Bring ‘Em Back! Part 13

This is the thirteenth in a series of articles aimed at helping you to get your lapsed Catholic loved one going to Church again and once again becoming a practicing Catholic. 

Excuse #7

So let’s say your friend or loved one offers up Excuse #7: “Organized religion is hogwash; it’s full of hypocrites.” There is really only one way you can respond.  You have to ask to the person (nicely) for an explanation: “Can you explain to me how you came to that conclusion?”

This may seem like a somewhat contentious response, but you really need to understand the person’s thinking before you enter into a discussion.  It’s possible the person has joined the ranks of the ‘unchurched’ and become a deist or a ‘None.’

But it’s also possible that the person still thinks of him or herself as a Catholic!  It may not be Catholicism the individual has a problem with but, rather, the institutional Catholic Church that is causing his or her angst.

Dealing with a deist requires a different tack than dealing with a Catholic who dislikes the institutional Church.  But the deist may be the easier of the two nuts to crack (pun intended!).

Dealing with a deist

If the person has become a ‘deist’ (a practitioner of moral therapeutic deism as defined in Part 2) you are not talking to a lapsed Catholic – you are talking to a person who has effectively left the Catholic Church.   The good news is that at least the person has not become an atheist!  The not so good news is that now you will have to re-evangelize him or her.

You first have to find out what the person now believes.  In all likelihood, the person has not really thought all that deeply about what he or she believes or how those beliefs formed.  The beliefs probably just kind of happened!

The person stopped going to Mass and stopped receiving Communion.  Over time, he or she succumbed to the influences of modernism, secularism, moral relativism and scientism – and the devil.

Yet despite these bad influences, the individual still retains a belief in God.  So the individual developed a superficial belief system that suits his or her lifestyle.

Re-Evangelizing

You are going to have to dismantle the person’s newfound beliefs piece by piece and show why they are in error.  This is not going to be an easy thing to do.  It will be a true re-evangelization effort – assuming he or she is not just offering up a convenient excuse.

After Sam or Samantha gives you his or her statement of beliefs you might respond by saying:

“Those are interesting perspectives.  Albert Einstein and Thomas Jefferson were deists, and it sounds like you are saying you have become a deist.  Einstein, of course, did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God and the Savior that God had promised to send.  Jefferson, however, was a bit out there!  Do you still believe Jesus is the second person in the Trinity and the Son of God, and that He was crucified and rose from the dead?”

If the individual still believes in the divinity of Jesus and His Resurrection, he or she is really confused!  Sam or Samantha is a Catholic whose thinking has gotten really muddled.

If, however, Sam or Samantha offers some kind of waffling answer to the question about Jesus – like ‘kind of’ or ‘more or less,’ or ‘I’m not sure’ – you are going to have to dig a bit and get the person to explain his or her beliefs in regard to the divinity of Jesus.

Jesus Really Existed

Chances are that the person who waffles or says ‘no’ to the divinity of Jesus has been influenced by all the nonsensical posts on the internet saying, ‘Jesus was not a real person.’  These are easily refuted.

As Apologist Trent Horn pointed out at Catholic Answers, the mainstream position in academia is that Jesus definitely was a real person.  He cites Dr. Bart Ehrman, a professor at the University of North Carolina, who says “The view that Jesus existed is held by virtually every expert on the planet.”

Once you’ve established that Jesus was a real person, the next step is to establish that He is who He said He is – the Son of God.  The Bible, the witness of His Apostles, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church are all sources to turn to in this regard.

But instead of getting up on a soap box you have to become a guide.   Ask Sam or Samantha “What is it that makes you doubt or question Jesus’ divinity?”

Let the person bring up his or her concerns one at a time and deal with the concerns one at a time.

Ideally you want the person to come to the conclusion all by him or herself that his or her thinking is in error.  To accomplish this, you will to have to ask, “why do you think that?” or “what’s led you to believe that?”

More than likely the response you’ll get will be “I read somewhere . . .” or “Someone told me . . . “ or even, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking . . .”  Hear Sam or Samantha out and then ask, “Have you considered any of the evidence presented by the various authenticated miracles down through the ages?”

Miracles

Teaching faith formation to a new group of eighth graders every year is always interesting, but one commonality my wife and I see from year to year is a lack of knowledge in regard to miracles.

It’s quite possible that Sam or Samantha is also unaware of the many miracles that many Catholics believe prove the divinity of Jesus Christ.  Sharing some of this information with Sam or Samantha may help.

The Shroud of Turin

Most older Catholics know about the Shroud of Turin.  It is believed to be the actual burial cloth that was used to wrap the body of Jesus Christ when He was laid in His tomb following the crucifixion.  Almost anyone who has seen it or photos of it agrees that there is an image of man that is barely visible on the cloth.

The Vatican has never taken an official position on the Shroud but as a recent National Geographic article says, it is “a mystery wrapped in an enigma.” It continues to baffle scientists.

A visit to the website Shroud.com and reading about the Shroud should be an enlightening experience for your deist loved one or friend.

Eucharistic Miracles

Sometime between 700 and 800 A.D., in what is now the city of Frentanese, Italy, a miracle took place that is said to have been in response to a Basilian monk’s doubts about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

You can read about the results of the scientific analysis of “The Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano” HERE.  Spoiler alert: Science says that the Eucharist is real flesh and blood.

