Religion is about human endeavor - or maybe just endeavor. It is that force just under the nose of science that cannot be seen. Since the causes of human decision making come from a synergism of diverse values, there is no unit of measure for the force of endeavor. As gravity is only evident when there is mass, endeavor is only evident when there is life. Like a PERT chart, it is the activity between the milestones that is really important. The milestones occupy an infinitely short period of time and are therefore relatively unimportant. Along these lines, is it important that Christ died on a cross or that he loved the children of God so much that he was willing to face death? Religion, as practiced by Jesus, our Lord, is really about personal relationships with God - endeavors like love and truth. I think and I feel that God wants love. He wants us to love Him by being true to Christ, ourselves and our neighbors.

I can understand your questioning fully. As a young religious sister I was sexually abused by my superior almost nightly for a period of two years. Lately I have even been wondering about the existence of God. So, I will share some of where my struggles have led me…religion to me is a relationship with God, not an institutional church. I agree with you that one truly wonderful way to give life to that relationship is to share it with people who truly want a relationship with God also. I no longer believe that I can find those people at Sunday Mass, for the most part. Too often Sunday Mass - or Saturday, whatever- is attended to fulfill a man made command and avoid going to hell as a result of committing a mortal sin. That does not indicate a relationship built on love, but rather, on fear. I don’t believe that is what God wants from us. Have you read the book, THE SHACK? That type of relationship is portrayed in the book. Anyway, i really believe that small group gatherings of people truly desirous of deepening their relationship with God is religion. I think the institutional church is built on a hierarchy of men who are in it for their own gradiosity and not for either God or their flock. I, personally do not believe that in any way even remotely comes close to what religion should and could be.

Scott-
I’m very sorry for your pain. Truly.
Just as I can do nothing to alleviate it, I can’t answer your questions.
That said, I’ll try to share my opinions.

I think that one of the things that is at the heart of religion is man’s need for connection to that spark that he senses to be “more.” There is a pull within many people for that connection. The connection with God. Religion is then the coming together of peoples aware of their longing for that “more” which cannot be explained, yet is vaguely known at the very core of one’s humanity. Beyond that is theology.

What does God want from us?
I imagine that He wants us to be reconciled to Him - to come back to Him. To live within His Love. To be part of that Love. To share that Love.

The vile elements of life are not of God. They are the negation of God. Within humanity’s negation of God is a selfishness in which no one matters, except the individual. To inflict pain upon another only matters to the individual in that it may be a way for an individual’s selfish desires to be fulfilled.

I don’t think that the purpose of religion is so good people make sure vile things don’t happen. I believe as we draw closer to God through our religion we come closer to being inaccord with God’s ways. Inherent to that is to then, in whatever way, is the desire to extend God’s way to those around us. As we are blessed, so do we wish to be a blessing to others. That doesn’t mean religion will change the world.

We have to do our best and always know that we can do better as we move toward the Father. As outcasts from His realm we must trust in his mercy and work to be servants and messengers of His mercy in this merciless land.

I am sorry for your pain and sadness. You are in my prayers.

One last thing, on this the feast day of St. Augustine it seems appropriate to remind you of something that Doctor of the Church once wrote - “God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.”

Peace. ~~~mary

The author refers to a brutal rape-torture-murder along with the case of Kownacki, yet another pedophile priest found to have brutally raped an altar boy over a five year period.

The two are definitely connected. The reason we have an epidemic of brutal sexual crimes especially against children is obvious. Pedophiles watched priests get away with it for 50 years and became empowered.

The church must pay, not just a million here and there to a persistent victim. The Catholic church must recognize that it jump started the pedophile crime epidemic we have in this country.

This calls for Senate hearings. These bishops need federal prosecution.

Meanwhile, kudos to Belleville, Illinois and the Weilmeunster legal team and to Bishop Gregory for getting on the stand. That is progress.

“Please tell me what you think religion is really about.”

Almost without exception, it is about obtaining and maintaining perks for those at or near the top, supplied by those at or near the bottom of the hierarchy. And the longer a particular religion exists, the more imbalanced it becomes. (See RCC for iconic example)

Thanks hrh for adding in the daily Catholic bash. You may return to your idol worshipping now…

Scott, to me religion is the embodiment of our collective efforts to do the best we can while we life this life.

