The Pastoral Value of Doctrine

Normally, when considering the pastoral care of a parish, one thinks of celebrating Mass, particularly on Sundays, as well as the hearing of confessions. There are also baptismal and marriage preparations. Likewise, there are various forms of counseling—comforting those who have lost a loved one through death, aiding those who are struggling with all sorts of personal, marital, or family problems.

The list of issues that a parish priest is confronted with could be extended almost ad infinitum. However, what role the Church’s traditional, magisterial doctrines play within a pastoral context is rarely, if ever, considered. What do doctrines have to do with one’s ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill life? Do they make any difference as to the manner in which one lives? Sadly, the answer to these questions is often “little.”

Part of the problem, though not exclusively, is that the Church’s doctrines are sometimes portrayed in a negative manner, occasionally by those ordained ministers, priests, and bishops, who, ironically, are appointed to proclaim and defend them. Such neglect can even be found at the highest levels—Rome not excluded. The traditional doctrines of the Church can be depicted as dead, lifeless, abstract, academic remnants from the past. They are relics that should now be thrown into the dustbin of history. What is needed instead are some new, creative ecclesial teachings that are relevant to today’s cultural milieu. Something that is pertinent to the contemporary world in which people actually live. Something that is more theologically elastic, given the different moral and doctrinal mindsets of a multitude of modern-day “educated” Catholics.

However, is such an assessment of the Church’s ancient doctrines appropriate, and is it correct? To answer this question, one needs to determine what a “doctrine” or a “dogma” is.

Given the negative reading of the word “doctrine,” the Church’s doctrines may be better termed the mysteries of faith. These mysteries are those doctrines that have either been dogmatically defined or that have become part of the Church’s authentic teaching over the course of centuries—often going back to biblical and apostolic origins. Thus, one can enumerate some of the most significant doctrines of the Church—the Trinity, the Incarnation, the divinity of the Son of God and of the Holy Spirit, the resurrection of the body, the Immaculate Conception, and the Assumption. Many of the mysteries of the faith can be found in various creeds, such as the Apostles Creed and the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, which is professed every Sunday and on liturgical Solemnities.

Here, two points must be made. First, many of these doctrines were defined because various heresies arose during the course of time. For example, in the fourth century, a priest by the name of Arius denied that Jesus was truly the Son of God. Rather, Arius declared that he was a creature, though the first of all that was created and the most like God. The bishops at the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), in response to Arius’s denial, declared that Jesus is the “only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through whom all things were made.”

Thus, contrary to Arius, the Fathers professed what had been proclaimed in the New Testament and what had been believed from the time of the Apostles. Jesus is the only begotten Son of the Father, and so is God, as the Father is God. Being God as the Father is God, Jesus is consubstantial with the Father, that is, he possesses the same divine nature as the Father. The one God is, therefore, the interrelationship between God the Father and God the Son. Moreover, Jesus, the Son of God, “for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.”

Thus, both the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the Incarnation were dogmatically defined at the Council of Nicaea. Jesus, he who is God as the Father is God, is the same Son who came to exist as man. These truths were doctrinally defined to ensure a proper understanding of salvation. If Jesus were not God, he could not have saved us, for only God can achieve our salvation. Likewise, if Jesus were not man, he could not have saved us who are men, for we were the ones in need of salvation.

Similarly, when the divinity of the Holy Spirit was called into question, the First Council of Constantinople (381 AD) declared that “the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, proceeds from the Father.” (Much later, within the Roman Catholic Church, the Holy Spirit was said “to proceed from the Father and the Son. This continues to be the case.) Nonetheless, the doctrinal point is that as the Son is begotten of the Father and so is truly and fully God, so the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father, is equally truly and fully God. The Spirit, then, is the divine Lord along with the Son. Moreover, the Holy Spirit is also the giver of life in that, through his indwelling within those who have been baptized, he is the guarantee of eternal life. Thus, the one God is the interrelationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

What is perceived here is that the doctrines defined at the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople were already proclaimed in the New Testament. What the Councils did was to ensure that the faith that was already found within Scripture was clearly defended, preserved, and professed. What is also evident here is that doctrines embody the truths of divine revelation, and they do so that the faithful may know, in faith, what truths reside in the mysteries of the—what they need to believe for their salvation.

