“Peter O’Toole,” I responded.

“Thanks,” he said. “You’re right.”

I don’t have a keen understanding of much. I am useless with numbers, geography, history, or anything that can be construed as valuable. But I do know pop culture. And I understand how it affects the culture at large. Television, film, music, podcasts, and YouTube color (and in some cases discolor) our faith lives significantly. As a magazine, we want to address that in ways that better serve you, our readers.

This month you’ll see a few significant changes. “Media Matters” is now called “Culture,” and the content therein looks a bit different. We still have Sister Rose Pacatte’s film column, “Reel Time,” which will appear every month, but the rest of the content will rotate. Some months we’ll feature streaming television and music; other months we’ll evaluate podcasts and TED talks and best-selling books. The aim of this new section is to inspire you to stretch your legs and explore the world of culture.

Many of us spend more time listening to audiobooks and podcasts, or watching YouTube or television, than we do in church. We feel it is our responsibility to help you navigate some of those waters. We are, after all, in this together.

In honor of St. Francis of Assisi, pets from around the country receive a blessing this month—as well as confirmation for their owners that all of God’s creatures are cherished and beloved.

This time of year, people in various places may notice something odd. A procession of animals, everything from dogs and cats to hamsters and even horses, is led to churches for a special ceremony called the Blessing of Pets. This custom is conducted in remembrance of Saint Francis of Assisi’s love for all creatures.

Francis, whose feast day is October 4th, loved the larks flying about his hilltop town. He and his early brothers, staying in a small hovel, allowed themselves to be displaced by a donkey. Francis wrote a Canticle of the Creatures, an ode to God’s living things. “All praise to you, Oh Lord, for all these brother and sister creatures.” And there was testimony in the cause for Saint Clare of Assisi’s canonization that referred to her little cat!

That there are today over 62 million cats in the U.S. attests to the continuing affection we have for our furry, feathered or finned friends. We’ve even had a cat called Socks in the White House. Other popular presidential pets range from Abraham Lincoln’s Fido to Lyndon Johnson’s beagles, named Him and Her.

For single householders, a pet can be a true companion. Many people arrive home from work to find a furry friend overjoyed at their return. Many a senior has a lap filled with a purring fellow creature.

The bond between person and pet is like no other relationship, because the communication between fellow creatures is at its most basic. Eye-to-eye, a man and his dog, or a woman and her cat, are two creatures of love.

At Franciscan churches, a friar with brown robe and white cord often welcomes each animal with a special prayer. The Blessing of Pets usually goes like this:

“Blessed are you, Lord God, maker of all living creatures. You called forth fish in the sea, birds in the air and animals on the land. You inspired Saint Francis to call all of them his brothers and sisters. We ask you to bless this pet. By the power of your love, enable it to live according to your plan. May we always praise you for all your beauty in creation. Blessed are you, Lord our God, in all your creatures! Amen.”

As the prayer is offered, the pet is gently sprinkled with holy water. Believe it or not, most pets receive this sacramental spritz with dignity, though I must admit I have seen some cats flatten their ears a bit as the drops of water lightly pelt them.

But the owner is happy, and who knows what spiritual benefits may result?

Usually the Blessing of Pets is held outdoors. But I remember it rained one year, and all were invited inside St. Stephen’s Church in Manhattan. It was quite a sight to see pairs of creatures—one human, one animal—sitting in the pews. The pastor joined right in with his beagle. Noah’s Ark was never like this!

Some people criticize the amount and cost of care given to pets. People are more important, they say. Care for poor people instead of poodles. And certainly our needy fellow humans should not be neglected.

However, I believe every creature is important. The love we give to a pet, and receive from a pet, can draw us more deeply into the larger circle of life, into the wonder of our common relationship to our Creator.

Learn more about pet blessings!

Marie Kondo has helped people declutter their possessions. How can we apply her tactics to our spiritual lives?

As anyone who has ever tried to tame the chaos in the garage or sort through last season’s clothing knows, imposing order on our lives is no easy task. And evidently, it’s not one we do well.

A quick Google search for “home organization” suggests a disturbing conclusion—that people across the globe suffer from an epidemic of disorder and are awash in endless clutter. The roughly 3.5 billion results include everything from quick and easy tidying tips for the home and self-storage rental facilities to bins, baskets, shelving, and professional organization services.

Clearly, our interest in decluttering has become more than just a passing fancy during our spring-cleaning routines. It’s become a revolutionary way of life. And much of this is thanks to Marie Kondo. Organizing consultant, author, and one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” in 2015, Marie Kondo has become to the organizing industry what the Beatles are to music. Her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up was an instant best seller, she has her own TV series on Netflix, and her method of organization is now named for her: “KonMari.”

But why this obsession with tidying up? I believe the real reason the KonMari Method has resonated with so many people is that underneath all the modern tips for clutter combat is the ancient wisdom that people of faith have celebrated for millennia. A closer look at Kondo’s advice can be a great reminder of several essential spiritual truths.

Remember Your Purpose

The now-famous question Kondo says we should ask ourselves about every item we own is, “Does it spark joy?” At first glance, it can seem silly to question whether a pair of socks or a baseball cap or a can opener brings me joy, but there is a hidden genius to it. It’s another way of asking ourselves, “Why?” Why do I have three can openers, one of which doesn’t even work?

Are the two I don’t use fulfilling their intended purpose by sitting idly in the drawer? Remembering our purpose is exactly what Catholics do every time we go to Mass. Celebrating the Eucharist reminds us of our purpose as members of the body of Christ. And reminders are important. It’s easy to get caught up in believing our purpose in life is a function of the things we do: earning a living, raising a family, pursuing an interest.

