Catholic and Loving it!

The great G.K. Chesterton wrote a book called "What's wrong with the World". I haven't read it. I'm not sure I need to. There's plenty enough wrong with me to last a lifetime, let alone the world. However, humanity is fallen and it is humanity Christ came to save.

The short answer to the question "What's wrong with the World?" is this: "Sin". Short though it is, that answer is about as much use on it's own as saying "What's wrong with my car?", "Broken". We know the car is broken or we wouldn't be asking what is wrong with it. We know there is sin in the world, the question we really wan't to ask is this: "What can we do to fix what is wrong with the world."

Here's the bad news. We can't.

We can't fix what is wrong with the world. We can't design a system of government that will eliminate corruption or a financial market that will make all trade fair. We can't design a school syllabus that will make every child succeed or a system of catechesis that will innoculate people against atheism. Here's the controversial part: Even though Benedict XVI is a better pope than John Paul II (you take that back you fiend!) he cannot stop the decay. He can't put things right.

We can't even fix ourselves on our own. The pelagian heresy reckoned human beings could work their way in to heaven. It's not true.

When I was in primary school I was told (or at least this is what I heard) that the world worked like this. If you do good things you go to heaven. If you do bad things you don't. It's a message I hear again and again in popular culture. We've all heard jokes about people approaching the pearly gates where St. Peter has his lists of sins and decides whether to let you in based on if you have been well behaved. Joke's like that wouldn't work if you had to explain it (before I tell this joke I want you to just pretend for a moment that people can work their way in to heaven by being good). This belief is so thoroughly engrained even in many long-serving Catholic's that if you say "I think you are wrong to do that" the response can often be something like "Are you saying I will go to hell for it?".

You don't need to do anything to "go to hell for it". We've all done enough already. The fact is that, you, me, them, everybody, everybody has sinned. Has rebelled against God. Has said in their heart "God won't like this but it's what I want". Based on how we have lived every one of us is going to go before God and he is going to say "Ha! No chance". Unless... (and this is our only hope) What if God said "I forgive you".

This is the biggest secret in Christianity. Every man and his dog knows that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a baby called Elvis. How many people know that there is no such thing as being "good enough to go to heaven". So what's the biggest secret?

We are all shits.

Now try convincing your parish priest to put that on a poster...