Roots and Wings: Educating the Next Generation
In a recent talk to Australian pilgrims, Pope Benedict XVI said that the task of parents educating children in the faith is to give them both roots and wings: I want to use this image of “roots and wings” to narrow and focus the discussion from my post below and ask, positively, how do “Commonweal Catholics” think we give roots and wings to the next generations.
Some of our more traditional brothers and sisters try to do this, as far as I can see, by trying to recreate a homogenous Catholic environment: homeschooling, Catholic school, carefully controlled exposure to other viewpoints.
But what about Catholics who think early exposure and going to school with people of different faiths is a good thing? What about Catholics who want to raise the next generation as Catholic while not fleeing a more pluralistic environment? What about Catholics who (gasp) actually think good public schools are a good option? I think that this is at least one strand of Commonweal Catholics. So what is the pedagogical strategy of Commonweal Catholics for handing on the faith with both roots and wings, even if those terms aren’t defined in quite the same way that the Pope does?
Please: no more griping about the church: let’s think of positive strategies.
Many generations of pilgrims have made their way to Rome from all over the Christian world, in order to venerate the tombs of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and thereby to deepen their communion in the one Church of Christ, founded on the Apostles. In so doing, they strengthen the roots of their faith; and roots, as we know, are the source of life-giving sustenance. In that sense, pilgrims to Rome should always feel at home here, and the Domus Australia will play an important part in creating a home for Australian pilgrims in the city of the Apostles. Yet roots are only a part of the story. According to a saying attributed to a great poet from my own country, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, there are two things that children should receive from their parents: roots and wings. From our holy Mother, the Church, we too receive both roots and wings: the faith of the Apostles, handed down from generation to generation, and the grace of the Holy Spirit, conveyed above all through the sacraments of the Church. Pilgrims to this city return to their homelands renewed and strengthened in their faith, and borne aloft by the Holy Spirit in the journey onward and upward to their heavenly home.My prayer today is that the pilgrims who pass through this house will indeed return to their homes with firmer faith, more joyful hope and more ardent love for the Lord, ready to commit themselves with fresh zeal to the task of bearing witness to Christ in the world in which they live and work. And I pray too that their visit to the See of Peter will deepen their love for the universal Church and unite them more closely with Peter’s Successor, charged with feeding and gathering into one the Lord’s flock from every corner of the world. Commending all of them, and all of you, to the intercession of Our Lady, Help of Christians and Saint Mary MacKillop, I gladly impart my Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of the joys that await us in our eternal home.
I’ll start with a question rather than an answer.
how realistic should the answer to Cathy’s question be?
IMO the issue of resources makes the problem very complex today, forget Church criticism.
The variety of parishes, lack of instructors and he demands of modern family underscore the challenges of passing on the faith to the young.
America has a good piece by a RED noting all this, but also noting two vital things: being positive and relating positively to today’s teens with all their issues -some of which may be family that some may see as the heart of the education.
Beyond that, I ask are there real programs beyond Newman society at college for young adults starting out and should we really move to pour resources into that area(Ithink so.)
I fear if we haven’t really engaged the young by college graduation, we’ve lost them for a long time if not forever.
A final word from me: we often talk about truth as a big criterion for what is presented.
At all levels, I want to posit that a necessary concomitant is honesty both from teacher and from student .
One handy way to get to a strategy is to start with a well thought-out statement of purpose and an assessment of the environment. Both of those depend on a common understanding of the meaning of some terminology. The two most important terms to home in on first might be “Catholic” and “the Church” since both can be found so often in confident use with various different meanings. A glance around dotCommonweal will give plenty of examples. How would I know a “Catholic environment” or a “next-generation Catholic” if one were to show up?
Prof. Kaveny – here is my root & wings approach:
- switched from public to catholic schools once the kids moved towards “middle school”
- in elementary school – active in parents’ clubs; participated in grade retreats; grade liturgies; supported sacramental preparation; supported/chaperoned outreach services; encouraged serving and lectoring and choir (both male/female kids)
- supported and paid for catholic high school. Participated in service activities, summer outreach programs, parents fundraising events; supported retreats, choir trips while remaining active in local parish
But, during high school, the kids each made their own choices. Encouraged and steered them to ask questions; to learn how to analyze and make judgments (vs. just accepting what authority supposedly says); supporting their own efforts to figure out the meaning of a faith community; and continued to encourage understanding the gospel values and living them out in their own lives.
Both kids have moved in their own directions subsequently (one is in a catholic college; active in the choir, active in outreach).
