Like everyone else, I hear a lot of sad things all the time. Things such as news about a toddler who was accidentally run over and killed by her aunt who had come to visit (it truly was an accident), psychotic killers on the rampage, or victims of natural or man-made disasters. Every day, it seems, we hear about a lot of seemingly senseless death and suffering, disease, situations created by the consequences of a long series of bad choices, a bad philosophy about life or someone just being “in the wrong place at the wrong time”.
But of all the tragedies I hear reported, or hear from the mouths of friends and acquaintances, by far the SADDEST thing I ever hear is, “I used to be Catholic”.
“WHAT!??” you may ask, “Are you saying that someone’s choice of RELIGION is more important than someone dying of cancer, whole cities being wiped out by tsunamis and hurricanes, the bombs of war and terrorism, and innocent children being killed??”
Yes, I am saying that.
I have said many times that religion (the way we understand and approach God and how we treat other people) is the most important thing in the world. Everyone has to die sometime, and it can be either quick or slow, self-induced or at the hand of someone else (either by intent or accident), by disease or by some other unexpected and unavoidable process or event (the details aren’t that important). And of course, “he who dies with the most toys” is still dead and leaves all his toys behind.
Suffering is an unavoidable part of life. The difference between happiness and misery isn’t whether or not you suffer (or what the particular things are that cause you to suffer), rather it is how you suffer (i.e. how you choose to deal with the suffering that comes your way, and where you find the strength to help you endure it). Sometimes people truly suffer needlessly, such as when they suffer loneliness or alienation because they are so self-absorbed that they refuse to love anyone else, but usually suffering has a way of finding us all by itself.
So everyone suffers and everyone dies. (I’m not trying to be callous, just putting things into perspective, showing you the “Big Picture”.) When a person dies, he faces a personal Judgment before God that determines where he spends eternity. (Next to eternity, our time and suffering on earth are nothing.) The main focus of this Judgment is whether or not you loved and served God in this life (or at least did the best you could with the natural reason God gave you (cf. Rom 2:13-16)). Those who truly loved God in life (not just pretending to) will be eternally happy (beyond imagination). Those who truly loved themselves more than God will be eternally miserable (beyond imagination). There is no third choice.
Part of serving God is how you treat the people around you during your life on earth. Part of how you love God is shaped by what you know about Him. This is the stuff of religion. It is what sets the balance that determines where every individual soul will spend eternity. I’d say that’s pretty darn important!
I’ve done my level best to explain why the Catholic religion, taught and practiced by the Catholic Church, is true and tells us the truth about God and man and how we are to relate to both. No one has ever given me any reason to believe that it is not true or that some other religion (or no religion) is better or truer than Catholicism. And it is objectively true, which means that it is true for everyone without exception. (If you think I am wrong on this point, please set me straight, either by leaving a comment (below) or by e-mail (see sidebar).)
The Catholic Church teaches us that the Church itself is “necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mk 16:16; Jn 3:5) and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism, as through a door, men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved” (Vatican II: Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium), 14; emphasis mine).
Therefore the only way any ex-Catholic can be saved at all is by his bona fide ignorance of the fact that Christ made the Catholic Church necessary for salvation. And since I’m telling you now, that “escape clause” is now closed to any former Catholic who is reading this. (Or at the very least, it is incumbent upon him to “do his homework” and confirm the truth of the matter and stop kidding himself that “everything is OK” regarding the state of his soul before God. He can no longer say at his particular Judgment, “Gee, Lord, I didn’t know. Nobody ever told me.”)
That is why the phrase “I used to be a Catholic” is the saddest thing I ever hear. No one ever leaves the Church (stops attending Mass on Sundays and practicing the faith) except through ignorance (not adequately understanding the truths of the faith) or malice (loving one’s sin more than God—and the sin might simply be the deadly sin of pride). If a person truly understood what the Church teaches, and truly loved God, he could never leave the Church He established, His Bride, His Mystical Body.
A case in point
I have a good friend whom I have known since childhood (I’ll call him “Dave”) who was born and raised in the Catholic faith. While he was away at college, he met and fell in love with a girl (I’ll call her “Patty”) who was also born and raised a Catholic. Many years before, Patty had had a number of “bad experiences” concerning the Church, for example the bad example of a particular priest (alcoholism, I think) and her parents’ divorce. Apparently she used these events collectively as an excuse for leaving the Church “never to return!” (she is very strong-willed). I believe she was attending some Protestant church when Dave met her.
