On Christmas day, as most New Zealand families awoke to celebrate family and presents, as always many hundreds of families packed out our Catholic Churches across the New Zealand.
In contrast to these joyous large Catholic gatherings of families at Christmas, a recent Post Opinion piece followed many other articles highlighting the well-publicised allegations of abuse committed within the Catholic Church.
This will be again, and rightly so, the subject of major media attention when the Royal Commission reports back soon.
To be very clear, these are failures of individuals, not of God.
Issues of abuse should have been dealt with properly when they were discovered, and the Church must continue to acknowledge and heal the hurt that has occurred.
Despite those serious failures, they are not representative of the Church as a whole.
I want to share with you why I love my church and will continue working within it for the duration of my retirement.
For nearly 30 years I worked in and around Parliament, including as a Minister of the Crown and later as a senior Beehive health advisor in the John Key Government.
As I went through these frantically busy health years, I became increasingly attached to the Sunday masses at the Home of Compassion in Silverstream, Upper Hutt.
I became the helper of their many aged priests and nuns.
Their humility, their complete disinterest in acquiring anything material, their dedication to serving their resident Compassion community, was in stark contrast to my work in Parliament and the Beehive.
There I was part of the never-ending fight for power, where the environment is so nurturing of our egos, which is hard for anyone to avoid.
In the Sunday oasis that was the Catholic Rest Home chapel, I realised what was important in my life.
That was my family, my Catholic faith, and helping people here, the elderly.
Being a historian, I also spent my new retirement studying my church’s history, especially its failures like the Spanish Inquisition, and some fighting Popes; in short, all of its successes and failures.
During this time, I began to realise the unbelievable gifts that I had received all my life from my Church and from my faith received from the teachings of my Church.
We moved to beautiful Greytown it became time for me to give back to my community and to my church.
Throughout New Zealand and indeed most of the Western world, as a result of the declining number of priests in New Zealand, ageing buildings, financial pressures and other factors, we have closed Churches all over New Zealand.
This has caused deep hurt, especially in towns where Churches have or are being closed, especially smaller isolated towns like my Greytown, Picton, and so many others.
But no matter where a Catholic lives, Featherston, Martinborough, Greytown, Carterton or Masterton, or in Africa, France or South America; our Mass is the same; our beliefs identical.
As it has been since the founding of our church with St Peter as the first Pope from 33 AD.
New Zealand has also changed from a dominantly Christian country to one where Christians are about a third of the nation; immigration from Asia especially has brought diversification.
‘Don’t believe in God” is the newly arrived big group of New Zealanders; including many who are agnostic; people who neither believe in God, nor don’t believe in him. They don’t know.
The reasons for this are many, such as our busy lives. People have so many important things to worry about; jobs, kids, savings, health, all result in a working lifetime focussed on the immediate.
Despite these day-to-day pressures and historical issues, I want to share some of the important reasons why I am and have become a “convinced Catholic”.
My faith tells me that there is life after death, that we have spirits, that we are sentient beings quite different to all other animals.
This life after death was described by St Paul shortly after Christ’s death; “the eye has not seen, nor the ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man; the wonders that God has prepared for those who love him.” We should live our lives in a way that achieves this eternal life.
My studying of the first century leads me to the unavoidable conclusion that historically Christ lived, and died, for our sins.
He came during the reign of Augustus Caesar when the Roman Empire and the destruction of human life were at their peak.
Human life had no worth, as evidenced in slavery, brutal martyrdoms and arena fights to the death, to the cheers of the masses. Cities were often massacred to the last life.
Christ was born, and he taught that each soul had worth.
Along with seeking your and your loved ones eternal happiness, the second personal reason I present is the lack of any logical alternative explanation for mankind’s existence.
I accept, as proved by Catholic theologian Georges Lemaitre, that the universe is 13 plus billion years old, and that man in this timeframe is a more recent creation of God.
Evolution in nature makes sense for most of creation, but as Darwin pointed out, the greatest weakness in his theory of such human evolution is the unsolvable gaps between the many species uncovered by archaeology, such as Heidelburgensis and Neanderthal man.
Personally, I can think of no sadder discovery than to find we are just advanced animals, and that there is no higher reason for the existence of ourselves, our parents, and our loved ones.
Finally, my conviction comes from my own experience.
I have realised that throughout my life God’s Holy Spirit has been at work; from becoming an MP; a Cabinet Minister, to creating WINZ which was my reason for running, becoming a Deputy Mayor, and my lovely and healthy family now with the joy of grandchildren.
It is obvious that very little of this was my doing.
I realised that when I asked God for things through my years and worries, astonishing things often happened.
Always I thought; surely coincidence. But now, as I continue to ask God for things, I know his Holy Spirit is at work. The Holy Spirit is how God works in the world; so if you are in need, ask him to send his Holy Spirit, to help you with what you need.
My personal hope is that it would be wonderful to be able to make others, especially agnostics, aware of the truths behind our faith.
Would it not be wonderful in the future to have our churches or perhaps some mission centres open all week, with some Catholics and coffee available to welcome the lonely?
Could we work with our fellow Christian denominations in our towns to show what we have in common?
In these times of need, division, mental health needs and loneliness; I am grateful to be given this opportunity to share what is actually, a topic of eternal importance.
- Peter McCardle is the newly appointed Chair of the Wairarapa Catholic Parish Pastoral Council. He is a retired former Cabinet Minister who created WINZ, Deputy Mayor, and published a book last year. Lives in Greytown.
- First published in the Wairarapa Times-Age. Reproduced with permission of Peter McCardle.
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