Bishop Strickland promotes heresy on baptism.

ancy Pelosi had an audi­ence with the pope, and as sure as Old Faith­ful will blow, right-wing Catholics proved them­selves faith­ful. Among them was Joseph Strick­land, the bish­op of Tyler, Texas; who mount­ed his pul­pit on Twit­ter and declared, with all the solem­ni­ty of an edict, that Pelosi was not even a mem­ber of the Catholic Church:

Claim­ing to be Catholic is easy. Liv­ing the Catholic faith cen­tered in Jesus Christ is extreme­ly hard. As long as Nan­cy pro­motes the slaugh­ter of the unborn she is not a mem­ber of the Catholic faith cen­tered in Jesus. It’s as sim­ple as that, labels are cheap! Life is sacred!

Of course, Pelosi does not “pro­mote the slaugh­ter of the unborn”—this is a lie; what she pro­motes is a refusal to make abor­tion ille­gal. In my view (and in Church teach­ing), Pelosi is wrong, but the dis­tinc­tion is impor­tant to make. A per­son who thinks mas­tur­ba­tion should not be ille­gal does not “pro­mote adul­tery” or “the break­down of faith­ful mar­riage.” And a per­son who thinks abor­tion should not be ille­gal does not “pro­mote the slaugh­ter of the unborn.” Unless we can make this dis­tinc­tion, we are not engag­ing in argu­ment intend­ed to per­suade, but in pro­pa­gan­da.

Anoth­er way to put that is to say that Bish­op Strick­land is guilty of calum­ny [see CCC 2477]. Nan­cy Pelosi’s posi­tion on abor­tion is wrong; the fact that “God has giv­en us a free will” no more implies that abor­tion may be legal than it implies that every­thing may be legal; but a cul­ture of life is not served by lying about what her posi­tion actu­al­ly is.

Catholics can not be wit­ness­es of the truth to Nan­cy Pelosi—or to any­one else—if they begin with a lie.

•••

But—this is the oth­er half of Strick­land’s claim—even if Nan­cy Pelosi did “pro­mote the slaugh­ter of the unborn,” she would still be “a mem­ber of the Catholic faith” for no oth­er rea­son than that she has been bap­tized.

Nothing—nothing—erases bap­tism. Sin does not erase bap­tism; dis­sent does not erase bap­tism; excom­mu­ni­ca­tion does not erase bap­tism; not even apos­ta­sy eras­es bap­tism. Even Catholics in Hell are still Catholic. Here is the Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church § 1272:

Incor­po­rat­ed into Christ by Bap­tism, the per­son bap­tized is con­fig­ured to Christ. Bap­tism seals the Chris­t­ian with the indeli­ble spir­i­tu­al mark (char­ac­ter) of his belong­ing to Christ. No sin can erase this mark, even if sin pre­vents Bap­tism from bear­ing the fruits of sal­va­tion. Giv­en once for all, Bap­tism can­not be repeat­ed.

No. Sin. Can. Erase. This. Mark.

I’m con­tent to accept that that means no sin can erase this mark.

More­over, the fol­low­ing para­graph of the Cat­e­chism, § 1273, says that, by bap­tism, Catholics are “incor­po­rat­ed into the Church.” Pope Fran­cis expand­ed on this in a Gen­er­al Audi­ence of May 9, 2018:

The seal of Bap­tism is nev­er lost! “Father, but if a per­son becomes an infa­mous brig­and, who kills peo­ple, who inflicts injus­tice, does the seal not dis­ap­pear?” No. To his own shame a child of God is the per­son who does these things; but the seal does not go away. And he con­tin­ues to be a child of God, who oppos­es God; but God nev­er dis­owns his chil­dren. Do you under­stand this last point? God nev­er dis­owns his chil­dren. Shall we all repeat it togeth­er? “God nev­er dis­owns his chil­dren.” …

Hence the priest anoints the head of every bap­tized per­son with the sacred chrism after pro­nounc­ing these words which explain the sig­nif­i­cance: God him­self “anoints you with the chrism of sal­va­tion, so that, unit­ed with his peo­ple, you may remain for ever a mem­ber of Christ who is Priest, Prophet, and King.”

“So that .… you may remain for ever a mem­ber of Christ.”

Nan­cy Pelosi was bap­tized, and for that reason—and that rea­son alone—she is “for ever a mem­ber of Christ.”

It would be entire­ly proper—Bishop Strick­land would have no argu­ment from me—if he had said that Nan­cy Pelosi is a “dis­sent­ing Catholic.” But to deny that she is “a mem­ber of the Catholic faith” is false, and sure­ly Bish­op Strick­land knows bet­ter than this.

•••

But Alt! I can hear some­one say­ing. Sure­ly you’re going too far when you claim that Bish­op Strick­land is pro­mot­ing heresy!

Real­ly?

Here is Canon 6 of the Coun­cil of Tren­t’s canons On the Sacra­ments:

If any one saith, that the sacra­ments of the New Law [Bap­tism would be one of those.] do not con­tain the grace which they sig­ni­fy; or, that they do not con­fer that grace on those who do not place an obsta­cle there­un­to; as though they were mere­ly out­ward signs of grace or jus­tice received through faith, and cer­tain marks of the Chris­t­ian pro­fes­sion, where­by believ­ers are dis­tin­guished amongst men from unbe­liev­ers; let him be anath­e­ma.

Bap­tism

• Leaves an indeli­ble mark as one of its “graces”;
• Is not a mere “out­ward sign,” but is unto sal­va­tion;
• Dis­tin­guish­es believ­ers from unbe­liev­ers

These are truths about a sacra­ment, they are divine­ly revealed, and deny­ing them would cer­tain­ly con­sti­tute a heresy as defined by Canon 751: “the obsti­nate denial or obsti­nate doubt after the recep­tion of bap­tism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith.”

The Coun­cil of Trent attached a penal­ty of excom­mu­ni­ca­tion to these here­sies about bap­tism.

I don’t mean to say that Bish­op Strick­land is guilty of for­mal heresy—that is out­side my com­pe­tence to judge—but with­in the state­ment that Nan­cy Pelosi is “not a mem­ber of the Catholic faith” is an implic­it heresy. I sus­pect Bish­op Strick­land is speak­ing care­less­ly, or not think­ing through the impli­ca­tions of what he is say­ing, rather than con­scious­ly enter­tain­ing a heresy about bap­tism.

That’s a seri­ous prob­lem of itself, how­ev­er. Pope Fran­cis is often crit­i­cized by right-wing Catholics—the very same Catholics who admire Strickland—for being slop­py and inex­act in his phras­ing. (Even I have crit­i­cized the pope for that.) By sug­gest­ing that Pelosi is not Catholic, Strick­land pro­motes the kind of think­ing that (1) does not help the pro-life cause; (2) mis­rep­re­sents the Catholic faith itself in its sacra­men­tal the­ol­o­gy. He turns the faith into a pri­vate club for right-thinkers rather than a refuge of heal­ing for the lost and wound­ed.

It means he’s a bad shep­herd.

Being Catholic is not a mere “label,” as Strick­land pre­tends. It is our iden­ti­ty. It is an indeli­ble spir­i­tu­al char­ac­ter. Like it or not, Nan­cy Pelosi is Catholic. We don’t just get to kick her out or pre­tend she does­n’t belong to us. God nev­er dis­owns his chil­dren, and Catholics don’t get to dis­own their broth­ers and sis­ters. Not only is it unchris­t­ian, it’s heresy.

UPDATE

I’ve made some amend­ments to this post here.