Fifth, the error of intellectual disproportionality. This is an effect of intellectual laziness. These young Catholics would not be able to explain the basics of the articles of the faith from the Apostles Creed, but they can tell you about the most obscure minutia concerning certain pet topics. Others believe (practically) that certain liturgical truths are as profound as the fact that “the Word became flesh.”

Yet, these errors are all connected. Due to the lack of faith in the proximate rule of faith (the magisterium of the church), the young Catholic believes it is their duty to seek intrinsic evidence for the claims of the faith in order to base their assent on. This leads them to seek out easy sources of information in order to patch the great epistemological anxiety they have about the verity of the faith. This finally leads to catholics who are poorly formed in their intellectual life, only knowing how to debate about the certain narrow topics on the internet in order to make up for their lack of the virtue of faith. This eventually leads to a religious breakdown and apostasy, whether to Orthodoxy, Protestantism, or, in the worst cases, nothing.

The solution? A true notion of Fundamental Theology. I wish there was something out there that presented this in easily accessible form, but there isn’t.