Psalm 133:1
Behold, how good and pleasant it is
when brothers dwell in unity!
“Catholics,” said G. K. Chesterton, “agree about everything. It is only everything else they disagree about.” In other words, those who belong to the Catholic faith have in common a faith in a few cosmic truths summarized by the Creeds, the Seven Sacraments, the Ten Commandments, and the Our Father. Beyond this, Catholics rather enjoying arguing their heads off about pretty much everything else. A Catholic can believe in monarchy, representative government, pure democracy, or many other forms of government and be Catholic. He or she can hold a colossal variety of opinions about child-rearing, art, the date and composition of the gospels, the outcome of the American Civil War, the Lutheran-Catholic Joint Declaration on Justification by Faith, bioethics, the World Series, and whether or not Titanic was a good movie. On all these and a thousand other things, the Church encourages, rather than discourages, discussion, debate, and vigorous chewing of the fat. That is because the Church knows that such arguments do not jeopardize the essential unity of the Faith. Our goal, as Catholics, is not to look to the Holy Father or the Bishop to micromanage our thought life. Rather, it is to learn what the Church says is essential to unity and sound doctrine, be docile to the Church’s judgment in that case, and, in light of that, learn to think with the Church (and with the Church’s help) as we navigate the chaotic waters of the world. Part of that process of navigation includes learning to recognize that faithful Catholics can faithfully disagree with one another in matters not essential to the faith. For the Church is Catholic as well as one.
