End of the year reflections, part 2 - Religion

In my previous post, I talk about reconciling my complex political conditions. Similarly, I have tried this year to reach some sort of closure about my religious beliefs. For the 2007-2008 school year, I served as social coordinator for the Catholic student group on campus. I came into the position somewhat by accident, and I ended up being in charge of some very large events with attendance that was far higher than we expected. Of course, there was a purpose to having social events as part of campus ministry, since the process of gathering as a Catholic community (or any religious community) helps to promote interaction, and hopefully, a stimulation of faith. Everyone knows that food brings people together, and this fact became even more apparent to me in my role.

However, something just wasn't right. For the past few years, I have known that I have had disagreements with Catholic teaching. Some of them stem from my political views. However, I find political differences to be quite minor compared to some of the other problems I encountered:

• Is it really necessary to pray to the saints?
  
• If God loves us so much, why is there evil in the world?
  
• What exactly is transubstantiation? Do the bread and wine 1) physically become body and blood, 2) take on the spirit of body and blood, thus still tasting like bread and wine, 3) coexist as body and blood and bread and wine, 4) exist as both body and blood and not-body and not-blood are the same time, like a Schroedinger's bread-and-wine-in-a-box?
• The ultimate question: If I don't believe everything I'm supposed to about the faith I identify myself with, does that mean I'm going to hell?

I'm not going to state everything I've learned about all of these questions. However, I will say that, after months of deliberation, I still take pride in calling myself a Christian. I believe in the life of Jesus Christ and that belief and following in him will lead to eternal salvation. That said, I also identify with the Roman Catholic tradition. Do I believe everything that Catholics believe in? No. But there's definitely a type of relationship between God and human that I've found in Catholicism that I haven't found in other faith traditions. It's not a simple one, and it's one that has taken me several years to understand, but I know that I like it.