The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 276: Irreligion and Atheism (2026)

Episode Date: October 3, 2026

We continue our examination of the first commandment, unpacking irreligion and atheism. Fr. Mike highlights the different elements of irreligion, namely tempting God in words or deeds, sacrilege, and simony. He emphasizes that the sin of tempting God is easy to fall into when we are deeply troubled or afraid. Fr. Mike also spends time unpacking the many different aspects of atheism, and its impact on our world today. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2118-2126. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in scripture, and passed down to the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in the Year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity and God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is Day 276. We're reading paragraphs 2118 to 2126. As always, I am using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own catechism

and hear reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash cI. And you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. As I said, today's day 276. Well done. We're reading paragraphs 2118 to 2126. Yesterday we talked of course about divination and magic and superstition and idolatry. Today we're continuing this whole, this not the whole trend, but the ways in which we could put other gods before the Lord God. Or we might not. not place the Lord God in his place. So we're talking today about irreligion. We're talking about tempting God in words or deeds, sacrilege, simony. We're talking about atheism today. Tomorrow we'll look at agnosticism and some other stuff. But here we are with these, what's irreligion?

Okay. Irreligion, the catechism will highlight these three particular ways of sinning when it comes to this irreligion. One is tempting God in words or deeds, sacrilege, and simony. And simony is essentially trying to buy or sell spiritual things. So in case you're wondering, that is the definition of simony. We're also looking at atheism. And that is a word that I imagine every single one of us are familiar with. We're looking at, the catacism has four paragraphs on this and just kind of like unpacking what is the reality and what is the temptation towards denying the existence of God,

denying the goodness of God. And so we're looking at that as we jump into today. So let us first, as always, just stop and allow the Lord to love us. Here is the reality. Yes, there are these sins, these sins of tempting God or sacrilege or simony or atheism. The reality, of course, is that God has made us to be loved by Him. God has made us to be in relationship with Him. And so to that end, we have the opportunity to just do that right now. So let's take a moment and let God love us as he is. Let God love us as we are. So we pray. Father in heaven, we give you praise and thank you. Thank you. You've moved first. You love us first. Lord God, you brought us into being and you created us to belong to you, to know you and to first to be loved by you and then to respond to love with love. And so we ask you please in this moment, help us to receive your love. Help us to give you permission to love us. Help us to not only know that you're offering it, offering your love to us, but help us to receive your love to us. But help us to receive your love to. receive that, especially as we are. Lord, Lord, help us to not put off receiving your love for like when I'm better or for when I'm holier or for when I'm maybe believe that I'm more deserving of love. Help us to just simply receive your love right now, fully and truly. Lord, God, in this moment, Father, we give you permission to love us. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father,

and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is day 276. We're reading paragraphs 2118 to 2126. Irreligion. God's first commandment condemns the main sins of irreligion. Tempting God in words or deeds, sacrilege, and simony. Tempting God consists in putting his goodness and almighty power to the test by word or deed. Thus, Satan tried to induce Jesus to throw himself down from the temple and by this gesture, forced God to act. Jesus opposed Satan with the words of God. You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. The challenge constrained in such tempting of God wounds the respect and trust we owe to our Creator and Lord. It always harbors doubt about His love, his providence, and his power. Sacrilege consists in profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments and other

liturgical actions, as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God. Sacrilege is a grave sin, especially when committed against the Eucharist, for in this sacrament, the true body of Christ is made substantially present for us. Simony is defined as the buying or selling of spiritual things. To Simon the magician, who wanted to buy the spiritual power he saw at work in the apostles, St. Peter responded, Your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God's gift with money. Peter thus held to the words of Jesus, you received without pay, give without pay. It is impossible to appropriate to oneself spiritual goods and behave toward them as their owner or master, for they have their source in God. One can receive them only from him without

payment. The minister should ask nothing for the administration of the sacraments beyond the offerings defined by the competent authority, always being careful that the needy are not deprived of the help of the sacraments because of their poverty. The competent authority determines these offerings in accordance with the principle that the Christian people ought to contribute to the support of the church's ministers. The laborer deserves his food. Atheism Many of our contemporaries either do not at all perceive or explicitly reject this intimate and vital bond of man to God. Atheism must therefore be regarded as one of the most serious problems of our time. The name atheism covers many different phenomena. One common form is

the practical materialism which restricts its needs and aspirations to space and time. Atheistic humanism falsely considers man to be an end to himself, and the soulmaker with supreme control of his own history. Another form of contemporary atheism looks for the liberation of man through economic and social liberation. It holds that religion, of its very nature, thwarts such emancipation by raising man's hopes in a future life, thus both deceiving him and discouraging him from working for a better form of life on earth.

