Catholics and Atheists

by Editor · Published May 9, 2012 · Updated July 7, 2017

This week we devote the entire letters page of responses to an atheist who wrote of his disappointing experience of going to Mass at Easter. No doubt, the sincerity of the correspondent and the respect he showed to those who do believe in salvation have made an impression on many readers. In turn, they hope to engage him with testimony of their experience as believers.

An anti-Church poster in a US protest. Marginalising the Church is not “a way in which atheists and believers can strive towards common goals of justice and peace in this world, even as they differ on whether there is a next world.”

This is a good example of how dialogue between believers and non-believers should be: frank and courteous exchanges of perspective with a view not to proselytise or score points, but to advance mutual understanding.

Pope Benedict would approve of this. When he hosted representatives of virtually every religion at Assisi, Italy, last year, he made it a point to also invite a delegation of atheists.

Addressing the Assisi gathering, Mexican philosopher Guillermo Hurtado said: We, humanists in dialogue with believers, commit ourselves together with all men and women of good will to building a new world in which respect for the dignity of each and every person… is the foundation for life in society.

This represents a way in which atheists and believers can strive towards common goals of justice and peace in this world, even as they differ on whether there is a next world.

This is a far cry from the scorched earth style of debate proposed by Richard Dawkins, who has called on atheists to publicly ridicule and show contempt to believers.

Especially in the Anglophone world, the atheist strategy (in as far as there can be said to be a concerted effort) of engaging with Christians is often marked by disrespect, distortion, exclusion and calumny. Even where religious freedoms are protected, the voice of the church is systematically marginalised in public discourse, told to mind its own business.

The Catholic Church fosters this sense of antipathy at times when its leaders make reckless and inflammatory pronouncements, for example when US Bishop Daniel Jenky, in trying to illustrate the Church’s marginalisation, compared US President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

The US bishops are right to object to a requirement which would force Catholic institutions to pay for employee health coverage that includes measures in conflict with its teachings. However, the Church’s case is not strengthened by some of the hyperbole that has accompanied their objection.

Unlike the persecuted Church in Pakistan, Iraq or China, the Catholics of the United States are not in danger of physical persecution, nor is the Catholic Church in danger of being suppressed, as several US bishops seem to claim.

In western democracies, those who frame laws that contradict the Church’s moral teachings usually do so not because they hate the Church or despise God. Most do so in disagreement with or indifference to these teachings and for what they perceive to be the common good. If the Church’s mission is to influence lawmakers and voters that such laws are iniquitous, then the strategy of threat, fury and defamation is unlikely to persuade them, but only serves to entrench already existing positions.

Of course the Church has a right and moral obligation to speak out against all that is in opposition its teachings, and it must do so vigorously and credibly when the situation demands it. But the teachings of the Church are not diluted when they are communicated with reason and respect for those who do not subscribe to them.

The weakness of atheist crusaders such as Dawkins is exposed in the call to mock Christians, not to reason with them. Christians are rightly affronted by this and therefore must beware not to fall into the trap of reciprocating, or regarding all non-believers with hostility.

The Dawkins brand of atheism, which has many zealous followers, promotes contempt over discourse. When Christians employ the same strategy of contempt (as, alas, many do even when addressing fellow believers), the hope of rational dialogue diminishes.

The experience of Assisi 2011 and the present exchange on our letters page shows that fruitful dialogue is possible, if we are willing to recognise goodwill in others.