While our real purpose may involve those things, there’s something deeper at the heart of it all. Jesus was crystal clear about “remembering our purpose” when asked about the greatest commandment “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:37–39).

Let it Go

If any item we own doesn’t bring us joy, then Kondo believes we need to give it to someone who can find joy in its use or throw it away. We should not keep things simply because they used to fulfill their purpose or might do so one day in the future.

And those of us who have ever donated a big load of used clothing to charity or pitched tons of useless items out on junk day know that it feels so good. Any time we get rid of things that no longer serve their purpose, we feel freer and lighter in a nearly physical sense. Catholics have a beautiful way of getting rid of spiritual clutter: the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We don’t need to tell our sins to a priest to be forgiven or for God to love us again. God never stopped loving us, and divine forgiveness is always available. We do it because it helps us let go of the internal junk that weighs us down—otherwise known as sin.

By “throwing away” our selfishness and lack of compassion, we create space for love. In the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus draws a powerful image of how we can “let it go” through God’s forgiveness: Remember your purpose. Let it go.“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself ” (Mt 22:37‚ 39). “While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him” (Lk 15:20).

Deal with It

Kondo says that the typical way we tidy up the house— room by room—is all wrong. Instead, she believes that it’s best to tackle the task by category. If I start by organizing all the books in my study, then I need to keep working on the books in the rest of my house: the cookbooks in the kitchen, my nighttime reading in the bedroom, the joke books in the bathroom. Why? When we clean by room, it’s too easy to push things we find there into another room that’s not yet organized.

The books from my study that really should be given away end up on an untidy shelf in the living room. The same tendency is true in our spiritual lives. The easiest way to deal with the parts of ourselves that aren’t strong and beautiful is to avoid dealing with them at all. It’s easy to push them into some other corner of my soul or psyche where I don’t have to acknowledge them.

But like other untreated wounds, they can become infected and cause greater damage down the road. Jesus advised his disciples to “deal with it ” when it comes to our sins and suffering: “If you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Mt 5:23‚ 24).

Make it Right

Before Marie Kondo, most of us had never thought about what inanimate objects might “feel.” After all, it seems strange to wonder how my sweater feels about being balled up in the corner of my closet. Frustrated? Hurt? Or how my photo albums feel about being covered in dust. Neglected? Depressed? But Kondo believes that we should consider such things because in a very real sense we have a relationship with each item that we own.

In fact, he frustrated many of the religious leaders of the time because he didn’t care much about the inflexible rituals and restrictive purity codes that were so important to them. Instead, he preached a Gospel of love and compassion.

When the Pharisees criticized him because his disciples were eating without engaging in the usual cleanliness rituals, he mocked them about their inability to “make it right”: “How well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition!” (Mk 7:9).

Give it Space

Perhaps the most quoted line from Kondo’s work next to her question about “joy” is her advice to “fold, don’t hang.” She says that folding clothes and placing them front to back in drawers is far superior to hanging them in a closet. It makes it easier to see each item when selecting what to wear, and it gives our clothing space to breathe. After all, the whole purpose of tidying up is to create space.

Folding rather than hanging our clothes is a lot like praying rather than worrying about our lives. Worrying crowds our minds with endless, fretful chatter and our hearts with resentment and anxiety. But prayer creates space. It makes room for our hearts to grow in love and compassion. Taking time apart from our daily routines to simply be in God’s presence helps us to see ourselves, others, and our life circumstances in a clearer light. It’s no coincidence that Jesus had to “give it space” just before he made his critical choice of the Twelve Apostles: “He departed to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God” (Lk 6:12).

Jesus respected the diverse backgrounds of his listeners. Today the Catholic Church is embracing a much wider range of cultures.

“Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature,” Jesus told his apostles (Mk 16:15). Christianity has been doing that ever since, always with a widening sense of how to bring the Gospel to people of different cultures—all created and loved by a God who wishes to share divine life with us.

Unfortunately, Catholic and other Christian missionaries have sometimes been more influenced by their cultural assumptions than by the Gospel they have been commissioned to preach—to evangelize first and then perhaps “civilize.” They have failed to appreciate how much a new culture could teach them about the Gospel they thought they completely understood.

This month the Catholic Church is celebrating Extraordinary Missionary Month on a theme chosen by Pope Francis: “Baptized and Sent: The Church of Christ on Mission in the World.”

November marks the 100th anniversary of “Maximum Illud ” (“That Momentous Task”), Pope Benedict XV’s apostolic exhortation refocusing the Catholic Church’s missionary evangelization.

Although addressed to the Catholic Church, this document has many implications for all Christian denominations facing similar challenges in helping the Gospel take root in a wide variety of cultures. “Maximum Illud” occurred after World War I and the Treaty of Versailles (June 28, 1919); both events profoundly affected the world in which the good news was to be shared.

In varying degrees, all the mainline Christian denominations are much more a “world Church” now than they were in November 1919. Ecumenical and interfaith relations are also generally more positive than they were in 1919.

Changing Demographics

In 1900, only 25 percent of the world’s Catholics lived outside Europe and North America. By 2000, 65.5 percent of the world’s Catholics lived in Africa, Asia, and Latin America (John Allen, The Future Church).

Elsewhere, Allen notes that 392 million of the world’s 459 million Catholics lived in Europe or North America in 1900. A hundred years later, Europe and North America had 12 million fewer Catholics, while 720 million of the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics lived in the global South.

In the 20th century, Africa’s Catholic population has experienced a growth rate of 7,000 percent. More detailed national, regional, and continental statistics are available in Global Catholicism: Portrait of a World Church (Bryan T. Froehle and Mary Gautier, 2003).

