This was a Church trying to define itself, and as all youths, it went through periods of identity formation, and it had issues and heresies that it had to work through. But, as God led the Church, he laid His hands upon the right people at the right time in order to allow the Church to stay the course and grow. Saint Jerome, of course, is one of the early Church leaders who God led through a personal calling to translate the Bible into Latin so that the Western Church could grow and unite itself.
This, in and of itself, is important because the Western Church had to be the one that prospered for Christianity to survive. As I mentioned before, early in Church history, the Eastern Church was more powerful, yet it was full of heresies and immoral people who achieved rank due to the influence of political powers, and this Church, at that time, was not a reflection of Christ's teachings. Had that Church prospered, and had Arianism won out, the Christian faith would have faltered. Of course, God, in His infinite wisdom, would not let that happen, and the Western Church was guided to eventually become the Church of Christ -- the true Catholic Church.
Before I get to the main point of my line of posts, I want to cover two things, one of which I will discuss in this post: I want to look at how the Catholic Church evolved over time to what it is today, and I want to look at Saint Jerome. Once I have expounded upon those two topics, then I feel like I can move into my main rhetorical point.
In my opinion from deep study of Church history, I have defined three moments in time that altered the Catholic Church to the point where it is today. And by "altered," I am not just stating a gradual shift; I am implying a major turning point. Contrary to what many Catholics believe today, I do not believe that these times in history led the Church closer to God. I believe that they took the Church further from God's true message that was taught in the early Church. Those three periods are:
- The Church's growth as a "political" power;
- The Catholic/Protestant Reformation; and
- The Vatican II Council
I believe that each of these periods of time define the Church as it is today, and I disagree with the fact that they were all led and guided by God because many of these events shifted the Church away from the message of the early Church, and they were shifts due to either political or social changes.
Beginning with the Church's growth as a political power, it is well-taught in Protestant circles that the Catholic Church, during the Middle Ages, became a Church of greed, land ownership, military power, and heresy. The Protestant's are correct, and Catholic theologians cannot deny that either because they addressed these issues during the Renaissance during various Councils after the Protestant Reformation. This led to the lesser known Catholic Reformation, and it was a time where the Church took a step back and looked at what it had become, and it wanted to change its ways.
The early Church Fathers and the early Church were focused upon God and spreading Christ's message. Conversion was the chief concern, and this Church focused upon theology first because it was forced to due to the necessity of defining itself. The doctrines of the early Church are the core doctrines of the Church today, and the beautiful thing about it was that the Church evolved into a Catholic (universal) Church because of the many cultures of its converts, and that was God's desire. This was to be a Universal Christian Church for the world, not just for one people. That was Christ's purpose -- to bring salvation to all. For example, during this time, the liturgy and the institution of the Eucharist and the canon of the Mass were developed, and the layout of the church was created taking on a combination of Jewish and Roman elements that each culture could appreciate. In addition, the hierarchical structure of the Church began to form as we know it today, the concepts such as Apostolic Succession and the Primacy of Peter led to the seat of the Church being in Rome. Doctrines such as Transubstantiation, Baptism, and Excommunication were formed. And in dealing with Greek and Roman cultures, doctrines of Truth and the Infallibility of the Holy Scripture was made doctrine. Another important effect of Jerome's translation of the Bible is the fact that terms were defined correctly, as God wanted it, that took power of the Church away from the political rulers, and this is what ultimately led to the Papacy -- one leader of the Church, separate from leaders of kingdoms. In fact, as you recall, this was one of the heresies of the Eastern Church, and Christ even taught to give to God what is God's and to give to Caesar what is Caesar's. In addition, this was the time when Mary was exalted as being the mother of God -- called by God to give birth to God's earthly presence. This was an important moment for the Church because the opposing view raised by the Arians was that Mary was not important, and she did not give birth to God. She gave birth to a good person, but not to God's Son, Christ. This also led to the understanding of the Holy Trinity.
You see, in that long paragraph, what I was outlining was the tenets of the Catholic faith. They were pure tenets, let by men who were led by God to create the Christian Church and the doctrines of the Church that He wanted the Church to be built upon. If any of these doctrines were left out, the Church would not have survived. It would have fallen, and it would not be able to spread Christ's message throughout the world. So many times during this period, the Church father's would go back to Plato and reason, and coupled with prayer and divine inspiration, they were able to build the faith.
