The Moral Beauty of Catholicism: Reversing the Perspective, by Dr. Jeff Mirus

By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture, Nov 08, 2022

People are not always drawn initially toward the Church by apologetical arguments or instruction in the truths of Divine Revelation. There are many “motives of credibility” in the experience of Catholicism which draw us to Christ. A few of them are: Countless attested miracles; the sublimity of Catholic sacred music, art and architecture; the remarkable lives of particular saints; the immense diversity of the saints throughout history and around the world; the stability of Christian doctrine over time; the Church’s astonishing intellectual tradition; the scope of Christian charitable work; the attractive power of the Church’s liturgy; the courageous witness of the martyrs; the testimony of the great mystics; and the Church’s counter-witness to prevailing trends, which often impresses those who feel misgivings about what society regards as “normal”.

These motives of credibility—that is, things different people find attractive in the way Catholicism manifests itself to human perception—most often boil down to the sense that in the Church there is something distinctively human yet somehow surpassing a purely human mode of existence and action. ….