Many dioceses were created after 1962. Most of the missionary bishops at Vatican II were from the global North; their successors are almost universally from the global South. The College of Cardinals has experienced changing demographics but far behind those for Catholics worldwide.

Pope Francis is the first pope from Latin America; his predecessors were from Poland and Germany, respectively. The changing face of Catholicism worldwide has become more obvious since 1964 because of extensive papal trips outside Italy and the ability of popes to record video messages in advance of key Church events around the world.

Three Eras of Christianity

In 1979, Karl Rahner, SJ, wrote that Christian history broadly falls into three eras:

1) Jewish-Christian era (AD 30 to AD 70), from the death of Jesus to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem;

2) European/North American era (AD 70 to AD 1962), when European and North American cultures were the main drivers for missionary evangelization, closely cooperating with colonial powers; and

3) World Church era (1962 to present), for the Catholic Church, at least, a recognition that the Gospel is not spread by reproducing whichever culture brought it to new peoples.

At the end of each era, the Church needed to rethink its cultural assumptions in order to be faithful to its universal mission.

The Church at Vatican II tried to embrace each of the many cultures of its members. Each public session began with a Mass celebrated in one of the Church’s main liturgical traditions, using different vestments, music, and gestures. Some celebrations included dances. Many observers mistakenly considered all this “interesting” but not to be confused with the “real thing” (the Roman rite, soon to be radically revised).

At the start of Era 1, most Christians had been raised Jewish; by AD 70, most Christians were coming from a gentile background. In Era 2, the concern for unity was so strong that many people in the early 1960s thought of the Catholic Church almost as a franchise, whose headquarters is in Rome and whose local bishops act as branch managers lacking any genuine responsibility for the Church beyond their assigned territory. “Synodality” was regarded by many Westerners as a quaint custom very much alive among the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches.

On October 17, 2015, however, Pope Francis said: “The journey of synodality is the journey that God wants from his Church in the third millennium. A synodal Church is a listening Church, aware that listening is more than hearing. It is a reciprocal listening in which each one has something to learn.” (A synod on evangelizing Amazonia will be held at the Vatican between October 6 and 27, 2019.)

In Era 3, Vatican II’s teaching about collegiality (how the successor of St. Peter and local bishops relate to one another) created a profound sense that any superficial accommodation to local culture would betray Jesus’ command “to proclaim the good news to the whole creation.”

‘Maximum Illud‘ in Context

After Pope Benedict XV noted the good work done by missionaries over the centuries, he identified several urgent needs for Catholic missionary evangelization: involving the entire Church (not simply religious communities of women and men) in missionary evangelization, especially through prayer; reminding missionaries that their first loyalty must be to the Gospel and not to the colonial power from which they came or who provided part of their funding; seriously promoting the setting up of regional seminaries and the training of priests born in the country where they will minister; fostering financial support through missionary organizations; the Society for the Propagation of the Faith (founded in Lyon by Venerable Pauline Jaricot in 1822) was not mentioned by name but was the largest such Catholic organization; recognizing the contribution that women religious make to evangelization through running schools, orphanages, hospitals, and other charitable institutions; reminding everyone, “The Catholic Church is not an intruder in any country; nor is she alien to any people”; denying that those who receive Baptism are abandoning loyalty to their own people “and submitting to the pretensions and domination of a foreign power.”

Pope Pius XI brought six Chinese priests to Rome in 1926 so that he could ordain them as bishops; he also established many more ecclesiastical jurisdictions staffed by newly recruited mission groups. Subsequent popes have stressed how Baptism makes all Catholics missionaries in some way.

By the end of 1945, the United Nations had 51 member states. By the end of 1962, it had 59 more member states, most of them former colonies that became independent countries after World War II. The world in which the Gospel must be preached was changing profoundly.

A Case Study in Inculturation

I offer China’s experience here because the topic of inculturation is key to a book that I coauthored in 1995 with the late Arnulf Camps, OFM: The Friars Minor in China 1294–1955, Especially the years 1925–55. Our work was based on research by Friars Bernward Willeke and Domenico Gandolfi, using information supplied by OFM provinces that by World War II were staffing 28 mission territories in what is now the People’s Republic of China.

Christianity came to China when Alopen, a monk from Syria, arrived in Xian in 635. Influenced by hostile relations with the West, Christianity there practically disappeared two centuries later. The Franciscan John of Monte Corvino arrived in modern-day Beijing in 1294 and was eventually joined by other friars. The fiercely anti-Western Ming dynasty began in 1368. Jesuit missionaries arrived in the 16th century; Franciscans and members of other Catholic religious communities worked in secret.

Depending on political events within and outside China, Christianity prospered or languished until 1842 when the First Opium War (fought so the British could bring opium into China) resulted in the first of several “unequal treaties” that guaranteed foreigners broad economic and legal rights at the expense of the Chinese people. Later treaties eventually put Christian missionaries under the protection of France. Some people objected strenuously to this link.

During World War I, many missionaries from Allied countries returned to Europe. The spectacle of Christians fighting Christians in Europe discredited Christianity greatly. Many Chinese people were bitterly disappointed by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, the slight shuffling of colonial territories, and especially the awarding of German territories in China to Japan. Many Chinese people saw the new Communist Party (founded on July 1, 1921) as their best chance to end Western colonial domination.

Foreign missionaries were interned during World War II, depending on their country of origin and who controlled the part of China where they worked. After Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, foreign missionaries were expelled and separate “patriotic associations” were set up to guarantee self-government, self-financing, and self-propagation among Chinese Muslims, Protestants, and Catholics.