Since it rejects or denies the existence of God, atheism is a sin against the virtue of religion. The imputability of this offense can be significantly diminished in virtue of the intentions and the circumstances. Believers can have more than a little to do with the rise of atheism. To the extent that they are careless about their instruction in the faith or present its teaching falsely or even fail in their religious, moral, or social life, they must be said

to conceal rather than to reveal the true nature of God and of religion. Atheism is often based on a false conception of human autonomy, exaggerated to the point of refusing any dependence on God. Yet, to acknowledge God is in no way to oppose the dignity of man, since such dignity is grounded and brought to perfection in God. For the church knows full well that her message is in harmony with the most secret desires of the human heart. All right, there we have it, paragraphs 2118 to 2126, looking at these four aspects, right?

So sins of religion, tempting God in words or deeds, sacrilege, seminy, and atheism. Let's look at this. So obviously tempting God, it's clearly a sin. It's condemned in scripture very clearly by Jesus himself, right? And yet at the same time, this is a thing. temptation for us is to also to tempt God. Basically the challenge of saying, okay, God, if you are God, then. That's the thing. If you're God, then, or if you're good then, or if you love me, then. And it involves putting God to the test. We recognize that if we step away from this

and look at tempting God, we think, oh yeah, clearly, that's not the right thing to do. But let's, let's go to a place where you and I know we've probably been, a place where we're desperate. And in that desperation, we can think, God, this is what has to happen. I need this answer. I need this response. I need this result. I need this outcome. So if you're good, if you love me, if you're God, if you're there, then here's the thing

I need. So again, when we step away from this, we can recognize, yes, clearly, tempting God is obviously a sin. And yet, we have to acknowledge that in our hearts at certain times when we are dead. desperate when we're fearful, whom we're incredibly troubled, we also can be tempted. We also could be tempted to this exact sin of tempting God. I only highlight that so that we're not looking at these sins as something that we would never ever do. Oh my gosh, I would never consider that. Yes, we would. And that's the reality about the human heart is right now I'm fine. Right now.

No, no, no, I'm good. I would never consider this now. But there could be a time when my fear would be so great, when my circumstances would be so difficult that I would be tempted to tempt God. That makes sense. Again, as we look at all of these, you want to highlight the fact that these are not other people's sins. They might be right now in the moment, but they're also in our hearts. So the next one, sacrilege. And I think this is really important because, you know, when it comes, we'll talk about blasphemy later on. But when it comes to things like sacrilege and blasphemy, I think that there are enough kind of, I guess, in our popular culture, there are enough jokes about blasphemy or sacrilege that maybe you don't hang around the same people I hang around. But it can diminish the incredible seriousness of sacrilege, which is profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments or other liturgical actions as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God.

Now, think about that. treating unworthily the sacraments or other liturgical actions or people, things, places consecrated to God. It is a grave sin, especially when committed against the Eucharist. And that's something, you know, there are some fantastic prayers of reparation against these sins of sacrilege. And I invite you to, if you look them up, just prayers of reparation against the sin of sacrilege, particularly against the Eucharist. Now, going on, simony. I said simony and simony, and I've heard it both ways. I really have. I say simony, because it seems to roll off the tongue a little bit more. Simony makes sense because it's based off of Simon, right?

Simon the magician in the acts of the apostles. He saw the spiritual power of Peter and John. He saw them working this out and he's like, well, hey, I'll buy that. I'm a magician here. If I had this power, I would be unstoppable. So how do I get a hold of this? And, you know, Peter corrected him very, very clearly and very, very powerfully. And he yelled to the words of Jesus, you receive without pay, give without pay.

So the reality, of course, here is it is impossible. to appropriate for oneself and behave towards spiritual goods as if we owned them or as if we're the master of them. We receive them from God. God is the giver of all good gifts. We simply receive these. And so in all of that, we can only receive these. And so in that reception, we receive the gratitude. We're never the owner of spiritual gifts or of spiritual things. So we don't try to buy spiritual gifts or try to buy spiritual things. Paragraph 21, 22 is interesting, though. It says this. It says, the minister should ask nothing for the administration of the sacraments.

