But I would like to emphasize one theme in particular that came up frequently in our conversations: the catechesis of our young people. I have a rather intense personal interest in the topic since, at the conclusion of this gathering, I officially became chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis.

In his formal address to us at the commencement of the conference, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, reiterated statistics that I have often remarked regarding the growing number of “nones” or religiously unaffiliated in our country. He especially noted the rise of this cohort among people under 30 years of age. For every one person who joins the Catholic Church today, he reminded us, six are leaving.

We must make a renewed commitment, he concluded, to the indispensable work of handing on the faith. The Archbishop’s intuition in this regard was confirmed, over and again, by bishops who spoke, in various sessions and forums, of a crisis of catechesis in our church.

Icon for catechists

I had this wake-up call from the pope’s representative very much in mind as my friend, Bishop Robert Gruss of Rapid City, South Dakota, rose to speak on the second day of the meeting. Bishop Gruss’ happy task was to present to us the case for the beatification and canonization of Nicholas Black Elk, a Lakota Indian medicine man who, at midlife, converted to Catholicism.

After hearing the bishop’s impassioned presentation, we enthusiastically voted to approve the advancement of Black Elk’s cause. What especially struck me in Bishop Gruss’ brief biographical sketch is that Black Elk, after his conversion, eagerly took up the task of catechesis within his community. Due to his impressive memory and acute mind, he was able to convey the complexities of the Bible and church teaching to his fellow Lakotans who had embraced the faith.

And very much in line with the Catholic conviction that grace builds on and perfects nature, Black Elk endeavored to incorporate his mystical sensibility and healing power into the fuller context of his Catholicism. It was his holiness and prayerful connection to God, even more than his learning, that brought his people closer to Christ.

My prayer is that, if the cause of Black Elk moves forward, we might one day invoke him as a real icon for catechists in the Catholic Church. There is an army of volunteers across our country who give generously of their time to pass on the faith to our young people, but I wonder how many of these laborers in the vineyard of the Lord truly realize the sacredness of their task. Without good catechists, more and more of our young people will fall into secularism and indifferentism. And as these unaffiliated in ever greater numbers come of age, our society will be adversely affected, for Christian ideas and values will be less and less at play.

A true vocation

So what can catechists today take from the example of Nicholas Black Elk?

First, they can commit themselves to the assiduous study of the faith. As I have argued before, huge numbers of the young identify intellectual problems and questions as the reasons they are leaving the faith: religion in relation to science, the existence of God, the objectivity of moral values, etc. Without smart catechists, the kids abandon the faith. It’s as blunt and as simple as that.

My nephew, who is starting his first year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this fall, went through religious education as he was coming of age. To be frank, he found the vast majority of his training superficial and remembers almost none of it. But one year stays in his mind. In his sixth grade religious education class, he had a catechist who had a master’s degree in theology and who took the young people, with some rigor, through a study of the Bible. Please don’t tell me that the kids can’t handle that sort of challenge; on the contrary, it’s what they remember — and savor.

Second, they can see their work as a true vocation, a sacred calling, a mystical obligation. As Pope Paul VI put it so memorably, men and women of today listen to witnesses more than to teachers, and to teachers in the measure that they are also witnesses. Or as the cliché has it: The faith is caught more than taught.

Some years ago, I read a study that indicated what drew young people to the faith were not gimmicks or histrionics or the pathetic attempt to be “relevant” to them. What drew them were teachers who knew their subject matter and were obviously committed to it.

Catechists, the church needs you! We’re losing our kids to secularism. If anyone of sharp mind and faithful heart is reading these words, take seriously the possibility that God is calling you to this sacred work. And I pray that one day catechists can look to Nicholas Black Elk as an exemplar and heavenly friend.

Bishop Robert Barron is an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.

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A professor of psychology at San Diego State University, Twenge has been, for years, studying trends among young Americans, and her most recent book focuses on the generation born between 1995 and 2012. Since this is the first cohort of young people who have never known a world without iPads and iPhones, and since these devices have remarkably shaped their consciousness and behavior, Twenge naturally enough has dubbed them the “iGen.”

One of her many eye-opening findings is that iGen’ers are growing up much more slowly than their predecessors. A baby-boomer typically got his driver’s license on his 16th birthday (I did); but an iGen’er is far more willing to postpone that rite of passage, waiting until her 18th or 19th year. Whereas previous generations were eager to get out of the house and find their own way, iGen’ers seem to like to stay at home with their parents and have a certain aversion to “adulting.”