The Catholic Church formed Chinese dioceses and archdioceses in 1946, but only three of these 20 new archbishops had been born in China.

Toward the Future

Regarding the 2019 Extraordinary Missionary Month, Pope Francis has written: “I am a mission, always; you are a mission, always; every baptized man and woman is a mission. People in love never stand still: they are drawn out of themselves. . . . Each of us is a mission to the world, for each of us is the fruit of God’s love.”

Pope Francis noted that Pope Benedict XV had reaffirmed that the Church’s universal mission “requires setting aside exclusivist ideas of membership in one’s own country and ethnic group. The opening of the culture and the community to the salvific newness of Jesus Christ requires leaving behind every kind of undue ethnic and ecclesial introversion. . . . No one ought to remain closed in self-absorption, in the self-referentiality of his or her own ethnic and religious affiliation.”

John Kiesler, OFM, who teaches missiology at the Franciscan School of Theology at the University of San Diego, recently wrote: “Just as in 1919 with “Maximum Illud,” the Church is striving to understand, witness, and be converted to Christ in a deeper way through dialogue/mission/life with our brothers and sisters in each culture. The test for us in facing world Christianity is: How do we love and express love in action as well as concrete ecclesial structures to more clearly witness the kingdom of God?”

At the end of every Mass, we are sent out to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Would he approve the cultural baggage we are trying to carry as we seek to fulfill his Great Commission?

Father Pat McCloskey, OFM, is Franciscan editor of this publication. Between 1986 and 1992, he served as communications director at the international headquarters of the Order of Friars Minor. He has been fortunate to see the world Church firsthand in several countries.

A Prophetic Voice

Vincent Lebbe, CM (1877‚v940), was born in Belgium, joined the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists) in Paris, and was ordained in Beijing in 1901, a year after the conclusion of the Boxer Rebellion. He quickly learned Chinese and carefully studied his new country’s culture, dressing in the local fashion and interacting mostly with Chinese Catholics. They helped him found a Chinese Catholic newspaper in 1915.

“Return China to the Chinese, and the Chinese will go to Christ,” he urged insistently. Lebbe advocated passionately for the appointment of Chinese priests as bishops; this was resisted by many people inside and outside his Lazarist congregation—and by many Catholics inside and outside China.

Between 1920 and 1928, Lebbe lived in Europe. Granted Chinese citizenship in 1927, he returned to China the following year, helping to establish a religious community of brothers and one of sisters. When the Sino-Japanese War began in 1937, he was active in nursing wounded soldiers and providing assistance to people displaced by that war. He was captured in 1940 by the Chinese Communists. Imprisoned for six weeks, he was released and died a month later. His cause for beatification was opened in 1988.

Missionary Month Resources

“Baptized and Sent” is the theme of the website of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith (www.missio.org). It offers a wide range of resources to help children and adults recognize and act on their missionary vocation received at Baptism. Modern-day missionaries such as Sister Dorothy Stang, SNDdeN (a 2005 martyr in Brazil), are profiled.

It’s not a new question, but it has become more personal and pointed in light of the clergy sex-abuse scandal.

During a discussion about spiritual matters, a good friend, a devout Jew who had read most of what I have written about psychology and spirituality, asked me, “Why are you still Catholic?” She noted that my writings suggest not only that I have a lot of questions, but also that I struggle mightily with the failings of the Catholic Church as an organization.

In light of the clerical sex-abuse scandal, that question of why I remain Catholic is again before me. The Pennsylvania grand jury report released in August 2018 raised the question in a new, more personal manner.

I grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, one of the dioceses examined in the grand jury report. In my business, the rule of thumb is: “Don’t ask a question if you’re not prepared to deal with the answer.” I thought of that as I prepared to examine the list of priests for whom there was credible evidence of abusive behavior toward children. I expected two names to be on the list since my Catholic high school had already approached alumni about these men. But then I saw one name I hadn’t expected.

When I was in seventh and eighth grade, a priest in our parish, Father G, took me under his wing. He appointed me as instructor for the new altar boys (a great honor!) and helped me find a summer job. He was one of the inspirations for my desire to become a priest. Father G’s name is on that list.

This man never laid a hand on me, but he was later found to be a pedophile who had abused numerous boys. When I saw his name and the things he had done, all his kindness to me became suspect. Pedophiles are known for “grooming,” in which they build a relationship with a child based on kindness and nurturance that they then use as the foundation for sexualizing the relationship. Was Father G grooming me? I don’t know, but seeing his name on that list undermined what had been a positive experience for me. It gave me a different level of insight into the betrayal felt by victims of clergy abuse.

This, in turn, stirred up an experience I’d had while visiting a seminary in my teens. I was to room with a seminarian. During the night, I woke up to him trying to molest me. My aggressive response put a quick end to that, and I dismissed the experience. The Pennsylvania report brought it back to me.

These events have not been the only source of my struggles as to why I am still Catholic. I have at times been outspoken, challenging the Church to be more transparent and responsive in dealing with survivors of clergy abuse. This was not always received well. Once I was labeled an enemy of the Church. Another time I learned from a client that a well-placed priest whom I had never met “really dislikes you,” apparently in part because of an article I had written for America magazine and a later television interview in which I stated my fear that the Church is dying.

What I have been confronted with is the utter humanness of the Church. Flawed leaders who manage out of fear. Church officials caught up in power. Manipulative individuals interested in using others. Overworked priests making bad decisions in the face of stress and depression.

