Comparing Catholicism and Protestantism (Specifically Methodism)

I am an outsider to Catholicism. Growing up in rural east Alabama, you could just as well have been an alien from outer space as have been Catholic. Most people were Baptist, occasionally you’d bump into a Methodist or two, and following that you’d find some other brands of Protestantism. A lot of my life has been lived in the world of Protestantism, and more specifically, in Methodism, though I’ve had a few forays into other traditions. The first time I read someone who writing from a Catholic perspective was in college. The first time I ever went to mass was in seminary. While I’ve read a bit, I don’t know Catholicism from the inside, from being part of the regular worship life and communal life of the church. Also, I’m sure there can be differences between official Catholicism and how things are lived out and worked out on the ground. So correct me if I’m mistaken, particularly if you have an insider perspective.

I’m going to be referencing quite frequently the Catechism of the Catholic Church (I’ll use the ¶ symbol to designate which paragraphs I’m citing in the Catechism; you also can Google paragraphs from the Catechism for free online). I also will be citing extensively Roman But Not Catholic: What Remains at Stake 500 Years after the Reformation by Kenneth Collins and Jerry Walls. Collins is a professor of historical theology, and Walls is a professor of philosophical theology. Collins grew up Catholic but converted to Methodism. Walls remained in Methodism most all his life, but had significant interaction with Catholics while at Notre Dame. I have written posts previously on the Catechism and Collins and Walls’ book, so occasionally I’ll pull forward some material from those former posts. They write a very respectful and well-researched argument, even if in some small places they fall short (I’m not sure that Walls convincingly establishes self-authenticating biblical authority, and I think Collins can be too harsh in a few places). Overall, though, they have done a masterful job at showcasing commonalities and giving thorough critiques.

This post represents my own views, and do not necessarily represent the official views of my congregation at Alexandria Community Church, nor of the Global Methodist Church in which I have my ordination credentials. Since I’m coming from a Methodist theological perspective, there are some things fellow Protestants from other traditions will resonate with, while there will be others things they won’t. My intention is to celebrate the commonalities and explore the differences in good faith, creating a kind of one-stop place that coalesces my thoughts on these matters, and to invite those interested into further theological exploration.

This is a very long essay. I will list out the various sections here in case you want to skip ahead to a particular topic of interest.

• Appreciation of Catholicism and Commonalities with Methodism
• The Fundamental Difference: Theological Method and Authority
• The Papacy
• Mariology
• Male-Only Clergy and Mandatory Celibacy
• Purgatory
• Divorce 
• Birth Control and Onanism
• Closed vs. Open Table Communion
• The Apocrypha as Scripture
• Monasticism
• Condemnation of Those Who Leave Catholicism
• Divisions within Catholicism
• Protestant Possibilities on Prayer to the Dead
• Conclusion

Appreciation of Catholicism and Commonalities with Methodism

Catholics are fellow Christians. Every now and then I’ve run into Protestants who claim Catholics aren’t Christians. It can be helpful to ask the question, “What is necessary for someone to be a Christian?” If you say, “salvation by grace through faith,” Catholics believe that. If you say “salvation solely through the atoning death and victorious resurrection of Jesus,” Catholics believe that. If you say affirming the early creeds, Catholics believe that. Catholic Christians are our sisters and brothers in Christ, and disagreements between Protestants and Catholics are over secondary theological issues. Primary theological mistakes refer to missteps that separate someone from a saving relationship with Jesus. Beliefs about Mary, the pope, purgatory, etc., are not in that category. Protestants who think they need to evangelize Catholics are making a mistake in discerning between primary and secondary theological matters, and it amounts to a lack of kindness and understanding toward our Catholic sisters and brothers. That doesn’t mean the differences aren’t important and affect us in ways big and small, but a basic acknowledgment of shared faith and mission can go a long way here in promoting Christian charity. Collins and Walls agree:

By now it will be apparent that we reject the attitude of some evangelicals who do not consider Roman Catholics true Christians or doubt that they have genuine faith. We forthrightly affirm our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters as full members of the body of Christ, and we celebrate our common convictions that unite us as the family of God (Roman But Not Catholic, p. 7).

Undoubtedly there are some nominal Catholics who have not surrendered their lives to Christ. But nominalism, or being a Christian in name only and not in practice, can show up anywhere, Protestantism and Catholicism. There are nominal Methodists, nominal Catholics, nominal Baptists, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, and so on. We all could do better in calling those who are nominal in their approach to Christianity to a living, dynamic faith.

There is much about Catholicism that I appreciate and from which I have benefitted. For one, they have awesome fish fries in Lent. Whoever made that a widespread practice deserves a high five. Our oldest daughter goes to a Catholic preschool, and we all have had a great experience there. I have listened to and read several Catholics. Bishop Robert Baron of Word on Fire ministries is one of my favorites to listen to via podcast. I’ve appreciated several modern Catholic authors–Henri Nouwen, Richard Rohr, Greg Boyle, Raniero Cantalamessa, Adrian van Kaam, Thomas Merton, Frank Matera, and Frances MacNutt all have benefitted me. Nouwen’s The Inner Voice of Love helped me connect with Jesus during a particularly hard time in college.

I also want to make some comments of appreciation about the Catechism, having read it a few years ago. The Catechism engages in a lot of biblical reflection, in spite of common Protestant accusations that Catholics don’t care about the Bible. Biblical references are teeming throughout. It is kinder toward Protestants than I was expecting: we are followers of Jesus and the Spirit does much good through Protestant churches, though it also says we aren’t properly related to God’s true church. The best and most thorough discussion of angels I’ve ever read is in the Catechism, and I would commend it to everyone who wants a deeper understanding of the subject. There is a healthy respect for science and natural reason, and the official teachings of Catholicism are much more open to God creating through evolution than some Protestant traditions. There is a rich spiritual tradition with many encouragements toward a life of prayer and discipline. I see more emphasis on spirituality in Catholicism than I do in several forms of Protestantism. There is a continual focus on the poor and God’s love for them, and an appreciation for poverty and singleness, which can get downplayed in some strands of Protestantism. There is a lot of modern moral and political wisdom in the Catechism, and a compelling “from the womb to the tomb" value of human life. I also would say Catholics seem to be better than many Protestants at identity formation–on average Catholics are more like to know what it means to be Catholic than a Methodist would know what it means to be Methodist or a Baptist what it means to be Baptist.

Below are some commonalities I see between Catholicism and my own tradition of Methodism. While Anglicanism is the Protestant tradition that probably has the most in common with Catholicism, I’d argue that Methodism as an offshoot of Anglicanism comes in second place.

Commonalities with Methodism

• Creedal–We share the early creeds (though we don’t accept some of the later creeds produced in the history of the church). Both traditions would affirm the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Chalcedonian Definition.
• Salvation–Salvation is by the grace of Jesus, won through his atoning death and victorious resurrection, and accessible by faith and baptism.
• Sacramental–Both Methodism and Catholicism are sacramental traditions, though we differ on what we label as sacraments. Protestants say there are two sacraments while Catholics say there are seven. This basically comes down to a difference of definition. I’m not too interested in getting into fights about words here; Protestants and Catholics alike would affirm that all seven of the things in view are used by God for good, however we label them. Further, while there are different nuances, both Methodists and Catholics believe in the real presence of Christ in Holy Communion. Methodism is open to baptismal regeneration (people “get saved” and become “born again” at baptism), which Catholics adhere to, though we are a little looser on when regeneration can occur. John Wesley, the quintessential founder of Methodism, was perceptive in his writing about the moment the Holy Spirit fills someone/saves someone in Scripture: “There is an irreconcilable variability in the operation of the Holy Spirit upon the souls of men” (Rob Staples, Outward Sign and Inward Grace, p. 133). Always to lock salvation and baptism together may make things more formulaic than the Scriptures do. Even so, Wesley said baptism was the “ordinary” means of receiving salvation, though there may be exceptions to the rule–“Indeed, where it cannot be had, the case is different, but extraordinary cases do not make void a standing rule” (Ibid., p. 143). We are open to baptismal regeneration, though a bit looser on when the moment of regeneration/salvation can occur, leaving it up to the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit. Infant baptism and confirmation are also practiced in both traditions.
• Grace–We share a similar synergistic conception of grace. Methodists would have more in common with Catholics than with Calvinists/Reformed people on how we understand God's grace. In a synergistic understanding of grace, God’s grace empowers a measure of human freedom and responsibility. We can make choices on whether to respond positively to God’s will and receive more grace, or negatively to resist God’s will and so deny ourselves some of the love and grace God offers us. Reformed theology (following Augustine’s later theology as well as Luther and Calvin) has a monergistic conception of God operating in grace. God is the only one who works, and grace is antithetical to human choice and effort. Those who receive saving grace only do so because of God’s foreordained choice of who he will irresistibly save in a monergistic understanding of grace. Methodists and Catholics would stand together against a monergistic conception of grace and salvation.
• Backsliding/Apostasy–Both Catholics and Methodists believe you can lose salvation/backslide/apostatize, but also that you can be restored from being backslidden if you repent (see ¶ 1446).
• Tradition–Methodism has an appreciation for tradition and traditional forms of worship and church life, though the weight we put on tradition differs in degree with Catholicism.
• Episcopal Structure–Catholicism and historic Methodism share an episcopal structure of governance (episcopal comes from the Greek word episkopos, meaning overseer or bishop), though they spell out the roles of bishops differently and also differ on the papacy.
• Sacerdotalism–Historic Methodism has maintained aspects of sacerdotalism alongside Catholicism. Sacerdotalism (from the Latin sacerdos, “priest”) gets at the notion of priests/clergy being endowed with special grace through ordination to perform the sacraments; no one else is permitted to perform the sacraments save in extraordinary circumstances.
• Marriage–Methodism and Catholicism share the historic definition of Christian marriage as being between one man and one woman, ideally for life, for the purpose of love, service, union, possibility of procreation, holiness, and working out God’s mission in the church and world.
• The Priesthood of All Believers– 1 Peter 2:5, 9 gets at the notion of the Reformation doctrine that Martin Luther espoused known as the priesthood of all believers, where the entire Christian community is given a priestly job, not just select individuals. But even in the OT, all Israel was called to be a royal priesthood, but God still selected individuals to the office of priest among them. Catholicism affirms the priesthood of all believers (see ¶ 1546-47), and arguments around these things are often more historic in nature than contemporary.

