Finding My Catholic Faith, Part One — [Dirty Harry]
Posted by Dirty Harry on Friday, June 13th, 2008
UPDATE: Welcome fellow Anchoress fans — and thanks Anchoress! — hope you’ll take a look around and also check out my main home, LIBERTAS, where we look at film from a conservative viewpoint.
Also, thank you all for the comments.
NOTE: This is the first part in what will be a multi-part series, over the next week or so, about how, just a couple of months ago, I came to join the Catholic church.
And so, we begin:
Movies matter. No one blogs about them all day everyday — and when he’s not blogging about them, watching, writing, and making them — if they don’t matter. They do. To me. And to many of you. Many factors make a man (or a woman) and movies can be one of those factors. The best films nudge us to aspire. Aspire to journey or grow, to take a risk, or chase the girl we‘ll marry. Movies matter.
This Easter, at the ripe old-age of forty-two, I became a Catholic. This was not a decision taken lightly. It was a difficult, and at times, agonizing decision. Belief in God is one thing. Another is making a single choice out of dozens as to which spiritual home to hang one‘s hat in.
Who’s right? Who’s wrong? What if I commit to a spiritual home and find it doesn’t work? The years lost. The time wasted. And un-joining always so messy; relationships severed. Feelings hurt. Messy. No thanks.
Throughout my life there a number of what I call “Moments Of Clarity” that led to my decision. A decision that feels as right as any I have ever made. One of those clarity moments had to do with a movie — because movies matter. However, explaining only that one moment — the movie moment — won’t work. It will make my decision appear silly, shallow even. But in context it should make sense.
Bear with me. We’ll get to the movie part…
I. Finding God
Before we begin, you should know I don’t believe in faith. I take nothing on faith. Nothing. Things must make sense in order for me to believe. Logical sense. My mind is stubborn that way and because of my stubbornly logical mind I was the oldest Catholic that Easter morning to have his head rubbed with oil. However, that same stubbornly logical mind makes it impossible for me to be an atheist.
There isn’t a time in my life when I didn’t believe in God. As a child I would lie awake and contemplate the size of the universe (don’t we all?). How could it go on forever? If it stops, is there a wall? If there’s a wall, couldn’t you dig into the wall? If you can dig into the wall, doesn’t that mean the universe goes on forever?
The universe is limitless. Endless. That’s impossible. But it’s a fact, and an impossible fact is a confirmed miracle; therefore, there is a God.
Me and my poor science teacher:
Where did we come from?
We evolved from apes.
Where did the apes come from?
They evolved from smaller creatures.
Where did the smaller creatures come from?
From the sea.
Where did the sea come from?
The Big Bang.
Where did the –
You get my drift. The existence of existence. Existence came from somewhere inexplicable, impossible. But existence is a fact. An impossible fact. An impossible fact is a miracle. There is a God.
Whenever my faith in God falters, I think of the miracle of existence and the miracle of an endless universe. Endless! Two hardcore, graspable miracles right there. Right there in front of my nose.
There is a God. And He’s made it easy to find Him.
In chapter two: Who’s right? Christian? Jew? Hindu? Scientologists?
UPDATE: Chapter Two is up.
Filed in General |
Splashon 13 Jun 2008 at 2:28 pm 1Looking forward to this series, Harry!
But are you using “faith” correctly when you say “I don’t believe in faith. I take nothing on faith. Nothing.”?
I get your point, but you do take your faith on faith. As does the Atheist in his unverifiable claim there is no God.
If i understand you, you’re saying you don’t believe in a Kierkegaardian blind leap of faith, right? That your faith exists because you believe, in the sense of being internally convinced. And that of course, only because the Holy Spirit has done His job in enabling it within you. (Sola Fide - “By grace are you saved through faith,” right?)
monkeyon 13 Jun 2008 at 3:48 pm 2I have always thought myself an Atheist, yet i was christened a Methodist went to Sunday school from a young age until i was about eight years old and my parents accepted my decision that i didnt want to go anymore. I lost interest and took no notice in my religion or religion in general, i found it to be the basis for most problems in this world and for a long time i had no place for it in my life.
A close friend of mine is Catholic, now he doesnt go to church on a regular basis but his religion has set his values in life and he has his firm beliefs, we often talk about all things and occasionally religion comes into the conversation and i find myself agreeing with alot but not all of his opinions.
In some respects i find that now that im older a kind of belief is coming into my life, iv not decided if this is religion but it is intriguing as my values are changing and im starting think about how i live my life now and in the future.
I look forward to reading your next part Harry.
