Monday, April 18, 2011

Why even bother?

"Cradle Catholic for 30 years and making a first confession". Just read the lamentable comments on Fr. John Zuhlsdorf post and the shared recollections of readers:
"When I was in RCIA, back in the early 1980′s we were told that it is almost impossible to commit a mortal sin so not to worry."

"When I asked one of the RCIA instructors to tell us how to make a proper confession she blew me off."

"I was under the impression that Reconciliation was a one-time thing until the priests starting coming to school to offer it a few times."

"I thought in order to commit a mortal sin you had to do something really bad such as kill someone, have an abortion, or commit adultry."

"I actually heard a priest say in a homily that he never committed a mortal sin and that none of us probably hadn’t either."

"I have had people who prepare young people for confirmation say that theydon’t remember ever going to confession."

There is one good motivation for joining the Catholic Church: simply put, to save your soul. Obviously, this begs the question -- what are you saving yourself from? or, for what and why was Our Savior crucified?

In a parish where the idea of sin and absolution are passé, why be Catholic? what does it even matter?

Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved. Some ... in their almost too fastidious spirituality, admit divine sinlessness, which they cannnot see even in their dreams. But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street. The strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took positive evil as the starting-point of their argument. If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and Man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.’

– Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy

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