Many forces oppose the Church, but it is up to the individual believer to live out the faith
By Deacon Bob Hunt
I have been reading about what journalists and sociologists are calling a “surge” in newfound faith among young people around the world.
We are experiencing that at Holy Ghost Church in downtown Knoxville, where I am director of the OCIA program. We have about 20 catechumens, candidates, and confirmandi, and the average age is around 26. That’s young! What’s more, it seems that these young people are willing and eager to take God on God’s terms, and not on their own. They are eager for the teaching authority of the Church, the discipline of prayer, and the outreach of service to others.
I spoke with our OCIA class recently about expectations of being Catholic in our modern culture. I see signs of a turn toward more respect for the Church than in past years. The rise of atheism has plateaued, largely because the so-called “New Atheists” were good at tearing down but not so good at building up. People are tired of being torn down. They want to be built up, and many are not willing to give up on the notion that there might be more to life than what this world has to offer.
But there are still those out there who are only too happy to insult, ridicule, and otherwise attempt to undermine the Catholic Church and living the Catholic life. Just days ago, I received a phone call from a gentleman who claims that, for 35 years, he was a “devout Catholic.” Then, he attended an evangelical seminar and suddenly saw the light: the Catholic Church is teaching error, contrary to Scripture! He called me because I had sent him an e-mail in 2023 asking a couple of questions related to the evangelical perspective on things.
Apparently, he had forgotten that we had communicated back and forth via several e-mails, for during the phone call he apologized for not having contacted me. I honestly hadn’t remembered, either, until he sent me a copy of my original e-mail to him, and it all came back. The man now leads a ministry specifically targeting Catholics in the effort to convince them to leave the Church and embrace his personal interpretation of the Scriptures. I’ve sent more e-mails, challenging the correctness of his Catholic history and understanding of Catholic teaching.
But men like this are only part of the challenge. There is the secular media, constantly barraging society with the image of the Catholic Church as archaic, out of step, unmerciful, and, of course, filled with pedophile priests. Some of the attacks on the Church from the entertainment industry, movies and television, are shameless in their targeting even the most central and beloved articles of Catholic faith, including the Eucharist and our devotion to Mary.
Blasphemy is only barely adequate in describing some of their vicious efforts at maligning the Catholic faith. It’s an old trope but still true, I think, that such attacks against other faith traditions rarely, if ever, find the light of day. Anti-Catholicism has been described as “the last respectable prejudice.”
Perhaps that’s the key difference between anti-Catholicism on the one hand and antisemitism and racism on the other. While antisemitism and racism are largely relegated to those acting out of fear or ignorance and represent more visceral and base tendencies in our culture, anti-Catholicism seems the reserve of the respectable, the educated, the posh, the culturally elite, and even the political class. Remember “the dogma lives loudly within you”?
The Catholic Church is targeted by those who regard themselves as on the vanguard of culture because her teachings are so often opposed to the “if it can be done it should be done” mentality in morals and political policy. Hence, a scathing article published in a major newspaper questioning the number of Catholics on the Supreme Court being so out of proportion to the Catholic percentage of the population. Can you even imagine such an article being written about the number of Jews on the Supreme Court being out of proportion to their percentage of the population?
While Jewish cemeteries, synagogues, and schools remain favorite targets for the more brutish antisemite, articles in respectable newspapers, theaters, major motion pictures, and political parody are the territory of the anti-Catholic. At least, until the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Then the attacks on Catholic churches became a regular event, though still not often reported on by the press.
Families, too, are often a source of tension with those who find their way to the Catholic Church. I can’t tell you the number of stories I’ve heard from those whose families either thought them crazy or actually shunned them when learning that their loved one was becoming Catholic. Some are even hesitant to inform their families of their conversions! The bottom line is: there are several elements in our society today that may make it difficult to be Catholic and attempt to pull people away from being dedicated to their Catholic faith.
But there is one that, far and away, represents the greatest threat to living the Gospel of Jesus Christ faithfully as a Catholic: the individual believer. No one and nothing are greater threats to my failing to live faithfully my relationship with Jesus Christ and His Church than I am. No anti-Catholic bigot, no newspaper or magazine, no movie or Broadway play, no museum display or organized protest, nor even the possibility of being ostracized from my family, can force me away from Jesus, from His Church, or remove the faith in my heart that I love so.
Speaking of His “sheep,” Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand.” (John 10:27-28, emphasis added). So, again, no one and nothing can force me away from Jesus and His Church. But no one and nothing can stop me from walking away.
It’s Sunday morning. I’m tired. I just had the worst week at work. Am I going to go to Mass? No one can force me not to. But no one can force me to go, either. It’s my choice. That’s one of the blessings of living in a free society. My free will is truly free to make that choice. It’s a holy day of obligation in the middle of the week. Will I go to Mass? I’ve made a commitment to say morning and evening prayer. Will I keep that commitment? I can stay in bed another hour, or binge-watch yet another program, or I can meet my fellow parishioners downtown to pass out sandwiches, coats, scarves, clothes, and good cheer to those who have no roof over their heads.
Which will I choose? Every day is another opportunity to live my faith faithfully, to give public and private expression to what I hold dearest in my heart. Like any muscle in the body, failing to “exercise” one’s faith can lead to atrophy or, worse, complete loss.
At the end of our lives, who we are will reflect the choices we’ve made. Choose Jesus.
Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.
Deacon Bob Hunt is a husband, father, grandfather, and parishioner at All Saints Church in Knoxville.