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Happy Sunday Father Angelo.

I’m writing to you because of a small doubt, but above all for my personal vent.

For years I have been a catechist in the parish and now I am very saddened to see how the other Christians who are catechists with me reduce the proclamation of the Gospel to an empty “sentimental goodism”: let us all love each other, God loves us etc. The usual slogans. By now it seems to me that Jesus has “come out” of the catechetical meetings. To say that young people have a fragile Faith is an understatement. I believe that many don’t even really know what it means to be Christian. I don’t feel better than others, in fact I wonder a lot about my responsibilities in all of this.

Sorry for the outburst!

Now I would like to take advantage of this for a doubt relating precisely to catechesis. I follow the group of 2nd-3rd year of secondary school and I worked with them on the importance of being salt of the earth and light of the world. I took some material from a medium with an imprimatur, but I didn’t realize that there was a sentence that was, in my opinion, ambiguous. It was said that kids should testify that they cannot prove God, but they can show Him to others. Now, I seem to be rushing with hypotheses but doesn’t this sentence contradict the dogma on the possibility of rationally demonstrating the existence of God?

I didn’t discuss this sentence with the boys – I didn’t realize he was there! (which is on the material I left them for weekly reflection) and I am disturbed by the fact that it could potentially be “heretical”. However, the kids will probably never grasp the meaning of the sentence and indeed perhaps they will never read what I have given them for reflection during the week. I would not like to return to this sentence because the explanations I would have to give seem excessively complex to me for those who, as I was telling you, still have a very very fragile faith. But I would ask you for advice to try not to make mistakes.

Finally, I also ask you for a prayer for these children, for their families and for me.

Thank you with all my heart.

Matteo

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Priest’s answer

Dear Matteo,

1. First of all it would be necessary to see the context in which that expression was written because God certainly cannot be seen in the flesh because he is a very pure spirit.

And, strictly speaking, we cannot even show it except indirectly with our behavior.

2. However, we must avoid thinking that the existence of God is unprovable and that children can read in a religious text that faith is necessary to conclude the existence of God

3. In fact, two levels must be distinguished: the rational one and that of faith.

The existence of God is already recognizable on a rational level.

How many thinkers, even pagans such as Aristotle, have reached this point.

4. Saint Augustine attests that when he was not yet baptized and lived a rather disordered life, after reading the works of Plato and Cicero’s Hortensius, two pagan philosophers, he became rationally convinced of the existence of God and the immortality of ‘soul.

5. For this reason in theology it is taught that the two truths about the existence of God and the immortality of the soul do not belong directly to faith, but are preambles of faith.

These preambles must be presented in a convincing manner.

6. Faith itself commands us to refer to these preambles.

Thus for example Saint Paul: “For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made.” (Rom 1:19-20).

For this reason, continuing, he says that those who did not recognize him “They have no excuse” (Rm 1,20).

7. Likewise in the Old Testament in the book of Wisdom: “For all men who were ignorant of God were foolish by nature; and they were unable from the good things that are seen to know him who exists, nor did they recognize the craftsman while paying heed to his works; but they supposed that either fire or wind or swift air, or the circle of the stars, or turbulent water, or the luminaries of heaven were the gods that rule the world. If through delight in the beauty of these things men[a] assumed them to be gods, let them know how much better than these is their Lord, for the author of beauty created them. And if men were amazed at their power and working, let them perceive from them how much more powerful is he who formed them. For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator. Yet these men are little to be blamed, for perhaps they go astray while seeking God and desiring to find him. For as they live among his works they keep searching, and they trust in what they see, because the things that are seen are beautiful. Yet again, not even they are to be excused; for if they had the power to know so much that they could investigate the world, how did they fail to find sooner the Lord of these things? ” (Wis 13,1-9).

8. For this reason the First Vatican Council intervened against the fideists.

Fideists are those who affirm that the existence of God can only be achieved through faith.

No, says the First Vatican Council. The existence of God can and must be arrived at with reason.

And after having expressed the principle: “The Catholic Church has always unanimously believed and still believes that two orders of knowledge exist, distinct not only by their principle, but also by their object: by their principle, because in one we know with natural reason, in the other with divine faith; for the object, because in addition to the truth that natural reason can grasp, we are proposed to see the mysteries hidden in God, which cannot be known unless they are revealed from above” (DS 3015 T-N), concludes with the dogma: “If anyone says that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, cannot be known with certainty thanks to the natural light of human reason through created things: let him be anathema” (DS 3026 T-N).

​9. Don’t be discouraged by the difficulties you encounter. You don’t know how much your words can penetrate deep into the hearts of these kids and germinate at the right time.

Follow them spiritually with your prayers and also with your sacrifices, exercising true spiritual fatherhood over them.

I gladly assure you of my prayers for you, for the children you have at school and for their families.

I bless you and wish you all the best.

Father Angelo