Question:
Why does the Catholic Church have so many rules!?
This
is a common question/complaint from both Catholics and non-Catholics
alike. Many people perceive the Church
as overly strict and rule-laden. Why
does the Church place these seemingly burdening laws upon its members? A few responses might be in order.
First,
for some people this critique of the Church may be a simple parroting of a
common objection they’ve repeatedly heard over the years, perhaps without
really reflecting on it. A few times I
have (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) asked the person to list which rules they
mean. Let’s sit down with pen and paper
and list which rules it is we object to.
There are, after all, only ten Commandments and six Precepts of the
Church. Which shall we do away
with? The one about murder? Adultery?
Stealing? This is a bit of a
sarcastic response, but it gets to the heart of the question: rather than just
resent some abstract idea of “so many rules,” what specifically is the objection?
Well,
in truth there are more rules than just the Ten Commandments and the Precepts
of the Church. Universal Church law, the
Code of Canon Law, has 1752 canons! What
could possibly necessitate so many laws?
Consider for a moment that the current NFL rule book runs 88 pages. 88 pages of rules just to play a game with an
oblong ball! If it takes 88 pages to lay
out the rules of a game, isn’t it reasonable that a certain complexity would grow
around the life of an organization with 1.1 billion members worldwide? That’s worth considering: what kind of system
of rules should one expect to unite
1.1 billion people? Given the scale of
the Church as an organization made of human beings, one should not be surprised
that a body of law has grown up around it for the sake of unity and good order.
It
may not be rules in general that a person has a problem with, but the idea that
certain rules are arbitrary or unreasonable. That’s a different story. We can all agree we should have rules in the
world, from traffic laws to rules of Scrabble.
But we object to rules and laws that are contrary to reason or which place pointless restrictions on our freedom. So the question should be, is this particular rule reasonable or
unreasonable? This takes some
exploration, openness, and study. For
instance, the Church gives a handful of requirements for a person to be a
baptismal sponsor (godmother or godfather).
The Church requires, for example, that the sponsor be at least 16 years
of age and a fully initiated Catholic (baptized, confirmed, and practicing
their faith). This often causes new
parents consternation, especially if they’ve already asked their 13-year-old
Lutheran niece to be the godmother. But
are these rules really arbitrary or unreasonable? The Church is simply ensuring that a
baptismal sponsor be sufficiently mature, and that the person sponsoring
someone for initiation into the Church be themselves fully initiated
members. At face value both of those
requirements are quite reasonable. In my
experience this is the case with nearly all the rules some find
objectionable.
Finally,
it may be beneficial to question why
one objects to a given rule. We only
resent the speed limit or a stop light when we have left ourselves less than
enough time and want to speed. We only tend to resent rules we want to break. We dislike rules when our hearts are not in
conformity with the rule. If our heart
is in conformity with the rule, we don’t feel oppressed by it, and in a sense
are free from that rule. Most us don’t
“need” the fifth commandment to tell us not to murder our spouse. We don’t find that rule oppressive because
our heart is already in conformity to the rule.
So our dislike of rules may signal material for our examination of
conscience.
