On this feast of the great evangelist St Francis Xavier, I thought I’d share this story with you. The other day I met up with my friend Kevin Walker, erstwhile soccer blogger (and the man behind such famous sites as the Own Goal Network) for a coffee. We decided to hit Mickey D’s as opposed to, say, Starbucks, for a pretty darn good reason – McDonald’s was in the midst of their free coffee promotion! Now, no one loves Starbucks more than yours truly, but having to take out a second mortgage for that grande vanilla latte isn’t always the best play. Especially when McCoffee (it isn’t really called that, but it should be) is gratis.
You know what? I’ve got to tell you that McDonald’s coffee, these days, is pretty darn good! And, no, I am not getting paid to say that! It’s waaay more consistent of a brew than Tim Hortons (the ubiquitous Canadian coffee named after a hockey player – and, yes, it is spelled without an apostrophe – don’t ask) is these days. I swear, almost like New Coke, Tim Hortons has “changed the formula” of their product over the last four years. It’s wildly inconsistent, depending on which location you go to and the time of day you go there – but I don’t think anyone’s noticed because we’ve been so pavlonianly trained to keep coming back regardless. Okay, end of rant – and rabbit trail. File this one under what Peter King of Sports Illustrated calls “coffeenerdness”.
Now, a funny thing happened while we were having said coffee: the place was jam-packed with students from our local Catholic high school, St Augustine’s, who, apparently, had also heard about the free elixir and thought it worthwhile to skip class to line up for it. While I’m ordering mine, Kevin sits down and somehow gets into a discussion on the Church with a student named Matthew. I returned to find them discussing the Bible. It seems Matthew is a devout Evangelical (even though he attends a Catholic high school) who finds Catholic teaching “unbiblical”, and was also appalled by the irreligious lifestyles led by many of his ostensibly Catholic classmates. To the latter point: don’t judge a religion by those who clearly don’t practice it. Rather, judge it by the strength of the lives of those who clearly do – the saints. As G.K. Chesterton once said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”
As for the first point, that Catholicism is “unbiblical”: Considering that the New Testament was written, and canonized by the Catholic Church, that can hardly be the case. Any discrepancies are only apparent, not real, and can be easily explained. Matthew had a ton of questions about these supposed problems, but, sadly, we didn’t have time to discuss them all. In a situation like this, its probably better, before dealing with less foundational issues, that we should seek to help people grasp a far more fundamental principle: Why do we believe the books that make up the Bible, especially the 27 books of the New Testament, are the infallible Word of God in the first place? The short answer is, “Because the Catholic Church says so”. It is she who collected and canonized those works, deeming them infallible. And we know from basic logic that an effect cannot be greater than its cause. For the Catholic Church to make such an infallible pronouncement, she herself must also be infallible.
I had hoped to discuss these things with Matthew at greater length. I gave him my contact info and he said that he would message me. So far he hasn’t. Matthew, if you happen to be reading this, let me say that I know that you really believe in Christ, and that you are sincere. I think that if you sincerely tale a look at the evidence, you will see that there is more than enough to show us that the Catholic Church is the Church that Jesus founded. It’s where he wants us to be, so we can get the “full meal deal” of the faith. If you ever want to talk about it some more, maybe we can grab another coffee at Mickey D’s. This one’s on me. The free coffee campaign may be over, but hopefully your investigation of things Catholic is not.
You may think this is good news. I am a Canadian and I think it is pathetic that annoye should care what a crumbling, corrupt organization has to say about anything. Any other organization, which is not based in religious superstition, would not get away with the level of arrogance, pedophilia, misogyny and homophobia.