Despairing for those who think they believe
Window at Our Lady of the Ozarks, Missouri
As I grow in faith, I am more cognizant of the lack of faith in the world.
A friend I keep in touch with through social networking is active in atheist groups that jeer at people like me. Posters on this blog express points of view that drip with moral relativism instead of Catholicism. A good friend who is a Catholic is adamant that there’s no conflict between the Church and same-sex marriage. A religious woman who runs a Web group I subscribe to actually recommended Angels and Demons, the sequel to The Da Vinci Code and saw nothing anti-Catholic about it. (I had to go to a film site organized by Christians of other denominations to read their take on how anti-Catholic the film is. I haven’t seen the film and won’t see it.)
The Catholic Church and its faithful are under attack by a world that continues to fall away from God. I was searching listings in Writer’s Market, a publication that contains information about book and magazine publishers, and I ran into a publishing house called American Atheist Press. Jolly for them, but what caught my eye was their “urgent need” for books for young atheists, meaning books that teach children not to believe in God. It was the most pathetic listing of all the ones I scanned in the book.
(It’s interesting that Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the late leader of atheism in America, is the mother of William J. Murray, who converted to Christianity in 1980 and is now active in conservative Christian groups. His mother said he was “beyond forgiveness” when he found God. Her lawsuit that took God out of classrooms had been filed in his name when he was a child.)
To my friend who travels in atheist circles, we Catholics are deluded fools on par with grown men who believe in Santa Claus. God and Kris Kringle are on the same footing with him. He’s otherwise a nice, funny guy who cares about social justice. I have hope for him.
I despair more for those who think they believe than for those who think they don’t. The Catholics who joke about pedophile priests and the ones who think it’s dandy for priests to cavort on the beach with women are sadder than those who want proof of a God or who claim He doesn’t exist. I like to think there’s the possibility of faith for them, even if they were raised by Madalyn Murray O’Hair.
The ones who try to compromise being a Catholic with being part of a fallen world that sneers at God are the ones who bother me most. When it’s fine to say that priests can be photographed with their hands on their lover’s bottom or that anti-clerical films can be entertainment, there’s something wrong with their concept of what it means to be a Roman Catholic. The Catholic Church will always be a beacon to those who seek God.
I have another friend whose parents raised her Protestant and Jewish. She sometimes goes to Mass at the Catholic Church near her home because of the comfort she derives from the worship there. To her, the beauty of the Mass that celebrates God in Body and Blood draws her in. She has a better grasp of the mysteries of the Church than some of the “good Catholics” I know.
The world at large can be a hostile place if you walk the Catholic walk. In some settings, you might as well have a horn on your head because you’ll be be looked on as a weirdo or as Torquemada’s niece. The Beatitudes say we’re blessed when we are persecuted for His sake and that the Kingdom of Heaven will be ours. That’s a good thing because the earthly kingdom is doing its best to shut us out.
We Catholics are not perfect, but we are made in God’s image. We can struggle with sin and our own failings, but we follow Him when we get back up when we stumble on the road to salvation. When was the last time Hollywood made a film about that journey?