The Fundamental Difference: Theological Method and Authority

The differences between Catholics and Protestants are ultimately rooted in different ways of doing theology and differences in where we understand the location of final theological authority to be. A couple fundamental questions we can wrestle with are these: How does God communicate with us? How do we reliably come to know God and his will? We Methodists like to use the acronym STER (called the Wesleyan Quadrilateral) to talk about the different ways people come to know God: Scripture, Tradition, Experience, and Reason. Every person and every denomination weighs and uses these four sources of theological knowledge differently. For instance, charismatic and Pentecostal Protestants tend to give more emphasis to Scripture and Experience (for instance, what I learned in the practice of prayer, what the Spirit told me, my experience of speaking in tongues, etc.). The Reformed tradition tends to weigh Scripture and Reason more heavily (what is the best way to go about interpretation, how does background of a particular Scripture inform our understanding of it, how does this interact with other sources of knowledge like science, philosophy, psychology, etc.) Anglicans would employ Scripture and Tradition more heavily, while still giving primacy to Scripture. Roman Catholics put holy Tradition (the ecumenical creeds, what Christians and teachers have said in the past, how the church has interpreted Scripture throughout history) on an equal level with Scripture, along with the Magisterium (the pope and his bishops, who sometimes can teach infallibly according to Catholic theology). Holy Tradition, Scripture, and Magisterium act something like a three-legged stool in Catholicism. See Article 2: The Transmission of Divine Revelation (¶ 74-95) of the Catechism to dive deeper into the Catholic perspective of how they do theology. 

How you answer the above questions on method and authority cause all the other differences and disagreements to fall into place. If Catholics are right in how they understand God to communicate to us and where interpretive and theological authority is located, then Mariology and purgatory and the papacy will make sense, because the most authoritative ways that God speaks to us involve Scripture, holy tradition, and the magisterium. So if the magisterium says these things are true and proper procedures have been followed, then God has spoken. However, if Protestants are right on Scripture being primary in how we understand God to communicate his will to us–if the Bible is the most authoritative way that God speaks and tradition is not on par with it–then Protestantism makes a lot of sense. Which theological method and locus of authority is more compelling?

One of the reasons Catholics prioritize tradition and the magisterium to the same level as Scripture is that the Scriptures were produced and formalized via the traditioning process of the church. The New Testament wasn’t finally canonized by the church until the 4th century, and the New Testament documents themselves were produced by the individuals of the early church. The church ratifying the New Testament is often used by Catholics as an argument that God gives great authority to the church, guided by the Holy Spirit, that is at least on par or perhaps even exceeds the authority of Scripture. That is used to support the notion that God can speak infallibly through the hierarchy and structure of the church concerning matters of faith, theology, and practice, even if the church teaches something that is not fully articulated or even present in Scripture, because the Spirit-led church can have at least as much authority as Scripture to know and promulgate God’s will. Do not the very Scriptures themselves that we Protestants so admire depend on the prior authority and work of the church? 

To respond to this, I want to highlight that there have been different approaches to church tradition within Protestantism. Here’s a table showcasing some of the different approaches Christians have had toward church tradition, adapted from p. 27 of Collins and Walls’ book :

Name	Judgment on Tradition	Theological Community
Tradition 0	No place for tradition, Scripture the only authority and church tradition should be disregarded altogether, “no creed but the Bible”	Radical Reformation/Anabaptists
Tradition 1	Scripture the primary and only unquestioned source of authority for faith and practice; tradition is vital, but not on same level as Scripture	Magisterial Reformation (Luther, Calvin, Cranmer and other Anglicans)
Tradition 2	Scripture and holy tradition hold equal authority/weight	Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy has its own version of this

I’m going to be arguing for tradition 1, but against tradition 0 and tradition 2. Tradition 0 disregards the process and mechanism God used for the church to produce and recognize the Scriptures. Scripture didn’t drop out of thin air. Catholics often have good critiques against tradition 0 Protestants, because these Protestants are unable to talk persuasively about how they got the Bibles they passionately defend. If you can’t see and appreciate how God has used the church and the traditioning process to give us the Scriptures, I don’t think you’re going to be able to make very convincing arguments about biblical and theological authority.

Tradition 1 Protestants would agree that we are dependent upon the church for the production of the Scriptures as well as the later canonization of the Scriptures in the 4th century, but would still differ on how much theological weight we give to tradition and the church. To play with an illustration given by Anglican Bible scholar N. T. Wright in his book Scripture and The Authority of God (p. 69), let’s use a military example of receiving orders from your commander through the mail. Consider Scripture being like the message from your commanding officer, and the postal worker who delivers it being like the church. Just because a postal worker delivered your orders to you doesn’t mean your postal worker has the same authority as the message or the commander, and therefore you should give all allegiance and obedience to the postal worker. Both the letter and the postal worker are helping us be better connected to the commander, but they fulfill different roles. Protestants would say the letter (representing Scripture) contains the most pristine presentation of the commander’s orders, not necessarily the thoughts of any postal worker (representing the church) about the letter, though certainly the postal worker plays an important role.

Jesus himself had a high reverence for Scripture (which was the OT in his time). He upbraided some of the teachers of the law and Pharisees and Sadducees of his day for not knowing or obeying Scripture. Jesus said “Scripture cannot be set aside…” in John 10:35. Jesus made a grammatical argument from Scripture in Mat. 22:29-33 to refute the Sadducees concerning the afterlife and the resurrection, drawing attention to the verb tense used in passages like Exodus 3:6, where God says “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” God did not say "I was," but "I am," meaning that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob still exist in an afterlife and he is still their God, unlike what the Sadducees believed. In Matthew 15:4-9, Jesus quotes Scripture and prefaces it with “God said,” as he quotes one of the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20:12 (“Honor your father and mother”) and Exodus 21:17 (“Anyone who curses their mother or father is to be put to death”), then he chastises his audience for disobeying God’s commands for the sake of their tradition when it came to supporting their aging parents. Jesus in this passage showcases how interpretive traditions and religious leaders can go against Scripture and God’s will. I would add that such mistaken traditions can be present in both Catholicism and Protestantism. All of us can use our interpretive traditions to hide from God, to get out of following his commands and doing his will. Don’t assume that just because someone is Protestant and they talk about/quote from the Bible a lot that this inoculates them against prioritizing their own tradition and preferences over a more faithful interpretation of Scripture. Further, the apostles and NT authors quote from Old Testament Scripture all the time. Paul believed Scripture was God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training in righteousness, and being prepared for good works (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Peter was already putting some of Paul’s writings on par with OT Scripture (2 Pet. 3:15-16). There is a high respect for Scripture’s derived authority from God in the life of the church, not to mention that the Scriptures represent some of the earliest writings of the church. If you want to stay close to the earliest traditions of the church and ensure that the church has not swerved from the sources, from what Jesus and the apostles themselves actually taught, then you need to stay close to the Scriptures

Many Protestants believe that if a teaching of the church is not evident from the Scriptures, at the very least it shouldn’t be required as necessary for salvation or practice, and if it runs contrary to the Scriptures, it should be abandoned as violating Scripture and the earliest teachings of the church. This is what led to the Protestant Reformation–a desire to reform the Catholic Church to align with the earliest traditions and teachings of the church as revealed through Scripture, a return to ancient, early Christianity, a going back to the sources. The high value placed on Scripture by Jesus and his close associates, as well as the principle of prioritizing that which is earliest and closest to the sources, lend a lot of credence to the Protestant project. 

This is not to say that the church and theology don't develop over time.

We fully recognize that the church develops over time under the authority of the Holy Spirit. Such development, in the best sense of the term, is consonant with the basic truth of Scripture and within the interpretive traditions (expressed in thought and practice) that Scripture has stimulated among the faithful, such that the church is equipped by the Word and Spirit to bear its testimony from age to age. Thus our chief concern, especially as we face the Roman Catholic tradition, is not to engage in primitivism but to avoid the error of anachronism, such as reading back into the first-century church later historical products (e.g., the papacy) as if they had always been there (Collins & Walls, Roman But Not Catholic, p. xviii).

In some ways, Protestantism released great potential for transformation within the church, but it also created a huge fracturing within the church, paving the way for disagreements and even fresh entries into error. Luther quickly discovered that any hopes of unifying Protestants around a common interpretation of Scripture were dashed at the Marburg Colloquy in his arguments with Zwingli, and it’s undeniable that people interpret Scripture in a lot of different ways still today. There are hundreds of different denominations, all claiming to be “biblical,” but coming to different conclusions on points of doctrine. We have something similar to individualized Protestant magisteriums in the various denominations, each rallying around certain ways of interpreting Scripture, and each giving hierarchical authority for enforcing those views. In spite of the fracturing it has caused, along with other sins and failings of Protestantism, we Protestants believe a foundational reliance on Scripture is a conviction worth arguing for, even if it hasn’t been able to produce total ecclesial and interpretive unity, because we believe it best captures how to be faithful to Christ in our lives. We want to be faithful to the teachings of Jesus, the apostles, and their close associates, and make sure we are not straying from these teachings. We trust that they gave us the most important things we need to know and do.

Now let’s explore some of the other differences that stem from this fundamental difference around theological method and authority.

The Papacy

The primary text used concerning the papacy is Matthew 16:17-19. Some key questions we can wrestle with are: Who or what is the rock upon which Jesus builds his church? What does it mean that Peter gets the keys of the kingdom and has authority to bind and loose?

