A Tragedy

     I know mine to be a minority viewpoint in this regard, yet I hold to it nevertheless:

     The evidence for that is little short of conclusive. Saying so shocked a great many of my Catholic readers. I put it into the mouth of my most popular character:

     “What has the typical response to indoctrination been, Father? What percentage of the children that have passed through parochial schools remain communicants as adults? Do we really need any other explanation for why the schools are closing down at such a rate?”
     The priest grinned without humor. “Don’t you think the property tax situation might have had something to do with it, Louis? To say nothing of the problems the Church has had with zoning boards all over the country?”
     Louis shook his head. “That’s nothing new. The American Church has faced those forces for three centuries. It’s only in the last fifty years that our numbers have diminished this way. And we’re mostly to blame for it.”
     He scowled. “It was always a mistake, you know. Religion isn’t for children, and to impose it on them by force has never been to anyone’s greater good.”

     …though that didn’t assuage the feelings of the many who were appalled by it.

     There are several reasons for this, but one stands above the rest: the behavior of adults. Adults seldom realize how closely their children watch them and analyze their behavior. Any behavioral departure from the norms they preach will cause their kids to think hypocrite! In the juvenile mind, that has severe consequences.

     Parents cannot afford hypocrisy when and where their kids might detect it. If you tell them that God is watching, you must act accordingly. If you teach them the Ten Commandments, or the all-encompassing Two Great Commandments, you must take care that your children never see you violate them. Should you slip and be caught, you must confess your fault – to your kids — and promise them that you’ll strive to do better from then on.

     But how many parents can honestly claim to have upheld that standard?

     To a child… and, tragically, to the adult he will become… hypocrisy equates to the negation of the violated stricture: “They say one thing but do another, so how can what they say be true or important? Ignore it!” Even later in life, when the adult who developed from that disappointed, disillusioned child acquires enough experience of Mankind to understand that we are fallen, he will be reluctant to revisit the faith he rejected. Rare is the man who’s happy to admit that he was insufficiently mature to understand his parents, especially in their weaknesses… even if they’re weaknesses he shares.

     So when I read something like this:

     As all of you know, I am not a believer in any sort of deity. I guess that’s odd, being that I grew up in a Catholic household and was sent to a Christian private school for three years. My parents were hoping that the experience would help. It didn’t. All my experiences with organized religion did was make me believe that the people in the churches were mostly lying hypocrites.

     … I want to weep for what the writer has denied himself. His pride will probably be involved. No one likes to admit to error, even the sort of error that’s understandable from a child. The more a man thinks of himself – justly or otherwise – the less likely he’ll be to make such an admission.

     There is nothing in the universe that compares to the knowledge that there is a God who loves us and wants us to be with Him in Paradise. It’s not provable by secular standards of proof. Yet secularists accept many far more questionable propositions on far less evidence. They who refuse to ponder the possibility have denied themselves a comfort of inestimable magnitude, great enough to cushion the most savage of blows. I pity them.

     “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance; the only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” – C. S. Lewis.

     Enjoy your Holy Week, and may God bless and keep you all.