By Mary Lackie

The Catholic Church is weighed down with an excess baggage of compulsive ritual, Dr. Aloysius Ignatius Miller, Atlanta psychiatrist and member of Our Lady of the Assumption parish, says.

“The Church is saying that unless we abide by these rituals, these temporal rules, we face spiritual death. Just as the child at an early age learns to please the parent, conforming at the expense of his own identity, Catholics learn to please for spiritual gain,” the doctor said.

The child sees love, not as a power in itself, but as a power to coerce. “If we substitute Catholic for parent, there becomes no chance for a free act of involvement, commitment, or a decision for Christ and the Church,” he said.

Dr. Miller defines love as meaningful involvement, a Christ like attitude. Love is not the opposite of hate—the opposite of love is to ignore the individual, to alienate oneself from others.

“Unless a man can recognize his own humanity, there can be no room for God,” the doctor said. “We have gone around for years telling people to love others, we have neglected to tell them to ‘love oneself’. How can one save himself without loving himself?” the doctor asked. “He has to know what he is saving and understand himself before he can share love. You just can’t cut without that.”

In its view of human emotions and the dignity of human feelings, the Church is operating somewhere between the 14th and 15th century, the doctor said.

But, the doctor believes the Catholic Church offers the only true freedom. “Catholics have had access to scholarship for thousands of years—and we have done so little about it. If you really know the religion, it offers the only true freedom of conscience,” he said.

Catholicism has not achieved its goal of becoming an across-the-board religion in the sense that the Jewish faith has, with its many-faceted inroads—intellectual and cultural diversity, its interplay of religious beliefs in all spheres of action. The Jews can get out and express himself without fear, the doctor said.

This was the original intent of Christianity, and there is hope now with the awkward beginnings of the layman’s involvement in the Church. “But, if you educate the layman, you educate to freedom of choice, so that things only assume meaning if he has invested them with meaning. In some cases, this has been an argument against the education of the layman,” Dr. Miller said.

Seriously lacking in Catholic education is an understanding of grace, the doctor noted. “If a Catholic could really understand and appreciate the flow of grace, and take the leap into faith, he would find it a wonderful experience.”

“Just for the graces we receive in confession, it is an extremely valid sacrament. But, there is the implied coercive threat that if one does not go to confession frequently, he is in error,” the doctor said. “If there could be less frequent confessions, and if the priest had more time to guide the person, he could differentiate between emotional and spiritual difficulties.

“Here again, I think we have not educated the Catholic to the degrees of culpability regarding sins. I think we have overplayed the ordinary man’s capability of committing a mortal sin.”

To confuse psychotherapy with confession is a distortion. Dr. Miller said, “The priest as mediator has the power to forgive sins, to relieve real guilt. The psychiatrist has in no way this power, nor will he assume the responsibility. He can only determine whether or not this is a matter where the patient should fee real guilt.”

Psychotherapy allows for the development of a profound self dignity, self-love, and in spiritual terms, the ability to feel one’s own godliness, Dr. Miller said. “Most significantly, it creates an attitude in which the individual recognizes his own authority, and in a non-threatened fashion, accepts other people.”

The psychiatrist said the instance of emotional conflicts is almost universal. “But persons with emotional conflicts are potentially the healthiest individuals. They recognize that they are not achieving their fullest and most complete life and are willing to go to lengths to do something about it,” the doctor said.

“The root of all emotional conflicts is man’s difficulty in distinguishing himself from God,” the doctor said. “If a man conscientiously avoids the position of messiah, recognizes his human limitations and combines this with a sense of humor, it will carry him through many pressures. Perhaps the worst thing imaginable is a humorless priest, psychiatrist, or any human being.”

“Failures aren’t regarded with the respect we should have for them,” the doctor said. “A man who has never failed can never succeed in life. If there were no failures, there would be no need for religion.”

One needs to maintain a certain casual accuracy, emotionally as well as spiritually. “And a certain amount of arrogance is necessary,” Dr. Miller said. “We’ve become so leveled, so damned democratic, we are afraid of distinguishing hallmarks.”

As Kierkegaard points out, man needs an absurd arrogance—to believe that God would offer his son for us—but it makes belief understandable. “A certain amount of arrogance is necessary,” the doctor said. “We may not be the well-liked Willie Loman, but in any case we won’t go the way of the Lomans.”