The Rock–Catholics maintain that Peter is the rock upon which the church is to be built, and that this passage establishes an ongoing office of leadership and authority over the whole church in ¶ 881-882. Concerning the question of who or what is the “rock” upon which Jesus builds the church, many Protestant scholars draw attention to the differently gendered endings used in the Greek text of verse 18. “And I tell you that you are Peter (Petros in Greek, a masculine ending is used)…” “…on this rock (petra in Greek, a feminine ending is used) I will build my church.” The use of differently gendered grammatical endings could be evidence that Jesus is talking about two different things when he talks about Peter and about the rock upon which he will build the church. If Jesus intended to make Peter the rock upon which the church is built, you would expect there to be grammatical gender agreement, most likely involving the masculine ending occurring in both places. The fact that there is not gender agreement could indicate that Jesus is referring to something other than Peter being the rock upon which the church is built, with most Protestants arguing for the confession Peter makes of Jesus as Messiah being the rock upon which the church is built. The gates of hell will never overthrow the Lordship and reign of the Messiah, nor will it overthrow the church which confesses and anchors itself in the kingship of Jesus. Some commentators highlight that this grammatical observation could be overblown, however. “In the Greek of this period, Petros (Peter’s name) was used interchangeably with petra (‘rock’)” (Walton & Keener, NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, p. 1644). Even if the grammatical difference is overplayed, Peter’s confession is what earns him the name. It is also important to highlight that this passage says nothing about an ongoing office of leadership in the church that is to be handed down throughout history. Undoubtedly, Peter has a leadership role amongst the twelve and was considered the chief of the twelve as you keep reading the Gospels and Acts. But it seems to be making a few leaps beyond what the text says to argue for an ongoing office of pope from this passage.

Add to this that Peter does not seem to give himself pride of place in his own writings. See the comments below from Dr. Karen Jobes’ 1 Peter commentary on 1 Peter 2:4-10 concerning Peter’s metaphor of the church as a spiritual house/temple:

…Peter describes both the Lord Jesus Christ and Christian believers as living stones built into a spiritual “house” in which Christ is the all-important cornerstone. The fact that Peter, whose nickname means “rock,” does not give himself any special place in this spiritual house is revealing and suggests that the author was not writing under the later Catholic doctrine of Peter’s primacy, upon which the apostolic succession of the papacy was based (Karen Jobes, 1 Peter 2nd ed., p. 143).

[Peter’s] silence here, where such a suggestion [of the papacy and Peter’s primacy] would be most natural, lends support to the understanding that the “rock” of Matt. 16:18, on which Christ will build the church, is the confession of Jesus being the Christ, not Peter himself (Ibid., p. 151).

Further, the way Luke writes Acts showcases a shift in the church from the influence and leadership of Peter to the leadership of Paul and others. We do not hear from Peter again after the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. If Peter’s role and the need to pass it off to a successor were so crucial, why this neglect from Luke and from Peter himself?

The Keys of the Kingdom–What does Jesus mean when he tells Peter he will give him the keys of the kingdom? In the symbolism of the Catholic Church, the pope’s office is depicted with the imagery of two keys that are crossed, in front of a triregnum, or triple crown. These keys symbolize the keys of the kingdom and are derived from this passage. Jesus’ commands seem to be connected to the activity of binding and loosing, since keys can lock things and bind them, or unlock things so they can be loosed and opened.

Before we seek to understand what binding and loosing means, it’s important to acknowledge that Peter alone didn’t receive such authority. The rest of the Christian community also receives the authority to bind and loose in Matthew 18:15-20, implying that other Christian leaders, not just Peter, also have the keys of the kingdom (see also John 20:19-23; the Catechism also acknowledges that the church receives the keys in ¶ 881, 981-982). The context of Matthew 18:15-20 is one of handling sin in the church, with disciplinary steps that are to be taken if someone is unrepentant. The implication is that if the church calls someone to repent and they refuse, then the judgments and discipline of the church on earth (excommunication seems to be the final step taken in 18:17) will be ratified by God in heaven. If someone rejects faithful and well-placed discipline from the church on earth, he or she will be barred from entering God’s dwelling place, he or she will be bound, locked out. The one who receives it will be set free and at liberty. So when Jesus says Peter receives the keys, Peter and his colleagues exercising church discipline may have been one of the things Jesus had in mind. But probably more relevant to the immediate context, Jesus gives Peter (and other church leaders who also receive the keys) the ability to discern who is making a faithful confession of Jesus as Lord in contrast to those who are not. The church in preaching the gospel and calling people to confess Jesus as Lord are using the keys of the kingdom to open up the gates of the kingdom. Those who receive the gospel and surrender to Christ as Lord are loosed from their sins and enter into the joy of the kingdom, while those who resist are barred and locked outside of the kingdom of God. In short, Jesus is going to build his church upon the confession of himself as Lord and King. He empowers the church to determine who is faithfully making and living into that confession, and he empowers the church to handle sin and reconciliation, with the unfortunate possibility of an unrepentant person being removed from Christian community and that decision being ratified by God as the person is also removed from final salvation unless they repent.

Historically speaking, the notion of papal infallibility didn’t become dogma until the First Vatican Council of 1870, and there are very specific circumstances that have to be in place for papal infallibility to be invoked. There have been some really great popes and some really bad popes in the history of Catholicism. Articles abound on the topic, but here is one that lists out some of the abuses present in the bad popes. The offenses involve murder, having children out of wedlock/in spite of vows of celibacy, rape and sodomy, political intrigues and power plays, putting dead people on trial, bribery and nepotism, utilizing torture, fomenting and directing wars, extreme greed, drunkenness, antisemitism, excommunicating critics, etc. Catholics don't hide that there have been terrible popes. But the fact that there have been may call into question some of the claims made about the office.

Now it may seem odd that the papacy is so vital that God has acted providentially to secure an unbroken succession, beginning with Peter, but has not acted to consistently provide men with basic integrity to hold this office (Collins & Walls, Roman But Not Catholic, p. 255).

Mariology

The Perpetual Virginity of Mary–Catholics would say that Mary and Joseph never consummated their marriage sexually, contra Matthew 1:24-25 (“…but he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son.”). Matthew 1:18 (…“before they came together” implies that they did come together later) and Luke 2:7 (“she gave birth to her firstborn,” which implies that there were others). Mark 6:3 is worth quoting here, “‘Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at him.” The Catechism says in ¶ 500 we should understand this as referring to the “other Mary” that Matthew mentions in Matthew 27:56; 28:1, and that this Mary was somehow related to Jesus’ family. Still, there was language to denote someone as a cousin or extended relative. John the Baptist, who is clearly a relative of some kind to Jesus since Mary and Elizabeth were relatives, is never called a brother of Jesus. Some have even gone so far to claim that Joseph had children by an earlier marriage and was a widower when he married Mary and that explains the siblings. I don’t find these explanations satisfactory. The text says Jesus has brothers and sisters, which means Mary had more kids and didn't remain perpetually a virgin. See also Mark 3:31-35 (Jesus’ mother and brothers are outside looking for him, Jesus says whoever does the Lord’s will is his mother and brother and sister); 1 Cor. 9:5 (the Lord’s brothers); and Gal. 1:19 (James the Lord’s brother).

The Immaculate Conception and Sinlessness of Mary–The immaculate conception is about God imparting the saving grace of his Son in a proleptic/preliminary fashion to redeem Mary from original sin. This doctrine is more about God performing a work of grace on Mary’s parents (traditionally named Anna and Joachim) rather than Mary’s virginal conception of Jesus, which some people get confused. While this teaching was present much earlier in tradition, Mary’s immaculate conception did not become dogma until 1854 under Pope Pius IX (Ibid., p. 304). Her immaculate conception is affirmed in ¶ 491, and Pius IX’s encyclical is used to describe it:

The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.

You’d be hard pressed to find anywhere in Scripture that claims Mary was born sinless and that Jesus preemptively forgave and rid her of sin by the merits of his coming death and resurrection. It also is not entirely clear why the immaculate conception would’ve been necessary–could not God simply have sanctified Mary’s womb by a miraculous act of his grace in her pregnancy without requiring the immaculate conception?

The Catechism goes on to say in ¶ 493 the following, “By the grace of God Mary remained free of every personal sin her whole life long.” In Mark 3:20-21, it may be implied that Mary herself thought that Jesus was out of his mind at some point and disagreed with his teaching, though this is not clear. At the very least, nowhere in Scripture does it say that Mary was born sinless nor that she remained sinless for her entire life. Paul’s language around all people sinning and falling short of God’s grace could be relevant here (Rom. 3:23; see also Heb. 4:15; neither text makes an exception for Mary).

The Assumption of Mary, Mary as Mediatrix, & Devotion to Mary

¶ 966 asserts that Mary never died, but like Enoch in Genesis 5:21-25 and Elijah in 2 Kings 2:1-12, was taken up to be with God before death and live with him forever, and is exalted as Queen of Heaven. She is basically acknowledge as Queen Mother since her Son Jesus is the King of all existence. This is called the Assumption of Mary (sometimes also called the Dormition, particularly in Eastern Orthodoxy). The bodily assumption of Mary into heaven did not become dogma until November 1, 1950 under Pius XII. Pius says in that same encyclical that made it dogma that if you deny or call into doubt Mary’s bodily assumption, you have “fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic faith” (Ibid., 306-307). As exalted Queen of Heaven, she can intercede on behalf of the church, and therefore is called according to ¶ 969 “Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix.”

Revelation 12 and its depiction of the woman and the dragon is sometimes used to argue for the assumption of Mary. Most interpreters rightly recognize the child born to the woman as Jesus. Some interpreters have used this passage to suggest that the woman is Mary. But the text signals through the crown of twelve stars that the woman represents Israel, which is made up of twelve tribes. The woman giving birth to the Messiah showcases how Jesus is descended from Israel and is the King of the Jews. That the woman has other offspring who hold to the testimony of Jesus showcases that all who trust in Jesus and obey his commands are considered the children of Israel and are part of God’s people, now defined by Christ (Rom. 2:28-29; 4:16; Gal. 3:5-9). There seems to be nothing of an Assumption/Dormition of Mary in Scripture and little to nothing in the earliest traditions in the church, as it’s basically non-existent in the ante-Nicene fathers. Collins says the doctrine is not explicitly propounded and defended until the fifth century, though perhaps Epiphanius speculated about it before then (Ibid., 307-308).

