ARCHBISHOP SHEEN'S QUESTION

I received an e-mail from Tony Quinn in Australia, challenging me to answer the following question. My reply is in italics.

Let's consider if you can answer this question given by the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen: "If I were not a Catholic, and were looking for the true Church in the world today, I would look for the one Church which did not get along well with the world: in other words, I would look for the Church which the world hates. My reason for doing this would be, that if Christ is in any one of the Churches of the world today, He must be still hated as He was when He was on earth in the flesh. If you would find Christ today, then find the Church that does not get along with the world. Look for the Church that is hated by the world, as Christ was hated by the world." This is an anachronistic statement. True, there was a time when there might have been some validity to this. If you had been an Englishman in the 16th century and found that the pope had excommunicated your Queen and put out a contract on her life, you could well distrust and dislike Romanism.

If you had been a God-fearing American colonist in the 17th century and a group were coming to your shores claiming that theirs is the only true Church and had a history of backing that up by killing those who disagreed, you could well distrust Romanism. If you were Mrs. Bartholomew Hector in the 12th century and the Roman Catholic authorities had just had your husband put to death merely because he preached against the Mass, you might hate Romanism.

"Look for the Church that is being accused of being behind the times, as Our Lord was accused of being ignorant and never having learned. Look for the Church which men sneer at as socially inferior, as they sneered at Our Lord because He came from Nazareth. Look for the Church which is accused of having a devil, as Our Lord was accused of being possessed by Beelzebub, the Prince of devils.

Look for the Church which, in seasons of bigotry, men say must be destroyed in the name of God as men crucified Christ and thought they had done a service to God. Look for the Church which the world rejects because it claims it is infallible, as Pilate rejected Christ because He called Himself the Truth.

Look for the Church which is rejected by the world as Our Lord was rejected by men. Look for the Church which amid the confusion of conflicting opinions, its members love as they love Christ, and respect its Voice as the very voice of its Founder, and the suspicion will grow, that if the Church is unpopular with the spirit of the world, then it is unworldly, and if it is unworldly, it is other-worldly. Since it is other-worldly it is infinitely loved and infinitely hated as was Christ Himself. But only that which is Divine can be infinitely hated and infinitely loved. Therefore the Church is Divine". All of these things are true now of biblical Fundamentalism. Have you ever seen a fundamentalist leader being chosen by the media as "Man of the Year" or "Man of the Century." While the Catholic Anti-Defamation League whimpers about being misrepresented by the movie industry, have you ever contrasted "Going My Way" with "Elmer Gantry." While this argument may have had some substance when the Catholic Church was pursuing a path of isolation and complete rejection of non-Catholics, it is just not true today. You had better scrap this part of your argument, Tony. Tony's only answer was that he had never heard of Elmer Gantry.