And Twenge argues that smartphones have undeniably turned this new generation in on itself. A remarkable number of iGen’ers would rather text their friends than go out with them and would rather watch videos at home than go to a theater with others. One of the upshots of this screen-induced introversion is a lack of social skills and another is depression.

Startling statistics

Now there are many more insights that Twenge shares, but I was particularly interested, for obvious reasons, in her chapter on religious attitudes and behaviors among iGen’ers.

In line with many other researchers, Twenge shows that the objective statistics in this area are alarming. As recently as the 1980s, 90 percent of high school seniors identified with a religious group. Among iGen’ers, the figures are now around 65 percent and falling.

And religious practice is even more attenuated: only 28 percent of 12th-graders attended services in 2015, whereas the number was 40 percent in 1976.

For decades, sociologists of religion have been arguing that, though explicit affiliation with religious institutions was on the decline, especially among the young, most people remained “spiritual,” that is to say, convinced of certain fundamental religious beliefs. I remember many conversations with my friend Fr. Andrew Greeley along these lines.

But Twenge indicates that this is no longer true. Whereas even 20 years ago, the overwhelming number of Americans, including youngsters, believed in God, now fully one-third of 18 to 24 year olds say that they don’t believe. As late as 2004, 84 percent of young adults said that they regularly prayed; by 2016, fully one-fourth of that same age cohort said that they never pray.

We find a similar decline in regard to acceptance of the Bible as the Word of God: one-fourth of iGen’ers say that the Scriptures are a compilation of “ancient fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by men.” Her dispiriting conclusion: “The waning of private religious belief means that young generations’ disassociation from religion is not just about their distrust of institutions; more are disconnecting from religion entirely, even at home and even in their hearts.”

Seeking answers

Now what are some of the reasons for this disconnect?

One, Twenge argues, is the iGen preoccupation with individual choice. From their earliest years, iGen’ers have been presented with a dizzying array of choices in everything from food and clothes to gadgets and lifestyles. And they have been encouraged by practically every song, video and movie to believe in themselves and follow their own dreams.

All of this self-preoccupation and stress upon individual liberty stands sharply athwart the religious ideal of surrendering to God and his purposes.

“My life, my death, my choice” (a rather iGen friendly motto which I recently saw emblazoned on a billboard in California) sits very uneasily indeed with St. Paul’s assertion, “whether we live or we die, we are the Lord’s.”

A second major reason for iGen dissatisfaction with religion is one that has surfaced in lots of surveys and polls, namely, that religious belief is incompatible with a scientific view of the world.

One young man that Twenge interviewed is typical: “Religion, at least to people my age, seems like it’s something of the past. It seems like something that isn’t modern.” Another said, “I knew from church that I couldn’t believe in both science and God, so that was it. I didn’t believe in God anymore.”

And a third — also attested to in lots of studies — is the “antigay attitudes” supposedly endemic to biblical Christianity. One of Twenge’s interviewees put it with admirable succinctness: “I’m questioning the existence of God. I stopped going to church because I’m gay and was part of a gay-bashing religion.” One survey stated the statistical truth bluntly enough: 64 percent of 18-24 year olds believed that Christianity is antigay, and for good measure, 58 percent of those iGen’ers thought the Christian religion is hypocritical.

Dismal stuff, I know. But Twenge performs a great service to all those interested in the flourishing of religion, for she lays out the objectivities unblinkingly, and this is all to the good, given our extraordinary capacity for wishful thinking and self-deception.

Further, though she doesn’t tell religious educators and catechists how to respond, she unambiguously indicates what is leading this most unreligious generation in our history away from the churches. Her book should be required reading for those who wish to evangelize the next generation.

Bishop Robert Barron is an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.

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Within weeks of its publication, dozens of editorials, reviews, op-eds and panel discussions were dedicated to it. Practically every friend and contact I have sent me something about the book and urged me to comment on it.

The very intensity of the interest in the text in one way proves Dreher’s central point, namely, that there is a widely felt instinct that something has gone rather deeply wrong with the culture and that classical Christianity, at least in the West, is in a bit of a mess.

Anyone looking for concrete evidence of the crisis doesn’t have to look very far or very long.

Twenty-five percent of Americans now identify as religion-less, and among those 30 and younger, the number rises to 40 percent. The majority of people under 50 now claim that their moral convictions do not come from the Bible, and traditional prohibitions, especially in regard to sex and marriage, are being aggressively swept away.

