Sensibility
The argument for Catholicism is ultimately very simple: it’s that nothing else makes sense. Of course, breaking down the untenability of “everything else” would take a while, but fortunately, I’ve already done that work in the preceding articles on this site. So, instead of making this a 30-page argument, I will just summarize and hyperlink the relevant support pages claim-by-claim.
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 folks like the Nazis did nothing wrong (a social faux pa at worst). 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 best atheist objections to God and religion are not particularly convincing, and the worst are just glorified schoolyard quips. Beyond these points, the idea of a God who isn’t involved in human affairs – Deism – leads to ridiculous conclusions, because the best arguments for God’s existence directly contradict the idea that He is “uninvolved.”
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 and other abominations among ancient religions is strong evidence that our innate estimation of divinity is… not great. Following our own religious assumptions is playing with fire. Acknowledging this danger precludes any religion which doesn’t have strong 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 the soothing sayings of wise men, ancient texts with dubious authorship, and emotion. This leaves the Abrahamic corpus as viable options, as they at least claim to have legitimate historical evidence and to contain the absolute truth.
Within this corpus, we will begin with Islam. Though each Abrahamic religion claims historical evidence, some do it better than others. Islam, for its part, is laughably absurd. The Quran claims that Jesus was a successful prophet of Islam who foretold Mohammad. 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 obvious, the Muslim world began to baselessly claim that someone had corrupted the Bible. And it doesn’t help that Islamic sources both call Mohammad the “perfect moral exemplar” and a violent warmongering pederast.
This leaves Christianity (Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic) and Judaism. Now, the Protestants claim that the Bible is the only infallible source of divine truths. This precludes a central teaching body, which ultimately leaves the meaning of the Bible open to 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 have no objective way to differentiate themselves. Both are cases of the blind leading the blind; both contradict the warnings of scripture.
Rabbinical 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 fabricate a national event. However, the later Jewish argument used to reject Jesus’ messiahship is a self-defeating argument. Furthermore, Judaism has no claim to the gifts God gave the religion of Moses. 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. Lacking these, Rabbinical Judaism is only superficially distinguishable from paganism; this either means that God abandoned His people (meaning Rabbinical Judaism is false), or that the Old Covenant has been abrogated, and the New Covenant the prophets foretold is in force (meaning Rabbinical Judaism is false).
I want to be clear that every single religion listed thus far lacks one critical feature: final authority. Paganism is inherently eclectic. Islam, Judaism, and Protestantism are all based on books, and books can be read multiple ways. Orthodox episcopal 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. There is objectively more evidence for Christianity than any other religion on earth. Christianity is the only religion which began due to (1) a miraculous event (2) attested to by many independent sources (3) who did so within living memory of it happening. 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 an ulterior motive like worldly gain. And further still, who would say that the Roman martyrs overcoming the greatest pagan empire on earth without lifting a sword is anything short of miraculous?
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 and magisterium, continuing the role of Moses and the Sanhedrin court. She has the proper ritual sacrifice of the Mass, replacing Levitical sacrifice at 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, I know, 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; the God of Catholicism is a strange God. But He is also real – and that takes precedence over our apprehensions:
“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).