Friday, August 14, 2009

Ahlquist - Fear of the Catholic Church

From a book I admire, Dale Ahlquist's The Apostle of Common Sense, comes Ahlquist's commentary on Chesterton:
The real reasons that prevent people from becoming Catholic are not the lies about the Catholic Church but, rather, the truth about it. There is a fear, not of the vices of the Church, but of its virtues. For example, the fear of the confessional. A religion that has, as one of its foundations, the confessing of sins is a religion that deals in truth. The fear of course is unfounded, for the penitent finds that the confessional is a place of mercy and gigantic generosity. Still, a very real fear remains of the Church's reality. This is a Church that tells us clearly to whom we are responsible and for what. The rest of the world finds such clarity not just uncomfortable, but frightening ... That fear can be most intense when we know the facts rather than the falsehoods, and we know that the last step is entirely up to us.

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