Stephen D'Agata

I seem to have put the cat among the pigeons the other week with my post about Vatican II. The post created a lot of comments with most of the comments coming from either conservative Catholic zealots, or atheists. Now, although I am one who believes that there is a God, I found myself largely on the side of the atheists in these on-line debates.

I do not believe that there is one true faith. All religions stem from our forebears’ intuitive belief in a greater power and their attempts to understand our origins. But, as these belief systems morphed into mainstream religions, they have been used by the ruling classes to manipulate and control their subjects. The Jesus story professed by Christians, is meant to be one of love and charity. Instead, the values espoused by doctrine are that we need to be fearful and express guilt for being mere humans.

This is most apparent in the historical hypocrisy of the Catholic Church. Hence why my post, which on the surface seemed to celebrate of Vatican II, triggered so many. Sadly, not many appear to have clicked on the link to read the rest of the article, where I explain what went wrong following Vatican II and why church doctrine is still out of step with being a normal human.

Enter the zealots. Those people who believe that Christian God is the one true God. That Church leaders were right to quash the reforms put forward by Vatican II, and everyone should return to the days where we are told what to believe by our priests. Further, the only path to heaven is to accept Jesus Christ as your lord and saviour, accept you are a sinful person, and pray for repentance. Oh, and heaven is only open to Catholics who adhere to these doctrines and the rest of us are destined to burn in the fires of hell.

Now, putting aside whether there is a heaven and hell (Spoiler: there isn’t), and given there are over 8.1 billion people alive today of which 16% profess to be Catholic, and I estimate that 80% of Catholics do not live by the strict doctrines that the Zealots want us to follow, heaven appears to be quite an exclusive place open to just 3% of the population. This seems at odds with the concept of a loving God who is meant to care for all of us, even the non-Catholics.

All of this should have you thinking, why do I still profess to be a Catholic, and what do I think the afterlife, or eternal life looks like? On why I profess to be a Catholic, I discuss this in one of my early blog posts linked here. In a nutshell, I grew up in a Church that was not constrained by doctrine and was free to explore my own beliefs objectively. Consequently, I don’t agree with a lot of the official catechism of the Catholic Church, but I am not unique in this. In fact, most of practicing Catholics, and Catholic clergy I have encountered in my life, are of the same mind that the Church is of equal standing with all other world religions but needs to reform to be relevant in a modern world. It is the Catholic Church that made me who I am, and I am not about to sacrifice my connection to it just because some zealots’ God only welcomes those who live by their rules.

On the matter of if there is an afterlife, the answer is: I don’t know and anyone who tells you they do is lying. There is only one way to find out for sure and I’m not there yet. It may well be that we are totally organic beings that cease to exist in any form once we die. In a eulogy I gave at my wife’s funeral, I expressed that maybe eternal life is just the impression we make on other people and the memories they share. However, it is the interactions I have had with my late wife since her passing, that support my belief that there is more to life than our human existence.

Now, it is not uncommon for people to dream about departed loved ones. My mindset in my dreams is always that she is still alive. This perplexes me because I know how ill she was, and recovery was never going to happen. The first dream I recall was the day after she died, and we were in the cemetery looking at plots. The cemetery provided a choice of monument sites and lawn sites. It was made clear to me in that dream that a monument site was in order. I remember in the dream I was confused by her presence, and I said to her, “How does this work? The funeral is on Tuesday. Are you going to be dead enough by then for us to bury you?”

Years passed and I finally got around to ordering the monument for her grave site. This is a task I largely did on my own. One option I considered is not to have a fully enclosed monument, but to leave the top of the grave covered with decorative stones allowing small shrubs or bulb flowers to be planted. I didn’t discuss this with anyone but eventually talked myself out of it. Around that time, we were putting our house up for sale, and my niece and her husband came to help us clean up. We were about done for the day when my niece’s husband said to her, you must tell Steve about your dream. In my niece’s dream, my wife and I had bought a new house and were doing some landscaping. I was laying out some decorative stones and my wife came running out of the house frantically, yelling “No stones, no stones.” Spooky huh?