Question Box: Who decides on change in the Church?

By Father Thom Hennen
Question Box

Q: How are the beliefs of the Catholic Church determined? Can they change? If so, who decides?

A: One of the beautiful things about our Catholic Christian faith is that we didn’t just invent this stuff over a weekend. Rather, we have been handed something precious and trustworthy from those who came before us. We call this the “deposit of faith,” the body of truths that have been revealed through sacred Scripture and Tradition and passed on to us for our belief.

The “Catechism of the Catholic Church” puts it this way: “The apostles entrusted the ‘Sacred deposit’ of the faith (the depositum fidei), contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, to the whole of the Church. By adhering to [this heritage] the entire holy people, united to its pastors, remains always faithful to the teaching of the apostles … So, in maintaining, practicing, and professing the faith that has been handed on, there should be a remarkable harmony between the bishops and the faithful” (CCC, par. 84).

Our understanding and even our language about those things that we believe has certainly developed over the centuries. For example, we believed in one God in three divine persons — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — before we even had the word “Trinity” to describe this central mystery of our Christian faith. We believed that Jesus was truly God and truly human, without confusion or separation before we had the language of “nature” or “person” or “hypostatic union.” We believed in Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist, even before we used the expression “real presence” or the word “transubstantiation” to describe the change in the elements of bread and wine to become the true body and blood of Christ.

Regarding this “development of doctrine,” St. Vincent of Lérins wrote in the 5th century, “Is there to be no development of religion in the Church of Christ? Certainly, there is to be development and on the largest scale. Who can be so grudging to men, so full of hate for God, as to try to prevent it? But it must truly be development of the faith, not alteration of the faith. Development means that each thing expands to be itself, while alteration means that a thing is changed from one thing into another.” How we understand or even communicate those truths of our faith revealed through Scripture and Tradition may change, but the substance of our belief does not.

“But, Father, all sorts of things have changed in the Church,” you say. Yes, but we should further distinguish between doctrine/dogma and practice/discipline. Doctrines are essential teachings of the Church. The term “dogma” specifically refers to those teachings we believe to be in some sense directly revealed by God and formally defined by the Church. These things cannot and have not changed, even as our understanding and presentation of them has unfolded. But practices have changed and continue to change.

For example, the way and the languages in which we celebrate the liturgy have changed. New customs, pious practices and devotions occur in every age of the Church. The various disciplines of the Church have changed as the needs of the people have changed. What we believe may not change, but how we give expression to and celebrate what we believe can, does, has and may yet change.

As to which things go into which “bucket” —doctrine/dogma or practice/discipline — can lead to questions. Where there is confusion, the Magisterium (the “teaching office” of the Church exercised by the pope and the bishops in communion with him as successors of the Apostles) offers clarification when and as needed.

(Father Thom Hennen serves as the pastor of Sacred Heart Cathedral in Davenport. Send questions to messenger@davenportdiocese.org)