I never really wanted to do this. Well, actually I have but I’ve always been really intimidated to. The post over on Gawker has kind of struck a nerve with me as Gawker posts tend to do.
Now to get this out of the way I don’t know who Matt Walsh is and I don’t follow his blog. That said Gawker is picking up his articles and attacking them and pulling verses from the Bible they feel suit their cause. The reason that this has bothered me is that Matt Walsh is Catholic and many of the points he’s making are Catholic beliefs (While writing this I read some of his stuff and he comes off pretty agressive and somewhat angry about the things he writes. That is not where a Catholic should express their faith from.) Also, I am Catholic. Now Matt Walsh’s specific beliefs on these ideas might not completely line up with the church but you can’t say that Catholics shouldn’t believe something just because it’s not in the Bible. There are two core reasons for this: Sola Scriptura and Tradition.
Sola Scriptura means by scripture alone. What that means as that some people believe the only thing you should live your life by as a Christian is the scripture alone. That means the Bible is the end all be all. If it’s in the Bible you’re golden and if it’s not then it doesn’t mean anything. One of the problems with Sola Scriptura is that pretty much everyone who practices it believes it’s up to them to interpret what the Bible really means. That means you can have a whole bunch of people that all go to the same church that hold wildly different beliefs about what Christianity is supposed to be. It’s also how you get nutjob churches who use the bible to justify terrible things like Westboro Baptist church.
The other element behind Catholic faith is Tradition (with a big T.) Tradition are practices and beliefs of the Church that are not necessarily found in the Bible. One reason that Catholics follow Tradition and not just what’s in the Bible is because the Bible hasn’t been around as long as the Church and it was the Catholic Church that made the Bible. One thing about Tradition is that it is the teachings of the Church that are officially declared as Tradition by the Magisterium. The Magisterium are teachings the Church declares either from the Pope or from a Council. The Magisterium is infallible as it is guided by the Holy Spirit and this is why a Pope can not change the Traditions set forth before him.
I was going to get into a whole big thing about all the points this Matt Walsh guy is making versus the counter points Gawker is making and instead I saw a friend shared a video on facebook and I feel it really tackles the main issue at hand from a Catholic perspective.
I’m sure I won’t win a lot of friends by posting this but I’d rather do this than carry on with people thinking the only option is aggression on both sides of the fence.