My Life with God in and out of the Church
This
excerpt from chapter 11 pages 168-183 reveals a blunder by Pope Pius X11
when he declared ex officio Mary's Assumption into heaven without any
evidence
from history or scripture, simply on his say-so
The Assumption of Mary
One evening, as I
pondered Galileo’s tragedy, the infamous words of the commission, still
smoldering in my mind, burst into flame. By that light, I saw the Church’s
habitual way of formulating doctrine and defending it against all attack.
First, the
Church searched the Scriptures for texts that supported its doctrine. Many
texts that she advanced in favor of a doctrine in fact proved nothing; but the
words satisfied the unlearned. In that way she disproved Galileo’s
sun-centered theory. Similarly, she proved Christ’s divinity by quoting
Peter who called Jesus, “the Son of the living God”. More than likely
Peter only meant that Jesus was approved by God like the other holy men whom
the Bible called “Sons of God”.
Secondly, when
proposing a doctrine, the Church regularly sought the support of the Fathers
of the Church. These were pre-seven-century writers, mostly bishops, who
agreed with the Church’s teachings. Her doctrines gained credence by having
been taught in the centuries just following the apostles. The Church claimed
that the New Testament did not contain Christ’s entire revelation. Some
truths were handed down orally for some time and eventually written down by a
Church Father.
When proposing
a doctrine as revealed by God, the Church always valued the testimony of the
Church Fathers, especially when Scripture contained no relevant text. For
example, the Bible reported Christ’s Ascension but said nothing about Mary’s
Assumption into heaven. To make matters worst, no Church Father mentioned it
before the seventh century. Around 625, an obscure bishop, called Theoteknos,
spoke about a feast of the Assumption. He reported that Mary’s devotees
celebrated her entrance into heaven, happy for her and hopeful for themselves.
In Theoteknos’s
brief statement, the Church saw a revealed truth, just as she uncovered other
revelations in simple Bible texts. For example, the Church says that the four
words of Jesus “This in my body” reveal his real presence in the blessed
bread. The Church also teaches that, when Jesus said, “You are Peter and on
this rock I will build my church,” he revealed that Peter and his successors
would be the highest authority on revelation. According to the Church, when
the angel Gabriel called Mary “full of grace,” he made another revelation.
These texts and hundreds of others resemble tiny seeds which the Church
Fathers first nurtured and which theologians then developed into trees, as
described in the Gospel parable of the mustard seed.
For
theologians, unfolding and explaining spiritual phenomena was glorious work.
But it was also difficult because Scripture revealed spiritual realities that
humans could not observe and prove. Moreover all human concepts were derived
from physical and material things. Such concepts cannot grasp spiritual
reality. At best they only catch a glimmer of the supernatural.
Thus, when
theologians applied human concepts and logic to explain and develop the seeds
of revelation in Scripture, they could only express opinions and theories.
Inevitably other theologians thought differently. Alone they could not resolve
their differences. They needed a reliable, authoritative arbiter to declare
what was true.
Very early the
Roman Church claimed that ability as guaranteed by Jesus in the Bible. To
certify the truth of revealed realities, ecumenical councils were convened.
There the bishops of the Church including the Bishop of Rome decreed what God
had revealed through Jesus. The councils needn’t prove anything; they simply
declared the truth.
When many
refused to believe the Roman Church, it managed to have some ecumenical
councils declare its infallibility. In 1870 the Roman Church went a step
further and had Vatican Council I decree the infallibility of the Bishop of
Rome, the Pope. Thus the Pope alone acting in the name of the Church can
declare without fear of error a doctrine to be true. For example, on November
1, 1950 Pope Pius XII solemnly defined Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven
as a dogma of faith. He said, “We pronounce, declare, and define it to be a
divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin
Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and
soul into heavenly glory.” The Pope didn’t have to prove Mary’s
Assumption; he simply said it was so. No spiritual reality can be proved or
disproved. It lies beyond the ken of humans, including popes. Arriving at that
conclusion, I called it a night and headed home with peace of mind. This
evening I had made some progress towards solving my problem with the Church. I
felt confident that the end was near. Looking at the stars, I thanked my
friends and they winked back in support.