Rather than type some of the things I thought I’d say to add to that, let me just remind you that for every bad story there is a good one. And sometimes it just helps to hear a good one. One of my favorites is a story Jack Buck told over and over. A young man, confined to a wheelchair with some terrible disease that was slowly taking his life, spent a few innings in the back of the broadcast booth watching the game and listening to Jack and Mike Shannon broadcast the play-by-play. This kid could barely move, but he had told Jack that one dream he had was to catch a foul ball. Now the broadcast booth in the old Busch Stadium was straight back from home plate. In order for a ball to get in there it had to be fouled right over the netting behind home plate and into the booth. The angle was such that only a ball with some velocity on it could take that path. Well, sure enough a batter fouled a ball back into the booth. Jack and Mike ducked as the ball bounced around all over the place. The ball eventually rolled onto the table that the kid was sitting at and stopped right in front of him. He reached out and picked it up, and announced that he caught a foul ball, with a smile almost too big for his face. Jack Buck was so choked up over this sight that he couldn’t finish announcing that inning.

As usual I have tears in my eyes, which happens every time I try to tell or write this tale.

Now, this could of been just a thing of chance of course. Or it could of been something else, a message that there is something more than just our individual lives in play here. Each person can take this story differently, but no one can deny that it tugs at their emotions, no matter what their beliefs.

Don’t let the bad stories get you down.

Asking what religion is about is rather like asking a bunch of
blind men what an elephant looks like. It is clearly different
things to different people.

For some, it is the effort to get in touch with what is good and
true in the universe; often a search for something common. Would
that it were that to more of humankind.

For others, it as an anodyne against their dissatisfaction with
this life; an attempt to codify the hope that this isn’t all there
is. The sad side of this is that when there is any threat, any threat
at all, to their supply of pain-killer, they tend to lash out. Blaming
the victims of abuse or dismissing them as money-hungry has been their
fall back position.

There are some for whom it’s a career; something they’re good at,
at which they can become important. Those are the ones who chose
their own caste of clergy over the safety of children, and permitted
the awful sexual exploitation to be enabled and to continue. I honestly
have a great deal of trouble working up too much sadness for them, now
that their self-serving tactics have crumbled all around them. I am,
however, sad that few seem to have paid any professional price. Indeed,
it seems like those, like Fr. Tom Doyle, who speak the truth to power
pay a higher price than those who enabled the abusers.

Some find religion a means to control others; to work their will on their
behavior in the guise of it being the will of a higher power. They,
perhaps, are homophobic. This unattractive characteristic, though, can
be sanctified in the name of things like “the defense of marriage.” Or,
failing in their quest for political power, they seek to sell the appeal
of a ‘religious state’ to the devout.

Religion can be at once a reflection of the highest aspirations of
humanity and a vehicle for the most cynical.

About the most one can say is that, in any case, “it is what it is.”

Tim: How is what I wrote Catholic bashing? Is it untrue? We both know it is not. All you have to do is go to http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AbuseTracker and ready daily the viscious and obscene acts committed by these holier-than-thous.

BTW, this has nothing to do with the Catholic faith, which is unassailable; this is about the institutional church, the organization, the Vatican-centered business here on planet Earth that has been commandeered by a gang of arrogant, condescending, avaricious (EXTREMELY avaricious!), disconnected, entitled queens whose only goal is the continuance of their luxury lifestyle. You know, chauffered Towncar, open bar, luxury accommodations, first-class only travel, extended vacations, rent boys. All paid for by the Kool-Aid drinking sheeple who keep that Sunday collection plate filled.

Anyone who continues to support this ongoing organized criminal enterprise is just as guilty as the murdering (yes, murdering), raping, sodomizing, molesting predatory clergy and their mitered and red hatted protectors, enablers, promoters. Shame on them all!

Idol worship? Just because one eschews the organized religion con, doesn’t mean one is not a person of faith. You know that, also. Your anger at being confronted with the truth got in the way of your good sense. I accept your apology.

What is religion about? I am a Catholic. For me religion is a support system to help me reach heaven, by inspiring me to help bring heaven to earth.

An interesting question, Scott.

I find myself agreeing with most of the previous comments. What I see religion as being ‘about’ is really about an idea. Religion gives us humans a vehicle for our desire for, our need for, connection to something bigger than ourselves. We look around, and we find ourselves asking the same questions that humans have asked since the beginning of time: Why are we here? What does it all mean? How did it all come about? And we say things too: I feel that there is something bigger out there that is real that I can’t quite put my finger on. I need other people in my life to help me through the rough spots. I need to be helping others through their rough spots.

Religion fills all those needs. I absolutely believe in God. However, I’m also very clear that not only DO I not understand God, I fundamentally CANNOT understand God. My understanding is, by definition, limited. God is unlimited. I can grasp a piece. Scott, by posing the question, you are suggesting a piece. The other posters have their pieces. By sharing together, we can come to a fuller understanding.

