91ution<br >esident<br >ffugees<br >rogres-<br >"eamed<br >ainkers<br >vogue，<br >~syches<br >~r poli-<br >doubt.<br >9h， but<br >ed. fu-<br >1. A Pious Apostasy<br >" What do I hear? the old Pope now said， pricking up<br >his ears. Oh Zarathustra， you are so pious for you believe<br >with such disbelief. Some God in you drives you to this<br >godlessness. Isn t it your piety itself that no longer permits<br >you to believe in God? "<br > Thus Spake Zarathustra<br >I am a pious apostate， an atheist shocked by the faithlessness<br >of the believers， a fellow traveler of moderate Catholicism<br >who has been out of the Church for more than twenty years.<br > I also have an intimate knowledge of the tragic papacy of<br >John XXIII. Not that I ever knew that good and holy man. I<br >saw him only once， on a summer s day in I959 at a mass au-<br >dience at Castel Gandolfo. While an officious monsignor was<br >translating his remarks， John triumphed over the ceremony of<br >the occasion by taking a large handkerchief out of his cassock<br >with mischievous solemnity and then blowing his nose with a<br >loud peasant honk. I was charmed by that little scene， yet it<br >hardly turned me into an insider.<br > Still， my knowledge about the rise and tragedy of John s<br >reign is quite personal. From the vantage point of a childhood<br >and adolescence in St. Louis， I can understand what happened<br >when the Pope stepped forward， boldly and innocently， to<br >proclaim a springtime of faith. He told his flock to forget the<br >dogmas for a while and listen to their hearts. They did， and<br >discovered that they could no longer hear the voice of God<br >within themselves. Looking back on that Irish Catholic world<br >Qt<br >3<br >I<br ><br >