Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
The Perilous Trail Through the Culture of Death and Deception

The Perilous Trail Through the Culture of Death and Deception

Last updated on: August 10, 2015 at 8:16 pm by Jennifer Fitz

The Perilous Trail Through the Culture of Death and Deception 2015-08-10T20:16:13-05:00 Jennifer Fitz

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Catholic faith is difficult to believe.

Oh sure, we can give assent to the parts that come naturally to us. We each have our natural gifts in that area — some of us glom onto theology, others to kindness and generosity, others to asceticism. Add to that a bit of struggle, a bit of overcoming, and we arrive at the riskiest moment: The moment when we think ourselves Catholic.

Think of it like climbing a mountain. If you go hard enough for long enough, you can reach a summit of sorts, a place that looks like the top. It might be. Or perhaps if only you’d turn around, or wait for the clouds to blow off, or wander through the trees to the other side of the ridge, you’d realize you weren’t at the top at all.

If you are tired enough, standing there on that lower ledge, the temptation is to declare the hike over. To announce the rest of the way is so impossibly steep we can’t possibly be meant to ascend it. In mountaineering that’s all well and good: Enjoy your lunch and go back home. In the spiritual life, though, we can’t settle for the picnic. We need to be honest with ourselves about how far we still have to go, or at least honest in admitting we aren’t sure what’s next — but that there might be something.

***

Christopher Tollefsen writes here about the connection between nuclear warfare and dishonesty, and if you don’t already read at Public Discourse, it’s a habit worth cultivating. He writes from a philosopher’s standpoint. Brad Warthen writes about his ambivalence about Hiroshima from Joe Pewsitter’s unsettled perspective:

But I can’t say “Thank God for the Atom Bomb,” either. Not because I think the bombing of either Hiroshima or Nagasaki was particularly egregious. After all, the previous firebombing of Tokyo was worse. But that very context — the fact that the bombing of population centers was taken for granted by both sides as an acceptable strategy — is the thing that bothers me, a lot.

Whom are we willing to destroy in order to win?

***

The culture that won World War II was a culture of victory at any price. Not to win was unthinkable, and understandably. The stakes were extraordinary, the menace all-consuming. What it did to us, though, was make us a people who considered it acceptable to knowingly slaughter innocent civilians, if that was the price of winning.

The cloud of victory is a hard one to blow off our cultural ridge. We imagine the alternatives and shudder. It is impossible, we think, that we could have done anything other. We have counted the cost of just warfare and deemed it too high. Unpayable. We are determined that the rules of the game must be something else. Something more palatable. Something that is less of a crucifixion — and World War II did not lack for crucifixions.

***

Temporal Victory is a bloodthirsty god. Not content with bodies, she asks for souls as well. Because we so desperately hunger to win, we have become a people who resort to lying at every turn.

The culture of deception is so firmly fixed now that not deceiving is the unthinkable thing. How easily do we lie? Let us count the ways:

To avoid giving offense or hurting feelings;
To prevent an argument;
To avoid passing on bad news;
To escape punishment;
To detect crime;
To deflect injustice.

Lying is our go-to solution to nearly any situation that can be resolved by a handy bit of deception. We love it so much we delight in stories of trickery and false identities, now a stock part of some genres of entertainment. We have difficulty imagining that many of our deception-based tactics could be replaced by any other alternative. We certainly can’t imagine taking the risk of losing, of truly suffering, if a little lie could have saved us.

It is unthinkable. We have determined that lying is not in fact a sin. It is not evil. It’s a tool in the toolbox, perhaps not to be wielded indiscriminately, but certainly meant to be used when the occasion warrants.

***

Shaking off this attachment is as foreign to us as shaking off our own skin. Indeed, we cling to lying as a necessity because we value our skin, and we value the skin of others. Like all the other sins, we are on a quest for the good thing that the sin promises us.

***

The argument in favor of lying or nuclear warfare consists of this: So you want us to lose, then?

Ending World War II was a good thing. Exposing the atrocities at Planned Parenthood is a good thing.

We can be in favor of an end to war and an end to abortion, and even celebrate the good that results from dubious means, and still doubt those means. We can observe that lying is wrong without therefore saying that lying about your professional affiliations is just as wrong as killing innocent children.

But let us assume, for the sake of argument, that some of these sins are mere venial sins.

Venial sins are not lipstick and cotton candy. Venial sins, as the St. Joseph’s Baltimore Catechism reminds us, are worse than the measles. Do you want something worse than the measles clinging to your eternal soul?

No, you do not.

***

It is a terrifying thing, being a saint. We stand on the ridge, and we know how hard the climb has been thus far, and we look up and see the impossible wall looming over us, and we know defeat when we see it. It is no exaggeration to say the climb will kill us.

The temptation is to look for the the easier way around — not necessarily easy, but at least not impossible.

To be a saint is to look up at the impossible thing, and know it is the way we need to go, and to let God take us there.

Artwork:

The Annunciation, Domenico di Pace Beccafumi [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

It's All Catholic

Stick that Corner

Suffering

Previous Post

August 8, 2015

Three Bad Arguments You Should Stop Using Right Now

Next Post

August 11, 2015 Good Cause: Help a Catholic Lotsa Mom Through Chemotherapy

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Books Catechesis Catholic Q&A Chastity Church Craziness Come See Me Talk Disability & Chronic Illness Economics Evangelization Facepalm Forgiveness Good Things History Homeschooling Human Rights It's All Catholic Listen to Me Survey Series Liturgical Living Marriage Modesty Not Satire. But almost. Rant-o-Rama Sacred Art & Music Satire South Carolina Spark Clutter Stick that Corner Suffering Thinking Topics Writing Stuff

Select a Month September 2026 July 2026 June 2026 January 2026 December 2025 September 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 November 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 May 2019 April 2019 February 2019 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What was a biblical measurement of a span?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Half a cubit Full cubit Third of a cubit Quarter cubit