How Leaving Brought Me Back

As I wrestle with the question, I must ask myself: Are you still Catholic merely out of habit? Are you afraid to pursue another path? Thankfully, I was able to lay this issue to rest some years ago when I took a sabbatical from Catholicism. I stopped attending Sunday Mass and participating in Catholicism in any way. I hoped to get some perspective.

I read the works of great Christians not afraid to question: C.S. Lewis, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, and writers of other faiths such as Rabbi Lawrence Kushner and Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh.

Over the course of those months, I came to see that there was much about Catholicism that I missed. I found that I missed Mass. Granted, there is much that I don’t understand (e.g., transubstantiation), but I found myself yearning for the mysticism of Mass as well as the comfort I found in the Eucharist. I missed connecting with the saints, especially the down-to-earth saints like Damien of Molokai and Dismas, who struggled yet were able to rise above their own humanness. And so I went back.

I continued to treat victims of clergy abuse and came to see that the real tragedy was the damage that had been done to their spirits. Some rejected Catholicism in favor of another path. Others rejected formal religion altogether. Still others rejected God.

When the movie Spotlight came out, I was overwhelmed with emotion when I saw my two homes—Scranton, Pennsylvania, and El Paso, Texas—listed at the end as cities with confirmed incidents of clergy abuse. I thought of survivors I had evaluated and counseled, especially one young man who had been molested by a priest mentioned in the movie. After that film, I again struggled with why I remain Catholic as I saw just how massive that crisis had been both in the United States and internationally.

After the Pennsylvania report, I had some hope for a new, more honest response from the Church. But I also have a fear based on something a victim had told me. Although as a boy he had been abused by a priest, this man served the Church in many meaningful ways. One evening he sat in a committee meeting in his parish. When the topic of the clergy abuse crisis came up, one woman said: “This crisis is only a small blip in the Church’s history. The Church will survive.”

My fear is that many in the Catholic Church will proceed under the assumption—the evil assumption—that the crisis will pass and nothing really major needs to change.

And yet I am still Catholic. Why?

I am still Catholic because I still believe in Jesus’ message. His way is a path to live out the message that love can overcome all and that we are here to take care of one another. But I also agree with Wendell Berry when he writes, in Blessed Are the Peacemakers, that Christianity has become fashionable in the United States but in fact “seems to have remarkably little to do with things that Jesus Christ actually taught.”

Do you remember the fad of wearing WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) bracelets? As I try to live out Jesus’ message, it helps to consider that question. What would Jesus do? I am fairly certain he would be at the migrant youth camp in nearby Tornillo, Texas, handing out clothes and plates of food. I am sure he would be stroking the forehead of someone dying of AIDS. I’m sure he would be sitting with the teenager afraid to tell his/her parents that he/she is gay. Jesus might very well be in a protest at the local abortion clinic, but he would also sit listening to the teenage mother who leaves that clinic after her abortion. Those are some reasons why I’m still Catholic. My Catholicism informs WWJD.

A Path to Redemption

I am still Catholic because I believe in redemption as most recovering addicts do. A redemptive experience heals us and sets a new direction for us. In many ways, the Church has lost its way. Leaders have lost credibility. The demand from survivors of clergy abuse that bishops also be held accountable has received a mixed response. Yes, many dioceses (including El Paso) have reached out to survivors of clergy abuse, offering help. Yet the system of governance that gave rise to secrecy and deception remains unchanged.

Who knows what a redemptive experience within the Catholic Church will look like? Perhaps trust will be rebuilt. Perhaps the relationship between laity and clergy will be reshaped into something more coequal, with laity sharing in the responsibility of governance. Perhaps the roles and responsibilities of deacons will be expanded. Perhaps the role of women will expand in meaningful ways. All I know is that grace and redemption are real and can redirect our lives in dramatic ways. I pray for grace and redemption for the Church.

I am still Catholic because I believe persons in authority can face the dark side of power and grow from it. It is this dark side of power—not lust—that has almost destroyed the Church. Yet I know many, many priests and nuns who are aware of this dark side and work hard to use their power in life-affirming ways.

I am still Catholic because I am inspired by the example of several who got it right, embraced Christ’s message, and lived it in ways that expressed their gifts. I find hope and inspiration during these dark times from the likes of Dorothy Day, Teilhard de Chardin, Daniel Berrigan, and St. John XXIII. All faced criticism, even from other Catholics. All suffered from their efforts to live a Christlike life. Dorothy Day and Daniel Berrigan were incarcerated. Teilhard was silenced for his efforts to unite science and theology. St. John XXIII was dismissed as temporary when first elected pope and to this day is criticized in some Catholic circles for his efforts to help his Church find a fresh path in the 20th century.

These heroes remind me that the call as a Catholic to live out Jesus’ message can be met, but it often exacts a price.

A New Question and a New Challenge

As I try to answer the question, though, I must also hold myself accountable. What kind of Catholic am I today? In what way do I need to challenge myself to be a better Catholic?

To share that answer with you, I need to share a story. Some years ago I was having a conversation with a wonderful man who had served many years as a missionary in South America. He had been on a retreat and was preparing to walk in the desert for prayer and meditation. As part of this walk, he asked God to provide him with something that would focus his meditation. He then looked to one side and there in the desert sand was a cross!

This inspired me to take my own meditative walk. On Good Friday I decided to walk home from my office—a distance of some 12 miles. I also prayed for a sign to guide my meditation. As I walked along I saw all kinds of things that could be the sign—a piece of paper blowing by, a telephone pole, etc. I then began to panic that I would miss seeing it.

Finally, I gave up. At that very moment, I looked across the street and saw a friend, a woman whom I greatly admire for her service to the displaced. I stopped to greet her and went on my way. Then it hit me. “Delia was the sign!” I was called to reflect on how introverted my spiritual world is and how I needed to be more open to extroverted spirituality.

