Philadelphia’s Archbishop Charles Chaput has said that too many people who claim to be Christian simply don’t know Jesus Christ. And don’t really believe in the Gospels.

“They feel embarrassed by their religion and vaguely out of step with the times. They may keep their religion for comfort value. Or they may adjust it to fit their doubts,” he said.

“But it doesn’t reshape their lives because it isn’t real. And because it isn’t real, it has no transforming effect on their personal behaviour, no social force and few public consequences.”

One of the strongest Church voices in the U.S. today, the archbishop was speaking to college students on the theme, “Catholics and the Next America”.

He pointed out that the way of thinking that comes from both the Protestant reformation and the Enlightenment highlight the importance of the individual. 

“But they can also feed a destructive individualism and a hostility to any religious authority outside the sovereignty of personal conscience.”

Along with other Christians, Catholics played a major role in shaping the now emerging America, “an America ignorant or cynical toward religion in general and Christianity in particular.”

It’s an America whose values and arguments have been exported to many other parts of the world, including Ireland.

Some might blame the mass media, higher education, science, or special interest groups for the present environment.

“But,” he said, “we Christians, including we Catholics, helped create it with our eagerness to fit in, our distractions and overconfidence, and our own lukewarm faith.”

Instead of Catholics converting the culture, “the culture too often bleached out the apostolic zeal in Catholics while leaving the brand label intact.”

As a result, although large numbers of Catholics are active in political and economic leadership, they have had little impact on the country’s direction.

On the other hand, he told students at Assumption College, as bishop he had met many, many thousands of young adults on fire for Jesus Christ, deeply committed to their Catholic faith and involved in various groups.

They need, “however, the kind of leadership and education that radiates confidence in the Word of God, fidelity to the Catholic faith, and a missionary zeal to make all things new in Jesus Christ.”

In this context the Archbishop was particularly critical of the way Catholic universities and colleges had been “eased away” from their Catholic identity.

“Catholic higher education is heir to the greatest intellectual, moral and cultural patrimony in human history,” he said. “It has a deeply satisfying answer to who and why man is.”

Its genius “is the schooling it gives in the mutual dependency of faith and reason.” It has nothing to be embarrassed about and every reason to be on fire with confidence and apostolic zeal, he argued.

At the same time, it is necessary for all people to be aware of the passing nature of this world and the completion of the human story outside of time.

“Our final home and our real citizenship are not in this world,” he stressed. “If we do not know and love Jesus Christ, and commit our lives to him, and act on what we claim to believe, everything else is empty.”

Fundamentally the issue, “always and everywhere,” is faith, “whether we’re scholars or doctors or priests or lawyers or mechanics.

“Do we believe in Jesus Christ, or don’t we?,” he asked. “And if we do, what are we going to do about it?”