Dr. James Hitchcock is a professor of history at St. Louis University, as well as a regular columnist for the Arlington Catholic Herald. In this excellent recent column, Dr. Hitchcock highlights the following blatant errors:
Over the centuries the Church used naked force to impose its doctrines on an unsuspecting public. Even when Protestants repudiated Catholic authority, they did not go far enough, not recognizing that the New Testament itself is the ultimate source of error about Jesus.Though not all would be so radical in their denial of Christian truths, I believe many modern day Catholics are still infected with a cafeteria-style belief system. They have not understood that the body of Church teaching is an organic whole, where rejection of a part is akin to rejection of a part of Christ himself.But modern scholarship has at last discovered the truth. The Jesus Seminar has found that most of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the Gospels are spurious, while Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code, while allegedly a work of fiction, raises many "interesting questions" which have been suppressed for centuries.
Christianity, except insofar as it repudiates its historic self, is a negative force in society, especially in its repressive teachings about
sexuality, which prevent people from finding their true selves. Christianity is dangerous especially because of its concept of orthodoxy. There is no such thing as ultimate truth, and those who think otherwise are fanatics who threaten a free society, as in the pro-life movement. The above is a view of religion which any half-attentive person is likely to imbibe from even cursory attention to the way religion is now discussed among the "enlightened" classes. The media do not exactly endorse this view of religion, but they present it as "interesting" and treat its proponents with much deference.
Consider these verses, "For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth. Every one that is of the truth, heareth my voice." (John 18:37) and "He that heareth you, heareth me..." (Luke 10:16) Clearly, not everyone, even within the Church, would agree that upholding these passages means believing everything the Church teaches. However, we do know that one day Christ himself will clarify the matter fully.
And here's a great addition - Archbishop Timothy Dolan's reflection on the Church, to use the expression of Bl. John XXIII, as Mater et Magistra - Mother and Teacher. Most people don't mind having another mother, to care for them in their distress, but reject the role of the Church as teacher - one to be listened to. Sounds to me that some Catholics have been too severely infected with the thoughts of John Dewey on the democratization of education.
If there is "no such thing as ultimate truth," then it must have been pretty difficult for those modern scholars to discover it. And if it's only their own "personal truth" they've discovered, then funny how they try to "impose" it on everyone else.