Days later, on
August 15, Catholics celebrated the Feast of Mary’s Assumption. As the sun
rose into the sky, our parish offered Holy Mass to glorify God and honor Mary.
At sunset, the women, many with babies on their backs, returned to the church
to see Mary’s statue arrived that day and to pray the rosary. In the village
down the hill, the men continued the day’s celebration by beating drums and
drinking banana beer - “in Mary’s honor,” they said.
Starting my
evening walk, I passed by the church and heard the women praying. Their
singsong repetition of the Hail Mary revived many memories of Mary. Soon these
thoughts lined up beside my recollections of Galileo and struck a spark. In a
flash I saw how differently the Church had treated Mary’s Assumption into
heaven and Galileo’s assumption that the earth circles the sun.
Since Galileo’s
theory tried to explain the physical process of the earth circling the sun,
the Church demanded the observation of this movement. Without the trustworthy
testimony of eyewitnesses, the Church would not accept Galileo’s theory. The
Church would continue to teach what all humans experience: the earth does not
move while the sun clearly rises in the East and sets in the West.
Like the
movement of the earth, the ascending of a human body into the sky is a
physical phenomenon. It can be observed and reported. That’s what happened
when Christ’s body ascended into heaven. As the apostles were watching,
Jesus was lifted up into heaven. They saw his body go up into the clouds and
later they recorded the event in the Acts of the Apostles.(1:9-11)
Jesus could
have ascended into heaven during the night in secrecy. He chose to let the
apostles observe the event to strengthen their faith in heaven where Christ
awaits his followers. For the same reason, if Jesus had assumed Mary into
heaven, he would have let someone observe and record her Assumption. But
during the first 600 years after Christ’s Ascension, no one ever mentioned
seeing or hearing about the event.
Despite this
total silence, Pope Pius XII stood ready in 1950 to define infallibly Mary’s
Assumption. Where and how did he learn about the event? Did God speak to him
in the papal garden as he did to Abraham from the burning bush? No! Did angel
Gabriel inform him about Mary’s Assumption as he told Mary about her
conceiving Jesus? No! Did Jesus speak to him as he did to Paul in a blinding
light? No! Pope Pius XII simply received letters from the bishops supporting
his proposal to define Mary’s glorious Assumption into heaven. With that and
nothing more, the Pope declared that Mary’s body was assumed into heaven.
Then and there I felt strongly that the Pope, in doing so, had strained his
infallibility beyond belief. Too tired to pursue this thought further, I
turned around and headed home reviewing today’s celebration of Mary’s
Assumption.
These thoughts
evoked childhood memories of the Assumption Church in which I was baptized and
made my first communion. There, as an altar boy, I served Mass thousands of
times and later as a priest I offered mass at the same altar. Tonight, I
clearly recalled the 15x20 foot mural above the altar. The marble sculpture
depicted Mary ascending into heaven. Flanked by cheerful cherubs, Mary raised
her eyes heavenward as though looking for her son or already seeing him in
glory. Her serene smile brightened the heavens more than the crescent moon at
her feet.
I then
remembered that in 1939 during my mother’s funeral mass, I gazed up at Mary’s
mural above the altar. I strongly believed that someday I too would go to
heaven and see my mother again with Mary and God. Belief in Mary’s
Assumption provided solace in my sorrow then. But tonight I was deeply
disturbed, thinking that the Pope might have defined Mary’s Assumption
simply to shore up a fairy tale without historical foundation.