Second, because doctrines are revealed truth, they are frequently conceived exclusively as providing knowledge—knowledge that was not known prior to its being revealed. Thus, only within the Incarnation of the Son of God did Jesus reveal the Trinity, that is, both the Father and the Holy Spirit. However, such an understanding is a faulty interpretation of divine revelation and the mysteries of faith. The mysteries of faith are not simply known as truths apart from oneself, but they are doctrinal truths of which and in which one participates. Here, a couple of examples would be helpful.

When we are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we are taken up into the very life of the Trinity itself—the primary and principal mystery of faith from which all other mysteries find their source. As adopted children, through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, we are conformed into the likeness of Jesus the Son, whereupon we become adopted children of the Father. The Trinity is not just a mystery of faith that we know, but a mystery into which we have been assumed.

Moreover, through the sacrament of baptism, we also become members of the Body of Christ, wherein the risen Jesus is the head, and we become one body in him. We, in the life and love of the Holy Spirit, become one living reality in Christ. This twofold baptismal mystery of faith has now become a mystery into which we, as Christians, have become members.

Likewise, a mystery of our faith is found in Jesus’ work of our salvation. Over two thousand years ago, Jesus, as the great high priest, offered himself on the cross as a sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins. He rose gloriously from the dead so that we might have everlasting life. However, we must participate in these saving mysteries if we are to reap their salvific benefits.

But how is that sharing possible when we now live long after Jesus’ death and resurrection? Again, as with sharing in the life of the Trinity through the sacrament of baptism and having become members of Christ’s body, so here we now share in these saving mysteries of our faith through the Mass. In the Mass, through the action of the ordained priest, as well as through the priesthood of the baptized laity, Jesus’ once and for all sacrificial death is made present, and in the Mass all participants are conjoined to that one saving sacrifice which is offered to the Father for the forgiveness of sins. Having offered to the Father this once and for all saving sacrifice of the crucified Jesus, we possess the privilege and right to receive Jesus in holy communion. We partake of the risen-given-up-body of Christ and the risen-poured-out-blood of Christ. We are literally in communion with the risen Jesus himself and with one another. Through baptism, we become members of Christ’s body, and in the Eucharist, we are ushered into the fullest expression of that mystical union with Christ here on earth.

This Eucharistic mystery of faith becomes, then, the eschatological anticipation of its completion—the full maturity of Christ’s body of which we are members, and thus the complete sharing in the life of the Most Holy Trinity. In Jesus, the Son, in communion with the Holy Spirit, we fully become the Father’s adopted children.

The above examples of coming to share in the mysteries of our faith are, then, prolegomena for why doctrine is of pastoral significance. Without these and other mysteries of faith, pastoral practice would lose its heart, which is what the care of the faithful, both clergy and laity alike, is all about. The Church itself is that mystery wherein all the mysteries of faith find their home and from which they are made available to all. To participate in the ecclesial and sacramental life of the Church is to be subsumed into all the doctrines, all the mysteries, it proclaims and defends.

In this light, bishops, priests, and deacons are ordained to be pastoral ministers of these mysteries, these living doctrines of faith. They do so in at least a twofold fashion. First, they must proclaim clearly and steadfastly, in homilies, addresses, and sometimes in writing, the fullness of the Church’s doctrinal teaching. Only by doing so will the lay faithful come to an ever-deeper knowledge of the mysteries of faith and so participate in them in an ever more worthy and appreciative manner. The ultimate goal is that all, again, clergy and laity alike, grow in their love for the mysteries of faith, the mysteries of which they are members. All are to glory, in wonder and awe, in the Church’s doctrines, for they are the breath upon which the Body of Christ breathes and the lifeblood upon which all are nourished.

Second, given the above, pastors are to contemplate the mysteries of the faith, for only then can they competently speak about them. In accordance with the old scholastic principle, one can only give what one has. Pastors must know and love the doctrines of the Church if they are to communicate that knowledge and engender that love to the faithful.

In all the above, I hope that I have demonstrated the relevance of doctrine within a pastoral setting. Far from not being needed, the Church’s doctrinal tradition is of supreme importance today, for many of the faithful can often be almost completely ignorant of the saving mysteries of our faith. This lack of knowledge, in turn, fosters an ambivalence concerning them. If the Church is to be renewed in the Spirit of truth, what we need now is a robust preaching and teaching of Catholic doctrine—the mysteries of our beloved Faith.

(Editor’s note: This essay was published originally in slightly different form on the “What We Need Now” site and is republished here with kind permission of the author.)