I used to be baffled when people would say they abandoned Catholicism because they think the Church is too legalistic. How could they think this when so many doctrines and morals seem to be treated as optional items in the ecclesial cafeteria? In reality, the legalism they complain of is as rare as sermons on hell (another stereotypical gripe).

And yet, there is a lingering legalism in Church life today, one that has affected many in my generation. This legalism is a kind of zombie Catholicism that primarily lives on in certain liberal Catholic institutions where the rules are still (kind of) enforced but in a way that conveys that no one believes in them anymore.

Legalism often means an excessive concern with rules and can undermine the centrality of grace. We are not saved by our ethical excellence or our zeal for the law. And yet, to pray Psalm 119 with its litany of love for the law is to realize that there is a good kind of legalism — a “legalism” of love.

To get to that, I want to consider a different legalism, one in which we follow the rules but cannot or will not explain why. This legalism is a rules-based framework in which there are no clear reasons offered for the rules and no connection with human flourishing, a just society or the glory of God.

No one loves these rules; they just bear with them. This means they have no joy in sharing them. Such a legalism is often expressed by the fact that so many on the left side of the Church think faith and morals can simply be changed. Just get the right pope or the right synod, and voilá — women priests or homosexual marriage. But when Pope Francis reaffirms that he cannot change the priesthood or marriage to suit them, they stare in incomprehension.

In contrast to this non-communicative and non-loving legalism, St. Peter told us to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason [logos] for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15).

Our hope is not arbitrary. It is our rational love of God — and so we can express that in love and truth. Something similar applies to the laws, rules and rubrics of the Church. If we cannot give the reasons for them, then we fail to inhabit them fully and so are unable to share them with others.

Christ calls us friends and not servants. This friendship means that we live like Christ, out of love for Christ, in a way that understands the good of Christ as our law. Such a love seeks to share itself. This self-sharing love grounds our evangelization and theology. We want to understand because we want to give a reason for our love.

This is in marked contrast to a legalism that follows rules without understanding them. The lack of understanding or belief manifests itself in the inability to give a logos or reason for such laws. We can see this in the kind of legalism that afflicts Church life today. In it, certain tenets of the Church are still partially upheld, but with no communicated explanation for them.

For instance, when St. Joseph’s University acquired the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, the administration announced that contraception was not to be distributed on campus. They gave no reasons beyond that this is a requirement as a Catholic institution.

Another example comes from an interview with Pope Francis in America magazine in which he explained why the Church ordains only men, situating this reality within a theology of the Church and her Petrine and Marian nature. The editor of America lamented the Pope’s explanation as somehow a failure to be pastoral.

What these two incidents point to is a kind of minimal following of the rules that rejects the possibility of explanation. Sure, most Catholic schools do not give out condoms, but teaching why would be imposing your views on people, according to this way of thinking. Communicating a theology of ordination is painted as a failure to be a good pastor. Rules are (barely) followed but no logos is given for them.

This kind of liberal legalism pervades Catholic institutions. Few Catholic colleges will fund contraception directly or have gay marriages in the campus chapel. But do we really think that they are offering reasons to their students as to why? Are they articulating a culture of life throughout the university, or just grudgingly resisting pro-abortion lectures on campus? The administration at St. Joseph’s University could have explained the marital nature of human sexuality and its orientation toward new life. Likewise, they could offer courses on the Church’s actual teachings on human sexuality.

Instead, too many schools offer the same vision of sexuality present in the secular world while framing Catholic teaching on condoms as “rules.” Students experience this as arbitrary and oppressive. In both cases, they are alienated and uninformed.

This kind of liberal legalism drains life out of the teachings of the Church and is often the last step in the loss of belief. You go through the motions until you realize you have no idea why you do (and why no one else does). Then you stop going through the motions. We can see this in the decline in Mass attendance after COVID. When people were told that the sacraments were nonessential, many realized they had thought of them as inessential for years.

Liberal legalism is often not only the last step toward unbelief — it is also the catalyst. The refusal to offer the logos for our rules means that the emptiness and insincerity of our following them is palpable. Unable or unwilling to give the reason why gives people the clear sense that there is no reason why. This is what Bishop Robert Barron calls “beige Catholicism,” hollow and uninspiring.

Faced with the perpetually arbitrary and partially enforced, people see a beige legalism that offers nothing to believe in and little to live by. Liberal legalism will live on for a while, as with much of beige Catholicism, but it will continue to wither.

Those of us who believe in these teachings — and the love that underlies them — are tasked with authentically living them and thoughtfully conveying their logos. Within the institutions that arise in the ruins of such liberal legalism, we will need to consistently offer the logos for our laws.

Those of us who aim to live the law with love will be accused of “legalism.” But to truly believe is to be able to sing with the Psalmist, “Thy law is my delight. Let me live that I may praise you and your laws sustain me” (Psalm 119:174-175).