The best of the web: Error in the Catechism, private property, the Miraculous Medal

The authority of an official Catechism 

There are many Catechisms, but what kind of authority do they have? At Crisis, Charles Coulombe pointed out that a teaching doesn’t become authoritative just because it’s in a Catechism. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, for instance, is a collection of statements from various sources, some more authoritative than others – and as a general principle, “any teaching conveyed by a lesser level of authority that appears to contradict one of greater authority is to be ignored”.  

Even the Roman Catechism, praised by “innumerable popes”, had “room for error, as shown in 1947 when Venerable Pius XII corrected its assertion that the Presentation of the Instruments is necessary for the validity of the Sacrament of Holy Orders. When not repeating prior infallible teaching, any catechism – including the Roman – is on its own.” 

What Left and Right miss about property  

“On the Left,” wrote Joe Heschmayer at Shameless Popery, “there’s a war on inequality, particularly economic inequality. On the Right, there’s an idea of absolute private property.”  

The Christian view, by contrast, “is that inequality is (or at least can be) good, but that private property isn’t absolute.” 

After all, inequality is found at the dawn of Creation and in heaven – think of the different ranks of angels – and it means that “the poor exist for the sake of the rich, and the rich exist for the sake of the poor.  

Together, we can grow in charity, and draw each other closer to heaven.” At the same time, property rights aren’t absolute. As St Ambrose wrote: “It is the hungry man’s bread that you withhold, the naked man’s cloak that you store away.”  

Suffering and the Miraculous Medal  

At Catholic Exchange, Jeannie Ewing recalled the difficult weeks after the birth of her first daughter. Suffering from a then-undiagnosed auto-immune condition, “I fell so ill that I could not muster enough energy to crawl out of bed in the morning. Still, I forced myself to do so and take care of Felicity, our daughter. It didn’t take long before I realised I needed to seek medical care, but my experience left me feeling defeated and ashamed.” She also began to struggle with secondary infertility. While being treated at Cleveland Clinic, Ewing and her husband stayed at a motel and found something that “struck both Ben and me as odd: a Miraculous Medal on the dresser”. Ewing “pocketed the medal and wondered if Our Lady was trying to reach me in some way. A week later, I found out I was pregnant with our second daughter, Sarah.” 

The Miraculous Medal and other holy objects, Ewing wrote, “serve not as mere amulets with supernatural power, but as reminders for us to turn to Our Lady for her intercession and ask for God’s grace when we are struggling or suffering.”  

She wants to grant us many favours through her intercession – and we can play our part by “honouring her in various devotions, such as the Holy Rosary, or by wearing a Miraculous Medal and praying to her daily as our spiritual mother who waits to bring us consolation and refreshment.”