Extroverted Catholicism remains a challenge. I am not drawn to community of any sort. I am not drawn to spiritual practices that involve interaction with others. So I have work to do as far as Catholic community is concerned, especially during these challenging times.

There are many other themes that I must address as part of my answer—humility, anger, healing old hurts, forgiveness. All these themes affect my attitude toward the Church, and my Catholicism calls me to address them.

We laity are the Church. Yes, its survival depends upon the hierarchy making wise, humble decisions. But more so it depends on my exploring and pursuing how I as a layman can help the Church find redemption.

Why are you still Catholic?

He’s known for his Mafia epics and dark character studies, but this legendary filmmaker has a profound spiritual side, as witnessed by a trio of challenging movies about faith.

When you think of the phrase Catholic art, images of Renaissance paintings or marble statues might come to mind. But when you hear or see the name Martin Scorsese, Catholic art is probably not the first association you would make. Famous for his Mafia movies (such as Goodfellas, Casino, and The Irishman, which premiered at the New York Film Festival this past September), you might be surprised to learn that one of his lifelong ambitions was to complete what’s been dubbed his “faith trilogy” of films: The Last Temptation of Christ, Kundun, and Silence.

All three films are deeply rooted in a particularly Catholic sensibility and perception of the world. There’s even a term for this uniquely Catholic approach to the arts: “the Catholic imagination.”

To understand Scorsese’s distinct take on the Catholic imagination, though, you don’t need to read volumes on Catholic aesthetics or scholarly articles on his work in film journals. A look at his upbringing in an Italian American, working-class, Catholic family in New York City sheds more light on the roots of his artistic development than any academic research could provide.

Life on the Mean Streets

At the 2017 Catholic Media Conference (CMC) in Québec City, Canada, Scorsese sat down for a Q&A session with Paul Elie, director of the American Pilgrimage Project and frequent contributor to the New York Times, following a screening of Silence. Members of the Catholic press, including St. Anthony Messenger, were treated to an hour-long conversation between the two, as they discussed Silence, spirituality, and his decades in the film industry.

The conversation kicked off with the director talking about his upbringing in New York City. Born in 1942, Scorsese lived his first seven years in a comfortable house in Queens—”the suburbs,” as he called it. After falling on hard economic times, the Scorsese family had to relocate to a cramped tenement apartment in Little Italy. “I was thrown into this world, which was a street world, butcher shops—two on each block—grocery stores, almost like a thriving medieval village,” Scorsese recalled. “The block we lived on was mainly Sicilian, and one block away was skid row,” a frightening place where the criminal element loomed large. His parents, Charles and Catherine, were devout Catholics who worked hard as a clothes presser and seamstress to provide for their family.

Set in stark contrast to the hustle and bustle was Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral (now a basilica). “The mood in the church itself is something very peaceful,” Scorsese said. “The power of the church was as a sort of balm,” an oasis from the dangerous world outside.

At Old St. Patrick’s, Scorsese was an altar boy and often served at the Saturday morning Mass for the Dead. In the ritual movements, colorful stained glass windows, and incense rising heavenward, a young Scorsese observed the theater-like production quality of weekly Mass.

A young parish priest with a love of the cinema, Father Frank Principe, encouraged Scorsese and his classmates to engage with art as part of their intellectual and spiritual development. This certainly took root in the young Scorsese, who would later attend New York University to study film. Scorsese quickly rose in the ranks of the film industry, making short student films, working as an assistant director and editor on the documentary Woodstock, and finally making feature films such as 1973’s Mean Streets, set in the Little Italy he knew so well.

After making arguably one of the best films of the 1980s (Raging Bull), Scorsese’s reputation as an auteur was seemingly solidified. But the clarity of Scorsese’s moral vision and even his worth as a filmmaker would be called into question when he made a film that challenged audiences with some considerably weighty subject matter: the humanity of Jesus.

A Film and a Firestorm

When a film studio executive asked Scorsese why he wanted to make The Last Temptation of Christ, he responded, “So I can get to know Jesus better.” The idea of making the film goes all the way back to 1972, when Scorsese read Nikos Kazantzakis’ fictional retelling of Jesus’ life, ministry, and crucifixion. After a long gestation and a canceled production in 1983, The Last Temptation of Christ was released in August 1988. Much controversy had already been simmering for the months leading up to its release after a leaked—and unfinished—script came to the attention of Christian leaders who were outraged at the film’s premise.

In The Last Temptation, Jesus (Willem Dafoe) is shown to be a man who is occasionally unsure of himself and besieged by temptations. The title refers to Satan’s final attempt to lure Jesus in while he is dying on the cross. In a lengthy sequence near the end of the film, Satan—under the guise of a little girl who says that she’s Jesus’ guardian angel—shows Jesus what his life could be like if he simply came down from the cross and submitted to his will. Jesus is promised a long, happy life where he is married to Mary Magdalene (Barbara Hershey) and raises a family. Ultimately, and in keeping with Scripture, Jesus refuses the temptation and dies on the cross, fulfilling his sacrifice for humanity.

In Scorsese on Scorsese (Faber and Faber), a compilation of interview transcripts edited by Ian Christie and David Thompson, the director says, “I believe that Jesus is fully divine, but the teaching at Catholic schools placed such an emphasis on the divine side that if Jesus walked into a room, you’d know he was God . . . instead of being just another person.” Indeed, two of Jesus’ own disciples failed to recognize him on the road to Emmaus (Lk 24:13‚ 35).

