Chapter One

KNOW YOU ARE IN A WAR

[Jesus:] “In the evening you say, ‘Tomorrow will be fair, for the sky is red’; and, in the morning, ‘Today will be stormy, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to judge the appearance of the sky, but you cannot judge the signs of the time.” (Matthew 16:2–3)

It has become rather obvious that something is wrong. The United States of America and the Catholic Church are in crisis. The word crisis pops up everywhere: economic crisis; health care crisis; vocations crisis; sex abuse crisis . . . the list goes on and on. However, these crises are not the root of the problem. The real problem is an identity crisis: As a nation and as a Church, we’ve forgotten our story and forgotten our mission. Central to knowing that you are in a war is knowing what you are fighting for and what you are defending. If you don’t have a mission or a goal, then you won’t see anything as a threat.

A DIVIDED CHURCH

As Catholics, we can’t help but notice all the recent news articles and bad press about our Church. It is disheartening to read about sex abuse scandals, the decrease in vocations, empty pews, and young people walking away from the faith because they don’t feel welcome. It is discouraging to hear that many Christians don’t even consider Catholics to be Christians.

In college, I dated a wonderful young lady for several months. However, after learning I was Catholic, she seemed genuinely concerned and began to question my faith. Our relationship eventually ended because I am Catholic. Unfortunately, her perception of the Catholic Church was like that of countless other Christians. She saw Catholics as people who go through the motions, who don’t have any real relationship with Jesus, who worship saints and Mary, who give too much power to Church authority, who abuse children, who don’t welcome others at church, who drink way too much, and who give priests the power to forgive sins so people can sin as much as they want and then go to confession to wipe the slate clean. To her, Catholics focus on doing meaningless things to save themselves and don’t believe they can be saved by faith alone. I must admit, her false perception was not all her fault. As Catholics we sometimes earn that reputation.

I don’t think I’ve ever met a Christian who disagreed with Catholic teaching; I’ve only met Christians who have vastly misunderstood it. Their objections seem to be not with the supposed faults of the Church, but with the actual sins of her people. They misunderstand the faith because most Catholics neither live their faith nor, for that matter, even understand it themselves. In college, I remember meeting Christians of other denominations who seemed enthusiastic about God, but I felt hesitant mentioning I was Catholic. Subconsciously, I suppose, I feared what they would think of me, even though I personally love everything about my Catholic faith. I didn’t like to admit to that fear, but it was there.

With more than one billion Catholics on the planet, many people are born into Catholic families.2 They are Catholic by name and usually baptized Catholic as infants, but for many of them that’s as far as they get. Most Catholics disagree with at least one aspect of their Church. They may identify themselves as Catholic and occasionally go through the rituals of Mass, but have little knowledge o