Dirty Harry goes to Rome | The Anchoresson 13 Jun 2008 at 4:41 pm 3[…] …and decides to stay. […]
Splashon 13 Jun 2008 at 6:06 pm 4monkey, have you ever read C.S. Lewis’ road to faith (down which he was dragged “kicking and screaming” I believe)? Your reply has his kind of flavor to it. I think the book was called “Surprised by Joy.”
Gracieon 13 Jun 2008 at 7:28 pm 5Harry,
As a cradle Catholic, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the link to your letter on the website of The Anchoress.
It’s been a while since I’ve visited your movie website. My computer crashed, I bought another and couldn’t remember the URL. I remember, years ago, in the run up to the 2000 election, enjoying commenting on your website. It was much fun and I enjoyed looking forward to it every day.
I’m looking forward to reading the subsequent intallments of your journey to Catholicism.
Marsha
HARRY HERE: Gracie, of course I remember you. I’ve even tried to track you down through my old blog a few times. It’s very nice to hear from you. I’m glad we found each other again. My wife says hello, as well.
Lindaon 13 Jun 2008 at 7:31 pm 6Hi Harry - just discovered your blog via The Anchoress. Welcome to the family! I’m enjoying your story, as it resonates with how I made the Catholicism I was born into my own. C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity” played no small part in this prodigal’s return to the fold. One of my current fave reads is Et Tu? The Diary of a Former Atheist - she’s one insightful gal. I look forward to getting to the movie part!
IrishCatholicon 13 Jun 2008 at 8:30 pm 7Harry, not to be picky, but to score some points with your parish priest, it’s called the ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. You are now a Roman Catholic. Catholic means universal church. Which meant you could go anywhere in the world and hear a latin Mass and the same traditions the Church had for 2000 years.
Harry since you are a new mackerel snapper, as the protestants use to call us check out
http://www.ewtn.com/#
http://www.fathercorapi.com/
This Priest is today’s St Augustine he had one hell of a life, hit bottom big time, and now he is one of the most inspiring teachers of Roman Catholicism.
Troyon 13 Jun 2008 at 8:43 pm 8EWTN has some great stuff on it — says the Protestant.
Looking forward to it Harry.
monkey… Splash is right. Without beating you about the head and shoulders… I would read Lewis’ Mere Christianity; Surprised by Joy or Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. Either of the 3 will suffice or obviously Augustine’s Confessions too.
Just so you know… I’m a Southern Baptist so I am exercising supernatural restraint right now.
Myssion 13 Jun 2008 at 8:57 pm 9Harry, congrats on picking your spiritual home. I have found that Roman Catholicism isn’t the one for me, but I don’t think that you’re all damnable. Many of the finest Christians I know attend the Roman Catholic Church.
Personally, my home is in a Southern Baptist church (see Troy, you aren’t alone), but I don’t call myself a baptist. I am a Christian who attends a Baptist Church. I came to my belief in God in much the same way you did and had virtually the same conversation with my science teacher. It ended with my whole class laughing when she asked me how I explained the Big Bang theory if I believed in God as Creator? I said, “I’m pretty sure the voice of God saying “Let there be light” would cause a pretty big bang.”
smiles,
Myssi
Mike Kriskeyon 14 Jun 2008 at 6:07 am 10Irish Catholic:
I’m with you on EWTN and especially Father Corapi, but I’m not so sure about the “Roman Catholic” thing. I’m pretty sure I belong to the Catholic Church. If outsiders want to call it Roman Catholic I don’t mind, but that implies there are other Catholic churches.
Gracieon 14 Jun 2008 at 6:49 am 11Tell your wife I said hello. I’m looking forward to visiting your site often. Maybe some of the “old gang” will show up as well.
Outlaw 13on 14 Jun 2008 at 7:51 am 12Troy as a Southern Baptist, you might appreciate this joke…
Why don’t Southern Baptist’s make love standing up? Because they are afraid if someone saw them they might think they were dancing.
I grew up in Waco TX the home of Baylor University so this Methodist is very familiar with the unique characteristics of the Southern Baptist.
monkeyon 14 Jun 2008 at 8:10 am 13Splash and Troy, thanks for the tip i just found them on amazon and read the reviews ill give them a bash.
caiteon 14 Jun 2008 at 8:51 am 14it is the Catholic Church. for example, it is ‘the Catechism of the Catholic Church’.
now the majority of Catholics belong to the Roman rite of the Catholic Church and the pope is also th bishop of Rome..but there are many other, smaller rites of the One Holy Catholic Church.
Troyon 14 Jun 2008 at 9:41 am 15Outlaw… I love that joke. It was especially true of my parents generation of SBC.
I went to a So. Baptist university in Abilene called Hardin-Simmons University. We actually held dances — off campus.
