Читать книгу Being Catholic Today - Laurence McTaggart - Страница 6

Do not be afraid.

Isaiah 41:14

You may think this is a book, but it’s more a conversation. I’m not attempting to settle any of the problems of being a Catholic today, nor will I give any definitive account of what it means to be Catholic. Maybe those would be good things to do, but they are beyond any one person to achieve on his or her own. So, instead, I offer you one half of a conversation for you to react to as you wish. Parts you may like, and parts you may think are rubbish. Parts may even offend, in which case I ask your pardon as that was not my intention.

You may also think of things I have not talked about which matter to you very much. Treat, if you will, what follows as one Catholic trying to say what his faith is in today’s world. It is part of the human condition to be confused and challenged, by faith and by the life we lead. We also yearn for sense and for vision. To find it, we have to share with each other, without too much fear. In what follows, I am trying to share what sense I have made of life so far. Indeed, the Church is made up of a lot of very different people united by one hope, of finding God and staying with him. Let us enjoy each other’s company for a while, and then part, if not in agreement on everything, then at least having found a new friend with whom to talk.

Conversations often ramble, so feel free to move around and skip bits that don’t appeal to you. But a key point that I want to make is that the many problems we face in the Catholic Church have to be understood not just in the context of the faith, but as part of the faith. The problems are what it is to be Catholic today, part of a human community that needs the redemption of God, and that tries to celebrate it in our lives as best we can. So the first few chapters are about faith and the Catholic faith, and I hope they illuminate the later ones.

Just a word of thanks to some of the people who have encouraged me with this book: my father Andrew, Fr. Bede Leach, Madeleine Judd, Andrew and Nicola Higgins, Fr. Dominic Milroy, Mark Detre, Fr. Patrick Barry, Ed Walton, Anna Reid and Fr. Roger Barralet, to name just a few. None of us stands alone before God, and I am blessed in the people I have with me, and most of all in my mother, Violet, who has gone before to encourage.

The mistakes are all mine, of course. We all make mistakes, and that is what the Church is for: a place where we can go wrong in safety and in good company, sure of forgiveness.