  And they were unable anywhere to find her most lauded body ... Struck by the wonder of the mystery they could only think that He who had been pleased to become incarnate from her in His own Person and to become Man and to be born in the flesh, God the Word, the Lord of Glory ... was pleased even after her departure from life to honor her immaculate and undefiled body with incorruption and with translation prior to the common and universal resurrection." (Second Homily on the Dormition of Mary, c.715 A.D.)

The celebration of Mary's Dormition in the liturgy was first recorded in Palestine in the late 400's and was taken up throughout the Eastern Church and then the West throughout the 500's.  

In the end, I see the Assumption's credibility as standing head-and-shoulders above the Rapture's:

And thus, I was forced to change my tune.  Which is good because on top of everything I have already shared, in 1950 Pope Pius XII used the power of the keys to definitively state that Mary's assumption is a legitimate point of the Faith that has come to us from the Apostles.  To neglect it is forego knowledge of one of the "many other things" that Jesus did that were not written down in Scripture (Jn. 21:25), but have been preserved within the living memory of His Church.  And that Church is, in the words of Scripture, "the pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Tim. 3:15).

The Beauty of "Catholic" Sex - Why It's Good for the Baby

One of the hazards of being off school for a snow day is that you might be channel surfing and get sucked into watching an episode of Katie Couric's new talk show. There was a story I just had to hear:  A fertility clinic had accidentally implanted another couple's child into a woman's womb.  I am absolutely thrilled to say that the woman this happened to never contemplated abortion.  She said that her first thought was, "What if someone had accidentally been implanted with my child?  I would be on my knees begging her to carry my child to term."  And she did.  She and her husband contacted the other couple with the news that they had another child on the way - and they were overwhelmingly grateful that their child was going to be allowed to come into the world.  Nine months later, after the healthy birth of a boy named Logan, the woman at the heart of the story was told that her body was unable to endure another pregnancy.  Still wanting to welcome the children she and her husband had partnered with the lab to create, the couple hired a surrogate to carry their twin girls to term.

The story reminded me of a short post I wrote in 2009 where, with the help of The Office's Michael Scott, I talked about the dark side of IVF (in vitro fertilization).  The most shocking thing that I had discovered about IVF was how many "extra" embryos - human beings - are created in the laboratory, but never inserted into a mother.  (That's standard practice.)  There are over 400,000 frozen embryos in the United States alone!  Those are human beings in suspended animation.  Since I wrote that post, even the mainstream media has caught wind of how a higher percentage of children conceived through IVF are born with significant birth defects, in comparison to their normally-conceived peers (9 percent vs. 6.6 percent).  As with the story on Katie Couric, these are problems - serious problems - that God wants to safeguard us and our children from.

The Magisterium of the Church (the teaching office exercised by the pope and bishops) has always been clear that IVF is not compatible with God's will.  Before I say anything further let me state categorically that the Church has never, and will never, look down upon anyone conceived through IVF!  No matter how a person is conceived, he or she is a human being and has the same dignity as every other human being.  (That goes for a person conceived through an act of fornication, adultery, IVF, and even rape.  If the Church believed differently then we wouldn't have canonized saints, such as St. Martin de Porres, who were born out of wedlock.  Give it a hundred years and we could very well have a saint who was conceived through IVF.) You won't catch me condemning parents who have used IVF either; the vast, vast majority have done so with no awareness of its difficulties or the Church's teaching on the subject.


In addition to the problems with IVF cited above, why do the Church's teachers - the shepherds to whom Jesus committed His flock - feel compelled to speak out against the use of IVF?   

To safeguard the dignity and well-being of the child.  There are truths we have to keep in mind:

1.  A child is not an end, a good (to be sought in a lab), but a person with his or her own inviolable dignity and rights.
Yes, we experience the yearning to be parents to a child of "our own."  But the child is not our property; the child is his or her own person, with his/her own rights.

2.  Every child has the right to be conceived through an act of love between its parents.
The child is a person, and persons are meant to come into existence through the sincere, bodily gift of his/her mother and father to one another.  (The child is not a product that a doctor can mistakenly implant in the wrong mother.)


Last year a friend shared his niece's plight with me:  At age 16 she discovered that she was conceived through IVF.  She also discovered that she was the sole surviving embryo of several that had been created.  She confided in her cousin (my friend's daughter) the sense of shame she felt - her brothers and sisters being allowed to die, so that in a sense, she could live.  It messed with her mind.  She was angry with her parents. Not to mention her initial reaction - "I was made in a lab?"

