Being Catholic Today
Subtitle: Faith, Doubt and Everyday Life. An inviting dialogue for exploring and understanding the Catholic faith today.Laurence McTaggart knows that many people have been hurt by the Catholic church, are confused by it or disagree with it. A Benedictine Monk, he aims to give a message of peace and reconciliation to those disaffected while encouraging other Catholics and those considering the faith.By exploring the Church’s teaching and the issues that arise from it, McTaggart presents a dialogue rather than a bombast of doctrine. While he tackles many subjects that have traditionally been taboo (such as suicide), his tone is sensitive and encouraging.
Читать Being Catholic Today онлайн беплатно
Being Catholic Today
Faith, Doubt and Everyday Life
Laurence McTaggart OSB
Element
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain in 2000 by Fount
Copyright © 2000 Laurence McTaggart
Laurence McTaggart asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Scripture quotations are taken from the Jerusalem Bible, © 1966 Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd and Doubleday
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Source ISBN: 9780007121793
Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780007404452 Version: 2016-02-25
for Dick and Marie-Thérèse Mardon with thanks and love
Table of Contents
Chapter 3 WILL GOD PUNISH YOU?
Chapter 8 HOW TO BE BAD AT PRAYER
Chapter 12 HOW TO DISAGREE WITH THE POPE
Do not be afraid.
Isaiah 41:14
You may think this is a book, but it’s more a conversation. I’m not attempting to settle any of the problems of being a Catholic today, nor will I give any definitive account of what it means to be Catholic. Maybe those would be good things to do, but they are beyond any one person to achieve on his or her own. So, instead, I offer you one half of a conversation for you to react to as you wish. Parts you may like, and parts you may think are rubbish. Parts may even offend, in which case I ask your pardon as that was not my intention.
You may also think of things I have not talked about which matter to you very much. Treat, if you will, what follows as one Catholic trying to say what his faith is in today’s world. It is part of the human condition to be confused and challenged, by faith and by the life we lead. We also yearn for sense and for vision. To find it, we have to share with each other, without too much fear. In what follows, I am trying to share what sense I have made of life so far. Indeed, the Church is made up of a lot of very different people united by one hope, of finding God and staying with him. Let us enjoy each other’s company for a while, and then part, if not in agreement on everything, then at least having found a new friend with whom to talk.
Conversations often ramble, so feel free to move around and skip bits that don’t appeal to you. But a key point that I want to make is that the many problems we face in the Catholic Church have to be understood not just in the context of the faith, but as part of the faith. The problems are what it is to be Catholic today, part of a human community that needs the redemption of God, and that tries to celebrate it in our lives as best we can. So the first few chapters are about faith and the Catholic faith, and I hope they illuminate the later ones.
Just a word of thanks to some of the people who have encouraged me with this book: my father Andrew, Fr. Bede Leach, Madeleine Judd, Andrew and Nicola Higgins, Fr. Dominic Milroy, Mark Detre, Fr. Patrick Barry, Ed Walton, Anna Reid and Fr. Roger Barralet, to name just a few. None of us stands alone before God, and I am blessed in the people I have with me, and most of all in my mother, Violet, who has gone before to encourage.
The mistakes are all mine, of course. We all make mistakes, and that is what the Church is for: a place where we can go wrong in safety and in good company, sure of forgiveness.
A bad day
Everything seemed to be going well. The train was on time, and I had a table to myself to spread out sandwiches and books. In fact, the carriage was almost empty, and mobile phones went off less than twice a minute. So why, I wondered, did he sit next to me?
‘Which parish are you from, Father?’
‘I’m a monk, actually.’
Of course he turns out to be a Catholic, so what else can we talk about?
