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The Catholic faith is difficult to believe.<\/p>\n
Oh sure, we can give assent to the parts that come naturally to us. \u00a0We each have our natural gifts in that area \u2014 some of us glom onto theology, others to kindness and generosity, others to asceticism. \u00a0 \u00a0Add to that a bit of struggle, a bit of overcoming, and we arrive at the riskiest moment: The moment when we think ourselves Catholic.<\/p>\n
Think of it like climbing a mountain. \u00a0If you go hard enough for long enough, you can reach a summit of sorts, a place that looks like the top. \u00a0It might be. \u00a0Or perhaps if only you\u2019d turn around, or wait for the clouds to blow off, or wander through the trees to the other side of the ridge, you\u2019d realize you weren\u2019t at the top at all.<\/p>\n
If you are tired enough, standing there on that lower ledge, the temptation is to declare the hike over. \u00a0To announce the rest of the way is so impossibly steep we can\u2019t possibly be meant to ascend it. \u00a0In mountaineering that\u2019s all well and good: Enjoy your lunch and go back home. \u00a0In the spiritual life, though, we can\u2019t settle for the picnic. \u00a0We need to be honest with ourselves about how far we still have to go, or at least honest in admitting we aren\u2019t sure what\u2019s next \u2014 but that there might be something.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Christopher Tollefsen writes here about the connection between nuclear warfare and dishonesty<\/a>, and if you don\u2019t already read at Public Discourse,<\/a> it\u2019s a habit worth cultivating. \u00a0He writes from a philosopher\u2019s standpoint. \u00a0Brad Warthen writes about his ambivalence about Hiroshima<\/a> from Joe Pewsitter\u2019s unsettled perspective:<\/p>\n But I can\u2019t say \u201cThank God for the Atom Bomb,\u201d either. Not because I think the bombing of either Hiroshima or Nagasaki was particularly egregious. After all, the previous firebombing of Tokyo was worse. But that very context \u2014 the fact that the bombing of population centers was taken for granted by both sides as an acceptable strategy \u2014 is the thing that bothers me, a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Whom are we willing to destroy in order to win?<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The culture that won World War II was a culture of victory at any price. \u00a0Not to win was unthinkable, and understandably. \u00a0The stakes were extraordinary, the menace all-consuming. \u00a0What it did to us, though, was make us a people who considered it acceptable to knowingly slaughter innocent civilians, if that was the price of winning.<\/p>\n The cloud of victory is a hard one to blow off our cultural ridge. \u00a0We imagine the alternatives and shudder. \u00a0It is impossible, we think, that we could have done anything other. \u00a0We have counted the cost of just warfare and deemed it too high. \u00a0Unpayable. \u00a0We are determined that the rules of the game must be something else. Something more palatable. \u00a0Something that is less of a crucifixion \u2014 and World War II did not lack for crucifixions.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Temporal Victory is a bloodthirsty god. \u00a0Not content with bodies, she asks for souls as well. \u00a0Because we so desperately hunger to win, we have become a people who resort to lying at every turn.<\/p>\n The culture of deception is so firmly fixed now that not deceiving<\/em> is the unthinkable thing. \u00a0 How easily do we lie? \u00a0Let us count the ways:<\/p>\n Lying is our go-to solution to nearly any situation that can be resolved by a handy bit of deception. \u00a0We love it so much we delight in stories of trickery and false identities, now a stock part of some genres of entertainment. \u00a0 We have difficulty imagining that many of our deception-based tactics could be replaced by any other alternative. \u00a0We certainly can\u2019t imagine taking the risk of losing, of truly suffering, if a little lie could have saved us.<\/p>\n It is unthinkable. \u00a0We have determined that lying is not in fact a sin. \u00a0It is not evil. \u00a0It\u2019s a tool in the toolbox, perhaps not to be wielded indiscriminately, but certainly meant to be used when the occasion warrants.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Shaking off this attachment is as foreign to us as shaking off our own skin. \u00a0Indeed, we cling to lying as a necessity because we value our skin, and we value the skin of others. \u00a0Like all the other sins, we are on a quest for the good thing that the sin promises us.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The argument in favor of lying or nuclear warfare consists of this: So you want us to lose, then?<\/em><\/p>\n Ending World War II was a good thing. \u00a0Exposing the atrocities at Planned Parenthood is a good thing.<\/p>\n We can be in favor of an end to war and an end to abortion, and even celebrate the good that results from dubious means, and still doubt those means. \u00a0We can observe that lying is wrong without therefore saying that lying about your professional affiliations is just as wrong as killing innocent children.<\/p>\n But let us assume, for the sake of argument, that some of these sins are mere venial sins.<\/p>\n Venial sins are not lipstick and cotton candy. \u00a0Venial sins, as the St. Joseph\u2019s Baltimore Catechism<\/em> reminds us, are worse than the measles. \u00a0Do you want something worse than the measles clinging to your eternal soul?<\/p>\n No, you do not.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n It is a terrifying thing, being a saint. \u00a0We stand on the ridge, and we know how hard the climb has been thus far, and we look up and see the impossible wall looming over\u00a0us, and we know defeat when we see it. \u00a0It is no exaggeration to say the climb will kill us.<\/p>\n The temptation is to look for the the easier way around \u2014 not necessarily easy, but at least not impossible.<\/p>\n To be a saint is to look up at the impossible thing, and know it is the way we need to go, and to let God take us there.<\/p>\n Artwork:<\/p>\n The Annunciation, Domenico di Pace Beccafumi [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n The Kings of Judea, Notre Dame Cathedral, \u00a9 Dietmar Rabich,\u00a0rabich.de<\/a>, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Catholic faith is difficult to believe. Oh sure, we can give assent to the parts that come naturally to us. \u00a0We each have our natural gifts in that area \u2014 some of us glom onto theology, others to kindness and generosity, others to asceticism. \u00a0 \u00a0Add to that a bit of struggle, a bit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216,6,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-its-all-catholic","category-stick-that-corner","category-suffering"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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