In fact, legally speaking, the momentum has shifted so dramatically that now those who defend classical views on sexuality are subject to harassment, even prosecution. For Dreher, the Obergefell Supreme Court decision in regard to gay marriage, which basically unmoored marriage from its biblical and moral foundations, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
It’s important to see, moreover, that this was not simply due to a quirk or particularly anti-gay prejudice on Dreher’s part. That legal determination had such a powerful impact because it expressed, with crystal clarity, the now widespread conviction that morality is essentially a matter of personal decision and self-invention.

A reviewer for Commonweal commented that Dreher’s reaction to the Obergefell decision, though understandable, is disproportionate, given that the 20th century has witnessed moral outrages far beyond the legalization of same-sex marriage. But this is to miss an essential point.

To be sure, atomic bombings and genocide are far graver ethical violations than gay marriage, but in regard to the former, there was, among sane people, a clear consensus that these acts were indeed morally wrong. What has changed is that an agreement across the society regarding the objectivity of good and evil has largely disappeared.

As G.K. Chesterton put it a hundred years ago, “Men today have lost their way. But this is not surprising, for men have always lost their way. The difference is that now they have lost their address.”

A different direction

And so Dreher recommends the now famous “Benedict Option,” named for the sixth-century saint who, at a time of cultural collapse, withdrew to live the Christian life intensely and intentionally.

Christians today, Dreher urges, should acknowledge that the cultural war has largely been lost and should stop spending time, energy and resources fighting it.

Instead, they ought, in imitation of St. Benedict, to rediscover, savor and cultivate the uniquely Christian form of life. This hunkering down is expressed in a variety of ways: homeschooling of children, the creation of “parallel structures, which is to say, societal forms of resistance to the dominant culture —  the opening of “classical Christian schools” where the great moral and intellectual heritage of the West is maintained, the beautiful and reverent celebration of the liturgy, the revival of a sturdy ascetical practice, a profound study of the Bible, the fighting of pornography, challenging the tyranny of the new media, etc.

Only through these practices will Christians rediscover who they are; without them, Dreher fears, Christianity will become, at best, a faint echo of the dominant secular culture.

Striking a balance

As I was reading the book, I kept thinking of the famously unresolvable “identity/relevance” dilemma. The more we emphasize the uniqueness of Christianity, the less, it seems, the faith speaks to the wider culture; and the more we emphasize the connection between faith and culture, the less distinctive, it seems, Christianity becomes.

This problem is on display throughout church history, as the society becomes, by turns, more or less amenable to the faith.

In the era when I was coming of age, the period just after the Second Vatican Council, the church was thoroughly committed to relevance, so committed in fact that it came close to losing its identity completely.

Part of the spiritual genius of St. John Paul II was that he struck such a dynamic balance between the poles. Who was more of an ardent defender of distinctive, colorful, confident Catholicism than the Polish Pope? But at the same time, who was more committed to reaching out to the non-Christian world, to secularism, to atheism than he?

In point of fact, the career of Karol Wojtyla sheds quite a bit of light on the advantages and limitations of the Benedict option.

When Wojtyla was a young man, the Nazis and Communists produced a poisonous, even demonic, cultural context, and he was compelled, consequently, to hunker down. With his friends, he formed a clandestine theater group, which, under cover of darkness and behind locked doors, preserved the great works of Polish drama and poetry, a literature in which the Catholic faith was ingredient. During those dark years, identity was the supreme value.

But then, when he became priest, and eventually bishop and pope, he was properly prepared to unleash the energy he had stored. The result was one of the most dramatic transformations of society in modern history. Better than almost anyone in the church at the time, he knew how to make the ancient faith relevant to the culture.

So do we need the Benedict option now? Yes, I would say. But we should also be deft enough in reading the signs of the times and spiritually nimble enough to shift, when necessary, to a more open and engaging attitude.

Bishop Robert Barron is an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.

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The scenes involving Lee and his spouse, which play out over many months of their married life, struck me as poignant and believable — and I say this with some authority, having worked with a number of couples in a similar situation. In some cases, a non-believing spouse might look upon his partner’s faith as a harmless diversion, a bit like a hobby. But in other cases, the non-believer sees the dawning of faith in his beloved as something akin to a betrayal. This latter situation arose in the Strobels’ marriage.

In order to resolve the tension, Lee used his considerable analytical and investigative skills to attempt to debunk the faith that was so beguiling his wife. The focus of his inquiry was, at the suggestion of a Christian colleague at the Tribune, the resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus didn’t rise, his friend explained, Christianity crumbles like a house of cards. The narrative unfolds, then, as a kind of detective story, Strobel hunting down leads, interrogating experts, asking the hard questions.

