I've been reading Lorenzo Albacete's "God at the Ritz." It is a beautiful little book, poignant and truthful. Monsignor Albacete seeks an opening to the Transcendent, an opening that is denied or closed by both the secular left and the religious right. Father Albacete guides us past the subjectiving of "God" to a real examination of desire that lies at the base of human existence. By chasing what the secular has placed into the private to its ultimate extreme, he finds an opening back up to Mystery, to the Transcendant, an opening that refuses closure unless social, political and economic coercion forces it closed. As a remedy to the world's ills, ills that are deeply disturbing, ills within which we participate, I'd like to leave a quote from God at the Ritz:

Atheism likes to present itself as the 'open,' liberating way of life when compared with what it perceives as the limiting, self-denying religious way of life. And yet, in terms of the most fundamental desires of the heart, atheism seems to require that we suppress our most intense experiences, the experiences of needs that define us a concretely unique and unrepeatable persons. In short, atheism asks us to suppress the question 'Why?' Yet questions about the meaning and purpose of life -- the 'why?' of life -- will always be with us. They are blunt facts of human life, as outrageous as they may seem.

The desires of the heart -- especially the desire to know why -- should not embarass us. Religion is either the reasonable quest for the satisfaction of all the original desires of the heart, or it is dangerous, divisive, harmful waste of time. If that is the case, Nietzsche was absolutely right: we should be atheists not because it seems reasonable, but because we ourselves will to be so.

In order to be real, consistent atheists, our wills must be educated and trained. This will prevent the desires of the heart from escaping from our deepest regions and embarrassing us when we become senior citizens, falling back on our childhood way of seeing things. In order to achieve this, we need an educational system in which these desires are systematically reduced. We need an education where the possible link with infinity is not even mentioned, an education in which our only recognized link with the stars is that cosmology shows we are made of the same material stuff: all this is necessary to prevent these desires from bursting out of the hearts of our young people, leading them to question every compromise we have made and to demand what our current views of sexuality, our economic system, and our politics cannot provide. If they question the legitimacy of the ruling powers, then knows what might happen? Better to risk their despair than their revolution." (pp. 154-55)

Later Albacete reminds us that the premature closure of these questions:

"To believe we have found the answer to the meaning of life by our religious efforts this side of eternity could also be called idolatry. It happens when we identify an earthly reality as the Mystery, as God, as the source of meaning and purpose. When this reality is an idea or a philsoophical conviction, it is called an ideology. And we all know very well where that leads us.

It's funny -- religion is feared because it leads to divisions, persecutions, and wars. And yet, if religion is authentic, if it's really a reasonable quest for the Infinite and the Eternal, it will be the other way around. Religion will spare us from hostile divisions and ideological warfare and persecution by always pointing us beyond the temporal and definable. It will be a powerful defense against absolutist powers. It is no surprise that totalitarian governments try to domesticate or crush the religious quest.

Still, it is very, very difficult to continue the religious quest forever. Either we knowingly or unknowingly identify the Mystery with an earthly reality, or we begin to wonder whether it's really worth the effort, or we conclude that it's simply inhuman. But when it comes down to it, if you discover the meaning of life at 2:00 p.m. one afternoon, what are you going to do that night? Won't life become boring? More to the point, won't you become boring? Searching, seeking, and struggling at least make you open-minded and tolerant of those whose 'meaning of life' is not searched for where you search for yours!" (pp. 164-65).