3.  Sex, by its very nature, is love-giving and life-giving.
Everyone thinks the Catholic Church's oppostion to contraception is crazy, but it both maintains the reality of the sexual act and the dignity of the child(ren) produced by it.  What do I mean?

"This pregnancy was an accident."  Bull.  An accident is when something goes wrong.  If a pregnancy resulted from your lovemaking then biologically everything went exactly right - it couldn't have gone better!  Contraception has twisted how we see reality.  A child is never an accident, never some unforeseen by-product of a night of romance.  

Creating a new life is an inseparable part of the sexual act.  And those who do try to separate it out, eliminate it, are doing something against nature.  Only by ignoring that obvious truth can an individual - or a society - speak of the growing child as an "accident."

When a Catholic husband and wife make love, they give their whole selves to one another.  There is nothing about their fertility that needs to be suppressed or treated as a hindrance to their love for one another.  If they are practicing NFP (natural family planning), and come together during a time in the wife's cycle when they believe her to be infertile, and if a pregnancy should result; then they understand that their child is anything but an accident - a surprise, sure; but never an "accident"!  That child is the result of their love - a beautiful gift entrusted to them by God.  That child is its own person, brought into existence to enrich the world and spend eternity with God.  

The child did not come into being to meet a need felt by the parents.  The child is the fruit naturally springing from their love.  They are there to love the child - to pour themselves out for the enrichment and growth of this new person.  In doing so they will be enriched - both in the way they image and make present the love of God, and in the love their child returns to them.  But it is an enrichment that takes place while safeguarding the dignity and rights of the child.

The vast majority of people who have sought IVF have done so innocently, without anyone raising even one of these issues with them.  They know that they want to give their love to a child and have never heard its darker side or the moral problems associated it.  The Church's vision of sex and procreation safeguards the dignity of the child as well as prevents horrible situations like that being experienced by my friend's niece or young Logan from today's Katie Couric show.  Someday Logan will hear the story of his conception.  There is the silver lining of the woman who respected his life enough to carry him to term ... but there's so much else there that will likely be difficult to hear.  And it doesn't have to be that way.

Faith - Things I Want to Share

I chatted briefly with a very sweet young lady earlier today.  She had read the first few pages of The God Who is Love and said that she might want to ask me some questions down the line.  You guys know me; that sounds like an absolute blast.  Not really knowing anything about this young woman's faith as she grew up or what specific thoughts or questions she has, it got me thinking, "If I could share anything I wanted about God/faith with someone, what would it be?"  So here is my "wish list," the thing I most want to tell others who are serious about growing in faith:

• Never say that you are "not holy enough" to start a relationship with God; that's like saying you're "too dirty" to take a bath.  God loves you now; and He will give you the power to change, to live like Jesus (aka, "be holy").

• Faith is a relationship with a Person (or more precisely, with three divine Persons in one nature).

• It is unlike any other relationship in your life; this is the Being holding you and everything you know in existence - your ability to think, act, and simply be are utterly dependent upon Him.

• We live in a culture that, while it continues to have many positive points, has started down a path that contradicts God on some of His (and nature's) most fundamental truths.  If we grew up in this culture, then we're probably in for more than a little "culture shock" as to what God desires for our lives.

• The Christian Faith is not a matter of individual interpretation.  We are not able to pick and choose which elements of it are appealing to us.  God became a man, Jesus, and He claimed, "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life."  To reject some element of belief or morality is to reject Jesus.  It's all personal in Christianity; it's all relationship.

• If you believe that Jesus is God in the flesh, then it stands to reason that you believe He is the greatest teacher the world has ever known.  No decent teacher throws his students a textbook and says, "I'll see you at the final exam."  When Christians try to go it with the "Bible alone," they're setting themselves up for mistakes.  Jesus never penned a book during his time on earth.  

• Jesus founded a Church and promised to be with her shepherds, guiding them as they taught the world.  The New Testament came through them.  It was never meant to stand alone.  Jesus, the teacher, guards against misinterpretation of His words and offers us guidance in today's changing world through His shepherds, the Pope and Bishops.

• God fills the deepest longings of our hearts.  Once you've come into contact with Him, nothing else will ever really satisfy you again.

• I am a Catholic - but not because I wanted to be.  There were doctrines I did not want to believe in (seriously, who wants to go to Confession?); but once I understood that it was what Jesus taught ... there was nothing more I could say.  I want to live my life in union with Him.  And you know what?  As much as I might not want to go to Confession beforehand, it turns out that it really is good for the soul; Jesus knew what He was talking about! 

• Faith = relationship = loving and trusting everything Jesus did and said.

So there you go, the things that are really on my heart to share with others - my Christmas wish-list.