Jesus passes his authoritative teaching through the succession of the Apostles.
While teaching of faith and morals are often challenging to the faithful, we are still called to be obedient to Christ and to his Church.
This calls to mind the doctrine of “Cafeteria Catholics”, to pick and choose what Church teachings to follow and which ones to disregard. I reference St. John Henry Newman’s discourse on “Faith and Private Judgment” on why this thinking is dangerous.
“In the time of the Apostles, they preached to the world that Christ was the Son of God. They were the messengers from God. Men were told to submit their reason to a living authority. Moreover, whatever an Apostle said, his converts were bound to believe; when they entered the Church, they entered it in order to learn. The Church was their teacher; they did not come to argue, to examine, to pick and choose, but to accept whatever was put before them.
Immediate, implicit submission of the mind was, in the lifetime of the Apostles, the only, the necessary token of faith; then there was no room whatever for what is now called private judgment. No one could say: "I will choose my religion for myself, I will believe this, I will not believe that; I will pledge myself to nothing; I will believe just as long as I please, and no longer; what I believe today I will reject tomorrow, if I choose. I will believe what the Apostles have as yet said, but I will not believe what they shall say in time to come."
No; either the Apostles were from God, or they were not; if they were, everything that they preached was to be believed by their hearers; if they were not, there was nothing for their hearers to believe.
To believe a little, to believe more or less, was impossible; it contradicted the very notion of believing: if one part was to be believed, every part was to be believed; it was an absurdity to believe one thing and not another; for the word of the Apostles, which made the one true, made the other true too; they were nothing in themselves, they were all things, they were an infallible authority, as coming from God. The world had either to become Christian, or to let it alone; there was no room for private tastes and fancies, no room for private judgment.”
May God give us the grace to embrace his Church authoritative teachings, even when our understanding fails us.
Author Bio:
Deacon Dan Vaughn