Abbey-Roads2

The Catholic Apologetics Industry

I believe the term may have been coined by The Western Confucian, a very intelligent blog covering religion, economics, politics, and a lot more.  I perked up at his label,  “apologetics industry“, simply because it identified what I was attempting to editorialize in previous posts of my own, only I referred to it as, ”the God business”. 

Interestingly enough, it appears one of the reasons this is a growing business in Catholic circles, may well be attributed to the Evangelical converts to Catholicism whose popularity has raised the level of marketing sophistication in Catholic publishing, as well as the Catholic apologetics lecture circuit.  Media has played a big role in the phenomenon as well, such as EWTN and Relevant Radio, to name just two popular outlets.

Is it all about money?

As in politics, the entertainment industry, or any other business, the potential for the abuse of power and influence, along with the cult of celebrity and temptations to greed, can be an ‘accident’ waiting to happen in the Catholic apologetics industry.  (Although a marketing strategy is no accident.)  I found this article  on Christian celebrities at Charisma, a Protestant website.  It is rather interesting.

While doing research on a well known Catholic author/blogger, I came across an interview she did on one of her more ‘in the news’ topical books, which addressed one of the latest controversies of that moment.  Here is an excerpt:

IgnatiusInsight.com: If you had five minutes with Dan Brown, what might you say or do?

The Author: Ask him for some money.

Hey, why not? Maybe not for me, but perhaps for some of the thousands of institutions around the world – orphanages, schools, hospitals, old age homes, hospices - that are filled with people who’ve given their lives to sacrificially serving others in the direst of circumstances, inspired, called and nourished by the One whom Dan Brown continues to exploit, sitting up there in New Hampshire on his wads of cash. He should be ashamed. Perhaps, one day, he will be. - Ignatius Press 

Maybe I’m jaded.

Perhaps I’m too suspicious and critical when it comes to people who turn religion into a career or business opportunity.  (I suppose they have to profit from their otherwise useless, philosophy and theology degrees somehow.)  After all, one has to earn a living.  Nevertheless, I always roll my eyes and chuckle when the same people criticize Lourdes as too commercial because of all the religious shops, or complain about the cost of religious goods for Church or home, while religion has ‘kinda, sorta’ become their new business.

It is a strange time in the Catholic Church, when some Liturgists, Music Directors, DRE’s, and other parish employees earn higher incomes than the priest.  But then again, a priest has a vocation, not a career.  Let’s hope that never changes. 

[Art: "Money Changers in the Temple" - Tate Gallery] 
 

“Many can never have enough of listening to counsels and learning spiritual precepts, and of possessing and reading many books which treat of this matter, and they spend their time on all these things rather than on works of mortification and the perfecting of the inward poverty of spirit which should be theirs.” - St. John of the Cross