Religious indifference

WE cannot deny that there’s vast religious indifference and even hostility against religion today. That may be intriguing to say, since on the other hand, thanks be to God, we can also notice a surge of religious fervor in some sectors.

This contrast actually has been around since time immemorial, an indication that human history is always an interplay between good and evil, between God’s providence and man’s freedom. But what is interesting to note is the degree of seriousness into which both indifference and fervor have developed.

A complex structure of rationalizations now supports religious indifference and hostility to religion. It seems that the threads of naturalism, skepticism, agnosticism, atheism, relativism, etc., have become more sophisticated, snuffing whatever religious ember that may still remain in a person or in society.

Some intellectuals and occasional theologians join free thinkers in lending their dissenting voices and expertise to this trend, adding to the string of scandals the Church has been suffering these past few years.

Try to look at some of our so-called leading Catholic universities, and you will likely find nests of dissenters who invoke an unhinged type of academic freedom (aka, academic license) to retail their heresies and questionable if not patently erroneous ideas. They are quite well-funded and supported by powerful international ideological groups.

Even centers of religious formation and seminaries are infected with this kind of virus. Imagine seminarians and priests now taught about the beauty and practicality of contraception, etc. It’s really about time that a thorough clean-up be made in these places, but, of course, with due process.

In these places, reason and empirical findings are considered the ultimate measure of things, and are made to dispute the claims of faith, steadily removing its attractiveness to the people. With this approach, piety is slowly eroded until it becomes practically dead.

In these places, if things could not be fully understood and explained, if they could not be directly verified, if they are not socially, economically or politically practical, then they should be rejected. They are deemed senseless.

It’s as simple, or rather, as simplistic, as that. Such attitude sorely misses the point that truths of faith, being spiritual and supernatural, require more than human reason to be believed. It’s a tyranny to force everyone to work only within the framework of reason and understanding alone beyond which things simply cannot be true.

It sorely misses the point that we precisely need the gift of faith, because we are men of belief, more than of reason. Faith always respects reason, and always works through it, but is beyond it. It cannot be fully grasped by reason, much less by our senses. It has a longer spread, a wider scope, a deeper reach, a firmer grip on reality.

This is something to be understood well, because many are now so self-absorbed and self-righteous that anything that does not pass their empirically-based intellectual criteria just cannot be true.

With their vaunted irreverence, they mock and ridicule any reference to faith, to the spiritual and supernatural, often not realizing that they are actually acting out the roles of drunks and the drugged, or kids in tantrums, who can be eloquent in their locked-in state of self-righteousness.

How do we deal with this kind of situation? It’s good, of course, to enter into dialogue and personal dealings. But I don’t think that would be enough. Yes, there is need for friendly contacts and giving good example. But still those would not be enough.

Our Lord, when asked by his disciples why they could not cure a certain very difficult case, simply said that it can be handled only through prayers and fasting. I feel these are also what are needed to take care of this difficult challenge.

Religious indifference and hostility to religion have to be tackled by persistent effort to identify oneself with Christ through prayer and sacrifice. In other words, we have to be ready to be crucified, which is the best form of prayer and sacrifice.

There’s no other way. Unless we are willing to imitate Christ all the way to his crucifixion, we cannot expect to melt away the thick and sticky layer of religious indifference and hostility to religion among the people.

This crucifixion need not be in a public place. It can rather be in that personal effort to give everything to Christ—our mind, our heart, our feelings, our plans, our time, our honor, etc. Everything!

As Christ assured us, it’s when we lose that we gain, it’s when we die that we live, the last will be first…

Challenges of the new evangelization

EVANGELIZATION, of course, is a continuing concern of the Church. It’s her mission inherent in her very nature, since the Church is a pilgrim Church.

The Church is in some kind of a travel, a dynamic process that involves forming people in all their variety of conditions to be the People of God, the family of God, in perfect communion of life and love with God and among ourselves. That’s the goal.

It involves the living transmission of the entire faith, and not just parts of it, and everything else that goes into the making of a breathing and working Christian life.

Yes, it entails inculcating the doctrine and truths of faith in an organic way. But to be sure, evangelization is not just an intellectual affair carried out simply by giving classes, receiving talks, listening to sermons, etc.

Still the intellectual aspect of evangelization is, of course, very significant. Those involved in it—first the clergy and then the consecrated, religious as well as other committed lay people—really have to master the doctrine of the faith in such a way that they have it at their fingertips and able to explain it well anytime to anyone.

This, to me, is still a big challenge. For it is getting obvious that many of the clergy are not yet well-formed in terms of doctrinal grounding. Not only are there many still in their amateur stage and very sophomoric in their preaching. There are quite a number who are confused if not mistaken in some areas.

This is not to mention the many inconsistencies in their or our life and ministry, me included, that often give rise to scandals that turn off people en masse. It might be good to look into the formation given in seminaries and to also see if the continuing formation for priests and others is truly working.

The usual problem here is that the formation is in many instances shallow, irregular, and incomplete. It’s not integral. If it’s fiery in one part, it’s cold as dead in the others. Thus, we can see a priest who is very active in social concerns but is rather asinine in spirituality. Or vice-versa.

