My name is Chris Cardillo.
I grew up in Brooklyn.
For about thirty years of my adult life, I was an atheist. Today I am Catholic.
There's a much longer story between those two sentences, and some of it will probably find its way onto these pages.
I didn't return to the Catholic Church because I suddenly understood God. I don't understand Him.
I struggle particularly with suffering. If God is entirely good and God is love, why does He permit some of the terrible things that happen in this world?
I understand the Catholic answers better than I once did. I understand the importance of free will. I believe something fundamental about humanity was broken in the Fall. I believe Christ entered our world for our redemption.
But understanding those ideas intellectually doesn't make every terrible thing that happens suddenly make sense to me.
Maybe it isn't supposed to.
If God is truly God, then expecting my limited mind to comprehend His completely may be a fairly ridiculous place to begin.
So I've become more comfortable saying three words that were once very difficult for me:
I don't know.
I don't know why some prayers seem to be answered and others don't.
I don't know why good people suffer.
I don't know why God has been so patient with me.
Sometimes I don't even know whether what I call faith is really faith.
Maybe part of me believes because I'm getting older and death is no longer an abstraction.
Maybe I want there to be a God.
Maybe I need there to be one.
Those possibilities bother me.
And yet they haven't led me away from God. Strangely, they've drawn me closer.
Because beneath all of those questions is something I have difficulty explaining but increasingly recognize in my own life:
I am better when I walk with God.
Not richer.
Not more successful.
Not free from problems.
Better.
And when I knowingly move away from Him—when ego, anger, money, pride, fear or the endless attractions of the world become more important—I recognize what follows.
There is a kind of emptiness there.
I spent a large part of my life believing that another accomplishment, another dollar, another victory or another thing would eventually fill it.
They didn't.
God does.
I don't mean that sentimentally. Faith hasn't eliminated my problems. I still have responsibilities. People depend on me. I still worry about tomorrow.
The difference is that I'm beginning to question whether the things I once thought were the purpose of life were ever capable of carrying that weight.
Why the Catholic Church?
Because my return to God wasn't a return to a vague spirituality.
It was a return to the Catholic Church.
That distinction matters to me.
The Church I encountered was not entirely the Church I remembered from my youth, and it certainly wasn't the institution I had come to imagine from decades of observing it from outside.
I found something much more beautiful.
The Catholic Church is made up of people, so naturally it contains everything that people bring with them: weakness, ego, ambition, confusion and sin.
So do I.
Perhaps that's one reason the Church has become such an extraordinary mirror for me.
When human beings remember what Christ asks of us, extraordinary things are possible. When we make ourselves, our ambitions or the things of this world more important than that mission, we move away from Him.
I see that in institutions.
I see it in other people.
Most importantly, I see it in myself.
I'm not interested in pretending to be a theologian. When I'm trying to understand Catholic theology, I frequently turn to Scripture, the Catechism, Bishop Robert Barron and Word on Fire, among others who are considerably better equipped to explain the faith than I am.
What interests me here is something different.
How do I actually live it?
How does an imperfect man live in the world without making the world his god?
How do I provide for people who depend on me without allowing money to determine what I'm worth?
How do I surrender to God while still taking responsibility for my life?
How do I forgive?
How do I deal with fear?
How do I know whether I'm following God's will or simply telling myself that what I want is God's will?
How do I face death?
And perhaps the question underneath all of the others:
How can God know everything about me and still love me?
I don't have the answers.
I'm writing because I want to look for them.
If you're asking some of the same questions, you're welcome to walk along.
— Chris