I liked this for a couple of reasons. First, at its best, Christianity is not fideist, that is to say, reliant upon a pure and uncritical act of faith on the part of its adherents. Rather, it happily embraces reason and welcomes critical questions. Second, and relatedly, Christianity is a stubbornly historical religion. It is not a philosophy (though it can employ philosophical language), nor is it a spirituality (though a spirituality can be distilled from it); rather, it is a relationship to an historical figure about whom an extraordinary historical claim has been made, namely, that he rose bodily from the dead.

Now especially in recent years, many attempts have been made to mitigate the scandal of this assertion. Jesus was a great moral exemplar, a powerful teacher of spiritual truth, an inspiring man of God — and it doesn’t particularly matter whether the reports of resurrection are factually accurate. Indeed, it is probably best to read them as mythic or symbolic.

To all of that, classical Christianity says no. It agrees with Lee Strobel’s colleague: If the resurrection didn’t happen, Christianity should be allowed to fall onto the ash heap of history. Therefore, watching our intrepid investigator go about his work is, for a true Christian, thrilling, precisely because the questions are legitimate and something is very really at stake.

So what were his inquiries? First, he wondered whether the resurrection stories were just fairy tales, pious inventions meant to take away our fear of death. But he learned that, in point of fact, many people claimed to have seen Jesus after his crucifixion, including 500 at once. Moreover, most of the leaders of the early church went to their deaths defending the legitimacy of what they taught. Would anyone do that for a myth or a legend of his own invention?

But another question came to his mind: Might they all have been victims of a mass hallucination? A psychologist patiently explained that waking dreams are not shared by hundreds of people at different times and different places. “If hundreds of individuals had the same hallucination, that would be a greater miracle than the resurrection,” she informed him with a smile.

But what about the reliability of the Christian texts themselves? Weren’t they written long after the events described? A Catholic priest, who is also an archaeologist and specialist in ancient manuscripts, told him that the number of early copies of the Christian Gospels far surpasses that of any other ancient text, including the “Iliad” of Homer and the “Dialogues” of Plato.

What about the “swoon theory,” according to which Jesus did not really die on the cross but only lost consciousness, only to be revived sometime later? A Los Angeles-based physician detailed for him the brutal process of a Roman execution, which resulted in the victim slowly bleeding to death and asphyxiating. The swoon theory, the doctor concluded, “is rubbish.”

At each stage of the process, Strobel continued to wonder, question, balk and argue, all the time maintaining the default position that Christianity is bunk. Nevertheless, it was becoming clear that the relentlessness of the counter-arguments and their stubborn congruence with one another was wearing him down.

This made me think of John Henry Newman’s famous account of how we come to religious assent. It is very rarely by virtue of one clinching argument, Newman said, but rather through the slow, steady confluence of inference, hunch, intuition, experience, the witness of others, etc. This convergence of probabilities, under the aegis of what Newman called the “illative sense,” customarily leads the mind to assent.

In the course of their conversation, Strobel’s priest-archaeologist interlocutor showed the skeptical journalist a reproduction of the Shroud of Turin, purported to be the burial cloth of Jesus. Gazing into the eyes of the image, Strobel asked, “What would have made him go through all of this?” The priest responded, “That’s easy: love.”

As the arguments were jostling in his head, Strobel remembered that image and that explanation — and the filmmakers insinuate that this is what finally pushed him over into belief.

“The Case for Christ” is interesting for any number of reasons, but I think it is particularly compelling for its subtle portrayal of the psychological, spiritual and intellectual dynamics of evangelization.

Bishop Robert Barron is an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.

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Also, I have, for many years, emphasized the importance of beauty in service of evangelization. The Sistine Chapel ceiling, the Sainte Chapelle, Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” Bach’s “St. Matthew’s Passion,” T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets,” and the Cathedral of Chartres all have an extraordinary convincing power, in many ways surpassing that of formal arguments.

So I affirm the path of truth and the path of beauty. But I also recommend, as a means of propagating the faith, the third of the transcendentals — namely, the good. Moral rectitude, the concrete living out of the Christian way, especially when it is done in an heroic manner, can move even the most hardened unbeliever to faith, and the truth of this principle has been proven again and again over the centuries.

In the earliest days of the Christian movement, when both Jews and Greeks looked upon the nascent faith as either scandalous or irrational, it was the moral goodness of the followers of Jesus that brought many to belief.