 ¶ 970 spells out that Mary's role as mother of grace and mediatrix does not diminish the unique mediation of Christ. Then it goes on in ¶ 971 to affirm that the church should show special devotion to Mary as an "intrinsic aspect of Christian worship.” Devotion can have connotations of worship (as in doing devotions/showing devotion to Christ God), but also connotations of loyalty and being committed (as in being devoted to one’s spouse and family or being devoted to one’s work and responsibilities). If the first connotation is implied, then devotion to Mary sounds idolatrous. If the latter connotation is implied, it’s a bit more palatable, but still strikes me as unnecessary. I’m ok with honoring and respecting Mary as a beautiful example of following God’s will, along with her special role of bearing and rearing Christ. There is nothing in Scripture that says Christians owe her any particular loyalty or devotion. There is nothing about Mary being a mediator for us in Scripture, and there is nothing about special reverence being due to Mary in Scripture. Luke 11:27-28 has relevance here–when someone cries, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you,” Jesus replies, “Blessed rather are the ones who hear God’s word and obey it." He did not give his mother an exalted place when he was given a prime opportunity to do so, but did encourage obedience to God, which Mary did when it came to bearing and raising Jesus.

Here’s a paragraph from Walls relative to the topic:

For Roman Catholics, however, it is far from clear that their faith in classic creedal doctrines can coherently stand without the Marian dogmas. Again, the basic logic is straightforward: If the immaculate conception is not infallibly true, the doctrine of papal infallibility is not true; and if the doctrine of papal infallibility is not true, the claims of the Roman magisterium to have exclusive authority to define dogma are not true. And the claim to such exclusive authority by Rome is apparent in the claim we have been examining […] that “sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others.” In short, the credibility of the entire Roman Catholic authority structure hinges on the infallible truth of the immaculate conception. Those who are not dogmatically committed to Rome may see here a house of cards waiting to fall. And that is a good reason to think Roman authority claims are fundamentally mistaken (Ibid., p. 78).

Male-Only Clergy and Mandatory Celibacy

For Men Only

Catholicism has maintained that only men can be clergy, though they have elevated several women to positions of great prominence and sainthood. The earlier traditions of the church seem to have allowed women a more prominent space for leadership. The justification for male only clergy is found in ¶ 1577, that Jesus chose only 12 men to be apostles, and those apostles chose only men to be their successors in the ministry. This doesn’t fit all the data we have in Scripture and early church history.

Scripture showcases women in leadership roles in the OT and NT. Deborah sits in Moses’ seat, judging the difficult cases that are brought before her in Judges 4:5, much like Moses heard the most difficult cases that local leaders could not resolve according to Exodus 18:17-27. Junia is a woman who is an apostle according to the most convincing reading of the Greek in Rom. 16:7, and being an apostle was the highest position of authority in the early church according to 1 Cor. 12:28. There are women prophets who confront and address kings, leaders, and the people of God in the OT. In the NT in 1 Cor. 12:28, prophecy is ranked as a more authoritative gift than teaching. The NT reports female deacons such as Phoebe in Romans 16:1-2 and the women of 1 Timothy 3:11. There are women deacons in early church history that Collins lifts up in documents like the Didascalia Apostolorum and the Council of Chalcedon, though women serving as deacons was stopped around the sixth century in the West and later in the Eastern church (Ibid., pp. 171-172). Entire books are written on this topic, and I have more fully addressed it elsewhere. Suffice it to say I think it best to interpret contextually Paul’s restrictions on women since there are other passages that show women having spiritual authority. To restrict God’s call on women is to miss out on some gifted women whom God is calling and empowering as clergy and ministry leaders.

Mandatory Celibacy

This doctrine derives from Jesus saying being a eunuch of the kingdom is a preferable status over marriage in Matthew 19:1-12, as well as Paul saying singleness is a more fruitful status for doing the Lord’s work in 1 Corinthians 7, and both passages are cited in the Catechism. The language reads thus:

All the ordained ministers of the Latin Church, with the exception of permanent deacons, are normally chosen from among men of faith who live a celibate life and who intend to remain celibate “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” Called to consecrate themselves with undivided heart to the Lord and to “the affairs of the Lord,” they give themselves entirely to God and to men. Celibacy is a sign of this new life to the service of which the Church’s minister is consecrated; accepted with a joyous heart celibacy radiantly proclaims the Reign of God (¶ 1579).

However, both of the biblical passages concerning celibacy in Matthew 19:1-12 and 1 Corinthians 7 paint celibacy as a possibility, not a requirement. I fully affirm what Jesus and Paul have said about the gifts single people who are devoted to the service of Christ bring to the table. I also want to affirm Christian marriage as a viable option for all clergy. Deacons can get married in Catholicism in ¶ 1571. I think further pastors/elders/priests/bishops can get married. Peter, whom Catholicism claims as the first pope, had a wife, since Peter’s mother-in-law is mentioned in Matthew 8:14-15. Paul mentions Peter and the other apostles and James the brother of Jesus having wives in 1 Corinthians 9:5. Paul, in giving instructions about overseers and deacons in 1 Timothy 3, mentions them being married in 3:2, 12. He mentions elders being faithful in marriage in Titus 1:6 as well.

“During the fourth century the Council of Nicaea (325) mandated that a priest could not take a wife after ordination, a judgment that helps explain the Eastern Orthodox practice even today of permitting marriage before ordination but not generally afterward” (Ibid., p. 183). Further, influential church fathers like Tertullian, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa were married (Ibid.). Celibacy was fully required by Pope Gregory VII in the eleventh century, and Collins dives into some of the politics surrounding the decision for those who'd like to read further (Ibid., pp.184-186).

Not allowing women clergy or married clergy limits people who are called and empowered by the Holy Spirit to ministry offices and roles. Catholicism is denying itself gifted and graced Christian leaders with these restrictions. They are being more stringent than Scripture.

Purgatory

Purgatory is mentioned in ¶ 1030-32 in the Catechism. In Catholic theology, purgatory is for Christians who do not die in a state of grace. It is not for those who reject or spurn Christ, who end up going to hell. The name “purgatory” is illustrative of what happens there: the Christian must be purged from the sin that remains on them. This is part of why many Catholics desire last rites/extreme unction/anointing of the sick before they die, so that they die forgiven of all their sins and in a state of grace so as to enter the presence of Christ straightaway and avoid purgatory. Some pray for those in purgatory to make progress toward their final heavenly end, and one of the abuses in Reformation times were over indulgences sold by the church that could spring your family members out of purgatory. The Catholic Church still encourages “almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead…” (¶ 1032).

The Catechism cites 1 Corinthians 3:15 and Matthew 12:31-32 as evidence of purgatory, along with 2 Maccabees 12:46 (whether 2 Maccabees should be utilized as Scripture is addressed in the section below on the Apocrypha).

Let’s examine 1 Corinthians 3:10-15, which reads in the NIV–

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

Here’s Richard Hays in his 1 Corinthians commentary on this passage:

As Robertson and Plummer (64) rightly observe about 1 Corinthians 3:12-15, there is not  “the remotest reference to the state of the soul between death and judgment.” Nor is there any reflection here on the purifying effect of fire. Paul is talking not about purgatory for individual souls but about the final divine testing of the solidity of the church as constructed by various apostolic laborers (Hays, 1 Corinthians: Interpretation, p. 55).

First of all, Paul held his doctrine of justification by faith alongside a continuing belief that God will judge the deeds of individuals (2 Cor. 5:10; Rom. 2:5-11). We must take care to examine what Paul actually thought rather than to impose upon him a theological abstraction about the meaning of sola fide. Secondly–and more importantly for the present passage–we must remember that Paul is not [directly] talking about the fate of individual souls at the final judgment but about God’s scrutiny of the building work of different preachers and leaders. Paul did in fact have a distinct notion of special […] rewards for apostolic work (1 Cor. 9:15-18, 23, 27; Phil. 2:16). The doctrine of justification by faith is clearly distinguishable from this idea, as 1 Corinthians 3:15 suggests: The incompetent subcontractor will be saved (though barely) even though his work is burned up. […] Those whose preaching and teaching fail to build solid community are responsible for loss and injury to many, and God will hold them accountable. If they are nonetheless finally spared and saved as individuals, it will be only by God’s miraculous grace: They will be like “a brand snatched from the fire” (Amos 4:11) (Ibid., p. 56).

Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 is not teaching a doctrine of purgatory.

Now let’s look at Matthew 12:32, which reads, “Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” The Catechism cites Gregory the Great as teaching, “From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come” (¶ 1031). In essence, if Jesus mentions blaspheming the Holy Spirit as bringing unforgivable condemnation in this age and the age to come, does not his very phrasing open up the possibility that some sins might remain unforgiven in this age but can be forgiven in the age to come? While interesting to ponder, I think this is pushing Jesus’ words in a direction he is not intending to go. He is warning about the grave seriousness of blaspheming the Holy Spirit (which in context seems to amount to attributing to demons the genuine, miraculous, healing work of the Holy Spirit), and that it can lead to lasting, eternal condemnation. Craig Keener in his Matthew commentary writes that the Pharisees, “are on the verge of becoming incapable of repentance. The sign of their hardness of heart is their determination to reject any proof for Jesus’ divine mission, to the extent that they even attribute God’s attestation of Jesus to the devil” (Keener, The Gospel of Matthew, p. 366).

Interpreting Matthew 12:32 as referring to the possibility of post-mortem forgiveness via purgatory also begs some questions: Why would the method of seeking purification and forgiveness of sins be different in this age vs. the age to come? If confessing our sins and seeking the grace of Jesus is enough to be forgiven by God here on earth, why would going through a purgative, disciplinary process seem to be what is required for forgiveness to occur in the age to come? Doesn’t that seem to detract from the sufficiency of the grace and sacrifice of Christ? Further, Jesus says nothing here in Matthew 12:32 of some disciplinary, restorative process concerning forgiveness in the future age for those who do not die in a state of grace. Neither does any other place in the NT. I just don’t see any convincing biblical passages that would point to the existence of purgatory. Also, how could you be sure if someone is in purgatory or not, particularly if you wanted to pray for them to get out? How would you know if they finally get out? Interestingly enough, Eastern Orthodoxy joins with Protestantism in rejecting purgatory. Catholics are alone on this one.