The formation of priests and other evangelizers is one challenge in the new evangelization. The other and bigger challenge is how to deal with a people who have become increasingly secularized and Godless.

There are already many analyses made on this phenomenon. Big things, like the scourge of relativism, are posed as one major cause. But to me, the basic problem is that people don’t pray and do not believe in the power of prayer anymore. They cannot relate to it. They cannot find God in it. They rather stick to their own ideas, opinions, views, ideologies.

It seems many people are now stuck with a very harmful attitude of believing in themselves more than in a superior being. This is now the new ethos, the new spirit of the world that challenges the evangelizers.

And this has led to a fragmented view of things that has become the new normal nowadays. Each one can be on his own, or some consensus can be made, but going to God is now largely considered passé. It’s now man, not God, who holds the key to reality, to what is true and false, good and evil.

With this kind of mentality, the consideration of morality can go in any direction. And so, some extreme aberrations are now in the offing. Thus, we have this sad phenomenon of terrorism and a wave of rampage killers who must have been inspired either by a fanatical spirit or a nihilist one.

Perhaps, if we are to probe into their mind and soul, we can find that they most probably think that what they are doing is right. They become invincibly convinced they are right. It’s a horrible prospect that we need to consider very seriously.

With this kind of world, how should the new evangelization be? How should the evangelizer be to be effective? These are questions that should challenge the Church now, understanding the Church to be not only the Pope and bishops and clergy, but all the people of God, including the laypeople

The challenges of the new evangelization have to be tackled by all of us. We need to pray hard, study, develop the virtues, wage continuing conversions, because there can be no other way to face them.

The very daunting challenges are asking us to be more consistent with our Christian life. We need to be more committed.

Victory in defeat

THAT may sound funny, or a literary oxymoron, but in the lives of saints, in the life of Christ himself, yes, there can be victory in what may largely be considered as defeat.

            Just look at Christ’s own crucifixion and death. That event, from all human angles, could only mean defeat, a crushing defeat. But it was what led to his resurrection. It was what paid the price for all our sins to attain our redemption. From the spiritual angle, it can only mean victory.

            We need to look more closely at this very mysterious phenomenon, so that we can be more in line with God’s logic and ways, rather than remain in our very limited, time-and-earth-bound understanding of things.

            We need to expand and deepen our perspectives to accommodate this wonderful spiritual and supernatural reality offered to us. Of course, for this to happen, we have to pray, meditate, be humble enough to ask for God’s grace, for this is a truth of faith that can only enter our mind and heart when faith that requires humility is alive in us.

            Truth is, in this life of ours here on earth, often described as a “vale of tears,” we cannot help but experience contradictions, difficulties, mistakes, insults, ridicule, and all the other forms of failures. This is part of our human condition.

            It would, however, be naive on our part if we choose to get stuck with the merely earthly and temporal aspects of our life, when the reality that governs us includes the spiritual and supernatural that requires us to use our faith, more than just our senses and intelligence.

            With faith operative in us, we may experience all sorts of weaknesses, but we still can manage to have hope and to wage an appropriate battle to tackle them. With faith, we can avoid falling into the paralyzing state of cowardice. We can spring into action.

            Faith lets us share in the power of God who knows how to draw life from death, rest from hard labor, light from darkness, good from evil. We have to learn how to access this reality that is abundantly offered to us by God himself.

            With faith, we can echo St. Paul’s: “In all things, let us exhibit ourselves as ministers of God, in much patience, in tribulation, in necessities, in distresses...as dying, and behold we live; as chastised, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as needy, yet enriching many; as having nothing, and possessing all things.” (2 Cor 6,9-10)

            With faith, we would know the value and meaning of pain, suffering and trials. These are sources of purification, occasions to grow in maturity and other virtues, moments to refine our awareness we are children of God who “chastises whom he loves, and scourges every son he receives.” (Heb 12,6)

            Thus, we need to exercise our faith more forcefully and consistently, something that we can do if we pray, meditate on God’s word, study the doctrine of our faith, develop the virtues, have recourse to the sacraments, wage a lifelong interior struggle, etc.

            Unfortunately, these are activities that are hardly appreciated by the people of today. They are even considered as a waste of time, a repression of the human spirit and freedom, useless relics of antiquity and of the dark ages, etc., the exact opposite of what these activities actually achieve if done properly.

            We need to rescue ourselves from such ignorance or misinformation. That’s why we have to talk a lot about the role of faith in life of all of us. Faith, like our reason, is not supposed to be practised by a few.

            Though we can refuse the use of faith, just like what we can do with reason, we have to understand that faith is meant to be used by all. We are actually beings not only of senses and reason, but also of faith. We use faith, knowingly or unknowingly.

            So, we have to realize that faith also has a valid and legitimate place in our public discourses—be it in the media or in the halls of congress and government. We cannot say that just because it is a Catholic faith or a Protestant or Muslim one, it is optional and therefore does not have a necessary role to play in our discourses.

            Truth is, faith is always in the middle of our discussions—if not a faith in God, then a faith in something else, including a faith only in oneself. Whether we are aware of that or not, the fact is some kind of faith is always involved.