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Before actively participating in a religious discussion you ought to have read about the chief religious problems and thought about them. I would go so far as to say that you ought to have rehearsed the problems in imaginary conversations in your own mind. Riding in a streetcar, you might, for example, have said to yourself, "If the fellow opposite me asked what use confession is, what would I say?" Regarding this and other questions you might in this way rehearse for eventual real conversations. It is also very important that you do not hold provincial views of your religion. People can be as narrowly sectarian in religion as many persons, often the same ones, are narrowly nationalistic in their patriotism. While you hold the principles of your faith above reproach, you may not also hold that their application has always been above reproach. A Catholic who thinks Catholics have never done any wrong, that there was no sin in the Middle Ages, that wars are a Protestant invention, that there have never been persecutions in Catholic countries is not going to be a desirable champion of Catholicism. The same is true, mutatis mutandis, of any Protestant thinking provincially, A person discussing religion should know the facts and should be wise enough to realize that every group of human beings in the course of their history, no matter what their religion or nationality, will commit many sins and often terrible wrongs. He should be imbued with the wisdom and spirit of a recent convert, who, on being asked, "Did becoming a Catholic stop your sinning?" answered, "No, but it complicated it considerably" (The Catholic Digest, May, 1949). |
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