What Must a Catholic Profess as Objective Truth?
A challenge to selective Catholicism: Can we sincerely profess the Catholic faith while knowingly rejecting its moral teachings on marriage, contraception, sexual relations, chastity, and other matters simply because those teachings conflict with modern culture or our personal desires?
There is a question Catholics eventually have to confront:
Can I call myself a faithful Catholic while saying the Church is wrong about contraception?
Can I accept same-sex marriage as morally equivalent to sacramental marriage because civil society recognizes it?
Can I believe sexual relations outside marriage are morally acceptable because they are common, consensual, or involve two people who love each other?
Can I dismiss adultery, pornography, lust, or other forms of sexual immorality as private matters that have little to do with my relationship with God?
Or does being Catholic require something more difficult—submitting my judgment to truths I did not create and cannot simply rewrite when they become uncomfortable?
This is where the discussion becomes serious.
Jesus did not establish a Church merely to affirm the conclusions we had already reached for ourselves. Scripture calls the Church “the pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). Christ tells His apostles, “He who hears you hears me” (Luke 10:16).
Catholicism therefore cannot mean accepting and receiving the Eucharist, baptism, heaven, forgiveness, and God's mercy while rejecting the moral teachings that demand conversion.
The Church teaches that marriage is the lifelong union of a man and a woman ordered toward the good of the spouses and the generation and education of children. Christ Himself points back to creation: “Male and female he created them,” and then declares, “What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19:4–6).
The Church therefore cannot redefine marriage simply because the state does.
Same-sex sexual acts do not become morally good because society increasingly approves of them. But it's more than just a LGBTQ issue.
The same principle applies to sexual morality. Scripture repeatedly places sexual relations within an objective moral order. Sex outside marriage is not made morally right simply because it is consensual. Adultery is not made right because someone feels emotionally justified. Pornography does not become harmless because it is private. Artificial contraception does not become consistent with Catholic teaching simply because it is overwhelmingly accepted by modern culture. Saint Paul writes: “This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from unchastity.”
—1 Thessalonians 4:3
These questions are not fundamentally about whether we like the teaching. They are about authority.
Do I believe that Christ gave His Church authority to teach on faith and morals, or do I believe the Church possesses authority only when her conclusions agree with mine? There is also an important distinction Catholics must preserve. Temptation itself is not the same as sin. Experiencing an unwanted desire or temptation does not automatically make someone guilty. Moral responsibility concerns what we knowingly and freely consent to, choose, encourage, or act upon.
Scripture describes this progression:
“Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin.”
—James 1:14–15
This applies to all of us.
The Catholic teaching on chastity is not aimed at one particular group. The unmarried heterosexual person is called to chastity. The person experiencing same-sex attraction is called to chastity. The married person is called to marital fidelity and chastity. The person struggling with pornography, lust, adultery, contraception, or sexual temptation is called to conversion.
And a very important point:
No one gets a special exemption because his temptation is strong.
And no one should be treated as less human because he struggles. Christ demonstrates both truth and mercy when confronting sexual sin. To the woman caught in adultery He says:
“Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.”
—John 8:11
Notice both parts.
Neither do I condemn you.
Mercy.
Do not sin again.
Conversion.
Removing either half distorts Christianity.
The law of Christ can not change because society changes through the years.