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Convert: without God life has no purpose or meaning
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A Limerick-based author and theologian has recounted how his loss of faith in atheism eventually led him to the Catholic Church. And love for the faith led him to a deeper study of it.
Born in Flanders, Rik Van Nieuwenhove first came across the Catholic faith and ethos at school. “I didn’t warm to it,” he said, “and my anti-religious views merely hardened throughout my teens.”
After secondary school, however, he began to realise that the atheist world view did not add up.
“I realised that if there is no God, everything becomes ultimately futile and meaningless. Whatever we achieve or aspire to, all our dreams, loves and hopes, ultimately vanish: there is only the void of death awaiting us.”
For him, “adhering to the Catholic faith is like wearing a different kind of spectacles. It allows you to perceive a deeper dimension in the world we all share.”
He rejected the notion that atheists have a ‘neutral’ outlook on this world. Although they are often not aware of it, they wear glasses too. But he came to consider their perspective “as one dimensional and near-sighted.”
On the topic of sufferings, the theologian noted the need to link them with the cross of Christ. “We can see them as a sacrifice, offering them up to God. This takes the sting out of the meaninglessness of afflictions,” he wrote.
Lecturing in Mary Immaculate College, he thought that his own early experience was not too far from that of many young people in Ireland today. They too only encounter the Catholic faith at school.
For him, this indicates that there should be a greater emphasis on solid doctrine in the religious curriculum.
“If our pupils are not exposed to the contents of key teachings of the Catholic faith at school, they won’t be exposed to them at all. The faith is no longer being handed down in the family unit,” he wrote in a piece for the Irish Catholic.
One thing that surprised and delighted Van Nieuwenhove after his conversion was “the sheer satisfaction” of being introduced to “intellectual giants such as St Augustine, St Bonaventure, St Thomas Aquinas.”
Then there was the Church’s profound Christ-centred spirituality. “There are enough treasures here to fill a lifetime of reading and witnessing,” he wrote.
“We do not need fashionable flirtations with Buddhism or Hinduism to find truth: our own tradition contains plenty of resources for those who are willing to engage with it.”
And given the Church’s positive attitude towards sexuality, “it is little surprise that marriage is one of our sacraments, unlike in Protestantism.”
He noted that this positive regard for the human body stood out in the flamboyant paintings by Rubens, compared with the dark paintings of Rembrandt, working in Calvinist Holland.
“It is a blessing to be Catholic,” he wrote. With people searching more and more for identity, “Catholicism harbours rich treasures for anybody willing to discover them. We can be hopeful for the future.”
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