Doctrine vs Discipline

By Sean Toh

St. Paul writes in his first letter to Timothy, “Now a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife,” (1 Tim 3:12). Doesn’t this contradict the Catholic practice of bishops and priests being celibate (unmarried) today? Here, we need to make an important distinction between doctrine and discipline.

Doctrines are authoritative teachings of the Church with regards to faith and morals. The Church received these teachings from Jesus and the apostles, prior to the death of the last apostle. The Church has no authority to invent new doctrine, but merely develops and teaches what has been handed on to her by Jesus and the apostles in the first century, as she grows to have a deeper understanding of it.

Disciplines are man-made practices enacted authoritatively by the Church, not necessarily revealed by Jesus and the apostles. The Church draws her authority to enact and lift disciplines from Jesus when He says, “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matt 18:18, 16:19) Hence, disciplines can change over time in accordance with the wisdom of the Church. Priestly celibacy is an example of this – thus the Church theoretically could decide in the future to lift this discipline and allow for married priests, although it is highly unlikely; for “the unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided.” (1 Cor 7:32-34)

Doctrines are authoritative teachings of the Church with regards to faith and morals. … Disciplines are man-made practices enacted authoritatively by the Church …

 

Women and Veils in Church

The wearing of head coverings by women in Church has been a practice throughout most of Church history. This discipline is as recent as the 1917 Code of Canon Law, where Canon 1262 states “women, however, shall have a covered head and be modestly dressed, especially when they approach the table of the Lord.” This practice is biblical, with St. Paul talking about it in 1 Cor 11:2-16. 

In a judgment issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in a 1970 document titled Inter Insigniores, head coverings were deemed as not a matter of faith, and no longer mandatory. This is once again made possible by the distinction between doctrine and discipline. Paragraph 4 states, “It must be noted that these ordinances, probably inspired by the customs of the period, concern scarcely more than disciplinary practices of minor importance, such as the obligation imposed upon women to wear a veil on their head (1 Cor 11:2-16); such requirements no longer have a normative value.” The discipline was dropped in the most recent 1983 Code of Canon Law, and thus it is no longer compulsory for women to wear head coverings in Church. 

 

Fasting and Abstinence

Another common example of a discipline is fasting and abstinence. One may come to realize that the rules relating to this issue defer slightly between different regions across the world. On the surface, this may seem like a contradiction in Church teaching, but this fades away with an understanding of the above distinction. This variation would not have been possible with doctrines, for these are authoritative for the universal Church. However, the Church has delegated the final authority on this fasting discipline to the bishops of each region.

For us Singaporean Catholics, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei has determined the following norms for all the faithful:

  • Abstinence from meat is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity falls on a Friday.
  • Abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
  • Fasting – eating a considerably smaller portion than usual, this means two half meals and one full meal, with no snacks in between.

 

More information can be found here: https://www.catholic.sg/friday-abstinence/

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