Divorce

“The matrimonial union of man and woman is indissoluble: God himself has determined it: ‘what therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder’” (¶ 1614). Indissolubility language and its importance are reiterated in ¶ 1643-1649. ¶ 1649 mentions that situations might arise when a husband and wife need to separate from each other. While the specifics are not spelled out, one thinks of instances of abuse, addiction, crime, financial mismanagement, and perhaps other situations where this would be prudent. Reconciliation is encouraged if possible, but the marriage bond remains indissoluble even if the couple is separated, and divorce is not permitted in these circumstances. According to the Catechism, divorce is always impermissible if a marriage is valid in the eyes of God and the church. Further, ¶ 1650 says that Catholics who get divorced from a valid marriage and then remarry commit adultery per Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 19. Adultery is considered a mortal sin, therefore divorced and remarried persons are barred from receiving Holy Communion and from holding church leadership roles and responsibilities as long as this situation persists. Full reconciliation with God and the church can only be granted if the remarried person confesses their sin and then seeks to life a continent, celibate life so as not to be actively participating in an adulterous union. This means the divorced and remarried couple must commit to a sexless marriage to get back in good standing in the eyes of the church.

There are some workarounds, however. Catholic couples can pursue an annulment, which some refer to as “Catholic divorce.” An annulment basically claims that someone’s marriage was not valid in the eyes of God and the church in the first place, so a couple splitting up does not amount to a divorce because they were never rightfully married. ¶ 1625-1629 list some of the conditions that can nullify a marriage. I also found this on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) concerning what is required for a marriage to be considered “valid” in the eyes of the Catholic Church: 

• the spouses are free to marry;
• they are capable of giving their consent to marry;
• they freely exchange their consent;
• in consenting to marry, they have the intention to marry for life, to be faithful to one another and be open to having and raising children;
• they intend the good of each other; and
• their consent is given in the presence of two witnesses and before a properly authorized Church minister. Exceptions to this last requirement must be approved by Church authority.

The Catholic Church has moved away from New Testament criteria around divorce to establish some new criteria of their own concerning the validity of marriage. How common is it that people are in forced marriages or in situations where they can't give proper consent to marriage in the West? I’m sure there are some rare occurrences, but I don't know if I’ve met a couple that didn't genuinely consent to marry each other. I could see this being applicable in cultures where arranged marriages are more common. Who intends not to marry for life? Even if they didn't, why would such an intention render a person’s marriage vows as invalid in the eyes of God? Whatever their intentions, they still made the vows. The NT says nothing about valid marriage requiring two witnesses and an authorized church minister–indeed, we might presume several of the Christian converts who had unbelieving spouses that Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians 7:10-16 did not have a marriage involving an authorized church minister, for they were most likely not Christians when they got married. Indeed, the NT doesn’t seem to say much about any of the above criteria concerning marriage and divorce.

Divorce clearly is not God’s ideal for marriage. Jesus intensifies Old Testament teaching (as in Deut. 24:1-4) around marriage and divorce, giving more stringent grounds for divorce and making obtaining a divorce more difficult (Mat. 5:31-32; 19:1-12). God’s intent is for marriages to last for life, and that they be relationships of love, trust, mutual service and sacrifice, holiness, procreation if possible, forgiveness, and service to the church and the world. A marriage having problems or going through a “rough patch” is not sufficient grounds for divorce. The church can encourage, pray for, support, and counsel people who are in a hard, conflictual place in their marriage. It should also be noted that divorce often leaves a permanent wound on any children involved. Even so, there are actions and circumstances that constitute such grave violations of what marriage and family are intended to be that they become sufficient grounds for divorce. Jesus mentions sexual immorality as grounds for divorce (Mat. 5:32; 19:9). Paul mentions abandonment as another grounds for divorce in 1 Cor. 7:15, with the abandoned spouse not “being bound” in such circumstances, which was “the precise language in Jewish divorce contracts for freedom to remarry” (Walton & Keener, NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, p. 1994). Seeing Jesus and Paul’s exceptions as principles from which we might conduct further moral reasoning, I would add cases of physical abuse, some situations of addiction, some situations of a spouse being arrested for crime, and potentially other situations that could constitute sufficient grounds for divorce. The one who has been cheated on, the one who has been abused, the one who has been abandoned, the one who is the innocent party in such situations, is free to divorce and remarry. That being said, sins that could be considered sufficient grounds for divorce don’t have to lead to divorce. There can be repentance, forgiveness, and a willingness to start anew, to heal and rebuild where there has been betrayal. Adultery and other serious infractions don’t have to be the end. Different people may come to different decisions in these situations over whether to get divorced or pursue reconciliation.

Should someone or a couple who divorced for less-than-ideal reasons get remarried? Should the “guilty party” who cheated or committed some other serious violation be permitted to remarry? Jesus warns of such situations as being akin to adultery (Mat. 5:32; 19:9); and Paul advises remaining single unless being reconciled with the original spouse (1 Cor. 7:10-11). This brings up debated questions amongst interpreters. Further complicating questions can be added. What if someone got divorced before they became a Christian? What if someone is already divorced and remarried when they become a Christian? Is there forgiveness and the possibility of starting anew? What about Jeremiah 3:1-4:4, where God is pictured as divorcing his wife Israel, she marries another man (a metaphor for Israel’s idolatry), and yet God calls her to return to him since he is her husband (3:14), which went against biblical prohibitions around remarriage in Deut. 24:1-4? In short, God is depicted as violating biblical divorce law out of love for his people in Jer. 3:1-4:4. Does that have any relevance for how Christians should approach divorce and remarriage? 

Perhaps a minimal baseline that everyone would say is important is for those who have divorced to repent from and confess any sins and wrongs that are theirs to own, learn from their mistakes, heal from the pain of the divorce, and earnestly seek Christ’s will for their lives and future. Some would say that might constitute circumstances for beginning to entertain remarriage, others would say the person should remain single out of faithfulness to Christ. I leave some openness for prayer, discernment, and deliberation concerning how to answer these questions. There is mercy and forgiveness from God for all who repent of sins around marriage and divorce, and no repentant and earnest Christian should be denied Communion. Jesus can help people in messy situations pursue holiness and God’s best. We should also grapple with Jesus and Paul’s words seriously about not divorcing lightly, taking singleness and the possibility of pursuing reconciliation seriously, and avoiding committing adultery through unnecessary divorce and remarriage. A good book for further exploration on the topic is Craig Keener’s …And Marries Another.

Birth Control and Onanism

Many people know that Catholicism teaches against the use of any birth control, and considers it sinful to use any form of contraception. ¶ 2366 reads, “So the church, which ‘is on the side of life’ teaches that ‘it is necessary that each and every marriage act remain ordered per se to the procreation of human life.’” ¶ 2370 commends what is commonly called the “rhythm method” or “natural family planning,” where a couple refuses to use contraception but still practices family planning based on “periodic continence” shaped around the wife’s phases of fertility. The paragraph goes on to say that any act that “‘render[s] procreation impossible’ is intrinsically evil.” Catholics reject all forms of in-vitro fertilization, even when pursued by a husband and wife according to ¶ 2376-2377. Infertility is not sinful and can be a sign that a couple should pursue adoption or some form of demanding service to others.

¶ 2373 maintains that large families are blessings. I would agree with Catholics that Christian couples should be open to pursuing family and children when possible and that children are blessings. Getting pregnant and birthing children are shown to be blessings in Scripture, while barrenness and infertility were often considered afflictions. Sarah is joyful when she miraculously conceives and births Isaac in Genesis 21:1-7. Genesis 29:31-30:24, while reporting Jacob having multiple wives (which is sinful), still recounts Leah and Rachel’s conceptions of children as blessings coming from God. Hannah pleads with God concerning her infertility in 1 Samuel 1:1-2:11, and God gives her a child, Samuel, and her prayer of praise becomes the model of Mary’s prayer, the Magnificat, in Luke’s Gospel. Luke 1 celebrates two pregnancies: Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah are joyfully enabled to conceive in their old age in Luke 1:5-25, and Mary celebrates her virginal conception with Elizabeth later in the same chapter. Psalm 127:3-5 reports, “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them” (NIV). “Never do we find narratives [in the Bible] that represent pregnancy as a problem” (Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, p. 449).

Children are a blessing, but they are not the only good that God has called Christians to pursue. I appreciate Presbyterian pastor Robert Cunningham’s reflections on contraception in his “Every Square Inch” podcast episode entitled “On the Topics of Contraception and Singleness.” He focuses on Genesis 1:28, where God gives the man and woman the dual commands to 1.) be fruitful and multiply; 2.) spread through the earth and subdue it. Part of what that means for a Christian couple is openness to childbearing, but the other side is the responsibility to subdue and spread God’s reign and dominion over the earth. So some of what Christian couples are to think about is not just how many kids they can have (the “be fruitful and multiply” piece), but how much capacity they have for family discipleship and spreading the dominion of God (the “subdue” piece). We should consider finances and ability to provide for the children, capacity to give attention to children and raise them to follow after Christ, capacity to serve the church and others in the world, the couple’s vocations they are called to pursue concerning their work, and the wife and husband’s personal health and relationship with Christ. The more kids you add, the more stressors you add, and the less capacity, freedom, and time you have to invest toward other kingdom things. Different families may have different callings and come to different conclusions on what kingdom goals Jesus calls them to pursue. Therefore this can be, as Cunningham phrases it, a place for “Christian liberty” rather than a one-size fits all approach to family planning and family size. Catholic teaching has a fair critique of young Christians who get married with no desire to have kids at all, not because of infertility reasons, but purely because they are choosing to pursue a self-centered lifestyle. If a young Christian couple chooses not to have kids because they want to live a sacrificial, demanding lifestyle of service for the kingdom, that is one thing. But doing so purely because you want to live a nice, convenient, easy American life where you can spend more time focusing on yourself and chasing your dreams is another. 

Many Protestants would say that the intention of those who use the rhythm method is the same as those who use non-abortifacient contraception. It also reveals a tension within Catholic thought: If every sexual act has to be open to procreation, and if children and large families are a blessing, then why would we want to give families the option to bow out of having as many kids as possible via natural family planning? Why not encourage couples to have as many children as possible and to have marital relations as much as possible during a wife’s peak fertility since children are a blessing? Why is it acceptable to have marital relations that are not seeking to have children with no contraception, but unacceptable to have marital relations that are not seeking to have children through using non-abortifacient forms of contraception? If the goals of both approaches are the same, no one is being harmed, and it is being done in the proper context of Christian heterosexual marriage, what is the difference? 

