Word of the Week

Twenty Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Heresy: Hairesis (Gk.): meaning  “a taking or choosing; seize; opinion; sect; division or schism”, behind it stands a Latin term that conveys the more commonly understood meaning of heresy, which is a religious belief opposed to the orthodox doctrine of the Church.

“Heresy is the obstinate denial after Baptism of a truth which must be believed with divine and Catholic faith” (CCC 2089).

Heresy can be found five times in the New Testament. The term heresy in the New Testament is usually translated more precisely to the aforementioned terms in the opening definition: ‘choose, sect, schism…’  We read in the book of Acts that the Pharisees and Sadducees are called "sects" of Judaism (Acts 5:17; 15:5). In addition, there are said to be "divisions" or "dissensions" among groups of Christians (1 Cor 11:19; Gal 5:20; 2 Pet 2:1). Peter addresses the catastrophe of heresy as it brings “destruction” and ultimately ‘dissent’ from the “way of truth” (2 Peter.2:1-2). Let us recall that heresymeans both a ‘choosing’ and at the same time a ‘schism’. It is in the “obedience of faith” (Rom.1:5, 16.26) that we overcome our own evil appetites and become imitators of Christ. In this manner of speaking, we avoid ‘dissent’ and ‘schism’ altogether.

In the gospel reading from the Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, we read of the Pharisees inquiring into Christ’s “opinion” on the matter of political duty. What the Pharisees fail to realize is that Christ’s words are more than opinion, in as much they are definitive truth because he is the incarnation of Truth. Christ’s affirmation of truth calls for a propriety of civil duty that places an emphasis on the duty of faithfully serving God. The Pharisees and Herodians marvel at the words of Christ, because they cut through the trappings of evil and bring light to truth and the principle of logic (Mt.22:15-22). Christ, living in the heart of man, is the quintessential response to all trappings of evil.

Furthermore, heresy is the product of pride. Pride is the greatest evil for souls as it crowds out the priceless gift of the original faith in the Deposit of Faith and Morals in its purity and integrity.  Consider today’s heresy of Modernism. Modernism (Naturalism/Rationalism) conceptualizes Revelation of truth as a natural human development as mankind lives on into the future and makes progress in the sciences. Excluding faith altogether, Modernism places absolute trust in the cosmos to advance mankind. Eugene Kevane, author of The Deposit of Faith: What the Catholic Church Really Believes , points out that “Modernism also discounts Divine Revelation as it gives no room for the Word of God spoken to mankind from above and beyond the reach of the cosmos” (Kevane, 374).  This heresyopens the door to the more tangible pervasive heresy of Ethical Relativism. Ethical/Moral Relativism is the branch of philosophy that believes there are no absolute norms or universal truths (this cannot be true because to say there is no absolutes is an absolute statement); no moral right from wrong. Pope benedict XVI, in Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, defines relativism in light of history: “Relativism…believes itself in possession of the definitive knowledge of human reason, with the right to consider everything merely as a stage in human history that is basically obsolete and deserves to be relativized” (Benedict, 45).How does the Christian evangelize these heresies? We must start with the person!

Culture is a reflection of the moral person; that is to say, culture is a product of the person. George Weigel states, in The Truth of Catholicsm: Inside the Essential Teachings and Controversies of the Church Today: “The moral life is not something added on to real life from the outside” (Weigel, 75 ). Morality is life lived by human beings. “We live in the gap of the person we are against the person we ought to be”  (Weigel, 75). There is always room for growth in the potential of becoming who we are called to be. We can create a civilization and culture of love if we evangelize the person…and that is to evangelize the heart!  In doing this, we return to the work of Christ, who first came to call people to repentance (Mt.3:1). It is in the conversion of the heart, that man will restore their identity and begin to see the Truth that is the Natural Moral Law. No longer will the person be ‘choosing’, but examining the beauty that is reason guided by faith.  The person must know that they have the capacity to choose, but choose what they ought, guided by the governing principle of an ordered society--law.

 “What the plague is to the body, heresy is to the soul.”

--St. Robert Bellarmine

PrimaryTexts Consulted

1. Catholic Bible. Suggested trans. Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.
2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, 1997.
3. Weigel, George. The Truth of Catholicism: Inside the Essential teachings and Controversies of the Church Today.  New York, New York: Harper Perennial, 2001.
4. Msgr. Kevane, Eugene. The Deposit of Faith: What the Catholic Church Really Believes. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2004.
5. Pope Benedict XVI. Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures.  San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005.

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