Pope Benedict XV made sure that all were aware that the context for many of the causes of World War One (and World War Two, for that matter) was the division caused among Catholics by labeling other Catholics as Catholic this or Catholic that, by identifying someone as this sort of Catholic. This Catholic is a Marxist Catholic, a Conservative Catholic, a Liberal Catholic, an Old Catholic, a Catholic Socialist, a Catholic Traditionalist, or an LGBT Catholic. On November 1, 1914, three months into the war, these were the words of the first encyclical he would publish as Pope (read the entire encyclical here):
“The success of every society of men, for whatever purpose it is formed, is bound up with the harmony of the members in the interests of the common cause. Hence We must devote Our earnest endeavors to appease dissension and strife, of whatever character, amongst Catholics, and to prevent new dissensions arising, so that there may be unity of ideas and of action amongst all. The enemies of God and of the Church are perfectly well aware that any internal quarrel amongst Catholics is a real victory for them. Hence it is their usual practice when they see Catholics strongly united, to endeavor by cleverly sowing the seeds of discord, to break up that union.”
He goes on to caution people from speaking on behalf of the Church, before going on in the next article to warn against expressions that “might constitute serious breaches of charity” and instead to defend one’s opinion “with due moderation” so that one does not “consider himself entitled to affix on those who merely do not agree with his ideas the stigma of disloyalty to faith or to discipline.” Today’s Catholics might relate all too well to a pressing need to hear out these exact same exhortations, ones which the pope is putting forth in an effort stem the tide of the Catholic laity going to war against one another.
But it’s the next article that, as I’ve hinted at above, drops these lines of interest for us here:
“It is, moreover, Our will that Catholics should abstain from certain appellations which have recently been brought into use to distinguish one group of Catholics from another. They are to be avoided not only as ‘profane novelties of words,’ out of harmony with both truth and justice, but also because they give rise to great trouble and confusion among Catholics. Such is the nature of Catholicism that it does not admit of more or less, but must be held as a whole or as a whole rejected: ‘This is the Catholic faith. Which unless a man believe faithfully and firmly; he cannot be saved’ (Athanas. Creed). There is no need of adding any qualifying terms to the profession of Catholicism: it is quite enough for each one to proclaim ‘Christian is my name and Catholic my surname,’ only let him endeavor to be in reality what he calls himself.”
This is in fact true wisdom. But that wisdom has begun to wane as the decades have gone on and we are back to where we were before. Perhaps we are all guilty of this—I know I am!—but I take this moment to reassert Benedict XV’s wisdom, and caution men like Trent Horn from pigeonholing Catholics in this way by writing whole books dedicated—titles and all—to a kind of setting to one side what Pope Benedict XV was discerning.
There are so many issues here, and labeling is at the heart of it. With it we are more easily able to dismiss this or that Catholic, pin them in a corner, with the trap of falling into presumption and rash judgment whenever we label someone (say) a Catholic fundamentalist or Catholic modernist. Perhaps this is a kind of outflanking move, but it proves, in the end, to be a powerful force that was enough to pull down a Christendom that lasted over 1,000 years (along with other factors, to be sure). To reinvent and assert it once more is to heed to the snake's whispers yet again, promising to give us true knowledge of what that Catholic over there really holds to be true.
I have no doubt in my mind that Trent might dip and weave as a good debater here, a clear thinker, a force to be reckoned with, and persist that there really are Catholic fundamentalists out there somewhere, and the name really does stick and say something important. And there is no doubt that he might have the winning point that allows him to claim these titles and insist on those labels without qualms of conscience. But the point still remains that the pope said what he said and Christendom fell when it did, perhaps because, in the end, the labels really did matter.
Or perhaps because I am helping to launch a new Catholic lay political party, that I find this sort of thing to be unhelpful when trying to get the laity to do the thing we are vocationally called to do, which is nothing less than the thing that was undone by the events and political revolutions leading up and into World War One. If Benedict XV instead stumbled in the dark, misunderstood the real causes behind why these lay Catholics really went to war against each other, but still had a hint of truth contained in it, then we all, not just Trent, ought to be aware that we are living in a shadow realm entirely owned by the lord of deception and that we too might step often enough into his traps, one of them being calling Catholics by specific or nonspecific names. If we choose to say, look those Catholics over there are those kinds of Catholics, then it’s hard to see any signal flare in the night sky as to whether or not the Abrahamic promises have in fact been fulfilled, Galatians 2 still holds as it does, and why it was that Paul said the mystery hidden from all eternity was the very unity these labels call into question.