The church father Tertullian conveyed the wondering pagan reaction to the early church in his famous adage: “How these Christians love one another!”

At a time when the exposure of malformed infants was commonplace, when the poor and the sick were often left to their own devices, and when murderous revenge was a matter of course, the early Christians cared for unwanted babies, gave succor to the sick and the dying, and endeavored to forgive the persecutors of the faith.

And this goodness extended, not simply to their own brothers and sisters, but, astonishingly, to outsiders and enemies. This peculiarly excessive form of moral decency convinced many people that something strange was afoot among these disciples of Jesus, something splendid and rare. It compelled them to take a deeper look.

During the cultural and political chaos following the collapse of the Roman Empire, certain spiritual athletes took to the caves, deserts and hills to live a radical form of the Christian life. From these early ascetics, monasticism emerged, a spiritual movement that led, in time, to the re-civilization of Europe. What so many found fascinating was the intensity of the monks’ commitment, their embrace of poverty and their trust in divine providence. Once again, it was the living out of the Gospel ideal that proved convincing.

Something similar unfolded in the 13th century, a time of significant corruption in the church, especially among the clergy. Francis, Dominic and their confreres inaugurated the mendicant orders, which is just a fancy way of saying the begging orders. The trust, simplicity, service to the poor and moral innocence of the Dominicans and Franciscans produced a revolution in the church and effectively re-evangelized armies of Christians who had grown slack and indifferent in their faith.

And we find the same dynamic in our time. John Paul II was the second most powerful evangelist of the 20th century, but unquestionably the first was a woman who never wrote a major work of theology or apologetics, who never engaged skeptics in public debate, and who never produced a beautiful work of religious art.

I’m speaking, of course, of St. Teresa of Kolkata. No one in the last 100 years propagated the Christian faith more effectively than a simple nun who lived in utter poverty and who dedicated herself to the service of the most neglected people in our society.

There is a wonderful story told of a young man named Gregory, who came to Origen of Alexandria to learn the fundamentals of Christian doctrine. Origen said to him, “First come and share the life of our community and then you will understand our dogma.”

The youthful Gregory took that advice, came in time to embrace the Christian faith in its fullness, and is now known to history as St. Gregory the Wonderworker.

Something of the same impulse lay behind Gerard Manley Hopkins’s word to a confrere who was struggling to accept the truths of Christianity. The Jesuit poet did not instruct his colleague to read a book or consult an argument but rather, “Give alms.” The living of the Christian thing has persuasive power.

We have been passing through one of the darkest chapters in recent church history. The clerical sex abuse scandals have chased countless people away from Catholicism, and a secularist tide continues to rise, especially among the young.

My mentor, the late, great Cardinal Francis George, surveying this scene, used to say, “I’m looking for the orders; I’m looking for the movements.” He meant, I think, that in times of crisis, the Holy Spirit tends to raise up men and women outstanding in holiness who endeavor to live out the Gospel in a radical and public way.

Once again, I’m convinced that, at this moment, we need good arguments, but I’m even more convinced that we need saints.

Bishop Robert Barron is an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.

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I have long been an ardent fan of Martin Scorsese’s films. “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” “Goodfellas,” “The Aviator,” “Gangs of New York,” “The Last Waltz,” “Casino,” etc., are among the defining movies of the last 40 years. And “The Departed,” Scorsese’s 2007 crime drama, was the subject matter of the first YouTube commentary that I ever did. It is certainly the case, furthermore, that the director’s Catholicism, however mitigated and conflicted, comes through in most of his work.

His most recent offering, the much-anticipated “Silence,” based upon the Shusaku Endo novel of the same name, is a worthy addition to the Scorsese oeuvre. Like so many of his other films, it is marked by gorgeous cinematography, outstanding performances from both lead and supporting actors, a gripping narrative, and enough thematic complexity to keep you thinking for the foreseeable future.

The story is set in mid-17th century Japan, where a fierce persecution of the Catholic faith is underway. To this dangerous country come two young Jesuit priests (played by Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield), spiritual descendants of St. Francis Xavier, sent to find Father Ferreira, their mentor and seminary professor who, rumor has it, had apostatized under torture and actually gone over to the other side.

Immediately upon arriving onshore, they are met by a small group of Japanese Christians who had been maintaining their faith underground for many years. Due to the extreme danger, the young priests are forced into hiding during the day, but they are able to engage in clandestine ministry at night: baptizing, catechizing, confessing, celebrating the Mass. In rather short order, however, the authorities get wind of their presence, and suspected Christians are rounded up and tortured in the hopes of luring the priests out into the open.

