I am smarter than an atheist.
At least according to my test results at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, I am. I did score "better than 97% of the public," but I won't brag. After all, my 15-year-old daughter scored the same.
Neither of us is an expert in world religion, but we certainly are a family that takes our own Catholic faith seriously. I think any individual who takes faith seriously, whether an atheist or a practicing Catholic, would score well on the kinds of questions included in this poll.
A natural part of understanding any religion -- especially your own -- is to learn how it compares and contrasts with other systems of belief and what kind of answer it offers to other religions. Knowing the names and dates of particular religious figures and events is not at all the same thing as having faith, though.
As odd as it is to say such a thing, professed atheists tend to be passionate "non-believers." I wish everyone who calls himself "Catholic" would be as passionate.
As important as it is to learn about other religions for the sake of understanding other cultures, I would argue that it is even more important for people to understand their own religious beliefs -- to know what exactly it means when they call themselves Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu or Jewish. Real religion is so much more than cultural identity.
For me, the saddest part of the Pew Forum survey results is the abysmal ignorance of many Catholics with regard to the tenets of their own faith. Specifically, the fact that "45% of Catholics do not know that their church teaches that the bread and the wine become the body and blood of Christ" is a scandal.
This is especially pathetic because the Eucharist -- Christ's real presence under the appearance of bread and wine -- is one of the primary ways in which the Catholic Church differs from Protestant churches. Many converts to Catholicism, especially well studied ones, will tell you that it was the sacraments, and specifically the Eucharist, that drew them to the Catholic Church in the first place. God built us for union with him. We long for Christ, and it is in the sacraments that we find that union.
Continue to read...
BE PASSIONATE!
COMING TO ALL SAINTS
LENT, 2011
FOR INFORMATION...
CALL CARL FAHRINGER OR DEACON GERRY
502-477-6676/502-955-5366
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