Is it an exaggeration to say that we moderns are uncomfortable with the words: ‘dogma’ and ‘dogmatic.’? Dogma nowadays is seen as an insufferable burden on human freedom. The word “dogmatic” is viewed by many as synonymous with intolerant.

So let me be dogmatic here: Don’t drink Drano. Don’t put your hand on a red hot heating element of a stove. Don’t pet a rattlesnake. Don’t stare at the sun. Don’t drive on the highway with your eyes closed. Don’t sleep in the middle of railroad tracks. Don’t swim in a tank full of alligators. Don’t jam a knitting needle into your eardrum. Don’t stand in front of the jet engine intake on a Boeing 747 while it is spooling up its engines. Don’t leave a baby in a car with the windows rolled up when the temperature is 100 degrees. Don’t try to play with a rabid dog or any dog that is barking at you and foaming at the mouth. All of these are ‘dogmatic statements’ and anyone could think of a thousand more, maybe a million. Use your imagination and you can think of more and more: Don’t eat rat poison. Don’t chase a skunk. Don’t use an electric hair dryer while you are still in a bathtub full of water. Don’t sit on a cactus. Don’t try to remove wrinkles on your face with a hot iron. No one is so foolish to think that because these are dogmatic statements, they are somehow a threat to human freedom or that being dogmatic about them is somehow unkind and intolerant.

But mention a religious dogma to many a modern Catholic and the first words out of their mouth will be: “I dissent.”

Human beings cannot deny certain truths without destroying themselves. As in the natural world, so in the supernatural world.