In Matthew chapter 23, Jesus criticized the most righteous religious leaders of his day,

saying they hurt people by demanding they follow rules that God never required.

Jesus said, they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders.

And in the world of online Catholicism there are loud voices that also bind heavy

burdens upon the faithful, burdens that the church does not require.

So in today's episode I'm going to focus on the danger of what I call Catholic fundamentalism.

Now I don't like a similar term that often comes up in these contexts, radical traditionalism.

That's because there's nothing wrong with being

traditional or preferring more traditional forms of liturgy or devotions. There's also

nothing wrong with wanting to live a more traditional lifestyle, but traditionalism turns into fundamentalism when those good

yet optional traditions get imposed on everyone. For example there's nothing

wrong with a family that doesn't use natural family planning or NFP and is simply prepared

for whatever number of children that proceed from their union provided they can give

those children a dignified life. But it is wrong to demand that everyone live that way and reject natural family planning as being sinful.

You cannot prohibit what the church permits.

Oddly enough, Catholic fundamentalists act like Catholic liberals but reach the opposite conclusions.

For example, on contraception, the far left and the far right say there is no moral difference

between contraception and NFP. The liberals say that we should

treat contraception like NFP and say contraception is not sinful. And the far

right say that we should treat NFP like contraception, both of them being

sinful. Liberals err in permitting what the church prohibits and fundamentalists

err in prohibiting what the church permits.

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