After I fell
asleep, my anxieties concocted dreams that mixed the past and the present in a
ghastly way. The original flawless marble of Mary’s mural was now stained
with greenish mildew and cracking badly. The entire sculpture threatened to
crumble. In my dream, the pastor explained that the basic problem was the
foundation of the church which proved to be shaky shale and not solid rock as
originally believed. The priest said that my boyhood church could collapse
with its granite pillars and its marble mural of Mary’s Assumption. Before
that could happen in my nightmare, I opened my eyes.
In the Bible,
some patriarchs and prophets had dreams that predicted future events. But my
dream last night did not prophesy the collapse of the Church and the demise of
its dogmas. It simply indicated that my belief in Mary’s Assumption and
every other dogma of the Church was founded on my faith in the infallibility of
the Church. If this fundamental faith should disintegrate, the whole
superstructure of the Church, its dogmas and laws, would crumble and leave a
landscape of rubble in my soul. Following the direction of my dream, I recalled that in July 1870, the
First Vatican Council solemnly defined the infallibility of the Pope. It
declared that the Pope, even without a General Council, has the authority to
pronounce definitive judgments on questions of faith and morals. When so
doing, he has God’s guaranteed assistance that prevents him from teaching
error.
When Pope Pius
XII proclaimed the Assumption of Mary, he had zero evidence that it happened.
How could he dare define this dogma, knowing that God should stop him if it
were not true? Apparently he did not fear God and surely not man. Nineteen
centuries after Mary’s death, who could possibly discover and identify her
body? With a steady pen, he signed the Assumption decree. He was safe.
Likewise down
the centuries, Popes and Ecumenical Councils never feared to define
supernatural events and realities because humans cannot disprove things
spiritual. For instance, the Church teaches that, during Mass, the priest
changes bread into the living body of Christ. Nobody can prove otherwise. The
Church also declares that, for every human embryo, God creates a special
spiritual soul. It is immaterial and immortal. At death it separates from the
body and goes to heaven or hell for all eternity. That whole doctrine and
every other dogma of the Church cannot be disproved by humans.
Nor can the
Church prove her doctrines. She cannot demonstrate the reality of anything
supernatural because the spiritual is beyond the ken of humans. For example,
the Church cannot prove the existence of original sin and grace, the efficacy
of sacraments and indulgences, the reality of heaven and hell, the divinity of
Jesus anymore than the Assumption of Mary. The Church cannot prove any of its
supernatural doctrines. She can only allege that one or more persons in the
distant past said so. Then, claiming infallibility, she defines and elaborates
doctrines and offers them to the world. To accept without doubt the Church’s
unquestionable and glorious vision of the universe, one need only believe in
her infallibility.
Some 600
million adults affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church are assumed to
believe in her infallibility. But about 400 million Protestants do not,
although they base their faith on the same Bible as the Catholics. Sharing the
same Bible, some 200 million Orthodox Christians do not believe in the Pope’s
infallibility. Nor do one billion Muslims, 800 million Hindus, 300 million
Buddhists, 13 million Jews and countless others. In all, some five billion
people do not believe in the infallibility of the Pope, his Church and their
doctrine. At that moment, I wondered whether I was now a believer or a
nonbeliever.
To answer that
question truthfully, I quickly reviewed my entire life. In rapid replay, it
seemed like one long day beginning with a sunny sky. About noon, clouds
appeared. Light and gray at first, they became increasingly thicker and
darker. By mid-afternoon, clouds blackened the whole sky turning day into
night, as when Jesus died on Calvary.
In that
comparison, I recognized that my faith in an infallible Church was the sun of
my spiritual life. Just as the sun illumined physical things such as birds, so
also the Church revealed spiritual realities such as angels. Clearly the
visibility of physical things depended on the firelight in the sun and the
credibility of spiritual things depended on my faith in the infallibility of
the Church.
Throughout the
morning of my life, I was educated by nuns in elementary school and by priests
in seminaries. They gave my life a third dimension filled with spiritual
realities as real as the physical world. God, all-powerful and good, was real
like my father. Mary in heaven was real like my mother in Chicopee. The
resurrected Christ was as real in the Eucharist on the altar as on his
heavenly throne. The sacraments and grace were real like flowers and trees.