Myssi… I’ve always called myself a Baptist because of the rich theological tradition back to the Westminster Confession 1689; Spurgeon et al, and the rock solid conviction of church-state separation.
Some of my compadres don’t think RCC are Christians, but that ain’t me. I have no doubt Tim Russert is in heaven right now telling stories with John Paul VI.
GeronimoRumplestiltskinon 14 Jun 2008 at 10:30 am 16Mike Kriskey:
“If outsiders want to call it Roman Catholic I don’t mind, but that implies there are other Catholic churches.”
Actually, there are other churches that call themselves Catholic: the Eastern Catholic Churches. This broad category consists of 22 autonomous Catholic Churches each of which adhere to one of five Eastern liturgical traditions:
Alexandrian:
Coptic Catholic Church
Ethiopian Catholic Church
Antiochian:
Maronite Catholic Church
Syriac Catholic Church
Syro-Malankara Catholic Church
Armenian:
Armenian Catholic Church
Chaldean or East Syrian:
Chaldean Catholic Church
Syro-Malabar Catholic Church
Byzantine:
Albanian Byzantine Catholic Church
Belarusian Greek Catholic Church
Bulgarian Greek Catholic Church
Byzantine Church of the Eparchy of Križevci
Greek Byzantine Catholic Church
Hungarian Greek Catholic Church
Italo-Albanian Catholic Church
Macedonian Greek Catholic Church
Melkite Greek Catholic Church
Romanian Catholic Church
Russian Byzantine Catholic Church
Ruthenian Catholic Church
Slovak Greek Catholic Church
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
All these churches are in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, and all accept the accept the spiritual and temporal primacy of the Pope. They do, however, retain their distinctive liturgical rites, laws and customs, traditional devotions and have their own theological points of emphasis. For example, the Eastern churches, to one degree or another, tend to emphasize the mystical dimension of Christian life, while in the West more emphasis is placed on incorporating human reason and inquiry into one’s experience of Christian life; therefore, St. Thomas Aquinas’ theological treatises are considered of monumental importance among Roman Catholics, but his life as a mystic is given comparitively little attention, while in the Eastern Catholic Churches the opposite is the case.
There are also various National Catholic Churches: Polish, Mexican, North American, etc. While none of these churches are in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, some are in various stages of partial communion, the shades fo which are too complicated of a topic to entertain here.
P.S. Dirty Harry: I wrote you a personal email to your account listed in your “About Dirty Harry” page (mtaylor19481@yahoo.com). Did you receive it?
Mike Kriskeyon 14 Jun 2008 at 5:00 pm 17Geronimo:
I may be missing something, but I just don’t see these all as separate churches.
R.C.on 15 Jun 2008 at 8:40 am 18Regarding the “Catholic” vs. “Roman Catholic” thing…
I *think* the distinction you’re looking for here is that between “the Church” (note the capitalization) and “particular churches.”
As I understand it (dimly) the former term is also called “the Catholic Church” and refers to all the portions of Christ’s Bride which are in communion with Rome, acknowledging the temporal and spiritual authority of the Pope.
But (again, as I dimly understand it) the “particular churches” are the various Western/Roman Rite, Eastern Rite, and other subdivisions, each of which has its own culture and focus and rites.
And I think some folks make this distinction in conversation by saying either “the Church” or “the Catholic Church” on the one hand, or “the Roman-Rite Churches” on the other.
I’m 90% certain that I’ve got 80% of that correct. My uncertainty is a result of my intermediate state; I am after all a Christian who grew up Southern Baptist, and was persuaded to intellectually compelling Christianity by, in turns, Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, C.S.Lewis, William Lane Craig, G.K.Chesterton, and Peter Kreeft. The latter two being Catholic, I had then to examine the claims to uniqueness of the Catholic Church, which then required a lot of history-reading!
And so, presently, I continue as a contemporary-service music-director and -arranger in a conservative Methodist church (Due West UMC in Marietta GA, if anyone wants to visit) while reading my way gradually through a sort of self-directed RCIA or Catholic Catechism study.
I don’t know whether, at some point, I’ll become sufficiently intellectually satisfied to fully “reconcile to Rome”; but I have nothing but respect and joy for those who already have. (They may in fact just be a little ways ahead of me on the same road, and I enjoy reading their blogs.)
So, God’s blessings on you, Harry…and on Troy and my fellow Baptist-born brethren…and (what the heck, I’m feeling generous today) on everyone else while I’m at it!
Jeffon 15 Jun 2008 at 9:45 am 19Pope Benedict XVI in his book Introduction to Christianity points out that although it’s true Christians are always subject to doubt, we have to keep in mind that the atheist too is tormented — if only in the subtlest recesses of his experience — by radical doubt.
