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There is a rather peculiar line in that Gospel that leads me to a set of peculiar questions. The line is “Jesus told them ‘Don’t tell anybody.’” .... Don’t spread this around.... Don’t let people know. And the series of questions it set off in my mind were questions like, “Is all this Church stuff really necessary?” or even a better question, “Is religion healthy and good for us?” Now, that’s not a bad question, because there are a lot of people today who say, “I’m spiritual, but I am not religious,” or, “I have spirituality, but I don’t want to have Church,” ...which is a very difficult decision and division, but people do that.

Or, even more than that, another reason that question is so important is that there are forms of religion that are unhealthy, that are toxic. The worst forms, I suppose, would be what we usually refer to as sects. That is s-e-c-t-s, for example, fundamentalist groups that exclude others and divide people and separate people off. Or even worse than that, cults.... cults, that suffocate their followers and immobilize their thoughts and rob them of freedom. But there are two troubling characteristics of cults. One is that they usually involve hero worship and, secondly, total commitment. And I call them “troubling” characteristics. You have those characteristics in the, years ago, followers of Charles Manson, in the followers of Jim Jones, in the followers, more recently, in Waco, of David Koresch..... hero worship and total dedication.

But they are troubling characteristics because if you think of Francis of Assisi and the Franciscan movement, I think there was hero worship there and total dedication. You think of Mother Teresa and her followers. I think there was hero worship, or heroine worship, and total dedication. Or you think of Jesus Christ, and I think there is hero worship there and total dedication.

So I think it is important for us to see a clear line separating cults from healthy religion and from Catholic Christianity. First of all, to see the difference, and secondly, because some of the elements of toxic religion and cults sometimes can creep into our communities and movements and thought, even in the midst of a healthy religion.

I have four clear boundaries that separate the two. The first one I stole from Bernie Ward. (He repeats it on “God Talk” all the time.) He says the difference between cults and healthy religion, “Cults are easy to get into and hard to get out of. And healthy religions are hard to get into and easy to get out of.” And that’s really true of Catholic Christianity. Really, when you think about it, it’s hard to get in and easy to get out. I know we talk about, “Once a Catholic, always a Catholic.” But what we mean there is if somebody chooses to leave the Church and become inactive, we don’t baptize them a second time. We don’t repeat sacraments, such as Confirmation and Baptism. And we also mean, if you grow up as an Irish Catholic in an Irish Catholic neighborhood or as an Italian Catholic it is going to leave some memories and nostalgia for the rest of your life, no matter what you do. But, at the same time, it is hard to get in. We have standards, or at least expectations, of going to Church every Sunday of your life. We have preparation classes for parents who want their infants baptized. We have the RCIA, almost a year in length. We have Confirmation preparation.

But, within our community, whereas it is hard to get in, we really stress the importance of personal conscience, of religious freedom and we all have different levels of participation. We have parishoners who help as Eucharistic Ministers, who help with Social Justice, who are lectors and readers, and we’ve always got room and welcome for what one archbishop described as “behind-the-pillar Catholics.” who come in and join us briefly, but they are not going to get any more involved than that. And, finally, here is the real proof of the pudding that it is easy to leave. Famous trivia question: “What is the largest group of Christians in the United States today?” The answer is “Active Roman Catholics,” somewhere over sixty million. The next question is: “What is the second-largest group of Christians in the United States today?” The answer is “Inactive Roman Catholics, former Roman Catholics.” It is easy to leave.

The second boundary I would put between cults and healthy religion is that cults invite you to lose your mind and healthy religion, Catholic Christianity in particular, invites you to use your mind. Some fundamentalist sects can be described as saying, “Check your brains at the door and pick up your crayons as you walk in.” But what we say is that the heart is a great organ but the brain is a great organ too and we have to use them both. It leads us to the favorite Catholic word. The favorite Catholic word might surprise you, but what is a very Catholic word is the word “and,” a-n-d. I am not going to be like Father Dibble and use it as an anagram, but we believe in Faith and Reason. We believe in Scripture and Common Sense. We believe in the Soul and the Body. We believe in Grace and Nature. We believe in Judgment and Forgiveness. We believe in the Divine and the Human. And so, in our community, it is not a matter of black or white, but of many shades, which is what real life is all about.

Besides the fact that it is hard to get in and easy to get out, the fact that we’re invited to use our minds and not lose them, I think the most important boundary and distinction between cults and Catholic Christianity is our relationship to the leader. In cults, the relationship to the leader is always one on one. The followers are drawn to the leader, attracted to the leader, connected to the leader, bound to following the leader, and not much worried about anyone else. And the leader does not much care about anyone else, except that connection, that direction. Now, it is true we are attracted to and drawn to Jesus. And we say of Jesus, that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. But, at the same time, Jesus says also, “Don’t tell people about Me. The Kingdom is more important.” Jesus also, and we heard it in the second reading of St. James today, says “Include everyone. Don’t exclude anyone from your company.” Jesus says, “Care for one another. Care for others, and most important of all else, love one another.” Jesus says the test is not just following me. The test is how you treat each other, especially those different from you, those disadvantaged, and those who are poor. And Jesus comes to the end of His life and He says, “I have a commandment for you. This is it. Are you ready? Love one another.... Love one another.”

You know there is a scene described in the very early Christian writers, by some of the early Fathers of the Church. We think John the “Beloved Disciple,” the only one who wasn’t martyred, lived the longest of all the Apostles and lived to past a hundred. And the scene that is described is that in his final years, the early Christians would come to him and say, “Tell us about Jesus. Tell us what it was like.” And all that he would say, day after day, was, “Little children, love one another.... Little children, love one another.” They thought it was the beginning of senility. They said, “Why do you keep saying that?” He said, “...because that’s the whole message of Jesus. Little children, love one another.”

The fourth and final distinction and boundary between cults and healthy religion, between toxic religion and Catholic Christianity is that cults and toxic religion are narrow. Catholic Christianity is broad. It’s wholistic and wholesome. The way I described this a few weeks ago was, when I talked about our faith, I said that faith means three things, not just one. It means listening with our hearts. It means examining and exploring with our minds. It means carrying our faith in our hands, in service and care for one another. That is true spirituality and true religion. That is whole and healthy Catholic Christianity.