Let me return now to where I began; is it true that a nation of churchgoing Catholics is a more Catholic nation than a nation that is less Church-going? I believe that it is likely that a nation where a higher quotient of the population worships regularly will be less likely to fall into serious sinfulness. Certainly that is the opinion of one of America’s most prominent lay Catholics, Supreme Court Justice Scalia. "The more Christian a country is, the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition has taken its firmest hold in post-Christian Europe and has least support in the churchgoing United States. I attribute that to the fact that for the believing Christian, death is no big deal. ... You want to have a fair death penalty? You kill; you die. That's fair." This comment by Mr. Justice Scalia no doubt represents the views of many Americans. The judge’s comment lays bare an attitude about churchgoing - that a nation’s Christian committment is to be judged by attendance at Mass and Church services. This attitude leads people to look upon those who do not attend and worship as sinners. My great objection to the automatic association of churchgoing with Christian goodness is that such a conclusion leads the righteous into self-righteousness. There have always been people in the Church whose intolerance of sin in our midst has led them to exclude sinners from the assembly. Since the days of Cyprian of Carthage, those who have belonged to the orthodox Church have stoutly restated the duty of the Catholic Church to remain open to returning sinners. That openness offends the pious, who hope that they can restrict membership to people like themselves, those who have never sinned. During my years in Rome, I marveled at the social services provided for the helpless and the homeless in the city. I often witnessed the feeding of the drunks and drug-addicts in Piazza Venezia at night. The Communita di Sant’ Egidio would bring soup and sandwiches to those sleeping in doorways, beggars, drunks, drug addicts, prostitutes and illegal aliens. Later on, employees of the City of Rome brought them blankets and food. The city government looks after the poor. Now there is a thought; “When I was hungry, you fed me.” The Sant’ Egidio people are the most wonderfully Catholic group I have ever witnessed, ministering to the poor and the handicapped. Their work is strengthened by their prayer and fasting. They are examples of Catholic life to all of us. They give out of love and they pray out of love. My question is this. Is the generosity of the Roman secular authorities related in any way to the constant work of the Church in education, social services and political activity? It is very obvious to me that the social policy of the City of Rome to beggars and to the poor is heavily influenced by generations of Catholic social teaching and action. It is irrational to assume that the givers of the food and blankets, and the formulators of the public policy which allows for such generosity, are drawn exclusively from that 10% of Italian Catholics who actually attend Sunday Mass. If we measure the success of the Diocese of Rome by the numbers of Catholics actually attending Mass, than we will have to conclude that they have done a very poor job indeed in passing on the Catholic faith. But, if you stand in Piazza Venezia some January midnight and watch the poor being fed and the homeless being sheltered, you might come to believe that you are in a city which takes the Gospel seriously. James Youniss, professor of Psychology at the Catholic University of America wrote an article LAST YEAR IN America magazine in which he challenged the opinion that Europe is post-Christian. He wrote about his recent journey to Germany. He wrote that he saw the far-reaching hand of Catholic ethics and social teaching in a country which appeared secular. " HOW DE-CHRISTIANIZED IS A NATION that respects employees' rights, provides health care for all citizens, assures financial security for its elderly, supports an ultramodern and efficient public transportation network, values family life, takes a respite from commercialism on Saturday afternoon and Sunday, educates its young with public funds, learns the languages of its neighbors, offers access for all its citizens to high culture, honors its natural parklands, recognizes the need to conserve the environment and has little violent crime, even in the heart of its largest cities? How de-Christianized is a nation that does not support capital punishment, welcomed the return of its Eastern relatives by treating them with dignity, struggled deliberately to create a democracy from a sordid fascist past and developed a corporate ethos that deliberately avoids greed and ostentation? How de-Christianized is a nation that willingly risked its economic superiority to join the European Union, whose elite continue to reflect on their national identity, and that did not repair its bombed and bullet-pocked churches and public buildings so that citizens would never forget the horrors of World War II? Christian principles are distinctive enough. They ought to be recognizable when one sees them." My own experience of estrangement I came to know that my own sins, rather than excluding me from the Catholic Church, were, in fact, my ticket home. I could never forget the simple truths which I had learned as a child. I began to understand what Saint Paul meant when he wrote that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. I always knew that I was a Catholic. I never felt less a Catholic for not going to Mass. From my parents and from the grace of my baptism, I knew that although I hugged my sins close, they were never my salvation. Salvation comes with humility and from the openness of heart that accepts its own weakness. I always knew that God’s generosity is greater than my resentments and grudges. I always knew that someday, I would be reconciled with the Church. I always knew that my pride and jealousy and anger and gluttony and lust and envy and sloth were wrong. Though I did these things, I never forgot that I was a Catholic. Perhaps I was a little like Augustine; “Make me chaste, O Lord, but not yet.” When I eventually walked back into the Church, it was not as a stranger, but as an heir coming for his heritage. The door had never been closed on me and I knew that it was my inheritance to reconcile with the Church. You see, I never intended to stay away for too long. Forgiveness was my birthright through sonship and by baptism, once I would be humble enough to ask for reconciliation. I realize now that God never walked too far away from me. Coming home to the Church has been a long journey and it is still a work in progress. That is why I am optimistic that so many good people who stay away from Mass and the Church’s sacraments are still close to God who loves them. A few years ago, I was driving along a country road in Ireland with a life-long friend. He goes to Mass occasionally, contributes to his parish and generally supports the Church in its stand on most issues. He is typical of my generation. As we passed a cemetery, he made the Sign of the Cross. I looked at him with a sarcastic smile that mocked the contradictions. I will always remember what he told me. “You priests are all the same. You think that we must do everything your way. I know who God is, I know who His Son is, and I know who His mother is too. So put that in your smartass pipe and smoke it.” That man is a Catholic, a disillusioned and lazy Catholic, but he is a member of the Body of Christ. Those who were not at Mass last Sunday may be there next Sunday, if we keep them in our prayers and if we do not trip them up as they seek truth. Maybe, if we who are visibly Churchgoers walk humbly with God, worship Him with hope and enthusiasm, and act with integrity, the dubious and the skeptical will be encouraged to come back and try again. Mass is the celebration of the return of the Lost Son, not the party conference for the card-carrying members.
I spent at least four years of my life estranged from my local Catholic priest and parish. I would sneak to Mass in another town whenever my work schedule permitted. Mr. Justice Scalia and many others might say that I was not a Catholic in those years. I beg to differ. During those years, feeling alienated from the official Church, I searched for Christ with greater fervor than ever. I came to realize that the hypocrisy of the pew-dwellers whom I mocked, and the pomposity and pride of the clergy whom I blamed, did not make the Church any less the Church founded by the apostles on the teaching of Jesus himself.