Let's pause right there. I don't know if you know this, but you don't pay, you can never pay for the sacraments. So the minister, the priest, deacon bishop, should ask nothing for the administration of the sacraments. Goes on to say, beyond the offerings defined by the competent authority, always being careful, that the needy are not deprived of the help of the sacraments because of their poverty. So what's that mean? What that means is there might be a custom of like saying, I'm going to have an intention for a mass. And the custom is, okay, maybe in your parish it's, okay, $5 goes along with this intention for this mass.

No, you're not buying the mass. You're not purchasing the graces of this for yourself or for someone else. That's not what's happening. What's happening is, as it says in scripture, the laborer deserves his food. And so it's one of the ways in which you might keep, you know, the priest fed, the deacon fed, the bishop fed, is by saying, okay, so I'm offering this as a contribution for the service of this sacrament. not buying the sacrament or paying for this. Now, at the same time, keep this in mind, it's up to the parameter of that local diocese or that local parish, that those are the parameters that are there. This goes on to say that, that being said, say there's some kind of stipend attached to the celebration

of this sacrament, if there's anyone who's in need, who's unable to pay, they should never, ever, ever be denied any of the sacraments. Well, that's one of the rules. And we already talked about that in the second pillar of the catechism, they should never be denied the sacrament because of their poverty. Now, here's interesting thing. So this will happen to me a lot because I do a lot of weddings. You might do a lot of baptisms, maybe some funerals. But in weddings particularly, and in baptism particularly, there is some preparation that goes into it, right? So I will meet with couples anywhere between six to ten times. And so there's a lot of time we get to spend with them. And then there's the day. And so couples will ask that question and say, well, how much do we owe you? And I'm like,

I appreciate that question. It's very thoughtful. The answer is zero. The answer is you owe me nothing for this because I, as it, as we talked about before, we've received freely from the Lord. We freely give. And so that's the reality. Now, there are certain places in this world where that's what the priest lives on. In our diocese, because of the generosity of parishioners and for the people around the dioces that I have a, I particularly, I have a salary, right? But there are some places in the world where This is all the priest lives on. He lives on those stipends. He lives on those gifts. I've heard of this. Or at different times in the world. So you're not buying the sacrament. You are keeping him fed and keeping him clothes, hopefully keeping him with a roof over his head.

But for me, a lot of times couples will say, okay, how much we owe you? The answer, of course, is zero. At the same time, there is a policy at times in your parish. Your parish might have a policy that says, oh, for weddings, a gift of this much to your priest or to your deacon or whatever it is, is reasonable. But it's not expected. And as far as I'm concerned, it's not necessary. Again, in some places of the world, it is what keeps the priest alive.

For me, it is not. And so I just like, whatever, no big deal. If you do, that's great. If you don't, I literally will not miss it because of the fact that freely I've received, freely I'm meant to give. I hope that makes sense. And also, I hope I didn't throw any other priests under the bus. We're like, bro, that's what I'm living off of.

So in that case, keep that in mind. Always keep that in mind. Now, the last piece here is on atheism. And this is fascinating because so many of the quotes in this section of the catechism come from Gaudiomitzpès. Remember the document of the Second Vatican Council because one of the things that the Second Vatican Council had to address was this rise in postmodern culture of atheism. And so here we got paragraph 2123 starts out.

Many of our contemporaries either do not at all perceive or explicitly reject this intimate and vital bond of man to God. Atheism must therefore be regarded as one of the most serious problems of our time. So that's the church in the Second Vatican Council saying this, and here is the catechism quoting them on that, that atheism, therefore must be regarded as one of the most serious problems of our time. Now, paragraph 2124 goes on to explain that that term, the name atheism, covers many different phenomena.

So one is territorialism. So all there is is just, it's just, matter and there's no soul, there's no spirit. There's nothing beyond what we see or what we can measure. There's also atheistic humanism, which is more about who are we in this that considers human beings to be an end to ourselves with the, we're the soulmaker with supreme control of our own history. That is atheistic humanism. So it puts human beings at the center of the universe in some ways, right? Another form of contemporary atheism looks for the liberation of man through economic and social liberation.

