Manipulating the Deposit of Faith

Some well-meaning Catholics are prone to advocate unapproved additions to the Deposit of Faith in response to attacks on that Deposit.

PUBLISHED ON

January 21, 2025

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During the past 60 years progressive Catholics have been engaged in an intense effort to remove from the Deposit of Faith beliefs and practices they find distasteful. Whether it be a rejection of the Real Presence or attempts to drop the teaching against artificial contraception, these Catholics have been hell-bent (literally) on transforming our faith into something more palatable to the modern zeitgeist by clearing away anything offensive to modern ears.

In response, orthodox Catholics have been fighting a rearguard action to keep those challenged beliefs and practices alive and intact. Too often being an orthodox Catholic today feels like a series of defensive battles against subtractions from the Deposit of Faith. It would be nice to be on the offensive for once.

Maybe that’s why some well-meaning Catholics, particularly traditional Catholics (which I consider myself), are prone to leaving the defense aside in order to advocate unapproved additions to the Deposit of Faith. These come in the form of authoritative-sounding claims that “the Church teaches…”—although the Church has in reality never definitively taught what is being claimed.

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The two main examples that come to mind are beliefs in a literal six-day creation and the impossibility of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligent life. In certain traditional Catholic circles, these two beliefs are presented as definitive teachings to which every Catholic must adhere. To reject them is to reject the teachings of Christ and thus put one’s soul in jeopardy.

The problem is that these claims are simply not true. The Church has not made any official definitive declarations on either of these topics. Catholics are free to hold various—and opposing—views with regard to creation and aliens. At first, this flexibility seems at odds with our understanding of the Church; after all, isn’t the Church the “pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Timothy 3:15)? Isn’t it the steady rock on which we place our faith? Isn’t it just progressives who think Catholic teachings are optional?

However, many things in life—most things, in fact—are not bound by specific authoritative Church teachings. We certainly have teachings we must adhere to, such as the doctrine of the Trinity or the perpetual virginity of Mary. We have moral teachings we must follow, including the sinfulness of sexual relations outside marriage and the immorality of murder. But the Church does not spend her time declaring a definitive teaching on every matter under the sun; she allows us as rational beings to make our own determinations on most matters. This includes the time it took for the earth to be formed and whether extraterrestrial intelligent life exists. 

For centuries most Catholics believed that the earth was created in six literal 24-hour days. If you look at the writings of the Church Fathers as well the writings of theologians and saints throughout the Middle Ages, you will find an assumption among the vast majority of them (but not all) that this is how God created the world. What you will not find, however, is any official Church teaching that this is the case. Never does a pope or ecumenical council define the exact timeframe God used to create the world, nor the overall age of the earth. 

And by the 19th century, when scientific findings strongly suggested that the world was formed over a much longer period of time, the Church herself did not condemn these findings but instead recognized that they did not contradict the teachings of the Church on creation. It was fundamentalist Protestants who reacted to the scientific findings to insist on a literal six-day creation, not Catholics. 

This is not to say that a Catholic must reject belief in six-day creation. The Church leaves it up to the individual to form his own opinion on this subject. So a Catholic is free to believe the world is just 6,000 years old and was formed in 144 hours. But he may not claim the Church requires this belief.

The other hot debate in recent years is the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligent life. For many, this is a speculative topic that doesn’t really matter—who cares if E.T. exists millions of light years away? That has no impact on my life here. But the possible existence of intelligent life outside the human race and the angelic host does have serious theological implications that at least theologians would be wise not to ignore. There are good theological arguments why such life is not possible (plus some good arguments why it is possible), but these are simply arguments, not definitive teachings.

Here too the Church has been silent, so Catholics are free to decide if they believe such life is possible or not (they are also free to ignore the matter). To claim otherwise is to go beyond what the Church herself has claimed. It’s magisterial “fake news.”

I want to be clear: I’m sympathetic to the reasons behind why Catholics might resist both an old earth and the existence of aliens. There’s no question that both beliefs have been used in attempts to undermine the Catholic Faith and the faith of Catholics. Many who promote the old age of the universe also promote atheistic understandings of how our world came to be; it has become the atheist’s own Creation Story to replace Genesis. Evolution makes God unnecessary for many people.  I’m sympathetic to the reasons behind why Catholics might resist both an old earth and the existence of aliens.Tweet This

Of course, one can believe in an old earth while rejecting the Darwinian evolutionary explanation for the origin of life (see, for example, A Catholic Case for Intelligent Design by Fr. Martin Hilbert or The Realist Guide to Religion and Science by Fr. Paul Robinson, both written by Catholic priests who are the furthest thing from “progressive”). Yet too often an old earth is used as “proof” that God doesn’t exist—so much so that countless people today subscribe to the notion that religion and science are fundamentally opposed (a notion the Church has always rejected).

Likewise, some who embrace the idea of extraterrestrial intelligent life in the universe—and even aliens among us—fall into New Age and other anti-Catholic belief systems. UFO-chasing has become a type of religion, leading people away from the true religion of Catholicism. Just a cursory look at stories of supposed alien encounters often reveals a spiritual underpinning, making it reasonable to believe that at least some “aliens” are actually demons in disguise. 

So it’s understandable that some Catholics completely reject both an old earth and extraterrestrial intelligent life, and then claim the Church definitively backs them up.

Catholics, however, must adhere to the Deposit of Faith, no more, no less. Just as we cannot subtract from it, neither can we add to it. We don’t combat the erroneous conclusions that non-Catholics make regarding the earth’s creation or alien life by making false claims about Church teachings. Rather, we only go as far as the Church goes, allowing what the Church has not condemned. 

If you are Catholic and want to believe the earth was created in six days and that alien life is impossible, have at it. Argue for your views all you want. But don’t begrudge or attack Catholics as unfaithful who might not join along. According to the Church herself, believing the earth was formed over millions of years or that other intelligent life exists in the universe is no knock on one’s faithfulness. Progressives attempt to change the Deposit of Faith by removing beliefs. Don’t become the other side of the coin by trying to add your own personal views to that sacred Deposit.

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2 thoughts on “Manipulating the Deposit of Faith”

  1. >>It was fundamentalist Protestants who reacted to the scientific findings to insist on a literal six-day creation, not Catholics.<<

    This is a significant over-simplification. Many, many Catholics also rejected the scientific claims that were perceived to be contrary to scripture. That said, the Pontifical Biblical Commission, the work of which at the time had been delegated by the popes to have magisterial weight, took a very nuanced and still fully-defensible position on some of these questions in 1909, which I highly recommend your readers review to answer the question, "what does the Church actually teach about these topics?" A translation can be found here: https://creationtheologyfellowship.org/2022/07/07/documents-of-the-pontifical-biblical-commission-translated/ ("Concerning the Historical Character of the First Three Chapters of Genesis").

  2. May this comment find us all ever closer to God, and His Clarity.
    Thank you for this article.

    This issue has been a problem for my Apologetic communication attempts, that many argue some aspect of Doctrine or scripture meaning that do not exist except that it ‘seems to imply’ and any suggestion that might argue something different for them becomes against Catholic doctrines.

    About a good Intelligent Design overview article can be found here: “Faith-Based Evolution”, By Dr. Roy Spencer, 08 Aug 2005
    https://archive.is/EI7kP#selection-1441.0-1447.13
    And
    Lots of good YouTube videos by Stephen Meyers for fuller arguments.

    God Bless., Steve

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