If I ever get my shot in the Bigs...

...I think I'll insist on -- for me -- only three balls for a walk and four strikes for a strikeout. And the four strikes, of course, would be subject to change. (If, for example, the fourth strike took place before the third ball, then I would be allowed five strikes. This, of course, would also be subject to change.) And, while I'm at it, if I came within five feet of any ball hit in the field, it would be considered a putout on my part. (Again, subject to change.)

Now, I know what you're probably thinking right about now (besides the fact that I bear no resemblance whatsoever to Robert Redford): my version of baseball sounds suspiciously like "Calvinball."

And you'd be right. But so what.

After reading "Birth Control, Bishops and Religious Authority" in the Times this morning, I've decided that, like my definition of baseball, the definition of a Catholic is anything that a Catholic says it is.

Now the author of the piece, Gary Gutting (whoever he is), is only speaking for himself, but I find his views to be pretty typical of American Catholics. Gutting writes (all emphasis mine):

As critics repeatedly point out, 98 percent of sexually active American Catholic women practice birth control, and 78 percent of Catholics think a “good Catholic” can reject the bishops’ teaching on birth control.  The response from the church, however, has been that, regardless of what the majority of Catholics do and think, the church’s teaching is that birth control is morally wrong.  The church, in the inevitable phrase, “is not a democracy.”   What the church teaches is what the bishops (and, ultimately, the pope, as head of the bishops) say it does.

But is this true?  The answer requires some thought about the nature and basis of religious authority.  Ultimately the claim is that this authority derives from God.  But since we live in a human world in which God does not directly speak to us, we need to ask, Who decides that God has given, say, the Catholic bishops his authority?

I'll tell you who decides that God has given the Catholic bishops his authority: Catholics. That's practically the definition of "Catholic." They are followers of the Pope and his bishops. If they weren't, they would be called something else.

A long time ago -- about two thousand years ago, to be exact -- a group of followers of the teachings of Jesus founded a new religion and called it "Christianity." And, like any organization, they established some rules. (One of the first of which, after much debate, was that one didn't have to be a Jew to be a member -- it was open to Gentiles. Several other rules followed.)

Major League Baseball, like Christianity, also established some rules when it was founded. (One of them was that a batter would be considered "out" if he accumulated three "strikes" before he was thrown four "balls.")

As Christianity evolved and was headquartered in Rome, those who disagreed with the Church's teachings were compelled to leave and form their own religions. They were called "Protestants."

Is everybody with me so far?

Gutting goes on to say:

In our democratic society the ultimate arbiter of religious authority is the conscience of the individual believer.

That may be true in "our democratic society," but it isn't true in the Catholic Church.

But, even so, haven’t the members of the Catholic Church recognized their bishops as having full and sole authority to determine the teachings of the Church?  By no means.  There was, perhaps, a time when the vast majority of Catholics accepted the bishops as having an absolute right to define theological and ethical doctrines.  Those days, if they ever existed, are long gone.  Most Catholics — meaning, to be more precise, people who were raised Catholic or converted as adults and continue to take church teachings and practices seriously — now reserve the right to reject doctrines insisted on by their bishops and to interpret in their own way the doctrines that they do accept.  This is above all true in matters of sexual morality, especially birth control, where the majority of Catholics have concluded that the teachings of the bishops do not apply to them.  Such “reservations” are an essential constraint on the authority of the bishops.

Those Catholics that "have concluded that the teachings of the bishops do not apply to them" remind me of my baseball example. I could just as easily "conclude that the rules of Major League Baseball do not apply to me." But, just as Catholics who do not accept the authority of the Church are not "Catholics," I wouldn't be playing "baseball"; I'd be playing "Calvinball" instead.

So if I ever do make it to the Bigs (and stop laughing out there!) I guess I'll have to abide by the rules of Major League Baseball. And for all you Catholics out there, I'm afraid you'll have to abide by the rules of your chosen faith. Otherwise, you'll be practicing something else.

Let me know what you call it.