Don Watza

I have never had more people who are not Catholic tell me what it means to be Catholic than since I started openly talking about my faith. It is honestly wild. People who do not go to Mass telling me what the Mass means. People who reject the Church telling me what the Church teaches. People who have not opened the Catechism telling me I am practicing Catholicism wrong. People who mock the Pope telling me what Catholics are supposed to believe about the Pope. People who do not believe in confession, the Eucharist, apostolic succession, sacred tradition, or the authority of the Church suddenly becoming experts on Catholicism the second a practicing Catholic speaks. No. You are allowed to disagree with me. You are allowed to dislike the Catholic Church. You are allowed to think I am wrong. But you do not get to redefine my faith for me because the real version makes you uncomfortable. Catholicism is not whatever opinion happens to fit your politics, your worldview, or your personal grievances with the Church. It is a faith with doctrine. With authority. With sacraments. With 2,000 years of history. With saints who died rather than deny it. And no, being Catholic does not mean I think every priest is perfect, every bishop is wise, every Pope is beyond criticism, or every decision made inside the Vatican is good. Catholics know better than anyone that the Church is made of sinners. That does not make the faith false. It makes the need for Christ painfully obvious. So if you are not Catholic and want to ask me questions, ask. If you genuinely want to understand, I will talk to you all day. But if you are going to lecture me about my own faith while rejecting the very Church you are explaining to me, save it. I am not Catholic because it is fashionable. I am not Catholic because it is easy. I am Catholic because I believe it is true. And the more seriously I take that, the less interested I become in letting people who do not practice it tell me how I should.