Paradise Lost

An Essay by Raymond Fontaine, PhD - in March 2003

      After twenty years in the priesthood, I pondered anew the errors of the Roman Catholic Church through many centuries. In the thirteenth century, the Church got a Crusade that exterminated the Albigensian heretics in France. Then the Church established its infamous Inquisition that tortured and killed unrepentant heretics. Later the Church condemned and silenced Galileo for teaching that the earth rotates around the sun. In these cases and thousands more, the Roman Catholic Church was dead wrong. Eventually I no longer believed in the infallibility of the Church.

   Logically I also stopped believing in the Church's dogmas that I had accepted earlier solely on its authority.  For example, I no longer believed that God creates and infuses a spiritual and immortal soul into every human body just before birth. Moreover I no longer believed in the Ascension of Jesus, body and soul, into Heaven. I also rejected the teaching of the Church that Mary's body and soul were also assumed into Paradise. I no longer accepted the Church's doctrine that, when humans die, their spiritual souls survive. If judged worthy, they too live in Paradise with Jesus and Mary and millions of angels and saints. I lost my belief in souls and in Paradise when the Church obliterated my faith in its infallibility.

   Recently a close friend asked me, "When you stopped believing in the Church's dogmas, which one was your greatest loss? Was it the divinity of Jesus? Was it your ability at Mass to change bread wafers into the Body of Christ? Was it your authority in the confessional to absolve sins? Was it your power in the pulpit to inspire thousands of people? Which of your former religious beliefs do you now miss most?"

    "None of those," I replied "it's the belief in the afterlife." I explained to my friend that, like most humans, I would like to continue living many more years ideally without sickness and infirmity. The thought of ceasing to exist was hard to swallow at first. The prospect of disappearing into a vacuum - into nothing - depressed me for awhile. Now I accept death as the law of nature: all living things on earth die. Belied by nature, the Church's dogma about Paradise is an empty promise; it's a lie, well intentioned perhaps, but still a lie.

     Convinced of this, I intend to enjoy life as long as possible. Earlier in life, I visited and worked in several continents. Now at 85 years old, I am homebound caring for my paralyzed wife. I bring the wonders of the universe into my home through the Internet and beautiful books, videotapes, and magazines, such as those published by the National Geographic Society. Through them I follow the scientists exposing more and more the wonderful structures of nature. I do this mostly in silence but sometimes while listening to music such as Handel's glorious Hallelujah Chorus. 

     My life here may not be so glorious as life in Paradise as depicted in John's Revelation. Yet both are centered on God - John's on God as revealed in the Bible written millenniums ago, mine on God as revealed now in nature's structures, designs and laws. John's vision of God in Paradise I have lost forever, whereas my vision of Nature's God endures and will last until my death.  ALLELUIA.

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