Why Are Catholics So Concerned About Sin?

by Al Kresta

Servant, 2006

179 pages, $12.99

To order: (800) 488-0488

or americancatholic.org

Al Kresta picks  a provocative question as the title of his new book, and answers  it winningly. Why are Catholics so concerned about sin?  Because we know what Jesus went through on Good Friday, and why.

Kresta, president of the Ave Maria Radio Network based in Ann Arbor, Mich., explains that the “core of sin is not imagination or sex or veneration of some aspect of the created order, for it is right and natural to honor the good, the true and the beautiful. The essence of sin is the turning from reality to illusion, the refusal to acknowledge God’s moral order. In short, it is the denial of God’s Word, the Word by which he created the universe and ordered the cosmos, the Word by which he moved the prophets to speak and write, the Word which took on human flesh and which consecrates the divine food, the Eucharist. This Word is spoken for our flourishing.”

Who would prefer his own illusion to the goodness God has promised to those who love him and keep his commandments? This question comes up in many different forms throughout this brief, very readable volume, which covers angles from the fall of Adam and Eve to the second coming of Christ. Kresta writes in a conversational manner, often adding personal stories to illustrate his points. His writing is also true to the Catechism and the Church Fathers.

The first three parts of the book — “Teaching Authority,” “Salvation and Sacraments” and “Worship and Devotion” — deal with the Church and mankind’s earthly pilgrimage. The last two parts cover topics rarely brought up these days even in Catholic circles: “Hell” and “The Second Coming.” Since the book is in a Q&A format, readers may go immediately to the questions that interest them most, such as “How can a person knowingly choose hell?”

In his six-page answer, Kresta uses words that are hard but true: “A person renders himself fit for damnation by developing a taste for evil.” He warns that eternal fire awaits not only the unrepentant mass murderers of history, but also the average person who refuses to surrender his smaller, consistently wicked ways.

The final section deals at length with the Church’s belief about the Second Coming and final judgment, and covers non-Catholic theories about the rapture (including the popular Left Behind books) and millennialism, which teaches that Christ will reign 1,000 years on earth with his chosen ones. This is valuable reading for anyone who is challenged by fundamentalists or Jehovah’s Witnesses.

A sequel to Kresta’s other Q&A volume from Servant Books, Why Catholics Genuflect, this new book was delayed by two years. As Kresta explains, it wasn’t writer’s block but a medical emergency that stopped him from finishing the manuscript. The night of his original deadline for the book — Feb. 17, 2003 — Kresta was struck with the horrible, usually fatal “flesh-eating bacteria,” necrotizing fascitis. He was told by doctors to prepare for death as they sought to save his life by amputating one leg above the knee.

The book he completed after this experience has the gentle but uncompromising insights of one who has faced death and seeks to bring others to a more sober frame of mind.

Rarely do you find a work of apologetics that can also serve as a Holy Week devotional. Why Are Catholics So Concerned About Sin will show you how to defend the faith even as it helps you contemplate the cross. 

Maria Caulfield writes from

Wallingford, Connecticut.