How Much Legalism is there in the Church?

Our Sunday bulletin often features little reflections on the day’s readings, most of which are taken from some OCP publication that I assume is sent to parishes as a sort of auxiliary resource to their main business of liturgical music.  This morning, a small reflection on Psalm 119 appeared, written by a woman named Virginia Smith (copyright 2010 OCP).

I’ve long referred to Psalm 119 as the lawyer’s psalm, for every verse of this longest of all psalms contains a word such as law, decrees, ways, precepts, ordinances, statutes, or commands. Our response, “Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord” fits neatly into that overall theme.

It must be remembered that the law in the First Testament refers to the Mosaic law which governed nearly every aspect of Israelite life. Jesus would have been very familiar with it and had nothing against it per se. Prefacing the body of the Sermon on the Mount, he remarks, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” (John 5:17) His quarrel was with the countless subsidiary laws that had sprung up around the original law, effectively stifling its spirit.

There remains a good deal of legalism in the Church today, the notion that if you do this and avoid that, you have your visa stamped for heaven, forgetting that Christianity is a relationship, not a legal system. Doing our best to obey God because we love Him is one thing; going through the motions because the law says so is quite another.

I have no trouble with the first two paragraphs “per se.”  I wonder, though, about the third.  Is there a good deal of legalism in the Church today?  Actually, I think among the vast majority of Catholics, it is quite the opposite ... the “rules” that the Church sets up are simply opinions, and only to be followed if one agrees with them, hardly “legalism” in the way that Smith is using the term.  As but one example, numerous Gallup polls suggest that a strong majority of Catholics ignore the “rule” prohibiting the use of contraception.  Record numbers of engaged couples are going through marriage preparation while co-habitating.  Despite direction from the Vatican, countless Catholic Americans find someway of voting for pro-abortion candidates in election after election.  Are there those that are “legalistic” in the sense that Smith lays out?  Perhaps, but I would hardly call it “a good deal.”

There are, of course, those who do listen to the Church on matters such as artificial contraception, abortion, and sex before marriage.  But these folks tend to be able to explain the positions of the Church with clarity and poise.  More often than not, this group of faithful Catholics is charged with legalism by those who would dissent from the Church.  There is an assumption that because one does not understand why the Church takes a particular (infallible, by the way) stance and therefore chooses not to surrender to the teaching (infallible, by the way), that those who are acting in obedience could not possibly understand the teaching either, and hence must be acting legalistically.

In point of fact, even those who are acting in blind obedience without full understanding are acting virtuously.  In the last portion of her third paragraph, Smith seems to set up a false dichotomy between following the rules and transcending them in the way that Jesus is calling for in the Sermon on the Mount.  “Doing our best to obey God because we love Him is one thing; going through the motions because the law says so is quite another.”  Following the rules even though one does not understand them may not be ideal, but it is better than not following the rules.  The rules are there because we are creatures of habit, and virtue is built upon habit.  (Virtue itself is a habitus).  Yes, we should always act out of love for God, but this will never in any way contradict obeying his laws.  While perhaps not illustrative of Christian moral perfection, there is a certain amount of virtue in the act of blind obedience; it is better, anyway, than blind disobedience.  Obedience itself develops the moral habit, and only upon the habit can the mature virtue of understanding be built.

Yes, Jesus says that lust in the heart is an example of adultery, but he does not say, “If you understand this, great.  If you don’t, then you are not held bound by it, nor are you held bound by the commandment against adultery.”  The message of Christ does not contradict “rule following”, but rather perfects it.  This grace-perfects-nature reality is part and parcel of the Christian message.

I often get the impression that those who do not properly understand the “rules” of the Church are quick to level the charge of legalism against those that obey.  My anecdotal experience is that those following the teachings of the magisterium are not of the attitude that concerns Smith, “if you do this and avoid that, you have your visa stamped for heaven.”  Such an attitude would have a certain amount of legalism imbedded, but I have rarely encountered individuals.  Much more common are those that would criticize the rule-followers and automatically assume that whether “you do this and avoid that” is irrelevant and you will “have your visa stamped for heaven” regardless of acts of disobedience.

Perhaps Smith understand this; she does, after all, reference the Sermon on the Mount in her second paragraph.  Nevertheless, her third paragraph at the very least leaves some room for doubt.

I will, however, concede that there is a different sort of legalism of sorts that is growing in the Church, a new legalism if you will, but not one in the way the Smith presents it.  We can see it manifested in liturgical circles by those who would seek to defend various examples of banality in the liturgy, scouring the rubrics, nitpicking them to death, and contriving loopholes with which they can respond to those who would have the liturgy done according to the mind of the Church.  We see the same sort of legalism in couples who wish to misconstrue the Catechism’s “conscience clause” in order to justify dissent, in this or that particular case, from the Church’s teaching on contraception or abortion.  It is the same sort of legalism that rendered many incapable of understanding the Holy Father’s recent comments on condom use.

Is there a “good deal” of legalism in the Church today?  Perhaps, but somehow I don’t think it is the kind that Virginia Smith imagines.