Atheist Penn Jillette schools Catholic Piers Morgan on the faith
Piers Morgan should have been taking notes on how to be a Catholic.
Penn’s point was simple, yet elegant: if you say are something (i.e. Catholic), then truly be that something. And if the description of what you say you are (e.g. pro-gay marriage, pro-female priests, pro-married priests, pro-artificial birth control, etc.) doesn’t match the label you attach to it (i.e. Catholic), then you should probably spend your time more efficiently by looking for the appropriate label to attach to your beliefs (i.e. Episcopalian?) instead of causing a ruckus over what you perceive to be errors made by the leadership of the organization you don’t really support/believe in.
So simple and yet so sublime.
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I am amazed! I never thought Penn Jillette would be such a great defender. He really shut him down. At least it was aired for all CNN viewers to see who probably expected something very different.
Great clip! Jillette sounds like I do discussing Roman Catholicism with my ostensibly “devout” Catholic in-laws and cousins!! It’s always worth a chuckle especially since they are ALL on birth control, rarely go to mass, and can’t recite the Apostle’s Creed or tell me how to say a rosary (while I can.)
The upshot of it is that many of the teachings of the Church have merit and hewing to the orthodox practices would likely save a lot of people a lot of trouble…too bad really the clergy cannot convince their own parishioners to abide by those practices.
My argument has been that these nominal Catholics don’t really believe in the Catholic God or the concept of the Inspired Holy Spirit because if they did they would willingly follow the Pope’s (often wise) counsel. A case could be made– and I’ve made it with my cousin’s now college-aged kids– that *reason* can be called upon to support things like eschewing premarital sex, making marriage the central relationship in your life, etc. One’s life would be so much easier if they did and you don’t need a fictional god to tell you that!