Single-Minded: An Independent Journal of Fact and Opinion

I started out as a Roman Catholic. I come from an Italian family, so going to Mass was not a subject for debate in our household. I was even an altar boy for several years. The best part was getting out of school to serve at funerals. Even so, Catholicism never really stuck. The part of my brain that was supposed to respond to the religious impulse did not seem to be functioning too well.

The terminal phase of my active Catholicism began when I entered Georgetown University, a Catholic college administered by the Society of Jesus, or as you probably know them, the Jesuits. The combination of being away from home and being exposed to a form of religion not geared to the European peasant created doubt, a state of mind fatal to the religious experience.

This was a time of great upheaval in the Church. Pope John XXIII's attempts at liberalizing the Church generated a counter movement among the Church's conservative hierarchy that continues to this day. The Catholic Church was no longer "one Church universal and apostolic." In the wake of this turbulence, I became part of a unique generation of Catholics: born in the 40's, raised in the 50's, confused in the 60's, and lost in the 70's.

I now belong to the Church of the WYSIWYG: What You See is What You Get. How does it work, this Church of the WYSIWYG? Simple. To understand God's plan, look at the world about you. If you see it, then it's part of the plan. If you don't, then it's an assumption, an attempt to explain what may be unexplainable.

Death...real.  Heaven or hell...assumption.
Evil...real.  Satan...assumption.
Chromosomes...real.  Predestination...assumption.

Getting the idea? The Church of the WYSIWYG seeks God through His creation. A thing exists either because God wants it that way or else because He is willing to let that thing be a possibility among potential outcomes. He lets us die, because that's the way He wants it . . . or because He is unwilling to prohibit it. Bad things happen to good people: maybe its part of the plan or maybe He just doesn't worry about things like that.

The Church of the WYSIWYG requires no elaborate theology to explain away inconsistencies in God's creation. We'd rather think that these inconsistencies are due not to God's plan but to our limited ability to perceive that plan.

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