Expert: Fr. Michael - 12/26/2009

Question
Fr. Michael:

Hello. Please do not be offended with what I am asking you. I do not mean to be disrespectful, I am just in search of knowledge.

My name is Paul.  I am a 40 year old male who was raised in a pretty strict Catholic household.  I did the Catholic school thing from grades 1 through 11.  I was an Altar Boy for 7 years.  I was brought up believing word for word what was taught to me.  Everything from Adam and Eve to the birth of Jesus.  Over the past ten years I have been having a MAJOR "faith crisis".  The reason?  The more I learn, the more questions I have that cannot be answered by my religion but CAN be answered by science.  What led me to write this e-mail was something I heard on the radio Christmas Eve day.  I was listening to a talk show and they had a segment about "things most people don't realize." One of those things was the "Star of Bethlehem".  Growing up I was taught that when Jesus was born, God made a star become very bright in order to lead the 3 wise men to Jesus place of birth.  Now I find out this is 100% untrue.  What actually happened was in that specific time period the planets Venus and Jupiter were only 42 arcseconds apart. At that range the pair would appear to merge into a single brilliant star which is often identified as the "Christmas Star" reported in the book of Matthew.

Now, this is just one of dozens of major events that took place in the Bible that science has proven to be incorrect.  I do understand the concept of "having faith" and / or being a "doubting Thomas" but it seems that people that do believe in God always seems to have an answer for every religious type of question you have.  If something good happens in life such as someone is cured of cancer or survives a bad car accident they'll say "It was God's work or God's will" but when something bad happens like someone dies of cancer or dies in a car accident people will say "God works in mysterious ways."  These people don't stop and think well, "John" was on radiation and chemotherapy for over 2 years.  maybe that’s what cured his cancer or maybe because Jane was wearing her seat belt is the reason she didn't get hurt in the car accident.

Believe me, as I get older there is nothing more that I would want than to know there really is a God and a place called heaven.  Death isn't what scares me, what scares me is the thought of losing my consciousness, which I won't know about anyway because I will be unconscious so why worry, right?  I just try to comprehend the thought of eternity and even if spent in a place called Heaven, it just seems so impossible.

To look at it from another angle, God is everywhere, everyone, everything.  God can do anything he wants. Make a pizza appear in front of him by just thinking it.  He can create a million galaxies with a billion different life forms with a blink of an eye. He says that he made us in his own image.  If this is all true, why he would create "man", put him on a planet we named "Earth" and let the terrible suffering take place that does so on a daily basis.  I also know and understand the concept of "free-will" but what free-will does a baby born in the jungles of Africa have? None.  That baby can't decide to go and get food for itself or defend itself.  So because of that it has to suffer for up to 14 days of hunger, thirst, pain etc until its human body just shuts down and the baby dies.  Why would a being such as "God" who created that baby in his own image allow that to happen?  I just can't comprehend how an all loving, all forgiving God can allow it.

Well, I could go on here for hours but would like to hear your thoughts, ideas on what I have said here.  Again, I do not consider myself an atheist but I just feel "empty" inside when it comes to God.  

Thanks for listening / reading.

Paul


Answer
So the Christmas star may have been a conjunction of planets (although that is not a certainty).  As God created the universe, the conjunction was his handwork.  What a wonderful confluence!

True religion and true science, as Pope St. Pius X, are completely in agreement, both are based on truth.  There is a lot of false "science" out there (like "global warming") and false "religion" (like the spurious "modernized" version of the true Faith).  You must first get a grounding in the true faith, as apparently you do not understand it at this point.

We recommend contacting a traditional Catholic priest for this purpose.  There is a geographical listing at www.traditio.com/nat.htm.