Many times practicing Catholics ask me what they should do about family members or friends, sometimes even children, who no longer practice the Catholic faith. Pew Research Center never tires of reminding us that after practicing Catholics and Baptists, the third largest group of Christians in the United States is former Catholics. And then there are those, of goodwill to be sure, who want the Church to be reformed not according to what was laid down by the Son of God, but according to what they, the sons of men, think. It is sometimes difficult for us to know where the truth lies and it helps usually to go back to basics, as they say, and see what our faith teaches.
The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that faith is a “theological virtue” (n. 385). That same Compendium tells us what the theological virtues are:
“The theological virtues have God himself as their origin, motive and direct object. Infused with sanctifying grace, they bestow on one the capacity to live in a relationship with the Trinity. They are the foundation and the energizing force of the Christian’s moral activity and they give life to the human virtues. They are the pledge of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in the faculties of the human being” (n. 384).
When we are in the state of grace, free of grave or mortal sin, faith founds our relationship with God through Christ in the Holy Spirit. “And without faith, it is impossible to please God” (Heb 11:6, NRSV).
I have written before and do now again repeat that faith thus described is a gift of God. We cannot earn it; it comes through baptism and sanctifying grace. We can, in the trite modern phrase, use it (that is, strengthen it) or lose it. Once we lose it, it does not have to be given back. So that gives practicing Catholics the answer to the dilemma that they face.
To people who enjoy criticizing the pope, the priests and the Church, we have the beautiful statement from von Balthasar: “Only those who follow the Church have a sure guarantee for the fact that, in their obedience to Christ they have not really followed just their own know-it-all wisdom.” We carry our faith in earthen vessels (2 Cor 4:7) as the Scripture says. Like a child playing with the crockery or nervous people juggling eggs, we are worried. Take chances and breakage occurs and with it, disaster. This, of course, does not mean that all we do is pray, pay and obey. At the end of The Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius gives “rules for thinking with the Church,” and it is his doctrine and his spirit that I invoke here. The Church is our Holy Mother. The Mother of Christ aside, there are no perfect mothers. Our Holy Mother the Church has faults to be sure and those faults must be pointed out lovingly and remedied by her children. She does not deserve, however, to be vilified and smeared by them. What about those who leave the practice and profession of the faith? Surely the gift of faith they once had is now lost to them. If without the faith it is impossible to please God, whom else do they please? That is the danger!
How do we rescue those who have thus put themselves in jeopardy from the dangers they face? You know the first and best answer: supplicatory prayer to God to help them, and invoking the Blessed Mother and the saints to pray for them. People of exceptional humility, knowledge and tact can sometimes gently persuade such people to act in their own best interest, but we have to remember that where the grace of faith is not present, the enemy is, and his timeless and invincible weapon is pride, the cause of his damnation and that of others.
It is occasionally possible, however, to suggest to apostates that no matter how public or clamorous their exit from the faith may be, reentry and reconciliation are as quiet and as private as the Redeemer could make them. Absolution from crimes, profession of faith and absolution from sin can be accomplished in whispers at confession and it is done. There is something in the personality of Christ in the Gospels that causes us to know that He never gives up. Even a scintilla, a spark or a flicker of sorrow for sin can easily be fanned into the flame of repentance, true contrition and amendment.
Many things terrify many of us: financial insecurity, illness and dangers of every kind. Many people have phobias: spiders, snakes and rodents. One thing that makes me shudder is when people tell me, “I don’t go to confession; I don’t like it, I don’t want it and I don’t need it.” Even in the stone-cold heart of the worst apostate, there is sometimes a remnant of sorrow, a memory of forgiveness of sin long since passed. That is a sign that Christ has not forgotten. Priests who are “at home” hearing confessions will tell you that sometimes what seemed utterly lost is astonishingly redeemed. Confession can conquer the braggadocio even of the most post-Vatican-II infallible Catholic critic.