But this is not the only miracle that science has shown to provide proof of the Real Presence. (Yes, I know this is not actual proof of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist.  But if it is not, than how do you explain how bread and wine can have human characteristics present in them?)  The modern-day Eucharistic Miracles of Argentina also provide such proof.

The story of the Eucharistic Miracles of Argentina is told on three PDFs at therealpresence.org: PDF #1, PDF #2, and PDF #3.

The scientific investigation in into the Eucharistic Miracle of Argentina turned the atheist investigator into a Catholic!

So what’s the point?

It’s a pretty good bet that there are hypocrites in every organized religion.  But of all the organized religions only Catholicism can say that science has actually provided corroborating evidence that what it teaches is true.

Recall the Bread of Life Discourse (John 6:32-58).  Science has affirmed the Eucharist is flesh and blood.  And it is only in the organized religion called the Catholic Church that a person can partake of the Bread of Life.

Whether the person is 28 or 48, up until now he or she has probably managed to avoid looking for any information that might challenge his or her newfound personal belief system.  You are going to have to change this.

If Sam or Samantha really has become a deist, you are not going to be able to magically make the new beliefs disappear.  It is going to take time and effort on your part, and probably a number of discussions, to get Sam or Samantha back on the right track.

Dealing with the Anti-Institutional Individual

If the individual has formed a dislike for the institutional Catholic Church, he or she will probably respond to your request for an explanation by offering some combination of Excuses 3 through 6.

The ‘anti-institutional Catholic’ is kind of like a modern-day Martin Luther.  He or she thinks the Church has become a corrupt institution.  But unlike Luther, your loved one or friend may not be quite ready to abandon his or Catholic beliefs.  So in a misguided effort to protest the institutionalism and corruption, the individual has stopped going to Mass.

You are going to have to overcome his or her “objections” to the institutional Church one by one.

So, let’s say Sam or Samantha responds to your question by saying:

“The Catholic Church started out okay but over the last 2,000 years it’s become one of the richest organizations on the planet.  Bishops and Cardinals are living in luxurious mansions and jet-setting all over the place and all the poor shlubs in the pews are stuck picking up the tab.”

Excuse #4 Variation

This response is a variation of Excuse #4 – the collection plate excuse.  It’s even possible Sam or Samantha leans a bit toward socialism and also has ‘problems’ with the idea of a free market economy!  He or she may even try quoting Acts 2:44-45 to make his or her point –

“All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one’s need.”

This Scripture verse has been used by socialists and liberation theologians to support the claim that the early Christians were socialists.  But this is hardly the case.

Theologian Antonio Fuentes refutes these notions in an article at Catholic Answers entitled simply “The Book of Acts.”  Apologist Trent Horn takes the refutation further in an article entitled “No, the First Christians Were Not Socialists.”

No Organization is Perfect 

You can certainly agree with Sam or Samantha that throughout the 2,000-year history of the Church some members of the Church hierarchy have been corrupted by money or power.  We have even had some really bad Popes.  The sad fact is, all of us are sinners – even clerics.

But the Catholic Church is the over 1.2 Billion Catholics throughout the world.  It is the people of God, the Body of Christ, the Communion of Saints, the Sacraments, the Holy Mass and the Eucharist.  The Catholic Church is the Church instituted by Jesus Christ.  It is far more than the institutional structure that has evolved over time.

It would be outstanding if every member of the clergy were immune to the snares of the devil, but, alas, clerics like Blessed Father Solanus Casey, St. Padre Pio, St. Francis, Pope St. Gregory the Great, and Pope St. John Paul II, are all too rare.  But keep in mind that even these great clerics are not the Church.  Even the many outstanding Catholic women like St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Joan of Arc, Mother Theresa, and Mother Angelica, are not the Church.

Ask the person if he or she still believes that breaking one of the 10 Commandments is a mortal sin.  If the answer is yes, remember the statement in Part 11 – “So you are saying because the Church is corrupt you are going to commit a mortal sin every week.  Does that make sense?”

His Mystical Body

Fr. Martin Fox, a priest at Saint Remy Parish in Russia, Ohio, commented on his blog that he left the Church “at 19 and came back at 29. I came back not because I thought the Church had especially holy bishops and priests; no, not even because I thought the ordinary person in the pew was especially holy. No, I chose to re-embrace my Catholic Faith for one very simple reason: I became convinced that Jesus Christ founded the Catholic Church, and I wanted to be in the Church that is his mystical Body.”

Fr. Fox’s words are also a good response to Excuse #7.

You might also remind your loved one or friend that even if the priest saying Mass is himself in a state of mortal sin the miracle of Transubstantiation still takes place.  This is because it is not the priest who is changing the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, it is Jesus Christ Himself making this miracle happen.

Next Monday, Part 14:  Excuse #7 and the anti-institutional Catholic.

Part 1 is here; Part 2 here; Part 3 here; Part 4 here; Part 5 here; Part 6 here; Part 7 here; Part 8 here; Part 9 here; Part 10 here; Part 11 here; Part 12 here; Part 14 here; Part 15 here.