Also of interest is that in the history of the church, not everyone has been supportive of natural family planning. Some go in a more conservative direction while others go in a more progressive direction. There have been dissenting voices within the Catholic tradition who are more conservative and think even natural family planning is wrong–St. Augustine has some writings that seem to indicate this line of thought. There are a few conservative Catholics who also criticize and condemn natural family planning today. Most Catholics disagree in the other direction, and on a practical level many Catholics around the world do not accept what their church teaches. A worldwide poll of Catholics indicated 78% supported the use of contraceptives in some form, with some countries getting results of over 90%–I’ll mention this again below (Collins & Walls, Roman But Not Catholic, p. 382).

Different strands of Protestantism have been all over the place on birth control. More liberal Protestants tend to be pro-choice and support the use of abortifacient forms of birth control, and they try to make biblical/theological cases for this, though I haven’t found them to be convincing. Evangelical Protestants have tended to be pro-life while also being more open to non-abortifacient forms of birth control–particularly blocking methods like condoms or diaphragms. I would join with our Catholic brothers and sisters in rejecting as sinful abortifacient forms of birth control. Abortions done purely as birth control and not to save the life of the mother fall into this category, as well as the morning-after or Plan B pill, IUDs, chemical abortion pills, and more (whether “the pill” is abortifacient or not is debated). These are abortifacient forms of birth control because they do not stop conception from happening, but instead eliminate the embryo/fetus by preventing it from attaching to the uterine wall or by utilizing other methods to destroy it. I think the strongest argument for the value of life at conception is the incarnation of Jesus, who became a zygote and passed through all the stages of gestation. Surely whatever Jesus became is human and valuable? Or did Jesus become something that was not valuable at some point in time? It seems to me you’re getting into the dangerous territory of denying the value and humanity of the Son of God if you argue against human value and personhood at conception. Concerning IVF, I would reject a couple getting a random sperm donor or a single woman trying to get herself pregnant through artificial insemination, and would agree with the Catechism that such actions deny the child a right to know and be raised by its mother and father. Why not foster or adopt? But the Catechism condemns IVF and similar practices even when done between a husband and wife in ¶ 2377. I would reject the production of multiple embryos as immoral, because often they end up either frozen indefinitely or destroyed, and would see that as a discarding of human lives, but I would not deny the possibility of husband and wife using such medical technology responsibly in an effort to get pregnant. What if IVF was used to produce and then implant one embryo at a time between a husband and wife? The Catholic Church forbids the use of technology to prevent conception, but also seems to forbid its responsible use to overcome infertility. 

The Uncomfortable Topic of Onanism

Sometimes Genesis 38:8-10 is brought into the birth control conversation, where Onan, one of Judah’s sons, marries his older brother Er’s wife Tamar. Er was put to death by God for wickedness, so the expectation for the younger brother was to take his brother’s widow and seek to have children by her to fulfill the obligation of levirate marriage, and the first son born would be considered the offspring of the deceased brother. Onan knew that the son born through his union with Tamar would not be considered his, so whenever he and Tamar made love, he would pull out and spill his semen on the ground (isn’t the Bible wonderful and not awkward at all?), refusing to provide offspring for his brother by Tamar. Verse 10 says, “What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the LORD put him to death also.” This passage is often cited by Catholics as evidence that having sex in a way that denies the possibility of conception is sinful, and they sometimes refer to such acts as the sin of “onanism.” Many Catholics would maintain that masturbation and use of contraception would be a modern way of committing onanism. But is this a convincing interpretation of this text? (Could not natural family planning also fall under this same condemnation, since it involves sex that intentionally avoids procreation?)

The law of levirate marriage is specified in Deuteronomy 25:5-10. If a husband died without providing his wife with a son, it would become the duty of the husband’s brother to marry her and sleep with her in hopes of providing a son for her. In the patriarchal culture of the OT, having a son could help secure the mother’s livelihood and long term wellbeing, since men owned most of the property and had most of the power back in this culture. Refusing to do so amounted to dishonoring Onan’s deceased brother Er as well as dishonoring Tamar by refusing to provide a son for her to help take care of her in her vulnerable status. The rest of Genesis 38 showcases Tamar’s further marginalization and her desperate plan to take matters into her own hands to try to survive. Might Onan’s sin amount to dishonoring his family along with refusing to care for a widow in her distress? Further, Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:39 says that a widow is free to marry anyone she wishes, as long as he belongs to the Lord. He also focuses on widows at some length in 1 Timothy 5:3-16, and mentions the possibility of remarriage for younger widows. He does not mention levirate marriage as a matter of relevance in either passage, which implies that levirate marriage is no longer binding in the NT era. Further, in 1 Corinthians 7:1-7, Paul instructs the husband and wife to yield themselves and their bodies to one another for sexual pleasure. This does not mean spouses should be able to demand sex from one another, but encourages sexual union as a good and joyful thing in and of itself. It is not wrong to seek the pleasure of sex in its appropriate context of Christian heterosexual marriage. Ensuring the possibility of procreation in every sex act is not mentioned by Paul at all in 1 Corinthians 7:1-7. Further, the love poetry of Song of Songs celebrates sexual desire and love to be enjoyed by husband and wife, and does not refer to a necessity of ensuring procreative possibility throughout the text. A wife and husband seeking sexual satisfaction together is one of the goods of Christian marriage. Onan’s sin does involve a refusal of pursuing conception, but that failure is tied up with the OT expectations of levirate marriage, which are no longer binding on Christians. Christians might pull forward the principles of not dishonoring your family and not refusing to care for widows and vulnerable people when it is in your power to help them from Onan’s story, but teaching a ban on any form of non-procreative sex between a married couple from the passage seems questionable. Most Protestants (myself included) would still condemn masturbation as immoral. Individual masturbation is seeking sexual pleasure in a way that is disconnected from an act of sexual union between a husband and wife. Masturbation in most cases further involves lusting in your heart after someone who is not your spouse, which violates Jesus’ command in Matthew 5:27-30. 

Ok, let's get our minds out of the gutter and move on.

Closed vs. Open Communion

Methodists and Catholics are closer together in some ways than Methodists and Baptists when it comes to Holy Communion. Yes, we would disagree on the exact nature of how Christ is present in the elements, but both Catholics and Methodists believe that Jesus is present in Holy Communion, and he gives us real spiritual grace through receiving the Eucharist. The sacraments are more than just memorials and symbols, they are real encounters with God, real receptions of his grace. Theologians argue over exactly how Jesus is present–transubstantiation is the Catholic view, consubstantiation is the Lutheran view, and we Methodists don’t get too specific on exactly how Jesus is present, we just claim that he is. We’re a bit more in line with Reformed Christians on this. Collins dives into some of his issues with transubstantiation, which leads to Catholic practices of adoration of the host (¶ 1378), housing the host in tabernacles (¶ 1379), the use of monstrances to aid in worship of the host, and more. If you want a thorough critique of transubstantiation, I’d recommend reading Roman But Not Catholic.

I am more interested in exploring the difference between closed and open Communion. Closed Communion means that not everyone is invited to receive the Lord’s Supper. Some Protestants practice a version of this as well, requiring that someone be a baptized church member before they can receive the elements of the Eucharist. Catholics practice this, and someone’s First Communion in Catholicism is a big deal, often occurring anywhere from ages 7-13, when a child has reached an “age of reason”. They must be a baptized Catholic and have received the sacrament of reconciliation/gone to confession beforehand. Catholics believe that to receive Holy Communion in an unworthy way could bring grave sin and judgment into a person’s life. ¶ 1355 lifts up Justin Martyr’s words: “…no one may take part in [the Lord’s Supper] unless he believes that what we teach is true, has received baptism for the forgiveness of sins and new birth, and lives in keeping with what Christ taught.” Further, Catholics maintain that if someone has grave sin in his or her life, he or she must receive the sacrament of reconciliation (go to confession/do penance) before receiving Holy Communion (¶ 1385). Someone intentionally receiving Holy Communion who is not Catholic is committing sacrilege.

In contrast, Methodists practice what is called open Communion. We believe children of all ages are invited to receive the grace and presence of Jesus, and we do not require people to have been baptized or be members of our particular congregation or church tradition to receive the sacrament. We even think Communion can be something of a converting sacrament that can lead people to surrender their lives to Christ. Why the difference?

The first piece to unpack is a biblical passage that Catholics and some Protestants cite as to why they practice closed Communion. In 1 Corinthians 11:16-34, Paul chides the Corinthian church for practicing the Lord’s Supper improperly, how they aren’t really celebrating the Supper at all because there are divisions among them (vv. 20-21), they are sinning against the body and blood of Jesus when they eat and drink in an unworthy manner without examining themselves (vv. 27-28), and their improper observance of the sacrament has led God to bring judgment on them, causing some people to get sick and others to die (vv. 29-30). They were desecrating a holy practice in which God is deeply involved. The key questions are what does it mean to “partake in an unworthy manner” in 1 Cor. 11:27 and what does it mean to eat and drink “without discerning the body of Christ” and so bring judgment upon oneself in 11:29? Catholics will maintain that Paul says we must be aware of and approach with reverence the sacramental presence of Christ in the meal, and to fail to do so and receive the Eucharist with flippancy or without being in a state of grace is to drink judgment upon oneself. I agree that no one should come to Holy Communion thinking they deserve it or with an attitude that presumes upon God’s grace, but I’d encourage a different interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11.

In verses 17-22, it becomes clear that some in the Corinthian church were eating everything and even getting drunk from the sacramental meal, while others were being excluded and went hungry. This most likely was falling along class lines, for possibly two reasons: 1.) Wealthier people finished their work commitments earlier in the day and could gather sooner, while freedmen and slaves had to work later and couldn’t get off until later. Perhaps the wealthier folks weren’t waiting for those who had to work late, and were going ahead with eating all of the Lord's Supper. Or, 2.) It was customary in the culture for those who hosted banquets to feed the higher status people first and to have bigger and better meals for them, while the lower status people were given poorer quality food, perhaps scraps, or perhaps nothing at all. Think of the difference between first class and coach on an airplane–it was similar to that. Both scenarios pose as relevant backgrounds behind the exclusions happening in 1 Corinthians 11 (Walton & Keener, NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, pp. 2004-2005).

