Minutes:
Our meeting began at 5:00 pm with Mass, celebrated by Fr. Eric Hollas at the Cathedral of Our Lady of
the Rosary.
Dinner was catered by Valentini’s and began approximately 5:30 pm.
President Dan Skorich and Deacon Tim Egan introduced Fr. Eric Hollas, who then spoke on the topic of
the History of the Church.
The following Guild members were present:
Bruce and Maiya Henson, Dan and Rosey Skorich, Dennis Soukup, Fr. Eli Gieske, Gordy Harvieux, Treacy, Mike and Sara Rowe,
Mike and Sue Messer, Nancy Beery, Scott and Suanna Johnson, Steve Eyer, Tim and Beth Egan, Todd and Lindsey Freeman and
Todd’s brother, Tom and Yolanda Nelson, Tom Shuey. Joe and Dona Seeba, George Jennings, Jill Holsinger, Shana Bertin, Tim
and Carol Kleinschimdt,
The History of the Church
The development of practice and doctrine People often ask about the Catholic Church changing its
doctrine. How does the Church change? How does it develop? How does it grow in understanding of the
Gospel? And how does it stay true?
Tradition is the living faith of the dead.
Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.
Is been said that orthodoxy is what is taught everywhere, always, by everyone. Of this, it is meant that
there is been agreement between the top five patriarchs of the Church in the early days of the Church.
This is a narrow gate by which to judge. The Church should entertain new ideas, but prove them to be
true.
Medical ethics: most of the issues hadn't come up before – issues related to technology. The question is
how are issues tested in the church. Issues are tested through Scripture and Tradition. The Bible is
essential. Tradition is the faith passed from generation to generation. Tradition is the practice and the
conversation of what is happened before. Traditional keeps us connected to the larger Church, and we
can add to tradition.
The development of medical ethics today will eventually become part of the tradition of the Catholic
Church.
Tradition is important in all Christian churches.
Certain traditions are normative – baptism, the Nicene creed, Eucharist.
Some traditions are dispensable: The Rule of St. Benedict – stated that monks must have only one tunic;
however, if you lived elsewhere that could be adapted.
What is at the core and which are changeable?
Scripture helps determine what is dispensable versus indispensable. Most mainline churches have four
ways of reading the Scripture: the literal, the allegorical, the spiritual, and the anagogical (the meeting
as it relates to the end times).
St. Augustine stated early on that he could not be Christian if the scripture was only interpreted literally.
The various ways of interpreting scripture were the key to his conversion.
Example of a difficult literal interpretation is from the Song of Songs in which the beloved is described her neck being the Tower of Babylon.
Scripture itself is a product of tradition – the New Testament is the story of the Church developing it's
tradition. If the Catholic Church never changed, we would all be Jewish kosher circumcised converts.
However, gentiles wanted to join the Church, and the disciples had to decide – inspired by the Holy
Spirit – whether they needed to continue observing circumcision and kosher dietary laws.
The New Testament itself contains tradition and is a product of tradition.
The choice of the books that belong in the Bible was decided through Church synods and councils. Jesus
didn't lay out the structure of the Church or give us a Bible.
What traditions from the New Testament do we need to continue or not continue? One that was felt
dispensable was St. Paul's command that women must wear hats.
We need to continue to study the Bible in a scholarly way. We need to keep translating interpreting the
Bible.
The Bible needs to be studied in historical and critical methodology. Some continue to only study with a
literal lens: in Islam, the Koran was written before grammatical markings occurred in their language.
Two dots added to one word can mean the difference between the fallen martyrs receiving 12 white
raisins or receiving 12 virgins.
Even families have traditions. Tradition carries great meaning for us and reminds us of the times things
were done differently. An example could be that of communion in the hand being even older than
receiving communion on the tongue. Tradition helps us understand why others do things differently.
As an example, armaments from the Middle Ages: the crossbow was once felt to be immoral as it would
make a surf to be at the same level of a nobleman or lord in that the surf could then kill the nobleman.
We can use tradition to try to understand the morality of certain issues such as nuclear arms, economic
issues, and modern medicine. As new issues come up and are entertained, at a certain point some of
the questions are resolved and then become normative.
And example of this is the language of the liturgy: the early liturgy was in Aramaic. Then Greek became
the dominant language of the liturgy in the West. Even in Rome, the liturgy was practiced in Greek until
Latin became the common language. Eventually Latin was no longer normative and the tradition was
changed.
Theology evolves as well – for example: the question of who is Jesus? The Gospels did not have a Creed
and it took until the fourth century until He was truly defined as God and man.
The Church is rightfully intolerant of intellectual inconsistency.
An example of the evolution of moral theology: slavery. St. Paul stated that slaves should be obedient. In
the Middle Ages the Church itself owned slaves. Catholics owned slaves in the United States through the
19 century. Then the Pope stated that slavery was immoral. How does the Church change? Slavery was
in economic reality. In the 19 century, human rights trumped property rights.
Another example – celibacy: in the early church priests were married. St. Peter was married, but St. Paul
was not. Celibacy started with ritual purity. The monastic movement allowed religious to be
independent of social ties. A celibate priest is independent of other social commitments.
In the West, the Church was supported by landownership. If a priest married, the priest would leave his
church to his son – and that worked rather poorly. The Church did not want aristocracy – she wanted
priests who were appointed on the basis of merit. Napoleon "helped" the Church by taking all of the
land.
By the Council of Trent, celibacy had become normative. Celibacy is tradition and not doctrine. Other
Catholic rites have allowed married priests.
The justification for change is due to the Holy Spirit. And example of this is the Council of Jerusalem as
described in the Acts of the Apostles.
The Church maybe behind in issues of medical ethics, but it will get there.