I have recently decided to be both Presbyterian and Catholic, or really have just accepted that I really am both things and do not have to choose one or the other. The Protestant Reformation was literally a reaction to the Catholic Church and some of its ways of doing things at that time, and I think that Protestants are better off sharing their theology in a Catholic context. People say that is not true and that the Presbyterian doctrine is so sound that it doesn’t need any association with Catholicism at all, or that it always has that context, because any erroneous view of the world is a form of Catholicism, with people thinking they are good enough for God or can earn his approval. All I can say is that first of all, trying to please God is not the default status of all people needing salvation, and to present Catholicism merely as a religion of trying to earn God’s favor is also a distortion of the truth. In other words, the hope of pleasing God is usually a good thing, and should not be turned into some kind of offense, even with the glorious truth that Jesus accomplished all the righteousness that is needed for people's eternal salvation.
That is the special news that Presbyterians try to believe and profess, and it is based a lot on Christ’s statement at the cross when he said “It is finished.” It is an announcement that he has done the required lifelong act of salvation, living perfectly in every moment and offering his life as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of his people and anyone who wants his righteousness to count for them.
For me, where Catholicism comes in is how people can still interact with Jesus while he is on the cross. He is the eternal God, and he is a priest. There is no disputing the fact that even as the sacrificial lamb satisfying a true need for atonement in the Jewish sense, he was also a priest and a spiritual master using real authority to forgive people, heal them, and establish various relationships and realities in their lives. In all his life and especially on the cross, he was reconciling people to God. No matter how much people want to talk about his statement that “it is finished,” we know just as much as we know people are still being born that the priestly intervention is still happening. So if people want to live a Catholic life and receive their salvation day by day, gradually, over a lifetime or even millions of years, that power and negotiation is all there at the cross and it is all there in Christ’s eternal existence. It’s just not a problem to ask him for actual, personal righteousness now and continually, and should not be viewed as a problem except when people have specific fears about assurance of salvation. And I think the people who most often have those kinds of problems tend to be Presbyterians, who might see a lack of justice and personal righteousness in their life or corrupt systems, which causes them to doubt whether the transaction that provided salvation really worked. Well is it more true to say it worked, or it is working and won’t fail? I usually prefer to go for the real time righteousness and believe that life is probably worthwhile in some way even though people try to reduce it all to some kind of account status or legal verdict that already happened. I also think that on the Catholic path is where the most obvious revelation of the Presbyterian thing Christ did will become apparent. Without that effort to please God, saving faith becomes kind of like a Baptist Catholicism, where you earn your salvation by believing something, which is really nothing but the cheapest of Catholic indulgences.
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