Bishop Barron’s insightful and inspirational homily from this past Sunday might be the best homily of the year, especially to inspire apologetics. Here’s a summary and please watch the homily in full:
Since it’s beginning, Christianity has been interested in the question of doctrinal truth. There’s some religions that focus more on orthopraxy (practicing correct behavior) than orthodoxy (practicing right belief in doctrine). Our culture today conforms to kind of looking around at everyone with a belief that “most of us will disagree with each other’s beliefs, but who cares as long as we are good people”. Christianity is very interested in orthopraxy but it doesn’t reduce orthodoxy to orthopraxy. The Nicene Creed came out of the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 and the Church has recited it as a part of its liturgy ever since. The Apostles Creed is an even earlier text, and both creeds very clearly state the beliefs of the early Church and its baptismal promises.
When Paul and Barnabas traveled to a town and a miracle occurred, the people there thought they were Greek Gods, but they would correct them to say that wasn’t true and it wasn’t their mystic way of doing things. However, Paul also went to Athen’s capital city of the Greek philosophical culture to engage in philosophical dialogue with the Epicureans and the Stoics. These two examples show how the Church said “no to mythos” and “yes to lagos/reason”. Doctrine matters and it is very important!
Bishop Barron doesn’t blame the Second Vatican Council, and points out that it was produced by some of the smartest people of the 20th century. But he has consistently said that the period following the council, there was a sort of dumbing down of the faith, and there was a tendency to present it as a very emotional experience while underplaying the rationale and theological side of the faith.
Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves be put to shame.
(1 Peter. 3:15-16).
Peter’s text is the the beginning of apologetics, and it would be very helpful today for Catholics to live by these great words. Bishop Barron looks at the statistics of the so-called “Nones”, the non-affiliated, who are especially young people who leave the Church, and the number one reason is not the sex abuse scandal, it is that “they don’t believe the doctrines”. The heartbreaking reality shows that for a couple of generations people have not been willing and able to give a reason for the hope that was in them. St. Peter says “Always be ready”, not sometimes, and so if we are always ready then we can benefit those around us who have questions about the Church and we can engage in proper conversations. Everybody; bishops, priests, theologians, catechists, the laity, we all have to always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, we need to step our game.
Once we develop our arguments and reasons for truth, we can’t forget that when we are defending the faith, we must do it with “gentleness and reverence”. The Church does not impose, it only proposes.