Catholicism Redeemed

“When I hear the word ‘Catholic’ today I think of a person who is trying to be good, follows rules well, and doesn’t have a relationship with Jesus.” The statement was as calm as it was direct, spoken without a hint of bitterness. The young woman was raised Catholic, and like 1 in 3 others in this country, she left the Church.

But why? Why did she leave the Church and why does she think this way about Catholics?

When given an opportunity to respond, she did not talk about doctrinal grievances or canon law. She never once mentioned ecclesiology or catechesis. What she did talk about was something far more personal, and in terms of her faith trajectory, more consequential.

“I think this way because that was my experience as a Catholic and it’s what I see with my family who is still Catholic. . . My mother has influenced a lot about how I view Catholics overall. She doesn’t go to church except on Christmas and Easter. She prays to Mary and the Saints, but not to God the Father or Jesus. She thinks the Pope, priests and religious are closer to God than she could ever be.”

Reading these testimonies as a part of my doctoral research, I was often left dumbfounded, saddened and numb.  I know that this doesn't represent every Catholic's experience but my defenses didn’t flair, my “fight or flight” impulses never triggered. I simply sat there with the unavoidable realization that we have a problem. A big problem.

Catholics are being “de-Christianized in the very process of being sacramentalized,” noted Dr. Scott Hahn, former Protestant and Young Life leader, now a Catholic Professor of Biblical Theology at Mundelein Seminary, a diocesan seminary in Chicago.[1] The crisis of the Catholic Church isn’t about its teaching. It’s about “the chasm the size of the Grand Canyon between the Church’s sophisticated theology . . . and the lived experience of the majority of our people, notes Sherry Weddell of the Catherine of Siena Institute.”[2]

The problem is not a matter of teaching but of witness. Pope Paul VI said it way back in 1975, “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.”[3] Pope Francis reiterated it nearly 40 years later saying, "We need to remember that all religious teaching ultimately has to be reflected in the teacher's way of life, which awakens the assent of the heart by its nearness, love and witness" (Evangelii Gaudium, 42). We must be the transformation that we want to see in others. Incarnational from the beginning, Christianity is not a Gnostic intellectual assent to doctrinal principles or a cultural heritage from a bygone era but a veritable way of life, enfleshed and embodied in the daily acts and attitudes that mark modern life with the undying symbol of the Cross.

So what happened when this young woman met Catholics who witnessed an authentic and growing relationship with Jesus Christ?

“I can see now that both Catholics and Protestants [can] have vibrant relationships with Jesus. My isolated experiences as a child did not represent Catholicism as a whole. What replaced that was individuals who each had a story and that God loves dearly. As Scripture says, we are ‘hidden in Christ.’ Our identities are first and foremost in Christ. I know this in a deeper, more profound way now. I see us as more unified now. I see the Body of Christ at work.”[4]

Glory be to God.

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[1] Scott Hahn, Evangelizing Catholics: A Mission Manual for the New Evangelization (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 2014), 13.

[2] Sherry A. Weddell, Forming Intentional Disciples: The Path to Knowing and Following Jesus, Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Press, 2012, 11.

[3] Pope Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi (On Evangelization in the Modern World), 41.

[4] I want to communicate a deep debt of gratitude for this young woman whose faith in Christ and heartfelt participation in this research has shown me the face of Christ.