Thanks so much to the Rev. Hatcher for providing an opportunity to clarify perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions about the Catholic Church and its teaching on the nature of justification.

In last week’s column, the Rev. Hatcher commended Martin Luther for bringing “the church back to a rightful emphasis on ‘grace’ rather than ‘performance’ within the life of the faithful.”

I believe that the Rev. Hatcher is referring to the supposed dichotomy between salvation by faith alone, which Protestants believe, and salvation through works, which Catholics supposedly believe.

Allow me to state unequivocally: the Catholic Church has never taught and never will teach that salvation is “earned” through works alone, or through “performance” rather than “grace.”

What the Church has taught is that salvation can only be achieved through faith and the grace of God.

But, and this is important, the Church also teaches that faith is dead without works. Faith is only made real through works.

In fact, since believing in God and the saving grace earned by his Son is a kind of work itself, one could even argue that faith and works are inseparable.

A work, after all, isn’t only a visible action or labor of some sort, but is an action of the spirit, or an act of faith.

And, contrary to some other misconceptions, the Bible itself is very clear on the issue. There are Jesus’ parables, which say that simply believing in him, calling him “Lord,” is insufficient.

Rather, you must also feed, cloth, and care for the poor, for where the poor are, so is Jesus.

In the book of James, this “brother of the Lord” affirms that “just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead” (James 3:26).

In this sense, one can consider faith as the soul, and works as the body. The soul is useless unless expressed through the body, and the body is quite dead without the soul.

But, let me again affirm that faith is the sine qua non, the indispensable pre-requisite for salvation and for a life lived in the service of Christ.

The Council of Trent, which was convened by the Catholic Church in 1547 to answer the concerns raised by Luther, affirmed that “the sinner is justified by God by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

The Council goes on to affirm that this change invariably must lead the sinner “to begin a new life and to keep the commandments of God.” In other words, to do good works inspired by the faith, which was a free gift of God.

Questioning or criticizing Catholic doctrine is perfectly fine and a good opportunity for dialogue, but I would only ask that people understand precisely what the Church teaches, as opposed to what they might think it teaches.

At least then we can share our faith in mutual respect and achieve the goal which we all seek, the Truth.

Trey Hoffman
Peachtree City, Ga.

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