Why I Believe in God.

 This morning I was listening to a discussion on TV about assaults on women.   It followed the murder of a young woman on her way home to Brixton after visiting a friend.   She had disappeared and was later found dead.   A policeman was responsible.    The discussion was frantic.   It was all about better punishment to prevent women being attacked, the idea that women need more power in society, and the idea that men should be put under curfew at a certain hour so that women are safe in the streets.     A following discussion was on the collapse of religion, and it was pointed out that religion did nothing to help the poor in society but was a rather inward looking institution.    The sad thing was that there was no one in that studio to defend the Churches.    It was rather one sided. 

Now I am a Catholic and have been alive long enough to see the attacks on Catholicism grow both outside the Church and inside.     But one thing I have noticed is that there is still a St Vincent de Paul Society visiting and helping poor families with spiritual and material support.    I have given on a regular basis money to Caritas, Cafod, Mary's Meals, and several missionary societies working against poverty in the Third World.   In fact it was once put forward that the Catholic Church gives a quarter of all the money given in poverty relief throughout the world.   And the Vatican gives a great deal of its money to poverty relief.    The Church just gets on with the job but if you want to give to a Christian Charity then do get in touch and I will give you several you can donate to.   

The teachings of the Catholic Church and I mean the unpopular ones such as pro-family, anti-abortion, no sex outside marriage and the prohibition of divorce, lead to a child centred society, not based on the 'rights' of an individual but the good of society.  You cannot build a healthy society unless you are prepared to protect the rights of children.   Yes, I can talk about and have talked about the single family where a woman is abandoned by a man 'who does not want to commit himself' to a woman whose body he has used and abused.  I never hear any criticism about this, yet the growth of 'single parent families' is the greatest injustice that our secular society with its self-centred attitude has committed.    The rights of the child are totally ignored yet society presents these families as just another form of the family, as though the mother chose to live alone with the children by choice.   Yes if you have a high income you can make the choice, but most working class women work for a pittance filling shelves in stores, or cleaning offices and toilets.    They are good for politicians who cry out 'poverty' and feminists who walk the streets shouting out that killing a baby is a form of liberation, but I would say the majority of women do not agree, despite the backing of the media for such things.

So here I am, a mere man, talking about such things.   My introduction to the world of fatherless children started when I saw a girl of about eleven on the grass verge of a pavement on top of a young girl of ten punching her viciously on the face.   The older girl said when I separated hem that she would get her again when I was gone.   I walked the girl home and found the older girl was her sister.  They had no parents and both had different dads.    I then found so many other cases all around me and wondered if anybody cared.   A child without a father grows up with many emotional problems, and the majority themselves become single mothers.   This I have observed over the years for myself.   Many become drug addicts because of their inner unhappiness,

But what is the use of my going on about this.   In the secular society sex seems to be the only worthwhile form of happiness.   Nothing must stop anyone enjoying this pleasure.   Women want it and men give it.   Infidelity in marriage is common.    So with sex the only real pleasure next to drugs, of course women get attacked in the streets.   Then there is porn.   In my youth porn became a fashion.  People out on dates jumping into bed together was porn, but today casual dates where people end up in bed together is called 'adult'.   You will find it in the best TV series where the characters go from one to another in a roundabout they call 'love', so young people watching believe this is how adults should behave.     But who am I to spoil the fun, there are STD' clinics to deal with the consequences, and of course, the ultimate sacrifice of killing an unwanted baby, it is such a difficult decision.

There was once a man called Jesus.    He claimed to be God, and taught a way of life which he wanted people to follow.    It contained morals or a way of behaviour which he wanted the whole world to follow in what he called His Kingdom.    He taught that if two people joined together and lived together with their children in a family of a mother, father, and children, they would find happiness in sacrificing themselves, indeed they would draw closer together in something called 'love'.    Do you know that I have lived that life and so I believe him.     But when I look at what he called the 'fruits' of a secular society I see little love, little happiness, and a willingness to draw conclusions by turning from love to hate.   In the words of Jesus I have found a 'treasure'.   

Jesus, pray for us