Cardinal urges seminarians to rely on authentic Catholic teaching

In a letter to seminarians of the Archdiocese of Washington, Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl encouraged them to rely on authentic Catholic teaching in their preparation for the priesthood, so that they will be able to share the truth of the Church’s teachings with the people they will one day serve.

He urged them to look to the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a sure guide on what the Church teaches.

“Your need to be well grounded in authentic Catholic teaching is important, first for your own participation in the great, living teaching tradition of the Church,” the cardinal said in his Sept. 3 letter to the archdiocese’s 74 seminarians.

“One reason why you are required to take so many courses in Catholic teaching, history and philosophy is so that you are not only aware of the immense gift of the great Catholic tradition, but that you are also well prepared to access it, understand it, appropriate it and share it,” he said.

The cardinal titled his letter “Faith Seeking Understanding in the Life of the Seminarian.”
He said that as priests, they will be ministering to people in a materialistic, secular world who, in their worldly culture and by alternative voices claiming to be Catholic, have been taught things that are counter to Church teaching, especially in the area of sexual morality.

The cardinal noted that Pope Benedict XVI has warned of college and university theology teachers who have presented “teachings that were never accepted as part of Christ’s Gospel,” as new teachings “in the ‘spirit’” of the Second Vatican Council, and those theologians’ false teachings have been amplified in the secular mass media. Cardinal Wuerl likewise reminded students “if you have a doubt that one or another teaching that you read or receive does not comport with the Catholic faith, you can turn to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.”

In his letter, Cardinal Wuerl noted how Christ taught his disciples to teach the good news, and after Jesus’ resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, they continued that ministry, “even at the cost of their very lives, and appointed others to continue, in turn, their own ministry of preaching the word after they had gone.”

The cardinal said the successors to the apostles, the bishops, guided by the Holy Spirit, have for more than 20 centuries passed on the truth of the Catholic faith, “making sure that it is presented clearly, and applying it to the problems and needs of every age.”

Discussing the Church’s teaching authority, Cardinal Wuerl said, “The magisterium, the Church’s teaching office, does not assert that in its proclamation of the faith, it has exhausted every development, nuance or application of the faith in the circumstances of our day. But the Church does define that the authoritative teachers of the faith will not lead us into error and away from Christ. No one else can rightfully make that claim.”

The cardinal warned “there are some theological writers who present teachings contrary to that of the Church’s magisterium, but who justify their writings on the grounds that it is the pope and the bishops who do not understand the nature of theology.”

He noted that Pope Benedict XVI, recognized as “a superlative theologian of our age,” and the world’s bishops in communion with him understand the nature of theology, and they have the responsibility to “declare what is and what is not in conformity with the faith of the Church.”

Cardinal Wuerl reminded seminarians that as they progress through the academic year, studying liberal arts, philosophy, Scripture and theology, they need to be “mindful that there is only one faith. There are not several creeds, nor are there multiple moralities from which you can choose.”

Popular interpretations of Church teaching, even by groups claiming to be Catholic, can actually be proposing “something altogether different than Catholic faith and morals,” the cardinal warned the seminarians.

“When, for example, you read that this or that theologian has proposed an understanding of God, the Church or the sacraments that clearly runs counter to what the pope and bishops teach, or when you are presented with the idea that morality, particularly sexual morality, is simply a matter of personal choice, and that the idea of an objective moral norm of right and wrong is no longer applicable today, know that you need to turn to a sure source reference for true Catholic teaching,” said Cardinal Wuerl.

Those alternative teachings, often referred to as “Catholic lite,” should be checked for authenticity, recommended the cardinal.

He warned about groups that label their positions with the name “Catholic,” but actually go against Church teaching, as they claim that people can be good Catholics even if they “support ideas that are greatly popular in the secular world such as abortion, sterilization, same-sex marriage and all types of sexual activity outside of marriage.”

Cardinal Wuerl encouraged the seminarians to confront the culture and spirit of these times by following Jesus’ call to holiness.

“In an ever increasingly secular and materialistic culture, those who live by the Spirit are called to set an example that will bear testimony to the goodness of Christ and his way of life in an age that seems so uncomfortable with the things of the Spirit,” he said.