The pushback to the film was strong, including protests and several movie theaters that refused to show it. Evangelist and founder of the Campus Crusade for Christ, Bill Bright, even offered to buy the negative of the film from Universal Pictures for $10 million, with the intention of destroying it so that it would never see the light of day. Ironically, as Scorsese pointed out during his Q&A with Elie, many of the film’s harshest critics hadn’t actually seen it. “I had done The Last Temptation of Christ, and we had to screen it for all the people who were complaining about it who hadn’t seen it yet,” he recalled. Among those at the screening were various evangelical leaders, Catholic clergy, and Bishop Paul Moore, head of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. Bishop Moore approached Scorsese after the screening and told him, “The film is Christologically correct,” referring to the Council of Chalcedon in 451, when Church leaders affirmed the idea that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine.

Despite all the controversy, Scorsese was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director for his work on the film. Years after the film’s release, a priest friend of his told him that some seminaries even include Kazantzakis’ book as a supplemental text and conversation starter. No matter what one’s feelings are about The Last Temptation of Christ, Scorsese succeeded in opening up a discussion about Jesus in a world that was—and still is—becoming more secular. But his interest in making films about faith didn’t end there, and his next project would take him far from his comfort zone as a storyteller rooted in Western culture.

Parallels in Faith

One year after the release of The Last Temptation of Christ, Scorsese read a script written by Melissa Mathieson about the early life of the Dalai Lama and was instantly committed to making the film. He spent two days with the Dalai Lama at Mathieson’s Wyoming ranch in 1993, getting to know him and the plight of the Tibetan people better. By the time Kundun was released in 1997, “a lot was changing in my life,” Scorsese recalls. Filming wrapped up just before Christmas 1996, and he went to spend time with his dying mother. “She died on January 6 [1997], almost as if she had been waiting until I got back,” Scorsese says. “I dedicated the film [Kundun] to my mother, because the unconditional love that she represented to me in my own life somehow connected with the idea of the Dalai Lama having a compassionate love for all sentient beings.”

Kundun traces the Dalai Lama’s life from 1937 (when he was discovered by monks to be a promising candidate at the age of 2) to 1959 (when he escaped to exile in India). Lending a sense of realism, many Tibetan cast members were untrained actors who knew intimately their people’s stuggle against Communist China. The film depicts the steady encroachment of China—under the harsh regime of Chairman Mao Zedong—and its eventual hostile takeover of Tibet in the 1950s. One of the most chilling scenes occurs when the Dalai Lama (played as a young adult by Tenzin Thuthob Tsarong) meets with Chairman Mao (Robert Lin) to discuss Tibet’s future. Though seemingly polite and pleasant, Mao lectures the Dalai Lama that “religion is poison” and that Tibetans are “poisoned and inferior” because of their beliefs. A stoic and compassionate Dalai Lama refuses to return the vitriol and instead, as our own faith calls us to do, turns the other cheek.

There are some striking parallels between Kundun and The Last Temptation of Christ. Both Jesus and the Dalai Lama speak truth to power nonviolently and with hearts full of compassion. The two also have been charged with an awesome responsibility—Jesus must embrace his role as the Messiah, and the Dalai Lama takes on the mantle of the incarnation of the Buddha of compassion and leader of the Tibetan people.

Kundun also met with controversy, this time from a nation of over a billion people—China. The Chinese government pressured the Walt Disney Company by threatening the company’s future access into their lucrative market. When Disney pushed back and went on with the scheduled release in December 1997, China pulled Disney cartoons from their airwaves and banned all Disney movies from being shown. They even issued lifelong bans on both Scorsese and screenwriter Mathieson.

Despite this hostility to the film on the part of the Chinese government, Kundun garnered critical acclaim and four Oscar nominations. It’s a film that warrants repeat viewings, as there is much for Westerners and Christians to absorb. “As a Christian, I really believe that the future of being human is love and compassion. . . . And I see these people [Tibetan Buddhists] practicing this belief,” the director reflects in Scorsese on Scorsese. “Ultimately, [Kundun] is about religious experience. . . . For me, it was about giving a gift back to their culture, putting together the beauty and compassion that they represent.”

Scorsese could have stopped his exploration of faith through the medium of film with the powerful duo of Last Temptation and Kundun. But a chance book recommendation from 30 years ago planted the seed for the third film of his faith trilogy.

Getting to the Heart of Faith

In 1988, after the screening of The Last Temptation of Christ for various Christian leaders, Scorsese got together with Bishop Moore and a priest friend for dinner and a three-hour conversation on Christianity and faith. The bishop gave Scorsese a book, telling him to read it and then “define what faith is.” That book was Silence, by Shusako Endo, a Catholic author who has been called “the Graham Greene of Japan.” After finishing it, the director knew right away that he needed to make a film adaptation.

Finally released in December 2016, Silence follows two fictional 17th-century Jesuit missionaries, Father Sebastião Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Father Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver), on their journey to Japan. Training for the film was rigorous—both physically and spiritually—for the two actors. Both lost significant weight for their roles and were also given a crash course in Ignatian spirituality by the film’s Jesuit adviser, Father James Martin.

The priests’ mission is to spread the Catholic faith and track down their mentor, Father Cristóvão Ferreira (Liam Neeson), who is suspected of renouncing his faith after being tortured. When they arrive in Japan, the two priests are horrified by what they see. The small Christian community is heavily repressed and forced to practice its faith in secret. Father Ferreira has not only apostatized (rejected the Christian faith) but has also taken a Japanese name and is now married.

