Lazy Bum Catholics

I am postponing the 2nd installment of Nature’s oddities, the Hagfish, to discuss a very pervasive scandal in the Church.

Cafeteria Catholicism. I normally do not like using pop-Cath phrases like “cafeteria,” but I think it is a good phrase for describing the situation.

Today Deacon Juncer discussed how people were petitioning Cardinal George to commute the Nativity of our Lord to Sunday or somehow invent some way to commute their Sunday obligation to tomorrow. See, last year Christmas fell on a Sunday, so both the Sunday obligation and the Holy Day of the Nativity of our Lord (Christmas) were fulfilled by the same mass. I guess in one short year people became so lazy that they could not bear to go to Mass this morning and tonight or they could not tolerate going to Mass this morning and tomorrow morning. I could tell that MANY people are eschewing today’s mass, since the population of laypeople at St. John Cantius today was very low. This is so disappointing!

If you are a materialist, it is obviously a good deal to go to Church at least. Church is enjoyable, especially if you like music, pageantry, costumes, candles, incense, paintings, socializing. At St. John’s they have a Café that is very reasonably priced ($1 dollar for an enormous cheese Danish that would cost around $3-4 at Starbucks). They don’t even charge admission at Church! It takes one hour. It’s on your day off. Mass is offered at a variety of convenient times. There is ample free parking!

I’ve paid money ($6-9 often) to see nauseating movies like Moulin Rouge. Going to Church is a much better deal by any comparison.

This is why I feel little remorse for those souls that do not go to Church on Sunday or ask ridiculous things of our Cardinal. Why do they even ask? They obviously are going to do whatever they want. By asking they are assuring the sinfulness of their action. At least if they didn’t ask, they could claim ignorance, which unlike in civil law, counts for something.

I’ve heard many honest and genuine Catholics lament these problems, and pass the blame to poor catechesis, I believe this is quite erroneous. I have found many “lazy bum” or “fallen away” type Catholics to have very good knowledge and understanding of the Church, Her teachings, etc. Many even have understandings of philosophy and theology that far surpass my own. Furthermore, information is more available today than it ever has been in the Church’s history. Books are more available and cheaper. The Internet is free, and that Vatican’s website, which can be accessed 24/7/365.25, has all the information you need to be a good Catholic.

I cannot see how even the poorest catechesis can fail to drive home the fact that you have to go to Mass on Sunday and Holy Days of Obligation. There are only a handful of essentials to be Catholic. You do not even need to be literate to be a good Catholic. You really only have to follow the rules (Catechism of the Catholic Church), go to Mass on Sunday and Holy Days, know a handful of simple prayers, and give what alms you can. Is this that much to ask for the benefit of eternal salvation and avoidance of eternal hellfire? Not really, but you have to believe in salvation and hellfire.

Even though it is not hard to keep up a façade of being Catholic, it does take a small bit of denial to avoid things like masturbation, fornication, contraception, etc. These are the sins I (and Our Lady of Fatima) believe send the greatest number of people down the road to perdition, especially younger people.

But even here, it’s not that hard to avoid these things. And you’re generally better off materially if you do avoid them. People say it’s hard to avoid these things, and I have had one Psychology professor claim it is impossible, to which I retorted “I am living proof that you are incorrect, Dr. so-and-so.” I cannot understand why people insist on the difficulty of avoiding these sins. But let’s just say they are hard for the sake of argument. In this case, Fear of the Lord should easily overwhelm your desire to commit these sins.

Even if you don’t believe everything the Church says. And even if you don’t believe what the Bible says. Even if you don’t believe that God destroyed entire peoples and struck down people like Onan outright, you should still have some fear. Even the most rudimentary understanding of God (which 80% of Americans claim to have) will necessitate that somehow He created the universe. Even if you don’t believe in the Holy Trinity, you must believe that God is fantastically powerful, because this is necessary to create something as vast, complex, and orderly as the universe. If you don’t then you don’t believe in God. Whatever you are believing in cannot be God. Given that you believe in this fantastically powerful being, wouldn’t it be at least somewhat prudent to be afraid of Him. I am afraid of Doberman Pincers because they are very powerful compared to most animals. I am afraid of Tractor Trailers because they weigh 30-40 tons and could easily crust my 2500 lb Corolla. I am afraid of the Anthrax, even though it a millionth of my size. Doberman Pincers, Tractor Trailers, and Bacillus Anthracis pale in comparison to the power of any being that willed into existence the entire universe!

Now, some people believe that God loves us so much that he could never do anything we wouldn’t enjoy, like sending us to Hell. First off, I want to know where this idea comes from. It is obviously an addition to the rudimentary understanding of God—the necessarily powerful being that created the universe. This idea must come from somewhere, because it is not obvious from the definition of God. If you are willing to add to an understanding of God beyond the obvious, why is He always loving rather than vengeful? This is a question worth asking. If you are to have any integrity, you must examine the source. I suspect that many people get this idea from cherry picking parts of the New Testament or Psalms. They overlook the other parts of the Bible where God is vengeful and destructive. They may be Unitarians or adhere to some other type of therapeutic belief system. In any case, it is simple self-delusion.