Guide to catholicism
An Intelligent Person's Guide to Catholicism ReviewIn Alban McCoy's book, he tries to point out and answer all the questions about religion, God, and all that seems to exist in the Catholic religion. He gives a very strong account of religion in an interesting way, a way that was thought of by no other.Sloth, Alban McCoy points out, is often concealed by workaholism. Since sloth consists in spiritual inactivity, it is quite compatible with rushing around doing things all the time. And, in workaholism, sloth finds useful allies among the other deadly sins: the motivation of covetousness; the angry denunciations of others who do not reach our own high standards; the energetic undermining of the good names of competitors prompted by envy. I mention sloth because the approach to it here is a pleasant surprise, and because it is one of the many indicators that this is no predictable introduction to the Catholic faith. By including a section on the seven deadly sins, Fr McCoy feels that there is much to be gained, by way of facing up to the reality of the human nature we all share. Certainly his worn-out discussion of the deadly sins will be of great value to experienced C
While many insist on strict relativism, among the religions of the world, Catholic Christianity asserts that Jesus Christ is God, and not only do we find that 'the Church acknowledges the presence of God and his grace and providence throughout his creation. Similarly persuasive is Fr McCoy's treatment of covetousness and the virtue of chastity, which illustrates convincingly how Catholic Christian teaching is the only way to deal with the frustrated melancholy that consumerist and sexually trivialized Western culture tends to induce. This, we read, is, as Aquinas observed, the fruit of the pursuit of happiness. And, after all, as Fr McCoy mentions, virtue ethics were the attitude generally assumed by moral philosophers from the time of Aristotle to the early sixteenth century. I am not sure I am convinced by this argument. Original sin, moral evil and physical evil are the very stuff of this broken world, for which Catholicism proposes redemption; if Jesus is the Savior, it is this which we are to be saved from. On the contrary, the death of Jesus on the Cross is the problem and answer at the same time. Or, earlier in the book, we are reminded that the distance between mankind and God is bridged not by knowledge but by love - his love for us. On every page of this book there is something arresting or an insight that is not easily available elsewhere. 'God is not offended by anything we do', writes Fr McCoy, 'except those things that harm us. Nevertheless, while Fr McCoy repeatedly asserts God's unknowable transcendence, he stresses as strongly the value of the human intellect in exploring the things of God. Historically, Christians were convinced that the faith they had received was both a reasonable conviction: that it was able to stand its own ground in the context of rational and humane argument; and that it was a conviction that was communicable. For an intelligent non-Catholic - and perhaps one who is ready and able to follow up some of the references that can hardly be familiar - this book could change a life. It is not to be attempted by the un-intelligent or the uninformed.
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