Dirty Harry’s story made me think of this comment in a very concrete way: it must drive militant atheists nuts to know that even if they were to succeed in re-paganizing the world, even if they finally blew out every last candle and saw their battle finally won and their utopia imminent, at that precise moment, someone, somewhere will ask the question “why is there something rather than nothing?”
Spark.
Candle re-ignites.
Like one of those novelty birthday candles that re-light after you’ve blown it out, except it’s not fun for the militant atheist, because he really, and I mean really, in the sense of mental obsession, wants to blow that damned thing out.
Mike Kriskeyon 15 Jun 2008 at 3:01 pm 20Over at National Review Mary Eberstadt has been writing a series of articles modelled after “The Screwtape Letters.” They’re written as if from an atheist to her fellow “brights” about how not to lose the battle against the “dulls” (religious believers). It’s a cute series.
I thought you might be interested in this one, Harry, as it’s about the conversion of people to religious belief for intellectual, rather than mystical, reasons.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NWE0ZDZkYWMwNGQ4M2E2MzAyNGYwMjVkODgwZmQ2M2Q=
Splashon 15 Jun 2008 at 4:49 pm 21..”I’ve always called myself a Baptist because of the rich theological tradition back to the Westminster Confession 1689 …. Some of my compadres don’t think RCC are Christians, but that ain’t me.…”
Hold on now. Baptists taking credit for the Westminster Confession? We baptize our babies around these parts, pilgrim. Though I guess as an orthodox Presbyterian (Dutch Reformed, but who’s keeping score?), I’m the closest thing to a pilgrim around here.
But I agree Roman Catholics can be considered our brothers. We’re at opposite ends of the Olympic-sized orthodoxy pool, but still.
RE: “Catholic,” I’m with IrishCatholic. It’s a big C/little c thing.
http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/documents/apostles_creed.html
Rob Howardon 15 Jun 2008 at 5:42 pm 22Great blog! I found it via Anchoress, who I found via Michelle Malkin (ah, internet + free time…)
As a cradle Christian myself, currently attending LCMS Lutheran churches, I really do enjoy reading conversion stories such as these. I’m sure many of my non-faithful friends think I’m Christian because I was born in a Christian family, and though that helped, certainly, everyone has to make their own decisions at some point. So reading through posts like yours helps to remind me that, if I truly had an open and honest mind, I would have arrived at the exact same place I am now if I was not born Christian.
Blessings to you sir.
Troyon 15 Jun 2008 at 8:20 pm 23Splash… Our roots go back to that. Dunk or sprinkle. It matters.
Most Baptists don’t even know their Calvinistic roots. The heavy Arminian flavor of the late 19th c. 20th c. evangelists with the altar calls, etc. and the bad preaching (with many exceptions) in Baptist churches in the past 30 years have resulted in Baptists who don’t really know why they are Baptists and/or what that means.
Splashon 15 Jun 2008 at 9:31 pm 24Troy, yeah… I just love ribbing Baptists on the whole baptism thing. Which I have plenty of opportunity to do since the church we attend is actually…Conservative Baptist! (We sneak our kids to my Christian Reformed Church pastor grandpa when they’re not looking.) Spurgeon, of course, was a brilliant, brilliant mind too.
Rob, welcome! I love the LCMS. Might be going there instead but their LCMS-only restrictions on communion wouldn’t let a Presbyterian like me take part. Which is one of the reasons I admire them. Too many churches are afraid to have doctrinal standards and enforce them anymore, seems like.
shana sfoon 15 Jun 2008 at 10:10 pm 25I read through the threads once, and didn’t see anyone else mention this…
We do not belong to the “Roman Catholic Church”. There really is no such thing!
Actually, we belong to the Catholic Church, named by St Ignatius of Antioch around 105 AD to describe the universal nature of the Church, and most of us in the West belong to the Latin Rite. There are other Rites that also belong to the Catholic Church, and they are those listed above by G.Rumplestilzskin. Confusion over the term “Church” is common; it describes both the Bride of Christ and the various Rites, as well as local parishes (as in, “I belong to St Joseph the Worker Church.”)
“Roman Catholic” is a term coined during the Protestant revolt in England to distinguish the English Church under Henry VIII (who still thought of himself as Catholic, but an Anglican Catholic, and also pope of his own country) with the rest of the Catholic Church. Because the English used this term to describe Catholics, and because the English settled much of this country first - the term stuck. Even the Irish began using it when corresponding to various monarchs.
Most Catholics in the US and Canada now use it instead of the proper term Latin Rite and don’t know its origin or that it isn’t proper to us.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13121a.htm This page has a great and detailed history of the term.
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