Why Be Catholic?: Ten Answers to a Very Important Question - Hardcover

Madrid, Patrick

 
9780307986436: Why Be Catholic?: Ten Answers to a Very Important Question
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0307986438 ISBN 13: 9780307986436
Verlag: Image, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

The popular blogger and publisher of Envoy magazine offers 10 key reasons why he loves being Catholic (and you should too). Drawing heavily on poignant anecdotes from his own experience as a life-long Catholic born in 1960s, Madrid offers readers a way of looking at the Church--its members, teachings, customs, and history--from perspectives many may have never considered.

Growing up Catholic during a time of great social and theological upheaval and transition, a time in which countless Catholics abandoned their religion in search of something else, Patrick Madrid learned a great deal about why people leave Catholicism and why others stay. This experience helped him gain many insights into what it is about the Catholic Church that some people reject, as well as those things that others treasure. Drawing upon Madrid's personal experiences, Why Be Catholic? offers a deeply personal, fact-based, rationale for why everyone should be Catholic or at least consider the Catholic Church in a new light.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

PATRICK MADRID is the author or editor of twenty books on Catholic themes, including Search and Rescue, Where Is That in the Bible?, and Pope Fiction. He also hosts Right Here, Right Now, a daily radio broadcast heard on 240 stations coast to coast. He an adjunct professor of theology at Holy Apostles College and Seminary and he is president of the Catholic Apologetics Academy. Patrick and his wife, Nancy, live in Ohio along with the rest of their family, which includes the blessing of eleven children and fifteen grandchildren.

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1

Catholics

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

The Catholic Church is a lot like Noah’s Ark. Immense and capacious, it is also ungainly and lumbering, not built for speed but for endurance. It causes everyone to stop and stare. Some scoff, thinking it bizarre or comical. Others find themselves drawn to it, longing to get on board. It is freighted with an incredibly diverse array of unruly passengers, some of whom do not get along well with one another. It is also very messy.

Try to imagine getting a good night’s sleep on the Ark! Try to imagine what the Ark smelled like inside by the time the Flood waters receded. And yet, if you could go back in time to that fateful day, just as the floodgates opened and the rain really started to come down hard--knowing what you know now about what happened next--you surely would waste no time scrambling aboard, regardless of the noise, stench, messiness, and commotion.

This is the Catholic Church I’d like to tell you about.

In view of the recent abuse scandals that have convulsed the Church and scandalized the world, it seems right and just to me to begin my case for the Catholic Church here, amid the uproar and confusion these scandals have wrought.

The question, “Why be Catholic?” demands an answer now, more than ever.

Scandal has shown its hideous face among believers in every generation of salvation history. This strange, counterintuitive reality is as mysterious as it is disconcerting. The Catholic Church is reeling right now under an avalanche of grave sexual crimes against children, teens, and young adults perpetrated by its own priests and bishops. The only honorable and honest choice is to admit these transgressions and squarely face the consequences.

Given the cascade of heinous sex crimes committed by the clergy and moral corruption among the laity of recent decades, how can the Catholic Church possibly claim to be the “One, True Church.” As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote in 2005, just before he was elected Pope Benedict XVI, “How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to Him.” He compared the Catholic Church to “a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side.”1 The old adage is true: “A rising tide lifts all boats.” The converse is also true: “An ebbing tide lowers all boats.” In the ruinous aftermath of the sexual abuse scandals, it is a fact that respect for the Catholic Church is dramatically ebbing away. What’s more, a steady stream of media revelations of negligence, worldliness, and even criminal financial malfeasance and similar delinquencies on the part of priests and bishops has made the situation even more intolerable.

The grave effects of these scandals, in particular the sexual ones, are incalculable. First and foremost, of course, is the tragic toll taken on the innocent victims who were devastated by the crimes committed against them. As we now know, some Catholic bishops, who were in authority over these men, stonewalled, covered up, and hid behind weasel-word pretexts about how they were “just following the advice of the mental-health professionals” who assured them that it was A-okay to allow offenders back into parish ministry, in contact again with children.

The Archdiocese of Boston became “Ground Zero” for the eruption of the priest sex scandals in the United States. It was there, in 2002, that five Catholic clergymen were arrested, charged, and eventually imprisoned for their depredations against adolescents and children. No one realized then just how far the rot extended.

In his sermon preached at his 2003 installation Mass, the new Archbishop of Boston, Sean Patrick O’Malley, O.F.M., Cap., addressed this crisis head on:

The whole Catholic community is ashamed and anguished because of the pain and the damage inflicted on so many young people, and because of our inability or unwillingness to deal with the crime of sexual abuse of minors. To those victims and to their families, we beg forgiveness and we assure them that the Catholic Church is working to create a safe environment for young people. It must never be business as usual, but rather a firm commitment on the part of every diocese, parish, and school to do all we can to avoid the mistakes of the past and create safeguards for the future. . . . How, ultimately, we deal with this present crisis in our Church will do much to define us as Catholics of the future. We must not flee from the cross of pain and humiliation. If we stand firm in who we are, in what we believe, if we work together--hierarchy, clergy, religious, laity--to live our faith and fulfill our mission, then we will be a stronger and a holier Church. This should be of some consolation to those victims who have opened old wounds in their hearts by coming forward. Your pain will not be in vain. Our Church and our nation will become a safer place for children.2

There is no way to undo the horrendous damage done to the victims of these scandals. The general goodwill, respect, and trust that had previously been extended toward the Catholic Church has now largely evaporated. The scandals have fueled an increasingly cynical attitude toward Catholics that at times rises to the level of active hostility. Several faithful and virtuous Catholic priests I know personally have confided to me their own shock, embarrassment, and discouragement at having been the innocent targets of animosity from total strangers in public places. One described how, in an airport terminal, he sat down on a chair across from a young mother and her child. When the woman looked up and saw him, she pulled the toddler close to her, glared at the priest, and hissed loudly enough for everyone around to hear, “You stay away from my child!” Gathering the child into her arms, she stalked off, leaving him stunned and humiliated. This man had done nothing to violate his vows, but thanks to the Judas priests who did betray them so grotesquely, he and many other good and innocent priests have become “collateral damage.”

So, considering the enormous black cloud hanging over the Catholic Church, society’s increasingly cynical and hostile attitude toward the Church, and the fact that fewer and fewer Catholics devoutly practice the faith, why would anyone in his right mind write a book whose purpose is to encourage people to become Catholic? Acknowledging the tragic reality of scandals in the Catholic Church is the only appropriate first step toward providing an adequate and meaningful context (not excuses)to show that, in spite of these scandals, there remains a solid and compelling case for why people should be Catholic. Because I believe a solid foundation for Catholicism remains beneath the phenomenon of disgusting Church scandals, and through analysis I will provide context (not excuses) to show that this is the case.

In spite of the scandals, the Catholic Church has the answer to all of life’s most urgent problems and challenges. In fact, the very fact that we are justifiably shocked and horrified by terrible deeds done by Catholics underscores what happens when Catholic moral teachings, for example, are ignored and contravened, especially by clergy, given the general perception that these men have in some sense been “called to a higher, stricter standard of behavior.”

The Catholic Church’s answer to the myriad of life’s problems we all must face in some form or another is simply the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the Catholic Church’s response to the world’s easy, glittery enticements to pursue a life of unfettered pleasure, power, and pride. These carnal enticements, the Holy Bible refers to...

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Verlag
Image
Erscheinungsdatum
2014
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0307986438
ISBN 13 
9780307986436
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
240
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
CMN Printpool Inh. Mathis Neumann
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