Video Meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor

It's Always About Faith

Dom reports there's a bad moon on the risin'. Don't know about you, but I'm suffering from "shock fatigue" when it comes to scandal revelations. The troubles ultimately come down to a lack of faith, as Ratzinger said. But why should that be surprising? Jesus asked if there be faith in this world when He comes again. And Randall Sullivan, author of "The Miracle Detective" detected this too:

One thing that was troubling was that so many people I dealt with in the Vatican in positions of authority seemed almost half-hearted about it. I was more reverent in a lot of ways than they were, and more able to see the absurdity, the limitations of an overly rational, skeptical, scientific perspective. These limitations were more obvious to me than to many of them. But that is really about the Church as a human institution, but the faith itself, the Catholic Church is still for me the ultimate guardian of the faith, it’s closer to the origin of the faith. That’s what I’m pulled back to.

Walker Percy writes about the lack of faith in "The Thanatos Syndrome":

"But when he invited me to serve Mass routinely, I refused. I told him the truth: that since I no longer was sure what I believe, didn't think much about religion, participation in Mass would seem to be deceitful.

He nodded cheerfully, as if he already knew. 'Don't worry,' he said, doing a few isometrics in the hall, pushing and pulling with his hands. 'It is to be expected. It is only necessary to wait and to be of good heart. It is not your fault.'

'How is that, Father? I ask him curiously.

'You have been deprived of faith. All of us have. It is part of the times.'

'Deprived? How do you mean?'

'It is easy enough to demonstrate," he says, shrugging first one shoulder high, then the other.

'Yes?'

'Sure. Just consider. Even if the truths of religion could be proved to you one, two, three, it wouldn't make much difference, would it? One hundred percent of astronomers have discovered that the universe was created from nothing. The explanation is obvious but it does not avail. Who can handle it? It does not signify. It is boring to think of. Ninety-seven percent of astronomers are still atheists. Do you blame them? They are also boring. The only thing more boring would be if the ninety-seven percent all converted, right? It follows that there must be some other force at work, right?"