A Guatemalan Catholic Speaks Out

“IF CATHOLICS Were Like This!” Thus Roman Catholic Elly Rodriguez G. began her column “Human Profiles” in the Nuestro Diario, a large daily of Guatemala City. She described Watch Tower missionaries who place the Spanish edition of The Watchtower, La Atalaya, on the streets of her city:

“More than once those who live in the capital have had the opportunity to observe the propagandists of the magazine La Atalaya. Some have not only observed. Admirers of the beauty of some of the American girls who offer this publication go over to buy the magazine from them, knowing beforehand that they are not going to read it. These sellers are quaint. They are quaint because to us, children of these indolent lands, the public expression of our faith seems extraordinary. On the other hand these girls take their places on Sixth and offer the publication with real stoicism.

“It can easily be noted that they have faith. An immense, serene and firm faith that makes them defy public opinion, that is convinced that the word they preach is the true one; absolutely sure that the magazine that assembles the thoughts of the values of their religion is good in addition to being the expression of a creed. They feel that way about it and have been organized for the fight, conquest and sacrifice. Sacrifice of the intimate personality and of self-interest in favor of the group to which they belong.

“The task they carry out is not limited to this. They go from house to house preaching, offering with real tenacity all the publications they publish. . . . It is the attitude, the personality, the fidelity of these adept ones that has made me think about the timorous and false conscience of Catholics. . . .

“We lack moral integrity. The courage to face the enemy is totally lacking in us. We are not capable of defending our religion. We are not capable because of ignorance—oh, the ignorance of Catholics!—and not capable because of human respect or rather because of a fainthearted spirit Let us go even further: in certain circles more or less antireligious we even deny to our shame the faith that we inherited and, if we do not deny it, we are conquered by any upstart that might have learned a few arguments against religion. . . .

“In a personal way we give the very minimum expression to our creed: Sunday mass, participation in the most elegant procession of Holy Week, a few special devotions, minimum alms without Christian spirit and—we have gained Paradise! Nothing more. This is enough to convince us that we are destined to eternal blessing. Spiritual aspirations. An intimate desire to excel; interest in instructing ourselves, in learning what the faith is that we confess, desire to sacrifice, giving of ourselves, are meaningless, lacking significance in the comfortable and false life that we are accustomed to living. . . .

“Never will the Catholic press prosper among us. For two reasons: One, because those who can are, because of greediness, not capable of giving it help. The other reason is that the ones who compose it have confused, in the misrepresentation of values that reigns in the world, what the Catholic press really is with the little parochial or vestry leaflets. It is believed that to defend the faith of Jesus Christ is to publish the Santoral [collection of lives of the saints], birthdays of the reverends, the circular, the prohibitive censorship of shows that awakens desires to see exactly what is prohibited. Shoddiness, bigotry, oversentimentality, narrow-mindedness, moral limitations, intellectual poverty and irremedial boredom is what is found in the publications among us that carry the Catholic seal. Therefore they do not prosper. That is why they do not even interest Catholics, much less are they able to approach those who are outside of the Church.

“If only Catholics were like this!—Like the Protestants, like those who sell La Atalaya, like the fighters of other religions, like all those who have not made of faith the personal and selfish worship that we practice.

“If we would abandon this useless burden of worldly interests, of absurd selfishness, of moral negativity; if we would remedy the spiritual ignorance that overwhelms us; if we would learn to be, at the end of twenty centuries, observant Catholics, followers of the doctrine of Jesus Christ, the fate of Catholicism, whose failure alarms and fills the present world with anguish, would be different.”

And all the foregoing written by a columnist who says: “I am a Catholic, and because of that I know what and where the Truth is.”