Eventually, both priests are captured by Japanese authorities and suffer two very different fates. Father Garupe is executed by drowning, while Father Rodrigues is imprisoned, repeatedly tortured, and asked to reject his faith by stepping on an image of Christ, called a fumi-e. Father Rodrigues finds out that his resistance to apostasy is actually prolonging the suffering and causing the deaths of the Japanese Christians he came to serve. When Father Rodrigues is brought once more before the fumi-e, he hears an inner voice of Christ tell him: “Come ahead now. It’s all right. Step on me. I understand your pain. I was born into this world to share men’s pain. I carried this cross for your pain. Your life is with me now. Step.” Father Rodrigues apostatizes and later, like Father Ferreira, marries a Japanese woman.

At the end of the film, it’s revealed that Father Rodrigues never actually gave up his faith. After he dies, he is shown in a traditional round Japanese casket, a small wooden crucifix given to him by a Japanese Christian many years earlier clutched in his hand. The implication is that his wife or some other loved one placed it there. Although Silence was only nominated for one Academy Award (Best Cinematography), it received the most critical acclaim of his trilogy of movies on faith. Scorsese even got to show the film to about 300 Jesuits at the Vatican and had a private audience with Pope Francis afterward.

In his homily during morning Mass on January 29, 2018, Pope Francis said, “There is no humility without humiliation.” In his Q&A with Scorsese, Elie connected this very quote to the character of Father Rodrigues and how the priest’s idea of martyrdom is slowly dismantled. All that remains is the question of what faith really is. In his response, Scorsese pointed out: “[Father Rodrigues] keeps equating his journey to Christ’s. It’s his own Calvary, the whole story. And that’s got to be knocked down.”

For Scorsese, making Silence forced him to reflect on the fundamental questions of what it means to be a Christian and how to live like Christ in a hostile world. In his conversation with Elie, the director framed the struggle this way: “How does one live a life that is, in my case, [according to] a Christian ideal in a world where there is a lot of evil?” How we answer this question points to the very core of our Christian identity.

For the Love of the Story

At 76, Scorsese is showing no signs of slowing down, as witnessed by his two releases this year: a documentary on Bob Dylan (Rolling Thunder Review) and The Irishman. As he told Elie in their interview, “The constant [in my life] is this crazy desire to tell stories with pictures that move.” The Irishman, which features an all-star cast including Robert De Niro, Anna Paquin, and Al Pacino, is a return to the criminal underworld for the director and revolves around the story of labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa. But based on the passion and energy he brought to his faith trilogy, one can’t rule out the possibility of Scorsese revisiting religious themes and spiritual questions on-screen.

Faith is often a struggle, even or especially for the most devout. By engaging art that challenges our notions of religious truth and moral tenets, we’re given the opportunity to either solidify our stances or adopt new ones that help us grow along our path to understanding and deeper belief. If we allow ourselves to be challenged by movies such as the ones that make up Scorsese’s faith trilogy, we might find ourselves contemplating some pretty deep questions—and ones that will lead to an even deeper faith.

Father Principe and the Sanctuary of the Cinema

Diagnosed with severe asthma at the age of 3, Martin Scorsese couldn’t play sports with the other neighborhood kids or even laugh too hard, as that could trigger an attack and a hospital visit. This, along with the criminal element on the streets, limited what Scorsese could do with his time as a child. With his natural curiosity, proclivity to observe things closely, and burgeoning creative spirit, Scorsese found the movie theater to be a logical place to pass the time. It, like Old St. Patrick’s, was also a refuge.

Most of the older priests focused their outreach on the older parishioners, especially those who had emigrated from the Old World. “Nobody was talking to the kids growing up on the mean streets,” Scorsese remembers. But a young, energetic priest named Father Frank Principe did. He played records of classical music for the seventh- and eighth-grade students, encouraged them to read authors such as Graham Greene, and even took them to the cinema, engaging students afterward in conversation and critique about the movie they just saw.

The priest was such a strong influence on Scorsese that he even briefly considered the priesthood before realizing that his vocation was to be found in the arts. Scorsese and his priest mentor didn’t always see eye to eye on art, and Father Principe once leveled this famous critique of the filmmaker’s work: “Too much Good Friday, not enough Easter Sunday.” But Father Principe left a lasting impression on his prot ég é: the importance of looking at film through a moral lens.

Catholicism and the Experience of the Arts

In his book The Catholic Imagination, Catholic priest, author, and sociologist Andrew Greeley helped popularize the notion that there is a faith-based creative sensibility that “sees created reality as a ‘sacrament,’ that is, a revelation of the presence of God.” Indeed, the seven sacraments are often depicted or referred to in the arts, whether in paintings or in motion pictures. Examples abound in the medium of film—from Baptism in The Godfather, to the Eucharist in Romero, to Reconciliation in The Exorcist.

“[The] statues and holy water, stained glass and votive candles, saints and religious medals, rosary beads and holy pictures” we encounter in the Catholic world hint at “a deeper and more pervasive religious sensibility which inclines Catholics to see the Holy lurking in creation,” Greeley writes. He provides numerous examples of it in the arts—from Michelangelo to Flannery O’Connor. But he also points to Martin Scorsese, whose films “are the quintessential illustrations of the use of the Catholic sense of community and Catholic symbols in American filmmaking.”

Greeley points out that a strong sense of community, especially for immigrant Catholics and their families, is a crucial element of the Catholic imagination. “The neighborhood, with its often intense and sometimes limiting relationships, was the place where many Catholic immigrants worked out their adjustment to urban life in America, the space in which their Catholic view of human networks found an appropriate social form,” he writes.

Scorsese, with his upbringing in a tight-knit Sicilian family in New York’s Little Italy, would likely agree.