The Study of History Strengthened My Catholic Faith

Explaining the reason I remain a Catholic seems a bit like describing the inner workings of an
old pocket watch by only looking at its casing. How can I tell such an intensely personal and
occasionally contradictory story in a way that does it justice? At first glance, it seems impossible.
However, we should all aim to ‘know thyself,’ and this article is a good place to explore the
confusing complexities of my own internal spiritual system. After all, it will help me work out what
makes me tick.

The Faith is True

Ultimately I remain a Catholic because I believe the Faith to be true. This is a simple answer,
and a bit like the casing of a pocket watch that hides its complex mechanisms behind a watch
face, so the simplicity of the statement obscures the huge interplay of thought, experience and
emotion that makes up the reason I remain a Catholic.

Helpfully, there is a famous saint on hand to help me make my case. Quietly flicking through a
book at the back of the London Oratory, I first discovered St John Henry Newman’s explanation
of implicit and explicit reason. It was a revelation that seemed to sum up how my own faith
worked. Much of my faith comes down to what can be described as a ‘gut instinct,’ an intuitive
belief that it is right. It can be hard to argue for belief if your argument is ‘I just know it’s true.’

Implicit Reason

Happily, for me, Newman argued that implicit reason is behind simple faith. The cumulation of
our experiences are analysed rationally by our subconscious, and this informs our decision to
accept or reject many things. It’s not just in religion that we do this. A secular example might be
when we see or read about something online or in the news and at the back of our mind we think ‘I’m not sure that’s true,’ or think ‘I’m pretty sure there’s more to this story.’ More often than
not our first instinct is proven to be correct. Years of experience has taught us how media stories
are broken, that there is always more to the story, that there are issues of emphasis and
narrative, and that we should maintain a healthy (though not necessarily conspiratorial)
skepticism.

In matters of faith, our subconscious is constantly analysing and assessing the
information we receive and driving our assent to the Faith. I believe implicit reason is the
bedrock of my faith. Sometimes it is battered by the storms of news and scandal, cracks might
appear occasionally, but it is always there. No doubt divine grace has played a large part in
preserving this bedrock, especially through the sacraments. There have also been occasions
when the right person has appeared at precisely the right time to provide much-needed
guidance. On top of this bedrock is built the rest of my faith.

Explicit Reason

Newman goes on to talk about explicit reason. This is the more formal and theoretical part of my
faith. For me, this is the building built upon the bedrock. Philosophy and theological studies
have helped me to grow in my faith over the years, but it is actually the study of my first love,
history, which has really given me the bricks and mortar of the formal structure of my faith. The
messiness of history, the narratives and counter-narratives of events from long ago that we tell
each other, have consistently confirmed to me that the Faith is real. Philosophy and theology
has given me a lens to read the events of history in a way that has confirmed the truth of
Catholicism to me. The reality of Original Sin is obvious throughout history, as even the best of
intentions are often ruined by man’s fallen nature.

Saints

It sometimes surprises me how much the secular world searches for the perfect just as much as
the religious. It is our own desire for the perfect, for God Himself, that lifts up our heroes and is
then shocked when we discover they were not perfect, that they were not in fact God. This is
another reality which, for me, points to the truth of Catholicism. Sanctity in history takes many
different forms, and it is often the case that when we understand the world in which the saints lived we begin to recognise why the Church recognises a particular individual as a saint.

Saints were not perfect, but they practiced heroic sanctity in many diverse and often unimaginable
situations. There are great stories here that deserve to be told and retold many times. In them, I
began to see how God’s grace works in the world. Not necessarily through the big showy
miracles that the ancient hagiographers often liked to talk about, but through the little events
and the quiet movements which change hearts. These stories show us that there is always
hope, and remind me constantly that even though we cannot see the bigger picture, there is
more going on than we can ever know or imagine.

So it is easier to allow ourselves to trust with joy, even if we do so a little nervously. History also showed me how the situation for the Church has never been perfect, despite our natural tendency to idealise the past. Yet from the imperfection come the saints. Look at St Charles Borromeo. Made cardinal due to his family relationship to the pope, he lived an austere holy life and became a key leader in the Counter-Reformation. The situation at the time was such that a priest opposed to his reforms even tried to assassinate him.

The Study of History

For me, the study of history and the stories contained there contradict so many of the allegedly
‘rational’ attacks upon the Catholic Faith. With a bit of historic knowledge, they often fall apart
quite easily. If we also remember that saints are heroic, not perfect and that Original Sin is in
the DNA, or coding, of our reality, it makes sense of so many historical challenges for the
believer and often makes more sense than the secular explanations of historical events. Until
the end of time there will be prejudices and misunderstandings, and often it will appear that evil
has triumphed, yet the victory won by Christ on his Cross seems to be constantly present
throughout history, a sign renewed again and again. Understanding this everlasting struggle
confirms my faith, and helps me deal with the trials and tribulations wracking the Church of
today.

Divine Grace

The Church is made up of human beings like myself, conflicted in motivation yet aided by Divine
Grace. It is this conflict which is being fought out until the end of time. Scandals have hurt many
of us deeply, and I have had many Catholic friends vocalise their confusion at how those who
take vows to serve God and his People can commit such appalling acts. The truth is that it is
bewildering for all of us, but as I look through history, I can see that the Church has always been
both of and separate to the world, and as such its members are prone to the errors and evils
that afflict all humanity.

When he was Cardinal Ratzinger, Benedict XVI recounted two well-known stories during a set of interviews that became the book God and the World. One describes how an Archbishop told Emperor Napoleon that the clergy of the Church had spent 1800 years trying to destroy the Church and had failed, the other was the comment that if the Church was purely human it would have been destroyed centuries ago. I constantly come back to these comments when I wonder what is going on, and where God is in all this.

The more I study history, the more insightful they seem. The members of Christ’s Church have continually blundered through history, yet the Church is still here. There are occasions, like the
Reformation when it seemed like it would be destroyed or completely captured by one
ideological faction. Yet miraculously it soldiers on, and the Truth seems to manage to make itself
known.

As I look at the history of the Church, and of my own intuitive belief, I also notice something else
about myself. When my faith weakens or I fail to cooperate with divine grace, I notice I become
a worse individual. It may be in thought, word or action, but it is there. It reminds me that history
is still ongoing, that it is not over. That history which I have studied and learnt so much from is
not dry and book bound. It is real, living still exerts influence and I am now part of it.

So, my faith is built on an intuitive knowledge that it is true and has been reinforced by
philosophy and theology. A major strength and support for maintaining the structure of my belief has been through the study of history, of being challenged by events of the past, and seeing the truth of the formal theological ideas borne out in the messiness of history, in the sanctity of some
and the wickedness of others and the battle between good and evil in all our hearts played out
on the stage of history.