The idea for this video came from my own experience in protestant churches before I became Catholic as well as from interactions I’ve had since becoming Catholic, especially on my YouTube channel in which I encounter a lot of the same remarks and arguments from protestants about Catholics over and over, and instead of responding to them each time, I thought it would be more useful to be able to direct them to a video that catalogues them and responds to them. So that gave me the idea to make a video called “Stupid things that Protestants say to Catholics”, but I thought, to be fair, I should try to put the shoe on the other foot first and consider what kinds of things we Catholics say to Protestants that could be described in the same way.

Some spontaneous thoughts as the popular struggle over the narrative starts to take shape in the aftermath of the death of Pope BXVI.

Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com It’s often claimed that the Church is full of fake and hypocritical Christians. A common refrain from non-Christians is that they like Jesus, but not his followers. There’s even a popular quote that I believe is misattributed to Gandhi which goes something like, “I like your Christ, but not your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.” And even if Ghandi never said that, the popularity of this quote suggests that it resonates with a lot of people. And as a somebody that is part of the Church, believes in the Christian creed, and adopts the identity of a follower of Jesus, I can concede that there is a lot of truth to that sentiment – the Church does have that problem. But so does every walk of life. Nobody lives up to the moral standard that they profess, or at least internalize, and the reason we know this is because everyone has experienced guilt and shame. And I’m not talking about the kind of shame that comes from somebody else expressing disapproval of your moral conduct. That more often just produces the effect of anger and resentment, as opposed to shame. I’m talking about the kind of shame that appears as a result of the conviction of our own conscience – because we’ve done something that falls beneath the expectations and moral standards we set for ourselves – and we’ve all experienced this. We all have memories, that when they rehearse themselves in our minds, we sort of recoil from them in shame and embarrassment because it is our OWN conscience that disapproves of our behaviour. We all have things we wish we could take back.

I recently read this tongue-in-cheek essay by C.S. Lewis and thought it would be a great reflection for your Christmas viewing. With his unrivaled wit and charity, Lewis assaults the strange habit of modern X-mas traditions in which we buy cards and gifts for people we don't like or want to buy for, exhaust our appetites through gluttony, and weary our stamina with "the rush", which he concludes, nobody would be willing to do to celebrate a religious feast in honor of a God they don't believe in - for that would be lunacy. Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com

When I was a newly minted Christian and a young adult, what seemed most obvious to me about my prayer life was the preference for an organic, improvised style of personal prayer at the expense of something formal and scripted. This meant a conversational style rather than reciting prayers from memory. I took this sentiment so seriously that I would adapt prayers that I knew I should be praying, like the Our Father, into a language that was more idiosyncratic to the way I speak. What was ironic about this is that in doing so, I was conceding a recognition that there are prayers that I ought to be saying because we are taught to, from Jesus himself, as well as Church tradition, but then I somehow missed the part where either scripture or Tradition tell us that unscripted and unrehearsed prayer should be prioritized at the expense of scripted and rehearsed prayers. Because it doesn’t teach that – which makes me wonder why I was so heavily influenced by this sentiment – and I’m willing to bet that many of you watching this video are as well. I also found that the longer I did this, the more I was running out of creative ways to make my prayers spontaneous and authentic. I inevitably found myself saying the same things every day to the point where I had created my own scripted and rehearsed regimen of prayer and if anything, the pressure to be creative and spontaneous became a discouragement to pray at all.

Why is it that corporations today are so enthusiastic about punctuating the work they do with moral instruction when it really has nothing to do with who they are or what the purpose of their corporate enterprise is? For example, a major telecommunications company in Canada has assigned themselves to be the champion of mental health by encouraging conversation and destigmatization in their advertising content. But honestly, if I want to grow in my understanding of mental health and the afflictions of real people, I’m not going to turn to my cell phone carrier for advice – because, why would I? Coca-Cola, who needs no introduction, elaborates on the work they do in their mission and vision – where it’s all about love, sustainability, and our shared future. This from a company that has been accused of being the worst plastics polluter in the world by Ethical Consumer. If they were honest about their mission, it would be about selling as much poisonous and nutritionally vacuous soft drinks as they can with little regard of the health implications or the environment. So given the disparity, between what corporations actually do vs how they describe themselves and their incessant habit of lecturing everyone about their moral “values” which they seem to think we should adopt – doesn’t it make you wonder why they do this, why they spend obscene amounts of advertising dollars to perch themselves on a high horse and pontificate to the rest of us? Up until very recent times, we had our best people contemplating the big moral questions for the sake of educating the rest of us on how to live well. They would study these questions, read what others have contributed, and offer their own thoughts. And while they didn’t always agree or get things right, their motives were simple. They wanted to understand our ethical needs and gain insights to share with the rest of us. They weren’t simultaneously blending it with the objective of selling cars or something like that.