We live in an era when everyone is urged to ask questions. Don’t blindly accept statements or decisions at face value. Ask why, we are told.

In some ways that makes sense. We are able to make better informed judgments if we are in fact informed about the matter at hand. We are more able to make “our own” any judgment or guidance that is given to us from outside of ourselves if we are given the accompanying reasoning for it.

There is, however, a difference between asking questions in an effort to gain wisdom and an effort to discredit. When questions do not center on the search for the truth, they can simply become a search for what I decide I am willing to accept.

That danger is intensified by the modern tendency toward skepticism, skepticism directed particularly toward two entities: institutions and the past. Our current national dialogue is constantly skeptical of the institutions, especially the large institutions that surround us. Think of the distrust that we hear in rhetoric about big government, Wall Street, large corporations or “the bureaucracy” wherever we find it.

The fact is, in this world broken by sin, some collective entities, though subject to the frailties of human nature, will always be characterized by good if they strive for it. It is also the nature of such entities that they will at times conflict with, or even supersede the freedom of individuals. Our democracy was constructed through our Constitution in an attempt to address precisely this problem.

Similarly, our age has a strong tendency to distrust the past, and specifically what has been learned from the wisdom of experience. There is a contemporary view that because of the expansion of science and the supposed progress of humanity, of which we in the current age are the highpoint, we think we see and understand better ourselves, each other and the world.

These tensions and contemporary mindsets challenge not only society but our Catholic faith as well.

How often have we heard someone say, “Why do I need the Church? If I am a good person why can I not simply pray directly to God, avoid the inconvenience of confession by telling Him I’m sorry in my thoughts, and just not worry about all the teachings and moral duties required of being a member of the Church?”

Of course such reasoning applies to our faith and so many of those modern conceptions. For example, I decide for myself what makes a good person (and rarely does it not apply to me already). Further, the Church is, as part of her reality, a large institution. And so we can apply that sense of suspicion. And is there any other body or group that so treasures the accumulated wisdom of centuries of faith?

In response, the Scriptures tell us that Jesus did not come to save us as individuals. He came to gather the nations into the peace of God’s kingdom as we pray in the penitential rite of the Mass. Christ as the Good Shepherd gathers the flock of us, the faithful. We need to cooperate in being gathered. And by being together, we draw strength from others and we support them as well.

Jesus placed Peter at the head of those gathered, not as a figure of power, but as Christ’s instrument to strengthen Peter’s brothers and sisters after his own embarrassing fall. Pope Francis continues in that role for all of us in our day.

Jesus gave to the Church the power to forgive or to hold bound sins. He wants us to seek His infinite and enduring pardon in this means through the Church and through the priests.

Jesus also promised to send the Holy Spirit upon the Church to guide us in every age. And so wisdom and experience will be accumulated. We will find it, even through her sometimes frail humanity, in the Church.

As Catholics, we love the Church. We do so because Christ founded her, He guides her and uses her for our good. We come to her to be gathered and to conform ourselves to Jesus and to the truth of eternal life.

Why do we need the Church? Because she is Jesus’ gift to us!