Will the Son of Man Find Faith on Earth?

Gospel Reflection for October 19, 2025 - Luke 18:1-8

And he spoke also a parable to them, that we ought always to pray, and not to faint,

Saying: There was a judge in a certain city, who feared not God, nor regarded man.

And there was a certain widow in that city, and she came to him, saying: Avenge me of my adversary.

And he would not for a long time. But afterwards he said within himself: Although I fear not God, nor regard man,

Yet because this widow is troublesome to me, I will avenge her, lest continually coming she weary me.

And the Lord said: Hear what the unjust judge saith.

And will not God revenge his elect who cry to him day and night: and will he have patience in their regard?

I say to you, that he will quickly revenge them. But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth? (Luke 18:1-8 DRA)

Earlier this year – February 3-9, 2025, to be precise – the Pew Research Center conducted a survey of U.S. Catholics, chosen randomly from Post Office addresses, on whether or not Catholics think the Church should become more ‘inclusive’ on various issues. They polled 1,787 self-identified Catholics and further combined this information with a larger survey of U.S. Catholics – 6,958 – similarly chosen at random, conducted in 2023-2024.

Like their survey from a couple years ago on Catholic belief in the Real Presence, the results of this poll are truly shocking. Keeping in mind Mark Twain’s eternal principle – “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics” – I would like to examine some of these surveys’ key findings. They helpfully distinguished between people who simply call themselves Catholic and those who attend Mass at least weekly, so I’ll distinguish these from Catholics as a whole.

For Catholics in general:

• 20% of Americans claim to be Catholic, of whom 1.5% are converts.

• 49% of converts say they became Catholic because of a spouse or partner, and/or to get married in the church.

• 43% of all U.S. adults who were raised as Catholics no longer identify, religiously, as Catholic today (though some of them still identify as Catholic culturally).

• 22% seldom or never pray

• 40% seldom or never attend Mass

• 47% never go to Confession with a Catholic priest.

• Among Catholics who feel that women don’t have enough influence in the church, 87% say the Church should allow women to be deacons and 80% want to allow women to be ordained priests.

• Additionally, 13% of Catholics say they have attended a Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) at least once in the last five years, including 2% who say they attend a TLM weekly today.

Among regular Mass attenders:

• 72% say the Church should allow birth control

• 71% say the Church should allow IVF

• 59% say the Church should allow Catholics to receive Communion even if unmarried and cohabiting

• 54% want women deacons

• 41% want women priests

• 31% want the Church to recognize gay marriages

I think this information, for what it’s worth, can help us answer Christ’s pointed question in the Gospel reading today: “But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?” Notice His question wasn’t, “will the Son of man find Catholics on earth?” In His first coming, He wasn’t simply looking for any Jews He could find – He sought out the remnant, those among the Jews who retained the faith of Abraham, Moses and David in the coming of God as the Messiah, and those among the Gentiles who would also be called to have faith in Him. Most of the Jews He encountered lacked this faith, and we must also ask ourselves as Catholics today: do most Catholics have faith?

Simply saying “I believe in God, I accept Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior and I go to Mass” isn’t enough to be a true Catholic or to be saved. Those who knowingly and willingly dissent from the teachings of the Church – popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, deacons, religious or laity – defect from the true faith of Christ and are cut off from His divine life, no matter how they might appear to the world or imagine themselves to be.

Wearing a crucifix necklace, receiving Communion on Sundays and praying a Rosary every once in awhile doesn’t excuse acceptance of birth control, IVF (and the abortion that is inevitably included in it), gay marriage, women priests, cohabitation or the other erroneous ideas which half or more of weekly Mass-attending Catholics now maintain. We have faith in Christ and the Tradition He bestowed on the apostles, the Tradition that their successors have built up by their infallible teachings and practices ever since, including all the articles definitively taught by the Church. To dissent from even one of these elements of Tradition is to reject Christ and to no longer have true faith.

The consequences of Our Lord’s question are eternal, for us today no less than for its first hearers. Being Catholic means striving for holiness, being ‘set apart’ from the mundane world and the values of our godless culture for the sacred purpose of serving Christ and acting as His ambassadors. It does not mean blending in, throwing open the doors of the Church to popular trends and modernist ideologies, overlooking acceptable sins or dissembling the truth just to be politically correct. Fear of cancellation, persecution and even martyrdom must never hinder our bold proclamation and living out of the Faith.

This is the heroic witness to which Christ calls us by His question today. We are fighting a battle no less perilous than that of Moses for the Promised Land in the first reading, and Scripture remains our surest weapon against the world, the flesh and the devil as it always has – so long as we interpret it in accordance with the Tradition of the Church. For many Catholics today, Scripture has become something to apologize for, a kind of old-fashioned relic of the past with some inspirational quotes but little relevance for our Enlightened modern age. But if we have true faith, we must reclaim the inerrant truth of Scripture and live out all of its teachings, no matter how offensive they might seem today, receiving it as the inerrant written expression of the Word of God.

No matter what errors and scandals we hear about from those in the Church or what pressures are exerted on us by the surrounding culture, we must imitate the example of the martyrs and of Christ Himself so that we may be ready when He returns to answer His question without hesitation: “I believe, Lord!”

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