But after a thousand years, or so, the Church began to take a different vision of itself. It moved away from the purpose of the Church as Christ commanded, and it became a state in and of itself. During the Middle Ages, or the Dark Ages, the Church became the largest landowner of all of the kingdoms of the earth. It had military might, and it became gluttonous with wealth. It was a time when the Roman Empire fell apart, Islam became a powerful religion, and invasions of other peoples swept through Europe. While it is true that the Church did provide much law and order during a lawless time, it is also a period where the Church began to react to social and political issues. The Pope's power grew through a fight with falling emperors, and Pope Gregory VII laid down laws that became the structure of the Church. He essentially appointed himself ruler of the earth with the ability to dispose of emperors and that the Pope is the only person who is allowed to interpret God's message. This was a time where Christ was taken from the people and the clergy and was given to the Pope only. It was also the beginning of the Crusades -- an attempt to defeat Islam by bringing people to Christ through physical force rather than the moving of the Holy Spirit.
In the Middle Ages, the Papacy declined. Greed and wealth formed the basis of decisions made by the Pope. To get more money from people, taxes were exacted from those living on Church lands, Bishop and Cardinal appointments were awarded to those who could afford to pay for those appointments, and the all too famous doctrine of Indulgences was used. Indulgences were monetary payments for the forgiveness of sins. Worse than anything, the Bible was taken from the people and was held in a state of suspense by the Pope. It was taken because, taking it from the people meant that they could not discover, on their own, that the Pope was acting contrary to God's teaching. This was a dark period of the Church, and it could not be any further from what God commanded His Church to do. But, as God has proven over the course of time, He let the Church, His child, stray as any parent would because of the lessons it would teach from the results of its sins. Not all was bad, though, during this time because there were many people and priests who knew that the Church had strayed, and these people began to start Holy Orders (Monastics) who disagreed with the teachings of the Pope, and who wanted to retain the original mission of the Church. These people had a profound impact upon Christianity, and many of them worked tirelessly to make copies of the Bible to put back into Priests and laity's hands. So, in all bad things, some very good things did happen, and I believe that was one of the chief reasons God let the Church fall from grace.
As we all know, this is what led a certain priest named Martin Luther to begin a revolution against the Church. He was especially concerned about the greed of the Church, the sins of the Popes, and the Indulgences demanded. He posted his Theses, and he founded a Protestant Church, separate from the Catholic Church in an attempt to get back to Christ and His teachings. This Protestant Church was very much similar to the Catholic Church (now we have to say Catholic because of the separation), but it took away the concepts that Luther believed were part of the problem with the Church he once served. He took away the role of the Pope, he brought Christ back to the people, he brought the Bible back to the people. However good Luther's intentions, I do not believe that this is what God wanted. This further fractured the universal Church, and it created a scenario where anyone who had a different perception of Christ's teachings could start their own Church. It gave those who wanted to take "this" from the Bible but "leave" that alone the opportunity to do so, and that is proven by the hundreds of splits seen in the Protestant Church today. How can it be that God had one message, but there are hundreds of churches out their proclaiming different messages? It can't be, and this is not what God wanted. He wanted the early Church's message. But as God planned, humans are not perfect, and the one gift that we have is the gift of making choices. He gave that to us for good or bad. In regards to the Protestant faith, it just proves Plato's point that the further removed you are from the original source, the further removed you are from Truth.
What many people don't realize, however, is that the Catholic Church responded to Luther's split by having its own Reformation. That is called the Catholic Reformation, and it occurred during the 1400s and 1500s as a response to all of the upheavals of the Christian faith. It was responding to new Protestant faiths such as the Calvinists and the Anabaptists. Also, it was responding to split of King Henry VII of England because he was not granted the right to divorce. As a result, he started his own church -- the Church of England. Following that, King James decided to have his own Bible to suit the new Church of England, created not from a translation pure like Jerome's, but created with the intent to suit the political and social components of this new church.
In an attempt to reform and to hold onto the message of Christ, the Catholic Church turned itself partially around during this transformation. I say partially because it did not come full circle back to the Early Church. It made some changes that were necessary like the elimination of Indulgences and return of land to political rulers, and it began to look towards Christ more than money, but it also did some things that were not good because this was a Reformation from a social and political necessity, so returning to God's message was not it's primary motivator. In fact, it was not a motivator at all. The motivation came from losing churches and members. The motivation came from losing power.
One thing that it needed to do was to focus itself upon being a Church that helped the needy and poor, and through people such as Cardinal Bellarmine, this was made a reality. He recognized that the Church had to follow Christ's example, and being the leading scholar of the Church during this time, he was very influential in turning this part of the Church around. I've written about him before in previous posts. He was a godly man, and he gave everything he had to the poor. He lived Christ's message, and He gave this gift back to the Church.