“Discerning the body of Christ,” rather than meaning “You better see that this is really the sacramental body of Jesus,” probably instead refers to being mindful toward the rest of the Christian community, whom Paul has already earlier called the “body of Christ” in 10:17. Paul will really harp on the importance of the Christian community as the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12. Here are Collins and Walls:

This particular and contrived interpretation of Paul’s words [on discerning the body as meaning recognizing the sacramental, transubstantiated presence of Christ in the elements] is dubious and is therefore rejected by many scholars. In fact, many historians, theologians, and biblical scholars believe the “body” that must be recognized in the Lord’s Supper is the community of believers as the one body of Christ. This is what the Corinthian church, with its various divisions and disregard for one another, failed to recognize. Peter Leithart convincingly argues that, ironically, it is precisely those who exclude other Christians from the sacrament of Communion who fail to heed Paul’s words of warning:

Otherwise, though, there are no valid grounds for excluding any believer from the Lord’s Supper. Christians of different traditions differ in their understanding of what happens at the Lord’s table, but those differences of theological formulation should not separate members of the corporate body from a common share in Christ’s eucharistic body. In context, Paul’s warnings about “discerning the body” (see 1 Cor. 11:29) do not have to do with the theology of the Supper but with factionalism in the church. Those who exclude other believers because of different beliefs about the Supper fail to discern the body (Roman But Not Catholic, p. 169).

Richard Hays concurs with the above interpretation:

Unfortunately, verses 27-28 have often been taken out of context and seriously misinterpreted: the statement in verse 27 about eating the bread and drinking the cup “unworthily” has often been misunderstood to mean that only the perfectly righteous can partake of the Lord’s Supper, and the call for self-examination in verse 28 has been heard as a call for intense introspection. This is, however, a grave misreading. Paul’s words must be understood in the context of the specific situation that he is addressing: The more affluent Corinthians are consuming their own food and shaming the poorer members (vv. 20-22). In this context, to eat the meal unworthily means to eat it in a way that provokes divisions (v. 18), with contemptuous disregard for the needs of others in the community. Paul’s call to self-scrutiny (v. 28) must therefore be understood not as an invitation for the Corinthians to probe the inner recesses of their consciences but as a straightforward call to consider how their actions at the supper are affecting brothers and sisters in the church, the body of Christ. […] Those who are failing to “discern the body” are those who act selfishly, focusing on their own spirituality and exercising their own social privileges while remaining heedless of those who share with them in the new covenant inaugurated by the Lord’s death (Hays, 1 Corinthians: Interpretation, p. 200).

This is why Paul’s conclusion of the matter in verses 33-34 is thus, “So then, my brothers and sisters, when you gather to eat, you should all eat together. Anyone who is hungry should eat something at home, so that when you meet together it may not result in judgment.” If the Catholic interpretation of Paul’s words was true, then you’d expect his conclusion in verses 33-34 to read something like this: “Therefore sisters and brothers, when you gather to eat, make sure you are discerning the sacramental presence of Jesus in the elements so that you do not receive Jesus’ presence and grace in a flippant or unrepentant manner.” 

Why do Methodists practice an open table concerning Communion? In Luke 14:15-24 (and a somewhat similar parallel is in Matthew 22:1-14), Jesus tells the parable of the great banquet, where a man is preparing to have a banquet and sends his servant to invite several people. These initial guests started making excuses as to why they can’t come: I just bought a field, I just bought five yoke of oxen, I’m newly married. So the master tells the servant to invite the poor, the lame, the crippled, and the blind, and after he does that, to go out to the roads and country lanes and compel people to come in so that his house will be full. God wants all people to experience the feast of fellowship with him. Jesus dining with sinners during his earthly ministry (Matthew 9:9-13; Mark 14:1-11; Luke 10:36-50; 14:1-24; 15:1-2) gives a picture of who he was willing to break bread with and have fellowship with. Jesus desires connection with sinners. Further, this shows that sinners can be in the real presence of Jesus at table fellowship and not be incinerated by his holiness, even if they didn’t come to follow him. It is also significant that Jesus served Judas, who was about to go and betray him, the elements when he first instituted the Lord’s Supper. If being in a good spiritual state is a prerequisite for receiving, then surely Judas would not have been served the Eucharist?

An open table makes the sacrament more evangelistic in practice, like Jesus was in his table fellowship. John Wesley in his journal came to view Holy Communion as a “converting ordinance,” an experience of grace that can lead people to surrender their lives in faith to Christ and move them into the life of discipleship. An open table is friendlier to children–Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them.” Wouldn’t this also include the Lord’s table, where Jesus is present and gives us his grace? The open table acknowledges God’s love of children of all ages, not just the ones who are capable of having some rudimentary understanding of him, and that Jesus wants them to be close to him. An open table is more accessible to the severely disabled who are not capable of responding for themselves or having a deep rational understanding of Jesus. Instead of putting the onus of determining “worthiness” and proper spiritual state on the pastor or church leadership, an open table puts the onus on the people in determining their spiritual status with God. In the vast majority of cases, one knows his or her spiritual state before God better than a church leader. Open Communion is not intended to encourage people to be flippant and dismissive before Jesus. Indeed, sometimes the grace of Communion can help lead someone to repentance and confession, which was part of Wesley’s logic in calling it a converting ordinance, much like people’s encounters with Jesus in the Gospel were invitations to conversion and getting right with God. We should not receive Holy Communion in a proud manner, like we think we deserve it, or in attitude that presumes upon God’s grace. This is why in my tradition we do a corporate confession of sin before coming to the table, to admit that all of us are unworthy. An open table is open to Christians from different traditions and is a demonstration of our unity in Christ. Closed Communion can be damaging to Christian unity. How does it live into the prayer for oneness Jesus prayed over the church in John 17? How does closed Communion demonstrate that all Christians are one in Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:28)? It is painful to me that Catholic sisters and brothers consider me unworthy to receive Holy Communion and share at the Table of the Lord. I offer them the hospitality to receive the Eucharist in my tradition and church. At the very least, even if we never think alike, couldn’t we at least some day join together at the Table of the Lord? I think that would be a step forward in Catholic and Protestant relations. “Jesus gave the bread to Judas; Roman Catholic priests will not give it to Protestant saints!” (Collins & Walls, Roman But Not Catholic, p. 166).

Use of the Apocrypha 

The Apocrypha is a collection of writings that are included as part of the OT in Catholic Bibles. This happened because these works were included in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the OT. While there are 13 different writings that make up the Apocrypha in the Septuagint, Catholicism only elevates 7 of them to the status of Scripture according to ¶ 120 in the Catechism. Jews eventually came to reject the canonical status of the Apocrypha. Jerome, who included the Apocrypha in his Latin Vulgate translation of Scripture, cautioned against viewing the Apocrypha as being exalted to the level of Scripture.

To illustrate, in his preface to the Vulgate, Jerome wrote as follows: “As, then, the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees, but does not admit them among the canonical Scriptures, so let it read these two volumes for the edification of the people, not to give authority to the doctrines of the church.” For one thing, Jerome was likely aware of some of the theological oddities of this literature. Take the book of Tobit, for example. Its observation found in 12:9, “For almsgiving saves from death, and purges from all sin,” is no doubt theologically confused… (Ibid., pp. 35-36).

Walls further lists other early church leaders who rejected the Apocrypha as being Scripture: Melito of Sardis (d. 180), Origen (182-254), Eusebius of Caesarea (263-339), Athanasius (296-373), Hilary of Poitiers (300-368); Epiphanius (310-403), Rufinus (340-410), Cyril of Alexandria (378-444), and John Damascene (8th century) (Ibid., p. 36). Protestants are in agreement with the Jewish canon of the OT, with Jerome, and with these other early church leaders. While the Apocrypha has some profitable things in it, it should not be put on par with Scripture.

Monasticism

Jesus had seasons and moments of withdrawn, focused prayer and spirituality. We see the example of Anna at the temple in Luke 2:36-38, who after she became a widow, never left the temple and was devoted to worship, prayer, and fasting. We see multiple mentions of a company of prophets in Samuel and Saul’s time (1 Sam. 10:10-13; 19:18-24) as well as in Elijah and Elisha’s time (i.e., 1 Kgs. 20:35; 2 Kgs. 2:3). It is good to have people and communities intentionally focused on prayer and worship. One wonders if some forms of monasticism at times strayed away from Jesus’ commands to be the light of the world, a city on a hill, and a lamp on a stand, doing good deeds amongst others so they might glorify God (Mat. 5:14-16). Or that it strayed away from Jesus’ prayer in John 17 for his disciples to be in the world but not of the world. Or that it strayed away from Peter’s command in 1 Pet. 2:12 to “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” Some monastic orders and communities devoted to the religious life are very engaged with people in the world, while others aren’t. The same can be said of some Protestants and Protestant communities, however, so I won’t indulge too much here in the pot calling the kettle black.

Condemnation of Those Who Leave Catholicism

If you convert from Catholicism to Protestantism, the Catechism baldly says you’re going to hell. Official Catholic teaching is much friendlier to those who were born and raised Protestant or who converted to Protestantism from another religious background and never came to Catholicism (¶ 847-848). ¶ 846 reads as follows (emphasis mine):

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.

Collins plays with the logic here: 

…since Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin both left the Roman Catholic Church, whereas John Wesley did not, having been born into the Church of England and baptized as an infant, Zwingli and Calvin are both schismatics and therefore likely lost (bearing in mind Rome’s earlier language of “hence they could not be saved…”), though Wesley may yet be in heaven since he is by no means personally chargeable with the sin of schism! (Ibid., p. 119).