The single most memorable scene in the film, at least for me, was the sea-side crucifixion of four of these courageous lay believers. Tied to crosses by the shore, they are, in the course of several days, buffeted by the incoming tide until they drown. Afterwards, their bodies are placed on pyres of straw and they are burned to ashes, appearing for all the world like holocausts offered to the Lord.

In time, the priests are captured and subjected to a unique and terrible form of psychological torture. The film focuses on the struggles of Father Rodrigues. As Japanese Christians, men and women who had risked their lives to protect him, are tortured in his presence, he is invited to renounce his faith and thereby put an end to their torment. If only he would trample on a Christian image, even as a mere external sign, an empty formality, he would free his colleagues from their pain. A good warrior, he refuses.  Even when a Japanese Christian is beheaded, he doesn’t give in.

Finally, and it is the most devastating scene in the movie, he is brought to Father Ferreira, the mentor whom he had been seeking since his arrival in Japan. All the rumors are true: This former master of the Christian life, this Jesuit hero, has renounced his faith, taken a Japanese wife, and is living as a sort of philosopher under the protection of the state. Using a variety of arguments, the disgraced priest tries to convince his former student to give up the quest to evangelize Japan, which he characterized as a “swamp” where the seed of Christianity can never take root.

The next day, in the presence of Christians being horrifically tortured, hung upside down inside a pit filled with excrement, he is given the opportunity, once more, to step on a depiction of the face of Christ. At the height of his anguish, resisting from the depth of his heart, Father Rodrigues hears what he takes to be the voice of Jesus himself, finally breaking the divine silence, telling him to trample on the image. When he does so, a cock crows in the distance.

In the wake of his apostasy, he follows in the footsteps of Ferreira, becoming a ward of the state, a well-fed, well-provided for philosopher, regularly called upon to step on a Christian image and formally renounce his Christian faith. He takes a Japanese name and a Japanese wife and lives out many long years in Japan before his death at the age of 64 and his burial in a Buddhist ceremony.

What in the world do we make of this strange and disturbing story? Like any great film or novel, “Silence” obviously resists a univocal or one-sided interpretation. In fact, almost all of the commentaries that I have read, especially from religious people, emphasize how “Silence” beautifully brings forward the complex, layered, ambiguous nature of faith.

Fully acknowledging the profound psychological and spiritual truth of that claim, I wonder whether I might add a somewhat dissenting voice to the conversation? I would like to propose a comparison, altogether warranted by the instincts of a one-time soldier named Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Jesuit order to which all the “Silence” missionaries belonged.

Suppose a small team of highly-trained American special ops was smuggled behind enemy lines for a dangerous mission. Suppose furthermore that they were aided by loyal civilians on the ground, who were eventually captured and proved willing to die rather than betray the mission. Suppose finally that the troops themselves were eventually detained and, under torture, renounced their loyalty to the United States, joined their opponents and lived comfortable lives under the aegis of their former enemies. Would anyone be eager to celebrate the layered complexity and rich ambiguity of their patriotism? Wouldn’t we see them rather straightforwardly as cowards and traitors?

My worry is that all of the stress on complexity and multivalence and ambiguity is in service of the cultural elite today, which is not that different from the Japanese cultural elite depicted in the film. What I mean is that the secular establishment always prefers Christians who are vacillating, unsure, divided and altogether eager to privatize their religion. And it is all too willing to dismiss passionately religious people as dangerous, violent, and let’s face it, not that bright.

Revisit Ferreira’s speech to Rodrigues about the supposedly simplistic Christianity of the Japanese laity if you doubt me on this score. I wonder whether Shusaku Endo (and perhaps Scorsese) was actually inviting us to look away from the priests and toward that wonderful group of courageous, pious, dedicated, long-suffering lay people who kept the Christian faith alive under the most inhospitable conditions imaginable and who, at the decisive moment, witnessed to Christ with their lives. Whereas the specially trained Ferreira and Rodrigues became paid lackeys of a tyrannical government, those simple folk remained a thorn in the side of the tyranny.

I know, I know, Scorsese shows the corpse of Rodrigues inside his coffin clutching a small crucifix, which proves, I suppose, that the priest remained in some sense Christian. But again, that’s just the kind of Christianity the regnant culture likes: utterly privatized, hidden away, harmless. So OK, perhaps a half-cheer for Rodrigues, but a full-throated three cheers for the martyrs, crucified by the seaside.

Bishop Robert Barron is an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.

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