The article ‘Beautiful Little Pagans’ resonated very strongly with me. Over the years I have asked many family members and friends about their drift away from the Church. Overwhelmingly the answer has been that they are no longer really sure that they believe either in God or in life after death. So why continue going to church? So they stopped going and the sky didn’t fall, and they all continue to be beautiful good people.
So what is going on here? We have all done our best to ensure the faith of the next generation, but it has not happened. The first inclination is to try and find the cause, whether it be the institutional church, the lure of a materialist world or even the better education that we all have these days. After all, we are being trained to think more rigorously and to seek knowledge in place of belief.
And of course, there are the new atheists. The old atheists quietly kept their beliefs to themselves. The new ones are more than happy to come out of the closet, and in effect giving everyone else permission to express their doubts about belief in God and religion as well.
Doubting, questioning, and searching to see if there is really something in the cosmic nothingness is not encouraged by the Church. Yet this is something we are all individually called to do, whenever questions about the meaning of life come up. Yes, the Big Questions. Is there a God? Is there life after death? How do I find the answers to these questions? How do I live? What should I strive for? Is there any meaning or purpose to life? There is no easy answer in the blind acceptance or rejection of a set of religious beliefs. As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke said, we need to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms; to live the questions, in the hope of one day finding an answer. And of course, as Jesus said, ‘Knock and the door will be opened’.
Such questions find neither a theological nor a philosophical answer. They trigger a search for truth that has led many Catholics out of Catholicism and into other religions. Among inter-faith contacts right here in Sydney, I have met ex-Catholics among Buddhists, Sufis, Hare Krishnas and followers of other Indian gurus. What I have noticed among these groups is that they all seek a much more immediate experience of that reality at the core of all life, and that this is the focus of their spiritual practices. They are not content to wait for some paradise at the end of life.
Are we missing something?