Why Be Catholic? by Patrick Madrid

Author:Patrick Madrid
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307986436
Publisher: Crown Publishing
Published: 2014-06-03T06:00:00+00:00

I was eighteen when Cardinal Karol Wojtyla was elected the 264th pope in 1978, and I clearly remember the shock and anticipation we all felt when it was announced that we had a Polish pope. The Catholic Church was then still in the depths of the confusion and craziness, especially liturgical, that seemed to have swept over every parish like a dust storm. Many priests and nuns had abandoned their vocations in the preceding decade. Laypeople were woefully uncatechized, and many even anti-catechized by those who preached serious errors in the name of the ever-ambiguous, though pleasant-sounding “spirit of Vatican II.” The use of contraception among married Catholic couples (not to mention singles) skyrocketed, Mass attendance and vocations plummeted, and the Catholic Church in America became more or less mired in the morass of a bland, beige, innocuous caricature of its former self. A culture of dissent from Catholic teaching was prevalent, resulting in an effete American Catholicism that had lost its way every bit as much as it had lost its vigor.38

The inertia began to change when Pope John Paul II stepped into the picture. It didn’t change immediately, nor did his long pontificate (twenty-six and a half years) correct all, or even most, of the problems and malaise Catholicism faced in the West, but he did do a tremendous amount toward nudging the Catholic Church back on course. His indefatigable willingness to travel to foreign countries, bringing the Gospel of Jesus personally to countless millions of Catholics and non-Catholics around the world, was impressive. It commanded attention. He commanded attention, even from dictators, atheists, and playboy presidents. He personally helped bring down the Iron Curtain and topple the godless Communist Soviet Union.39 Pope John Paul II was certainly not perfect, no pope has been, but he was a great man with a powerful intellect and a voracious desire for speaking about Jesus Christ and his Blessed Mother to a world that desperately needed hope and peace, and to a faltering Catholic Church that badly needed to be picked up, dusted off, and cheered up. This he did well and faithfully to the end of his days. It is no surprise to me that was canonized a saint on April 27, 2014.

For me, the papacy with all its ups and downs, dark chapters and bright triumphs, is a strong proof that the Catholic Church was established by Christ: it has remained intact and vital for nearly two thousand years in spite of every challenge that has come against it, including that of bad popes, weak popes, and incompetent popes. But I thank God for the many good and holy popes the Church has been blessed with, up to and including Blessed John Paul II ,Benedict XVI, and Francis. They are good men doing a crushingly difficult and perilous job, and from beginning to end, it is the power of Christ that bears them up, just as he bore Simon Peter up as he swung his legs out over the side of the fishing boat and miraculously began to walk on water.

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