Observations of a New Catholic

CHURCH POSITIONS
Life is a journey. This is a cliché that applies.
The destination of my journey is heaven. I have always wanted to go to heaven, primarily because the alternative is hell and that’s a place I definitely wanted to avoid. I developed this fear of hell in elementary school from the nuns and possibly from priests in the pulpit. If you don’t go to heaven, what’s the point of all the bad things you have to endure in living? Sure, there are some good things in living such as little children, a woman or man you love and fried chicken, but these can be outweighed by the bad things such as job failure, sickness, money problems and the fear of nuclear war. Suicide is an option. But I’d be afraid to commit suicide even if I didn’t believe in heaven and hell. I envision suicide as an empty door frame filled with blackness.
I’m not sure there really is a heaven. Nobody is sure because nobody has come back from the dead to verify heaven’s existence, except Jesus Christ. I believe this about Jesus Christ but many people don’t.
If there is a heaven, there’s no guarantee I’m going to get there. I’m pretty confident I’m on the right track, although this wasn’t the case when I was younger. Back then, I wasn’t Catholic and when you’re younger there is more occasion for sin due to factors such as high libido and rat race employment. I hope the bar to heaven is lower for the young adults who die.
This brings me to Catholicism which I regard as the vehicle for getting to heaven - the Catholic taxi. It has been specifically designed with the help of God to take people to heaven. It has very high mileage and is beset with difficulties, though it’s amazingly durable. But this modern era may be passing it by. There are newer taxis - other Christian churches - but my wife insisted on using the Catholic taxi and I wanted to ride with her.
The Catholic taxi currently isn’t in very good shape. It may be breaking down. Even my pastor seems to be pessimistic.
Partly this situation is the Church’s own fault but mainly, I think, it’s because the road to heaven has become much harder to traverse. Science and technology offer alternative routes that many people believe are better than religious faith and that have pushed faith to the background for occasional observance on Christmas and Easter. For all the astonishing things that science has identified and verified, no one has proven the hypothesis that God exists. I’m not expecting any proof to be offered in my lifetime. There are some things that must be accepted on faith, as Jesus informed Thomas. I accept some things on faith - most importantly, the resurrection of Jesus Christ - and every day I say this short prayer for stronger faith: “Jesus, help me to love you more, to have stronger faith.”
So, here’s my assessment of the Catholic taxi, and here’s what I see outside the window as my wife and I continue our journey.
The Catholic Church has some thorny issues with American Catholics that have not been resolved in the least and probably will not be resolved in the foreseeable future. The Church hasn’t survived for 2,000 years by being wishy-washy and changeable in its teaching and moral positions. But the Church today faces an American laity that is no longer blindly obedient, frequently acts in its secular interests, and lately has been invoking “primacy of conscience” in matters of individual morality.
Abortion
Abortion and birth control appear to me to be the two most contentious issues the Catholic Church faces with its laity. There may be some wiggle room between the Church and laity in regard to artificial birth control, but not in regard to abortion. The Church’s pro-life position is that life begins at the moment of conception, and to abort the fetus deliberately is to murder the person embodied in the fetus. Considerations about the status of the fetus during the course of pregnancy - such as the age of the fetus in weeks or months, the viability of the fetus outside the womb, the capacity of the fetus to experience pain, and the possible abnormality of the fetus - do not alter the Church’s position. If the fetus is abnormal, even severely so, this is no justification for abortion as long as the baby has the chance to survive. The only exception is that if the fetus dies as the result of trying to save the mother’s life, this is not deliberate abortion and is acceptable to the Church.

In regard to artificial birth control, the Catholic Church’s position is untenable. On the one hand, most American Catholics in their childbearing years practice artificial birth control, and the Church knows it. How could it not? On the other hand, the Church condemns the practice, saying it’s gravely sinful. Many young Catholic couples, from the Church’s viewpoint, are living in sin, because they have no intention of stopping the practice as long as they deem it necessary. The Church has no choice but to allow it to continue. If the Church excommunicated Catholics practicing artificial birth control, American Catholicism would disappear. As it is now, the birth control issue probably is a factor in the declining Church attendance the Church is experiencing: why should a Catholic woman attend Mass when the Church has told her she is living in sin by practicing artificial birth control?