The Church Teaches

Whenever someone asks me why I believe something, and I answer, "Because that is what the Church teaches," I am being a lazy Catholic, and doing that questioner an injustice, assuming the question is an honest search for truth.  Why Lazy?  Well, the Church was not formed so I could feel comfy in my beliefs, but rather it was formed to evangelize.  It is not enough to simply say, "I believe that Jesus was raised because the Pope says so."  I have to be able to explain how I came to the truth of this statement.  I have found that inquirers will listen to an explanation of my coming to faith, but not a simple dogmatic statement.  Evangelization engages the inquirer.

Sometimes my own laziness is a cover for personal prejudices, or experiences about which I do not want to talk or would embarrass me if I really took a good look at them.  A Catholic friend of mine once said to me that she did not believe in the ordination of women.  She could have said it is what the church teaches, but in her wonderful honesty she gave her real answer.  "Women gossip, and I would not want to go to confession to one," she told me.  We can use the teaching of the church to avoid our own discomfort with any alternative situation.

Back to the Resurrection.  Why is it meaningful for you?  What changes, grows, makes sense, uplifts you, because you believe in his dogma?  To me, this is how we people of faith engage a world that looks for meaning deeper than daily survival or making more money or having more things.  You might try this approach with issues of sex and power, little of which is really credal dogma.