There will no doubt be those in the comments section who, sneering down their noses, insist that, well, this was nice advice by the Pope but many books have in fact been written about the real causes of the war during his time, and we need to leave it to the experts. But perhaps the father of this family, of Catholic Europe, had a keen sense of what was going on between his children, especially his sons. Maybe his fatherly perspective is more scholarly than those who know more of the details and write books about them.
Labels are oftentimes difficult to use with any real clarity. A recent debate makes exactly this point. How do we label Catholics—conservative, traditional, saying all the right things and holding onto all the right truths Catholics—who are now insisting that a national abortion ban is entirely unjust because it violates the principle of subsidiarity? How does a conservative Catholic end up making these are Biden-like arguments and remain in such a camp? The federal government doesn’t have the right to tell states and—to be even more subsidiarian than your “traditional” or “conservative” Catholic—individuals and their highly local choice. Biden’s point has now been made in convincing fashion by the same “Conservative” Catholics who have said “well, Biden is a bit too subsidiarian for me… I’m more into solidarity at the state level, perhaps a 100,000 more than Biden’s more local and subsidiariarn argument.” It doesn’t get more subsidiarian than “let each person make their own choice.” Labeling these traditional Catholics as anything like traditional or conservative, while they are only a bit more social than Biden’s radical and distorted notion of subsidiarity (which is not true subsidiarity, but I think you get the point), does nothing to tell us why these Catholic men are in the same room together shaking hands and nodding along. How do conservative Catholics resist a national abortion ban and remain conservative? We can’t answer that here, but what we can point out is that the conservative or traditional must fall to the side.
This is only one example. There are many others. The point is really Jesus’ point: the categories we create are entirely unhelpful; it’s actually not as clear as one might expect to discover which Catholics are this or that kind of Catholic. And this is not a “I’m what’s wrong with the Church” Chestertonian kind of point I’m making. It is a you are searching for hidden wisdom that will lead you away from this thing you seek to box in and by boxing in keep out. This is not how the early Church worked, even as it had its internal disputes. Paul wrote the things we call “letters,” and he wrote them to real communities with particular issues and he address them one by one, persevering in dealing with the details of each situation, well-aware that these things need to be worked out in the context of the taking-breaking-blessing-giving miracle that signaled the reunion of the 12 tribes, and through that union the gathering of the nations into the one worldwide family of Abraham and Abraham’s seed. Paul refused labels like he refused the Temple Balistrade instructions: he was willing to risk his life, now that the Messiah had been revealed and raised, to set aside labels and boundary regulations for the sake of more clearly displaying the unity that is to be found in the one Church of Christ, what he calls the Messiah’s own body.
Much like the words popesplainer or the one invented by the devil himself in the garden of Eden, gaslighting: did God really tell you that, cause if he did then God is gaslighting you! The devil and his followers today never have to make an argument as to why what God said was a lie, because they can more easily label it as gaslighting and assume you know what stands behind it. Nevermind the actual arguments to be made, God is gaslighting you, you see, and that’s all you need to know. Now, Eve and others are wondering if God really has manipulated them for a moment, fed them false information for a second, messed with their perception of reality a bit. But if Eve would have only insisted that well, here in the Garden, we don’t have much time for labels because instead we make what are called specific “arguments,” then the snake’s tricks would have fallen flat and been exposed for what they were all along. But here we are instead.
It is quite enough for us to address ourselves and one another as Christians and as Catholics. Let that be enough. There is nothing that is going to be a quick fix for us. That’s never how this has worked. If there is a key, then there is a door. It means making specific arguments, perhaps to specific people, perhaps over a long period of time, perhaps in a variety of contexts, perhaps under different forms of rhetoric or logical ordering. But this is the “bear with one another patiently” point that Paul was making. Labels short circuit the “patiently” part. They are a quick fix to fit the main points in and gather the storm clouds over the person we are engaging with. But it surely does not bring the light that is needed when trying to figure out what needs to be had at this moment in time to this person here in this context.
To take every thought captive for Christ, we must deal with the ideas themselves and let our brothers remain free.
My suggestion is that we set aside labels like Catholic fundamentalist or Catholic socialist or Catholic modernist. Let each Catholic remain a Catholic, with all that that demands and all that that vocation requires.
Jesus and Mary, be with us on the way.
Video link to my reading of this article on my Youtube channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjerrn0GD1E&t=6s
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