I also understand the nay-sayers. All to often, and seemingly more forcefully in recent years, religion HAS turned into a tool, even a weapon, used by the powerful to get more power. It doesn’t just happen in the RCC. It happens in all of them. Politicians are people too, and many of them use religion as one of their tools to manipulate and gain power. This is always the risk.

Religion, by my thinking, is both a great force for good in the world…AND a potentially disastrous force for bad. Frequently simultaneously.

Scott, a short time ago, I wrote the following to a friend who I first met in the first grade of a Catholic School. I think it best describes how I feel about religion in general and about the Catholic Church in particular. I was taught by secular priests and an order of nuns, then by the brothers of the Holy Cross and finally by Jesuits. I was taught by the best the RCC has to offer.
Carolyn this may disappoint you but I do not belong to any organized religion, in fact while I know there are many good ministers, I am suspicious of them in general. The higher up the ladder of their religion they are, the more I don’t trust them. This is especially true of the Catholic religion we were raised in. I believe that the true measure of a person is how that person treats other people, how they treat other living beings and how they treat the world we live in. I believe that if a person treats the above with respect and if they somehow influence the world for the betterment of all, they will be all right when they leave this world. I believe that a dollar given for the betterment of a person, an animal or the world in general is more sacred than a dollar placed in the collection plate of a church and especially better than a dollar placed in the hands of a large church. Having said that, I can identify with Christ but I cannot believe that Christ would be able to identify with much of organized religion of today and he would be especially appalled at the Catholic organization which claims to be his only true representatives.

Ultimately, religion is not about anything at all. It is the Faith behind the religious practice that matters to the Cosmic, to the human, to the Earth, to the church. Religious practice of any type is a cultural artifact. Social anthropologists have known this for over a century or a little more. What matters is what I do with, for and around YOU. A Jesuit priest once told us when were young men that God has no hands or feet. WE are God’s hands and feet. Whatever God is ever going to do in the human realm, depends completely on us. Whatever He is going to do in the realm of the Universe apparently depends on gavity, gamma rays and super nova. Religion is just an outward sign of an inward yearning. Of itself, it has no merit, none at all. But if it reflects our Faith in a genuine manner it is very good. If it is practice to some unseen force for the sake of practice, it is evil.

If religion is about achieveing a transformed world where, in Scott’s words, “no one will be starving to death, no one will be kidnapped or tortured or murdered” it has milestones that will not be achieved. We are not good.

Greg Bullough and IreneK, commenting on Sherry Tyree’s “Bishops to Pelosi: Stop misrepresenting church teaching against abortion” post have good points about abortion. If abortion is a moral issue, why is outlawing abortion not a moral issue? It seems we cannot do good without also doing evil. I think what religion is about is having a better relationship with God.

I can sum up my answer to ‘what is religion about’ by sharing two things:

Micah 6:8 says, “He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (NASB)

The second is something that I believe is one of the great untold Religion stories of our time. I’m adding a video link to the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance website. It shows a different view of the Gulf Coast since Katrina/Rita, and a different view of this particular denomination. In the name of full disclosure, I’ve been on two trips down there, and have two of those blue shirts in my dresser.

http://vidego.multicastmedia.com/player.php?v=y5h9i422

This is a heart wrenching sharing of an honest person, grappling with the problem of evil in the world and in the church. Unfortunately, we have come to a time in history, where people are going to have to make a distinction between ‘churchianity’ and Christianity. All of the correct and ennobling acts of Our Lord Jesus Christ are the ones to which we must turn. In other words, the Church and all its leaders must lead Christ like lives. Their lives must be Christ-centered. It is the example of lives changed by Christ that we see to live and to follow. “Come follow me” says Christ. The church has not done so. What does it profit the church if it gain the whole world and suffer the loss of its soul? If leaders’ lives are not Christ centered, no cathedral, no robes, no head count will help. Start thinking like Christ and you will bring a revolution of love, peace, sharing and brotherhood to this broken and sinful world. May God bless you in your journey. Fr. Henry+

hrh, your hate for the Church is obvious. Calling Catholics “kool-aid drinkers” is SOP for guys like you. The good that the RCC has done throughout the world probably cannot be calculated, but you would rather focus on the few priests that have done wrong. Because there has NEVER been a rabbi or a minister or a reverend that has ever done soemthing like that. No higher ups in the Jewish faiths or multitudes of Protestant faiths ever flew first class or drove around in a nice car.

You just hate the Catholic Church, plain and simple. But don’t apologize, instead try a little reflection and decide if what you stand for is accurate or misguided anger…