MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Every week, a guest draws a card from NPR's Wild Card deck and answers a big question about their life. Father James Martin is one of the most well-known Catholic priests in the U.S. That's in part due to his many appearances on "The Late Show." Martin has a new podcast out called "The Spiritual Life," where he asks hard questions about people's faith.
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JAMES MARTIN: You know, I think a lot of what passes for spirituality online and in the media is pretty shallow. Like, hey, I'm Catholic, and I do my rosary and - the end. I checked the box, and that's that. And OK, well, let's talk about, you know, your experiences of God and what happens when, you know, it feels like God isn't showing up.
KELLY: On this week's Wild Card, James Martin talked with host Rachel Martin about a form of faith he had to rethink.
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RACHEL MARTIN: What's a belief you chose to let go of?
J MARTIN: Oh, my gosh - that God was a transactional God, that you do something, and that by doing it you will, in a sense, force God to do this. If I do XYZ, then God will almost have to do...
R MARTIN: Ah.
J MARTIN: ...ABC.
R MARTIN: Ah.
J MARTIN: If I say three rosaries, God's going to heal my father from whatever. And God, live up to your bargain.
R MARTIN: Isn't that part of the basis of the Catholic Church? Like, you come...
J MARTIN: Well, I think you ask for things, but God has freedom, right? I think what it leads to in the extreme version is - and I want to be clear, I ask for things all the time in prayer.
R MARTIN: Yeah.
J MARTIN: But the fact that you could sort of push these buttons and make God do something, that's - that leads to the prosperity gospel, right?
R MARTIN: Yeah.
J MARTIN: So if I do these things - right? - I will be financially and socially and even physically successful, right? And look at people who have not done those things.
R MARTIN: Right.
J MARTIN: They clearly don't believe in God and haven't done the right prayers. That's what I mean by that. So I had to let go of that idea of the transactional God versus a God who's kind of in relationship with us.
R MARTIN: I remember when my mom was ill. She was dying of cancer. And I was just flipping through channels. And an evangelical televangelist, who I shall not name, was on, preaching the prosperity gospel and was talking about people who could overcome grave illness if they just prayed enough. And my mother was a...
J MARTIN: Yeah.
R MARTIN: ...Devout woman.
J MARTIN: Right.
R MARTIN: And the insinuation that she was going to die and it was because she wasn't praying hard enough to prevent that just, like, cut me to my core.
J MARTIN: Yeah, it's monstrous. It's a monstrous belief, and it makes people feel like they've done something wrong if they're suffering. And I always point to a couple things. You look - and if you're a Catholic, look at someone like St. John Paul II. He suffered from Parkinson's disease. Did he somehow pray wrong? I mean, or Mother Teresa - right? - St. Teresa of Calcutta was suffering at the end of her life. No, I mean, even Jesus - there's a - I think it's in John Chapter 9, the man born blind. And they ask him - which I think is great - who sinned that this man was born blind? And he says, no one sinned. You know, and so - yeah, and I think that current-day belief can sort of tempt us to this idea of the transactional God, right? And it's something to really be avoided. And I had to let go of that.
KELLY: Father James Martin. And you can watch a longer version of that conversation on YouTube by searching for Wild Card with Rachel Martin.
(SOUNDBITE OF MARCUS MUMFORD AND TOM HOWE'S "NIGHTINGALE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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