Aren't Catholics not supposed to question anything the Church teaches?

“Love the Lord with all your heart, and with all your soul,     

and with all your MIND”--Matt 22:37

 "Come now, and let us reason together," says the LORD,--Isaiah 1:18

Question:  Aren't Catholics not supposed to question anything the Church teaches?

 

Short answer:  No. That is incorrect. Catholics are, in fact, obligated to question that which is presented to us. Scripture commands us to "examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good"--1 Thessalonians 5:21

Longer answer:  The question implies that Catholics are supposed to "blindly follow anything that the Pope declares".  Catholics "don't think for themselves".  Catholics are "sheep being led to slaughter."

Nothing could be further from the truth.  

Blind faith, also known as Fideism, is a heresy in the Catholic Church. When we assent to a Catholic teaching, it ought to be because we have examined it, and found it to be consonant with the Truth, not simply because "The Church says it.  So I believe it.  I have faith and that's all I need!"

Faith AND Reason are what we use to come to the knowledge of Truth.

We must love the Lord with our hearts (that is, with great faith), as well as love the Lord with our....minds.  That is, using our human reason.  The proverbial Catholic both/and.

Catholicism holds our human intellect in the highest regard.  Use of our reason, logic, mind is paramount when we examine the doctrines put forth by the Church.  That is why there are Catholic theology departments and Catholic institutions of higher learning (also known as universities, which are a testimony to Catholic endorsement of intellectual pursuits. It is the Catholic Church which started the university system).  That is why in the earliest days of the Enlightenment, so many of the intellectuals, scientists, great thinkers....were Catholic.  That is why the Catholic Church elevates some of the greatest theological minds in the history of civilization to the  title of "Doctor of the Church"--examples of these theological giants include St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Anselm, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Robert Bellarmine.  All of them questioned the teachings of the Church.  All of them used the gift of their intellect to reason their way into understanding and apprehending the profound and sublime truths regarding the nature of God and what He has revealed.

The Catholic Church has always been a champion of the use of our intellect to know reality and our world.  As Pope John Paul II said in his magnificent encyclical, Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason):  "Complex systems of thought have thus been built, yielding results in the different fields of knowledge and fostering the development of culture and history.  Anthropology, logic, the natural sciences, history, linguistics and so forth--the whole universe of knowledge has been involved in one way or another."

So, yes, we must never blindly accept what the Church teaches.  We must critically examine her teachings, and "yearn to know more and to know it ever more deeply" (Fides et Ratio).  

However, this is not to be interpreted as saying, "We are free to pick and choose what teachings we agree with and what teachings we can discard."

If our intellect is properly functioning, we will come to the same answer as given by the Church. "Once reason successfully intuits and formulates the first universal principles of being and correctly draws from them conclusions which are coherent both logically and ethically, then it may be called right reason or, as the ancients call it orthos logos, recta ratio" (Fides et Ratio)

So, like the math student who struggles to get the solution, we can accept that the Math Professor has the right answer--we simply need to conform our calculations to achieve the same answer. As Cardinal Henry Newman said:  "Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, for a man may be annoyed that he cannot work out a mathematical problem, without doubting that it admits an answer".  

So, "Come, let us reason together!"--Isaiah 1:18

For more in-depth study visit these websites:

What do Catholics feel non-Catholics often misunderstand about Catholicism? - Quora

		What do Catholics feel non-Catholics often misunderstand about Catholicism? - Quora One thing that people do not understand about Catholicism (and even semi-educated Catholics don't understand this) is that in the Catholic Faith, the transmission of non-biblical doctrines from apostolic times through the Fathers-- known as Sacred Tradition-- has equal weight to S...
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Catholic Bible online

Catechism of the Catholic Church online

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"Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect" - 1 Peter 3:15