The entire spiritual world as revealed by the Church was beautiful and very
real. No cloud of doubt blurred my faith in the Church and none marred my
spiritual sky for years.
Not long after
I began my priestly ministry among the people, clouds of doubt regarding the
Church’s wisdom appeared and crept across my spiritual sky. I soon saw that
the Church was wrong when she refused to replace Latin with the vernacular so
that the people would understand the Bible readings and the prayers during
mass. When I fell in love with Eva, I realized that the Church wrongly imposed
celibacy upon her priests against God’s design as expressed in nature and
the Bible. The Church was also wrong when she instructed bishops to attract
young boys into seminaries and isolate from the world in order to indoctrinate
(brainwash?) them fully before ordination.
In Africa,
darker clouds of doubt appeared while I reviewed the blunders of the Church
during my evening walks. The Church was clearly wrong when she preached a
crusade to hunt down and kill thousands of Albigensian heretics. The Church
was wrong when she organized the Inquisition that tortured thousands and
condemned them to life imprisonment or death. The Church was wrong when she
had Savonarola burned to death for decrying the immorality of the Roman
Church. The Church was wrong when she granted indulgences to raise funds for
the construction of monasteries, churches and Saint Peter’s basilica. The
Church was also wrong when she condemned the astronomer Galileo for trying to
provide irrefutable proof that the earth circles the sun.
At this point
in tonight’s moonlit walk, I lingered awhile on the last years of Galileo’s
life. After the Church condemned him in 1633, Galileo returned to his home in
Florence. Before long, his eyesight began to fail. By 1637 his left eye saw
nothing and a year later Galileo was totally blind. My empathy for him
inspired a comparison between his loss of sight and my loss of faith in the
Church.
Both losses
were not sudden and total; they were scarcely noticeable at first. Mine began
in Cleveland when I disagreed with the Church about using Latin in the
Liturgy. Later, when I fell in love with Eva, the Church’s celibacy law
dealt
my faith a severe blow. Yet I still believed in the Church, if only
halfheartedly, just as Galileo could see only with one eye for a time. Then in
Africa, as I reviewed the Church’s blunders night after night, the flame of
my faith gradually waned to a flicker. The arrogance of the Church in
ridiculing Galileo’s sun-centered system and condemning him to house arrest
smothered the last ember of my faith. The Church’s blunders had finally
reduced my former towering fire of faith to ashes.
When the blind
astronomer walked in his garden, he could not watch the roses unfold their
reddish petals. Nor did he see the golden butterflies flutter above the
marigolds, while the red-breasted robin rushed to a nestful of hungry chicks.
Nor did he see fluffy white clouds float across the bright blue sky. In the
evenings, when he looked up to heaven, he could not see his beloved stars, not
a single one.
In contrast, I
could see nature’s wonder; but I could not believe the spiritual world that
I had accepted on the authority of the Church. I no longer believed in
original sin and grace, in the Eucharist and the priesthood, in heaven and
hell, in an eternal afterlife, in the divinity of Jesus, in Mary’s
Assumption and all the other spiritual realities and events proclaimed by the
Church. All that had vanished with my faith in the church.
To believe in
God, however, I had never needed the testimony of the Church. The admirable
universe revealed the handiwork of God: his wisdom, power, and goodness.
Galileo believed in God to the end. So would I. With that final thought and a
last look at the stars that were watching over Galileo’s grave in Florence,
I returned home at peace.
The following
morning, I lingered in bed recalling my work in Masaka. My official mission
had been to build a church for the people of Kimanya and my personal mission
was to reevaluate the infallibility of the Church. I had built the church, plus
classrooms and a cafeteria. I had also reviewed the horrific blunders of the
Church which totally discredited her infallibility and authority - at least
for me. Thus I had accomplished my mission in Africa. It was time to go.