Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Calling All Questions (and Topics)

It's been a while since I've put out a call for questions -- whatever you have on your mind that you want to ask about when it comes to the Catholic Faith. So feel free to fire away and post them as a comment to this post.
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3 comments:

Caroline said...

I have a question, its kind of random but you are the only one who probably knows the answer :)
Why in the Catholic faith do we believe that we can not talk to God directly, and that we need the Pope to help us talk to God?

1:10 AM
mcm said...

Caroline,

Thank you for asking your question. They are always welcome here!

It is actually not true to say that Catholics cannot talk directly to God. In fact, I always tried to make it a point of emphasis on retreats that God is MADLY in love with you and DESPERATELY wants to be in a personal relationship WITH you. The Pope has little do with this relationship or your personal prayer. You have a direct line to God whenever, however you want. Christians usually imagine Christ as the mediator of that relationship, helping us connect with God who is hard for us to imagine (since God is not really "he" or "she" or an old man with a beard sitting on a cloud somewhere). And because Jesus taught us to pray (the "Our Father"), we have all we need -- even without the pope.

Where the pope comes in is giving us a single line of continuity all the way back to the first disciples. This is actually one of the reasons I love being Catholic. Our faith isn't some random group of people who decide for ourselves who or what God is or wants from us. We know -- over the course of the last 2,000 years -- that our faith is connected back to the first 12 men who followed Jesus. 10 of the 11 (since we don't really count Judas in that equation) DIED for the faith, in the name of Christ, so we know they were deeply committed to defending this story we call Christianity. That gives me certainty that this faith was concocted as some kind of conspiracy theory long ago. These men were convinced that Jesus was God -- no small claim for monotheistic Jews.

Those disciples ordained the men who would carry on the Gospel after them, and ever since then -- for two hundred decades -- men continue to be ordained in this same line of the "apostolic tradition." The pope leads this collection of bishops and speaks to all the faithful to help us along our journey of faith. But the pope does not "help us talk to God." In fact, if anything, it's the opposite: the pope helps us know what God wants from us. The Vatican draws on the careful study and prayer the church has been doing for the past 2,000 years to help make our faith easier to understand and actually live. It brings me great comfort to know that I am not alone in trying to figure out this journey. We are in this together, just as Catholics have been for thousands of years, connected all the way back to the first followers of Christ.

A great question. Thank you for asking it. I hope my response makes sense.

1:30 AM
Allison and Jared said...

Marc! Just found your blog.... I'm enjoying reading it!

Hope all is well!

7:07 PM

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