However, Saint Bellarmine was also involved in something that was not good for the Church, and in his defense, he did not want to be involved in it at all, but he was forced to by the popes he served under: Sixtus V and Clementine. At the Council of Trent, it was made known that a revision of the Bible had to be made. Pope Sixtus V took it upon himself to make the changes, and according to Saint Bellarmine, he really made a mess of the Holy Scripture. Prior to the Pope's death, he had this new Bible published. After he died, Saint Bellarmine, under Pope Clementine's authority, changed the Bible to suit the requirements of the Council of Trent. This was a tragedy and will be discussed in later posts.
For the most part, though, the Church as a whole turned back towards God after this time, and its focus on missions and converting those who had never heard the word of Christ became its driving force during the 18th and 19th centuries. Although different in Theology from the original source, it was by no means void of God, and Christ's message was delivered powerfully by faithful priests and monks who explored new lands and settled in new regions. South America, Central America, and the western United States are forever grateful to these men of God for what they did to lead people to Christ and take care of those in need.
The final turning point of the Church as I see its move from the pure, original Catholic Church, was in the 20th Century at the Vatican II Council which took place between 1962-1965. This was another attempt of the Church to change its ways based solely upon social and political issues. This was a period following two world wars, and it was a Council that followed up the First Vatican Council that ended abruptly in 1870 with unfinished business due to controversies of the topics discussed. I'm not going to discuss this Council in much detail because it was a very controversial Council and was opposed by many Bishops throughout the world from the beginning, and it was founded upon a vagueness that eluded many who attended. There were many topics on the table, however, and many of those topics included those things which were never approved, so it is not necessary to discuss them.
The chief change, however, that this Council produced that changed the direction of the Church was that the Mass was changed from its original Latin into the vernacular of the people. This was hailed as a massive success because it allowed Catholics to worship in their own tongue. I actually do not disagree with this component, but the by-product of it was a hastily put together of a new missal that was translated not so accurately. Once again, the Mass itself was removed further from the Truth and God's word. The liturgical battles that followed were not a result of the language of the Mass itself (not the priest's sermon -- that had always been in the language of the people, but the Lectionary and Sacramentary), it was a result in the fact that many Bishop's feared that this would further remove the true message of God from the Mass. And this was proven correctly as new editions of the Bible began to appear as a result. New translations in every language, many of them poorly done; many of them inaccurate; and all of them translated, not from Jerome's inspired Bible, but from the revised Bible of Pope Sixtus V -- the one that Saint Bellarmine had to scramble to correct hastily during the Catholic Reformation.
It was during Vatican II, as well, that the Church began to "liberalize" itself and try to fit the needs of modern societies that believed in humanism. Instead of becoming more conservative, and instead of going back to God's original Church, it became more of a part of society. It fell into the trap of post-modernism, and it began to question some of the ways the Church presented itself. I don't have to prove the Church's downfall from this. The statistics are there. After Vatican II, church attendance dropped dramatically, fewer clergy have entered the priesthood, and the message of the Church has been focused on social rather than religious issues. Doing good is only part of God's message. Salvation is the other part, and this has become a Church of following a protocol that looks at symbolism over God's word, and much of that is due to the dilution of God's word through the translations of the Holy Scripture.
Oddly enough, while the Church is barely thriving, priests are acting in not so holy ways because God's calling for the priesthood has been replaced with an academic calling. Fewer holy men are wearing the priest's collar, and, as a result to get priests, the wrong people are entering priesthood. Men who are not following God's word; men who are part of the world. This is not an issue of celibacy. The role of the priesthood is to follow Christ. The issue is that the Holy Spirit is not moving this Church like it did in the early Church, and the Church is suffering as a result because of decisions made by a people who have the God-given right to make choices, good or bad.
Ironically, too, the Church has become arrogant about this new look. It's proud of itself, and it embellishes doctrines that turn people away from coming back to its pews. It focuses itself on issues that were not part of the early Church, and it will continue to decline until the Vatican opens up it secret library and lets Jerome's translation become the starting point for new, God-inspired translations of the Bible.
But, fortunately, just as occurred during the Dark and Middle Ages, Bishops and priests who are godly have stood up and have started their own "monastic" revolts. I came into this Catholic Church through one of those movements, and I am looked down upon in Post-Vatican II churches because of that. Where I live, there are no churches or missions for these societies because the Archdiocese of Baltimore, one of the most powerful Archdioceses in the United States, has firmly stood for Vatican II.
My next post will be about Saint Jerome, and I will take that opportunity to explore his life in an effort to show God's moving through him, and how his work impacted the Early Catholic Church as well as the teachings of that early Church that God was living in. After that, I will take a look at the rhetorical argument regarding Truth versus truth in relation to translation and God's message as it has been diluted over time to create a diluted Church.
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