my letter to an angry atheist

 Why be angry?

(Dear Kate

I didn't forget, but I just wished to be concise, and that took time. To answer your question posed about 20 years ago regarding teaching kids about religion...)

On Faith:

"Dermot, It's a broad cross. I don't think that Catholicism is a particularly nasty form of corruption, the same way that one form of Protestantism, or of Islam, or one form of Buddhism is a greater corruption than any other form.

You could say, of Catholicism, that it is the most successful living form of Christianity over about 2000 years...which is a long time. So, well done!

As all are Human organisations, they are obviously all to some extent corrupt and quite horrid in many ways, as are many non-religious people, pagans, civilisations, etc...whatever. The Human Condition is somewhat odious at times. That's what makes it human.

It is only important for the individual to gain something from being a member of any of these forms for that religion to have done its job.

My membership of the traditional Tridentine Catholicism Form is for totally my benefit. Im not in it to love God, I can do that in a field just as equally.

I am not in that Church to serve the Church, that Church is there to serve Me...because I like the Latin language.

As long as you give none of the above any of your money, they're all quite good, and some can be delightful, with the lovely singing etc.

For as many believers, there are as many different beliefs. Best not to just pick on the shiniest one, Catholicism, to despise.

I enjoy the Latin Mass as a direct supplier, through time, of the Holy Roman Empire. Thousands of years, yes, and still moving along. It's astonishing how well it has done. I doubt many neo Christian evangelical folk last even one lifetime with their shiny jazzy Jesus who, all the time, needs more money...can't exist without the big bucks every minute.

Keep the Faith. You can toss out the manipulation of the notion of God as you see fit. It's your Faith. It's not God's....well, except for Tridentine Catholicism, of course. Yes, the Transubstantiation is true, but only in the Latin form, of course.

It's good to study the Italian people and their appreciation of the Papacy. The Pope is more a Grand Dad figure than the Living Emblem of a vengeful Judging Jesus. Yes, yes, they respect Grand Dad, but they don't necessarily do what he says. They have interesting lives. You can't live by the Pope's view...That would be nuts.

They have their own lives, beautiful passions, delights, abortions, hard times etc that are always more important, and more pressing in meaning and implications than any Pope. The Italians, especially the smart women, are like that because they are very, well, locally, close to Grand Dad... he's not new or mysterious at all...so, being so nearby, they not like us, you and me, Dermott, seeking to somehow know something eternally, culturally, from so far away. The Italian view of the Pope is that he is totally Grand Dad...you show respect, but you don't live with him, nor do what he says.

Many of my fellow Tridentines don't believe so much in God at all, or especially the Bible, and neither are concerns that take away anything from the joys they find in the form, and the sustenance of it....as long as you never ever give them money.

I love the statues, the more gilt and colourful, the more wondrous, the better...but I don't pray to them. That would be very primitive. I knew that when I was 8.

As for the Bible, well, some of it is well written, but most is very poor fiction indeed. Religion is much like a big roast pork dinner, really. It's always polite to not wolf down everything, and to always leave a little, some of the peas and the burnt pumpkin etc, on that plate. It kind of shows Respect. And leaves room for dessert."