When Catholics debate issues about Bible teaching with Protestants, they will often say, “That’s just your opinion, and just your interpretation of the passage. You Protestants can’t really know what the Bible says in many cases, since there are so many differences and divisions when interpreting Scripture within Protestantism. You guys can’t agree on anything!”
The Catholic
Church claims that they are the one true church, specifically, “the one Church
of Christ” which is “one, holy, catholic and apostolic” (Dogmatic Constitution of the Church, Lumen Gentium, paragraph 8).
But when
Protestants point out the fact that there are many arguments within Catholicism
(sometimes even about doctrine), Catholics
will backtrack and are forced to admit it, but they’ll say that the Catholic
Church is truly unified because it
can “officially” settle disputes within its ranks. They have the pope to do that, and he can do it “infallibly”!
But if
that’s true, why do Catholics still have so many arguments with each other? That fact is undeniable. In just one recent example, there was an
issue about Pope Francis complaining about a prominent Catholic television
network (EWTN) that was attacking and insulting him.
See these
links for details:
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/09/21/pope-francis-ewtn-critics-241472
In these
articles, the pope claims that he doesn’t mind so much EWTN’s criticism of him – what he claims to be against is this
Catholic network attacking the Church. However, it seems that the problems EWTN has
with the Catholic Church revolve largely around what the pope, himself, is
allowing in the Church! After all, as
the sole “human head” and “Vicar” of
the Church, isn’t he the one ultimately
responsible for the things going on within the Church? And isn’t he
the one who is supposed to discipline leaders, clarify misunderstandings and
establish Catholic teaching? If Pope
Francis is the answer to the problem
of disagreements in the Church, then why is there still such major division in
Catholic circles today?
It is true
that EWTN has had some strong things to say, especially about the liberal-leaning
Church leaders, and the way the church is being run. Some critics are claiming that the pope said
that EWTN was a “work of the devil.”
Catholic
writer and apologist Dave Armstrong (as well as other pope supporters) claims
that Pope Francis did not say EWTN was a “work of the devil,” but that
criticizing the Church is. Maybe the pope meant that, or maybe he
didn’t, but isn’t that pretty much the same thing? If EWTN is attacking the Catholic Church,
wouldn’t that also reflect on the pope who runs it?
Furthermore,
in his article, Armstrong also names several prominent Catholic people/teachers/publishers
with whom he disagrees. You can find
Armstrong’s article here:
So we can
see that this “unique” harmony and unity that the Catholic Church claims to
enjoy simply does not exist.
It’s
deceptive to claim a “final human authority” who can settle all disputes, when
this pope, himself, is chiefly responsible for causing so many of the divisions
within his own Church, including contradicting traditional Catholic beliefs
that were deeply held for centuries.
Look,
divisions are inevitable (1 Corinthians 11:18-19), especially
when such large groups are involved. We
Protestants are not complaining about the Catholic Church because it has divisions;
every church has them. We are simply
protesting the hypocrisy and pretension involved on the part of Catholic
accusations of Protestant divisions,
as though Catholics don’t have them.
This whole
issue of divisions is simply a distraction used by Catholics to deny the
doctrine of “Sola Scriptura” (the Bible alone).
This just means that the Bible is the only infallible rule of faith for
the Christian church today. The idea is
not complicated.
Protestants
assert that the principles of Scripture are clear enough to settle arguments
within the body if simple interpretation principles and common sense are used. See these links:
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2013/07/quick-notes-on-sola-scriptura-part-6.html
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2014/02/there-aremany-important-choices-that-we.html
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2009/12/dialogue-on-bible-interpretation.html
Yes, we must
strive for unity in the church (John 17:20-21) – but God wants us to
have unity in the TRUTH (John 17:17), not just an external,
cosmetic type of unity where everyone says the exact same prayer at the same
time and everyone uses the same gestures.
A small
church that is unified in biblical truth is vastly superior to a billion-member
church that is unified in error. If we really
want unbelievers to be drawn by our unity (John 17:22-23), then this unity must be based on scriptural truth. A “unity” based on error is worse than
irrelevant. True unity may not come
easy, but it is better to be honestly divided, than to have an artificial
unity.
So, to
answer the question first posed in the title of this article, no, Catholicism’s
unity is not any better than anyone else’s.
