Sensibility
The argument for Catholicism is ultimately very simple: it’s that nothing else makes sense. Instead of making this a 30-page argument, I will just hyperlink the relevant support from the other pages on my website.
First, atheism leads to the untenable metaphysical assumption that essence does not exist (for if essence did exist, that would necessitate God). This would mean that reality is incoherent, that there is no such thing as real purpose, and that all morality is opinion. Not only is there no evidence for this assumption, our deepest human intuitions tell us these corollaries are not true. Men see essence and coherence in things innately. Men need purpose – men with purpose handled the concentration camps well, while men without purpose become depressed amidst great comfort. Finally, no man is willing to accept true moral relativism, as true moral relativism means the Nazis did nothing wrong. Some may say they believe that, of course, but no one really means it (sans neo-Nazis, perhaps).
Beyond the untenability of the atheistic paradigm, atheism itself is a bad proposition, as there is incontrovertible proof that God exists. There are several strongly compelling cosmological arguments aside from the contingency argument. Further, the mystery of consciousness seems unsolvable without a rational actor in charge of reality – how could mind come from mindless matter otherwise? In contrast, the major atheist objections to God and religion are all handled quite easily, and the rest are just bad, despite their guile. Beyond these points, the idea of a God who isn’t involved in human affairs – Deism – leads to ridiculous conclusions. Deism in any sense would make of God an irrational, incoherent being who creates for no reason.
So, some spirituality or religion must, then, be true, or at least be truer than the others. Now the search for a proper spirituality and understanding of the divine cannot begin with simple human intuition. The ubiquity of human sacrifice among ancient religions is strong evidence that our innate estimation of divinity is not great. Acknowledging this danger precludes any religion which doesn’t have some sort of evidence behind it. This immediately eliminates the entire non-Abrahamic corpus. None of them even claim to approach objectivity, and the only evidence for any of them are sayings of wise men, ancient texts with dubious authorship, or emotion. This leaves the Abrahamic corpus as viable options.
Within the Abrahamic corpus, Islam is the most manifestly absurd. The Quran claims that Jesus was a successful prophet of Islam. But there is, of course, no evidence of that, and there are thousands of Christian manuscripts and dozens of non-Christian sources which testify the exact opposite. Furthermore, the Quran states no less than 25 times that the Bible of the seventh century testifies to its truth. With the Bible’s translation into Arabic in the tenth century, this was obviously revealed to be untrue. Rather than accepting the situation, the Muslim world began to baselessly claim that someone had corrupted the Bible.
This leaves Christianity (Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic) and Judaism. Now, the Protestants claim that scripture is the only infallible source of divine truths. Without a central teaching body, this leaves the meaning of the Bible open to each individual interpretation. This is a severe problem for two reasons. First, the New Testament is extraordinarily vague. Second, the Bible itself warns severely and regularly against trying to guide oneself in the spiritual life. There are thousands of Protestant denominations, proving the Bible’s point that man is incapable of judging the divine well. The Orthodox Christians have similar issues, as each communion claims to be the true Church, but has no objective way to differentiate themselves. Both are cases of the blind leading the blind; both contradict the warnings of scripture.
Judaism claims legitimacy due to its origin in national revelation (Moses at Mt. Sinai). This is a good point – it’s implausible that someone could invent a national event. However, the Jewish rejection of Christ as the Messiah is self-defeating. Furthermore, Judaism has no claim to the features which made the religion of Moses special. The power to interpret the law is gone with the destruction of the Sanhedrin. Proper sacrifice is gone without the Temple. The physical presence of God is gone with the loss of the Ark of the Covenant. Modern Judaism is no different than paganism.
I want to reiterate that every single religion listed thus far lacks one feature: final authority. Paganism is inherently eclectic. Islam, Judaism, and Protestantism are all based on books, and books can be read multiple ways. Orthodox autonomy cannot coexist with ultimate authority. These faiths are sports without referees. A Norse pagan cannot objectively call a Celtic pagan’s worship right or wrong, nor a conservative Jew a reform Jew, nor a Baptist a Calvinist, nor a Patriarch another Patriarch. If these are our only options, no one can ever be sure whether one is following God or just following his own desires and calling them God; the entire enterprise of religion is defenseless against rule-bending and rationalization, and is, thus, as worthless and aimless as a sport without a referee.
Well, would be. Luckily, one religion does indeed have a referee. He wears a little white hat.
Catholicism
Catholicism has none of the critical flaws of these other belief systems.
The Church acknowledges essence, purpose, and moral values. She acknowledges the reality and role of God, and is unafraid to make use of non-dogmatic wisdom, particularly that of Aristotle.
There is objectively more evidence for Christianity than any other religion on earth. Christianity is the only religion which began due to (1) a well-attested historical event (2) believed by many independent people (3) within living memory. In 1 Corinthians, St. Paul challenges those who have doubts to simply come to Jerusalem and ask people what happened. Compare that to the private, unverifiable revelations of leaders like Mohammad, Buddha, or Joseph Smith. Furthermore, the intense persecution of Christians in the first centuries proves that their belief was not for the sake of worldly gain. And further still, there is something miraculous about the Roman martyrs overcoming the greatest pagan empire on earth without lifting a sword.
Within Christianity, only Catholicism even claims to have continuity with all three integral pieces of the religion of Moses. The Church has the one truth through the Papacy, replacing the Sanhedrin court. She has the proper ritual sacrifice of the Mass, replacing the need for the Temple. She has the physical presence of God in the Eucharist, replacing the Ark of the Covenant. Furthermore, the unique Catholic claim to Papal infallibility makes her the only Church qualified to continue Christ’s ministry. An integral part of Christ’s ministry was His own infallibility, by which He “refereed.” If the Catholic Church is not infallible, then no Church is infallible (because no other church meaningfully claims to be), and the ministry and body of Christ on earth is dead.
What makes Catholicism special? It acknowledges and solves the problem of human unreliability and foolishness. It is the one path to God which doesn’t rely on emotion nor opinion nor intellect, but obedience. Catholicism is the only path to self-abandonment which does not rely on self to get there.
Now, everyone has some sort of personal gripe with Catholicism. This can’t be true, that can’t be true, God can’t be like that, I can’t believe those Priests did that, and so on. But if Catholicism isn’t true, nothing is true. If the Catholic priests – for all their faults – are not the shepherds, the flock is lost. These are hard teachings, as the God of Catholicism is a strange God. But He is also real – and that should transcend our apprehensions and fears:
“From this time, many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him. ‘You do not want to leave too, do you?’ Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:67-68).