So that sense of, if we could just get the right social construct, we have the right education, if we could have the right financial arrangement, then we would have a utopia. That would be the goal. That version of atheism can also be incredibly hostile to religion because it could accuse Christians in particular of saying, well, yeah, you don't care about this world right now

because you're only living for the next world, that you're fine tolerating bad stuff in this life because you're banking on the reality of the next life. Now, that is a false dichotomy. It is a false dichotomy to say that because we believe that there is the next life, that we don't care about this life, that's completely false. In fact, it's demonstrably false in the sense that you can realize because we believe there is another life, because we believe that there's the afterlife, because we believe there's

in eternity. And what we do in this life makes a difference in eternity. Because of that, Christians have done more to create hospitals, education, to do social reform, to end slavery than any other group. Those people that believe in eternity, they believe in heaven, have done more to make this earth a better place than I would argue, I would argue, any other group. And so it's not a sense of, you know, we believe in this pie in the sky, therefore we just kind of let the world go to heck. It's no, because we believe that there's an eternity, we know, we know that what we do in this life matters. In fact, think about the Christian message. What does Jesus say about caring for each other?

One of the many places Jesus talks about how vitally important it is to care for each other is in Matthew chapter 25 when at the end of time he divides all human beings into the sheep and the goats, right? that and those who go into heaven are the ones who took care of the poor, right? They cared for those who had no food. They cared for those who had no drink. They cared for those who were hungry, those who were homeless, those who were in prison, those who were sick. And those who didn't do that, those who ignored them, were condemned. This is so important for us.

So if you ever hear that claim, Christians are only concerned with heaven and therefore they just let the rest of this life in this world go to pot. we know that that's not true. Now, this is the last thing. Paragraph 2125, I think is incredibly wise. And it also protects against the sin of self-righteousness. Once again, we could look at tempting God or sacrilege or simony or atheism and say, I can't believe those people who would commit sacrilege or tempting God or those who

would not believe in God. And yet, here is paragraph 2125 that, man, it just is wise and it's humble. Here's what it says. The imputability of this offense can be significantly diminished in virtue of the intentions and the circumstances, right? So our culpability, someone's culpability of being atheist and atheist can be significantly diminished in virtue of the intentions and the circumstances. And here's this, man, it's a powerful quote, I believe, from Gaudi Bospes. I believe it's a powerful quote from Gaudi Mespess. It says, believers, that means you and I can have more than a little to do with the rise of atheism, which means, We can have a lot to do with the rise of atheism. Who? Christians, Catholics, believers can have more than a little to do with the rise of atheism. To the extent that let's say we, let's say we here, to the extent that we are careless about our instruction in the faith, or we present its teaching falsely, or we even fail in

our religious, moral, or social life, we must be said to conceal rather than to reveal the true nature of God and our religion. So why are there atheists? Maybe because we have not witnessed to the love of God the way we should. And that's just something, again, this is such a humble and good and lacking all self-righteousness. Paragraph 21, 25. I just want to go back to this and just let's look at this and say, yep, the rise of atheism is not someone else's fault. At times, maybe it's my fault.

So here's the catechism. we, we Catholics, can have more than a little to do with the rise of atheism, to the extent that we are careless about our instruction in the faith, or we present its teaching falsely, or even we fail in our religious, moral, or social life, we must be said to conceal rather than to reveal the true nature of God and of religion. And so that's the prayer that we get to have today. The prayer is,

okay, Lord, let me never conceal your goodness. Let me never conceal your truth. Let me never conceal your love. Let me never, gosh, we've been going through 276 days of learning the faith. Here's what the church teaches. The beauty and the truth, the power of what the church teaches. Lord, let me reveal this to the world. Let me, let me, let me proclaim this.

Let me live it. Let me live it in truth and in love, in goodness and in power with grace and humility. That is just, that's our call. Because, yes, we have, we're surrounded by a culture that is largely atheistic. at least in our behavior, and the reason why is because many Christians are largely atheistic, at least in our behavior. It's what John Paul II called practical atheism,

which is, yeah, no, I profess faith, but I don't live like God is real. I don't necessarily live like Jesus is God. I don't necessarily live like Jesus himself founded the Catholic Church. Because of that, I'm a practical atheist. Because of that, so many people in our world are also practical atheists. So we pray. We pray for conversion of our hearts. Remember this whole thing, this whole process, this whole year is not just about information transfer. It is about transformation. It's not just about just about data. It is about conversion. So Lord, in this moment, convert me, convert my heart. Help me to reveal rather than to conceal your truth and your goodness. You guys, I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name's Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.