Dave started attending church with Patty in their college town and everything seemed OK (I don’t know at what point he stopped going to Mass). It seems Dave was poorly catechized in school (a common situation in the ’60s and ’70s) and he either didn’t know or didn’t care about the essential differences between Catholicism and Protestantism or what was expected of him as a Catholic.
Well a few years later, in any event (to make a long story short), they got married in a Protestant church, had a number of kids and are now living their lives like good Evangelical Protestants. It’s not that Dave has any problem with Catholicism, but rather that Patty does and, if he values his marriage, he’d better not set foot in a Catholic church ever again(!). And so, caught on the horns this dilemma, Dave seems to have convinced himself that “it’s no big deal, as long as you are [some kind of] Christian”. (These are not actual quotes. I am putting words in their mouths based on what I know of their attitudes and personalities.)
Here’s where it gets dicey. Unless they had both formally defected from the Catholic Church before the time of their marriage (which basically involves each of them writing a letter to the bishop informing him of their intention to leave the Catholic Church), or had applied for and received a document from the bishop dispensing them from the normal requirement of observing the Catholic form of marriage (i.e. in a Catholic church before a Catholic priest)—and I have no reason to believe they did either one—they were bound under a moral obligation to observe the Catholic form for marriage. Since (I assume) they didn’t (thus failing to meet that requirement for Catholics to be validly married), in the eyes of the Church, they aren’t actually married (whether they realize it or not). Since the Church was given the authority by God (Jesus) to regulate this sort of thing among her members, they aren’t married in God’s eyes either. So in God’s eyes, they are “living in sin” (fornication—sexual relations between unmarried persons). [This has nothing to do with the “legitimacy” of their children. Legitimacy is a matter of civil law, and as far as the State is concerned they were legally married.] In Canon (Church) Law, this would be a “slam dunk” annulment (meaning it is obvious without further investigation (if I have the facts straight) that no marriage ever existed in this case).
If Dave and Patty have not formally defected from the Church, they are NOT PROTESTANTS (regardless of how they describe themselves); they are in fact lapsed Catholics who happen to attend Protestant services and no doubt hold a number of Protestant doctrines. This may seem to be a mere technicality to non-Catholics, but it makes all the difference in the world in Canon Law.
To rectify their situation, Dave and Patty could each go to sacramental confession (for all the years they were away from the Church) and return to the practice of the Faith of their youth, and finally have their (civil) marriage convalidated (or “blessed”) by a Catholic priest (not a likely scenario under the circumstances). Or (if Patty refuses to be reconciled to the Church) Dave could still go to confession on his own and receive absolution for his own years away from the Church (and his illicit sexual relations with Patty), and then continue to live chastely (sleeping in separate rooms like brother and sister) with Patty (also unlikely). I suppose a third possibility would be for them both to formally defect from the Church now and then get “re-married” in their Protestant church or before a JP (then at least in the eyes of God and the Church they would in fact be married for the first time).
But that still leaves the question of the state their souls when they die. Fornication is a mortal sin (if done with full knowledge and consent of the will). So is leaving the Church. One unrepented mortal sin lands you in hell. A sin is mortal if three conditions are met: (1) it is “grave matter” (the act itself is serious enough), (2) one understands at the time that it is grave matter, and (3) one gives full consent of the will (in other words, “I know it’s a serious sin, but I freely choose to do it anyway”). If there was a way they could have found this out but still went ahead, they are still (at least partially) guilty of the sin. If they didn’t know at the time but were informed about it later, but refused to do anything to correct the situation, they are as culpable as if they knew all along.
Presumably both Dave and Patty want to go to heaven, but the way things are now I don’t see how they can get there. Ignorance is a wonderful thing, I suppose, but it has its limits. You see why I feel the situation is so sad. I constantly look for an opportunity to clue Dave in to the precarious spiritual position they are in, but circumstances make such an opportunity exceedingly remote and I’m certain he “don’t want to hear it”, and talking to Patty about it is out of the question. It looks hopeless.
Good thing it isn’t up to me. God gives every person every opportunity to repent before death and be saved. If someone chooses to defy God and His law, that is his own choice. I can still pray for them, certainly. But it is still a very, very sad situation.