Can we at least acknowledge that those who leave Catholicism are still saved, are still Christian sisters and brothers? Must Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, and others be lost, hell-bound sinners? What about others we may know who have left Catholicism? This seems to be quite an uncharitable take, and sounds a particularly sour note for many in Latin America today who have left Catholicism for Pentecostal Protestantism. And it sounds a sour note for me concerning some of my best leaders who have come over to my church from Catholicism. These are people who have a strong faith in Christ, serve in leadership, who serve the hungry and elderly in the wider community, who are faithful to attend worship and small group discipleship, and more. These people are lost and going to hell? I do not say the same things about those who have left my tradition for Catholicism. I still believe they are sisters and brothers in Christ who are seeking to serve the Lord and be agents of his kingdom as best they know how. A little more charity toward Catholics-turned-Protestants would be nice. I would ask Catholics, do you really believe this teaching about the fate of those who leave Catholicism for Protestantism? If you don’t, what does that imply about the authority claims of the Roman Catholic Church? 

Correct me if I’m misinterpreting ¶ 846.

Divisions in Catholicism

Walls makes the case that even though the Catholic Church talks a good game about infallibility and being the one, true, holy, and apostolic church, in reality it is a deeply divided church. He compares Roman Catholicism to a pluralist Protestant denomination, in which many of its people either disagree with or violate official church doctrine. At times laity, priests (Richard Rohr and Gregory Boyle are examples of this), professors, and bishops push against and ignore the official teachings of the church, at times with little to no consequence. A very striking example of divisions within the church concerns its total ban on all forms of contraception (mentioned above). A worldwide poll of Catholics indicated 78% supported the use of contraceptives in some form, with some countries getting results of over 90% (Ibid., p. 382). Some of those Catholics may be totally nominal, but certainly not all of them are. Walls goes on to say that this means many Catholics are basically functional Protestants if they are disagreeing with and disobeying what is supposed to be authoritative teaching from their church. Further, Walls points out that Pope Francis in the papal document Amoris Laetitia (Latin for “The Joy of Love,”) implied in footnote 351 of that text that the Eucharist could be served to people who were divorced and remarried, which contradicts official Catholic teaching and caused something of a firestorm amongst conservative Catholics (Ibid., p. 397). The recent document approved by Pope Francis at the end of 2023, Fiducia Supplicans, allowed priests to offer a “pastoral blessing” to same-sex couples, while still officially rejecting same-sex sexual intercourse and marriage as sinful. This has created a lot of confusion, and seems to be quite strained when you think of the biblical idea of blessing connoting favor and approval from God. How these “pastoral blessings” have been used has not always been in keeping with what the document enjoins either, basically amounting to some more progressive priests celebrating and condoning same-sex marriages. The pope released a document later that contained a stronger affirmation of traditional Catholic teaching and condemnation of sexual immorality, likely a response to the widespread backlash against Fiducia Supplicans, and not just hailing from usual conservative Catholic sectors, as Ross Douthat chronicles in a recent New York Times article. There are further disagreements among different factions within Catholicism around the ordination of women, the validity of Vatican II and the popes after that time, when it is appropriate to serve someone Holy Communion, and more. Walls shares a quote from Carl Trueman that rings true: “At least Protestantism has the integrity to wear its chaotic divisions on its sleeve” (Ibid., p. 394). Here’s another quip from Walls on the topic: “Protestant converts to Rome who imagine they are joining a church that is free of the divisions and disagreements that plague Protestantism are quite mistaken. Indeed, far from escaping those problems of Protestantism they disdain, they are in fact joining a church that is functionally a radically pluralist Protestant denomination” (Ibid., p. 399).

Protestant Possibilities on Prayer to Saints

Let's explore some background before getting to prayer to dead saints. 

Scripture gives the impression that there is a judgment and afterlife that occurs immediately after someone dies, but is not the same thing as what will happen at the return of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and final judgment. This afterlife/form of existence someone has after death is often called “the intermediate state,” getting at the idea that people are in a form of existence that is in-between death and final resurrection. They existence in an intermediate stage.

In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31, there seems to be an immediate sorting or judgment at death (this also has implications for the purgatory conversation mentioned above). Lazarus goes to “Abraham’s bosom” and the rich man goes to Hades, a place of torment. People are still alive on earth while these things are happening since the rich man wants to warn his brothers about his fate. This is an example of immediate reward for the righteous and immediate punishment for the wicked upon death in an afterlife. Consider also Luke 23:43–“Jesus answered him, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.’” Jesus tells the repentant thief on the cross that that very day he would join Jesus in Paradise; not later, not that his soul would fall asleep only to wake up at the end of time when Jesus raises the dead, but that very day. This implies an immediate consciousness and sorting after death. 

Philippians 1:21-24–“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.” Earlier in Philippians, Paul writes about his imprisonment under Roman officials. He is confident that God will deliver him from it, though he is ready to exalt Jesus in his body whether through life or death. Then he gets to the above passage where he reflects on living for Christ and dying in Christ. The passage again implies that when you die, you immediately depart and go to be with Jesus, and that this new location/nature of existence is “better” than present life.

Revelation 6:9-11–“When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, 'How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?’ Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been.” This text implies: 1. The existence of martyrs with God after their death; 2. These martyrs are conscious and pray/cry out to God, and their prayers/cries are answered; 3. The martyrs are not totally satisfied even though they are present with God in the intermediate state. This final point implies that even though Christians go to be with Christ after we die, we still long for full justice and salvation to come on the earth through the return of Christ and his final judgment. We await a further and final work of God to make all things right and all things new.

Add to this that Saul in 1 Samuel 28 consults with the medium at Endor, who is able to conjure the spirit of the prophet Samuel up from the dead, and Samuel isn’t very happy about it. Or consider also Jesus, Peter, James, and John’s encounter with Moses and Elijah on the mount of transfiguration in Matthew 17:3 and its parallels. Moses and Elijah are dead people, and yet they are alive in God’s presence and are manifested by God’s gracious activity to Jesus and his friends, and these people speak with Jesus. In the OT, there are several places where consulting mediums, psychics, and channelers is forbidden, like in Leviticus 19:31; 20:6, 27; Deuteronomy 18:11. These passages all imply that people are alive and have some form of existence after death, and can even be accessible to us on earth. The reason God forbids consulting psychics, mediums, shamans, fortune-tellers, and the like is to avoid being possessed and/or oppressed by evil spirits. Such people connect with the spirits of the dead through the power of demons. But what if you try to connect with the righteous dead through the power and mediation of Christ? What if you ask Jesus to bless or connect you with a  Christian loved one who has passed on to be with him in glory?

The observations above inform the whole idea of praying to and requesting prayer from deceased saints. What if Catholicism is right on this? They are on solid biblical and theological underpinnings. That there is an afterlife and people go to the intermediate state after death seems pretty much undeniable in Scripture. Some might counter, “Why pray to saints if we have direct access to Jesus as our high priest?” That is true. But I’d retort, why ask for prayer from your friends on earth if you have direct access now to Jesus as your high priest? In multiple places in Scripture, we are clearly commanded to pray for each other, and we are told that these prayers are beneficial. So what difference does it make if we are requesting prayer from some people who are here on earth vs. requesting prayer through the mediation of Jesus from a saint who has passed from earth but is alive in Jesus’ presence? I am cautiously open to this practice, though it seems some go overboard and focus more on the saints than on Jesus. I have my own story of how I think Jesus sent the presence of my mother to me a few months after she passed away, and I have heard other stories of Christians having experiences with dead family members and others. There is strong Scriptural groundwork behind this idea, it is present in the tradition of the church, and people are having experiences that seem to confirm this. It's also important to say that we do not see an example of someone praying to saints in Scripture, nor is it commanded in Scripture. Therefore this practice should not be  required or considered necessary. I would suggest an edit on Article XVI–“Of Purgatory” in the the Methodist Articles of Religion, to contain a statement that is not as harsh on prayer to the saints.

Here are Collins and Walls on the topic:

Lest there be misunderstanding, we are not denying that either Mary or any of the saints in glory continue to offer their prayers and supplications to the Most High on behalf of the church militant. The church is one, whether on earth or in heaven. In fact, such a form of intercessory prayer appears to be supported by Scripture in the OT in terms of reference to a cloud of witnesses (as observed in Heb. 12:1) or in the NT as those who bore testimony in the past, presently cry out in a loud voice, and will soon receive a white robe (Rev. 6:9-10; 7:14-17). Moreover, both Ambrose and Augustine affirmed this basic truth that describes the nature of the church, which is active both on earth and in heaven. Augustine, for example, states: “For we cannot, they say, believe that the saints shall lose their bowels of compassion when they have attained the most perfect and complete holiness.” We strongly agree (Ibid., p. 309).

Conclusion

There is more that could be said. I’d recommend reading the Catechism for yourself if you haven’t, as well as reading Collins and Walls’ book if you’d like to plow even deeper into the conversation and see further arguments. 

I once heard someone say that Catholicism is like a big cruise ship and Protestantism is like a fleet of speed boats. The cruise ship houses a lot of people and has a ton of momentum, but can be quite difficult to turn if it starts going in the wrong direction. The speed boats don’t hold as many people, but can move and make turns pretty quickly. These images can be ways of thinking about the strengths and weaknesses of Catholicism and Protestantism. The things Catholicism gets right are deeply entrenched within its identity and there is a lot of momentum behind these things. However, the same can be said about what it gets wrong, and it can be very difficult to change and adapt, much like turning a large cruise ship. Protestantism has many different traditions and flavors represented by the fleet of speed boats. These Protestants traditions, like speed boats, can adapt and move in a new direction relatively quickly, which is both a strength and weakness. Protestantism can course-correct more quickly when there is a better or more faithful way of following Jesus, but it just as easily can start going headlong in an unfaithful direction.

All in all, there is a lot of room for Catholics and Protestants to pray for each other, worship together, and work together for the evangelization and discipleship of our world. The Catholic Church is a huge and beautiful boat from which to fish. I have benefitted much from reading the Catechism, and I’m sure I will continue to learn from and serve with Catholics in the future. I think John Wesley sums up best how Catholics and Protestants ought to treat each other in his sermon “Catholic Spirit”:

But although a difference in opinions or modes of worship may prevent an entire external union, yet need it prevent our union in affection? Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences. These remaining as they are, they may forward one another in love and in good works.