People react differently to the truth. Some people refuse to accept it, they can’t even fathom that their life-long beliefs, the things their parents believed, and so many others, is wrong. Admitting it hurts a lot. For some people, the possibility doesn’t even cross their mind. They can’t even process the information in a rational way without reacting emotionally: “NO, I don’t believe that, no, no. Why do you have to attack my religion? To these people the Apostle Paul said:

Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth? Galatians 4:16

Sometimes the fastest way to make an enemy is to tell them the truth.

Thankfully, others react in the opposite way: they love those who tell them the truth and revolt against the lie they had believed all their life. That’s what happened to me, and more-so my brother.

After that atomic bomb which sent our catholic faith toppling down, he wasn’t able to contain himself. We worked in our father’s business, our desk stood only a few steps away from the image of Senhora Aparecida, to whom my father was devoted. Fixed at the top of the wall, we worked under the eyes (which we discovered didn’t see anything) of the three foot statue.

I don’t know what went through my brothers head, but I think that all of the sudden everything surfaced. All the years of studying in schools run by nuns, the catechism he did, his first communion, the rosary’s and prayers, the mass’, processions… and despite all that devotion tragedy didn’t fail to strike our family. I was angry, but he was angrier.

During a coffee break, on one of those days, everyone left the building and my father had gone to  visit some of his clients, my brother decided to take matters into his own hands: he got a ladder, climbed up to the saint, put it under his arm and came down. Before I even had time to ask, “What are you doing?” – He took the statue, one hand holding its head and the other it’s feet, and smashed it to the ground with all his strength! Pieces of plaster scattered across the floor as I stood there looking as if I had just seen a ghost.

Inside I felt a mixture of joy and fear at the same time: “Let’s finish this farce once in for all!” “Uh-oh, how are we going to explain this to Dad?”

As expected my father reacted emotionally. Instead of wanting an explanation, he demanded on punishment and made my brother buy another statue from his own wallet. But since his wallet wasn’t very full, he was only able to buy a palm sized statue. Unsatisfied, there went my father to Aparecida do Norte and bought another statue, this time he bought an even bigger one than the last…

Seven years went by before my father awoke to the truth and decided to remove the statue himself. That’s when his eyes were opened, he also got to know the word of God.

This experience taught me two things:

1. People are more attached to their  religions than to God himself. Religion blinds people. Knowing the word of God opens eyes. The problem is when the blind think they see. They resist the truth until death. See what Jesus said about them John 9:39-41

2. The risk of insulting is the price of the truth. What will we do about the truth that’s hidden from the eyes of Catholics around the world? Should we keep up the lie, so we don’t offend them? Should we be politically correct? Let them pass through to eternity trusting in candles, indulgences, the saints and the mass’ to take the dead out of purgatory? There are those who will defend doing this. Yet I would not be able to sleep in peace nor appear before God’s throne with a clear conscious if I did.

Having said that, I leave it clear that: attacking others religions is wrong and nobody should do it. I respect all Catholics and other people with or without religion as human beings. Before anything we’re people.

My message to those who hold the Bible as the book of their faith is as follows: Read it. Meditate on it. Understand the word of God for yourself. Don’t depend on others to do this for you. Verify if what any pope, pastor, bishop, priest or apostle says is in the Bible. Don’t put yourself at risk putting your soul into someones hands.

As for myself, in light of what I read in the Bible, my intelligence didn’t allow me to continue in Catholicism.

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