The other kid – has built his own community and relationships. In no way, would he be a “practicing catholic”. OTOH – this summer a classmate killed himself. My son helped organize the funeral at a catholic parish; set up a lunch afterwards; picked up two guys at work so they would make the funeral. So, somewhere down deep, the roots are there and can/will take wing when they choose; feel compelled; reach a level where they need the eucharistis community; whatever.
Not sure I have addressed your question.
Fr. William J. O’Malley, S.J., has a new book, “The Wow Factor: Bringing the Catholic Faith to Life,” published by Orbis Books, that focuses on the loss of wonder in our lives and the lives of our children. Without this sense of wonder, he argues, it will be very difficult to pass along the Faith to new generations. If you’ve ever read any of Fr. O’Malley’s other books (e.g., “Help My Unbelief,” and “Choosing to Be Catholic: For the First Time, or Once Again”), then you’ll be familiar with his very engaging writing style and his ability to weave popular culture into the lessons he seeks to impart. He has much to say about the topic of this thread, i.e., educating the next generation, far too much to summarize here. Moreover, he pulls no punches on what he thinks ails us, including all the human faults of the Church as an institution, but he also believes the problem lies much deeper. If you haven’t had the pleasure of reading Fr. O’Malley’s work, I offer this example:
“Something vital got lost on the pilgrimage from Vatican II. Mercifully, the fires of hell dwindled; we dethroned the Dickensian Moneylender cataloguing every peccadillo; we discarded our ace of trump, fear. But in the process of humanizing a feudal worldview, we also traded the sometimes majestic organ for well-intentioned guitars, esoteric Latin for uninspired pap, Bach for imitation-Bacharach. Beyond the bland liturgy, our overall purview gradually twisted from a clutter of bloodless canonical strictures on our choices to even paler Hallmark do-good-ism. Few grow nostalgic for vengeful patriarchy, but we are left with restless hearts. Quite likely, such softness led to what now seems the full flood of efforts by so many devoted people to ‘reform the reforms,’ to get back to the ‘good old days,’ which really weren’t that terribly good.
What did get lost on the trek was the transcendent God.
We miss the Mysterium Tremendum of Rudolf Otto, the Power thundering at Job from the whirlwind: ‘Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?’ Moses described that Force as a blazing bush that did not consume itself; Isaiah cringed and tried (inadequately) to capture this stupefying Act of Love as an enthroned Personage ablaze with light, around whom an incandescent hurricane of voices swirls, shouting, ‘Holy! Holy!’
Such immensity tempts one to resign one’s intelligence like Eastern mystics before the impenetrable Ultimate–before whom all words fail, even ‘is.’ Western theologians effectively stifled the awe of the theophanies–person-to-Person encounters with the eternal deity–which had always been the core of all religions before the rational Greeks came along.
If bishops wonder why ‘they’re not coming to church,’ there’s the reason: they don’t find there a personal connection to that enthralling God–which is what ‘religion’ means. No wonder.”
Our six adult children and 8 grandchildren have not formally or verbally rejected Catholicism, they just have not found any motivation to act on it. For them The Catholic warts are too noticeable and the good parts of the face are hidden behind the ugly warts.
They do not have the memory of a comforting, engaged, triumphal church we experienced, so when the media/culture is exposing the warts they have no memory of a time when the Church’s face was attractive. Vatican II asked the laity to ‘be all in’ . not observers/customers but stakeholders.
The ‘kids’ admire our hanging in there, they sense we are doing it right but we suspect they also think our ‘sticking’ is mostly a habit and of having experienced better days. Our participation in lay ministry, they appreciate, but for them to be ‘all in’ like we are, is to them , asking too much. Our hope is that seeing and experiencing our ‘being all in’ will win the day. They do not see many Catholic stakeholders, and either do we.. .
“But what about Catholics who think early exposure and going to school with people of different faiths is a good thing?”
Our own experience is that we started our children in Catholic school. When it was time for child #4 to enroll in kindergarten, we assessed a whole bunch of things (including finances) and decided to move them to public schools. That’s where they are today.
So, if we consider Catholic primary schools to be part of the ‘Catholic bubble’, I can speak as a parent whose children have spent time both inside and outside the bubble. And I would say that there is a concrete difference in the children’s experience of the faith. When the children are in the Catholic school, Catholicism is part of the ocean in which they’re swimming, all day every day, and all the other little fishes, and the big fishes who guide their education, are swimming in the same environment. The friends and friends’ families from school have the same faith, the same beliefs – it is very reinforcing, and in a positive way.
The public schools don’t have the same swimming-in-the-ocean aspect. Everyone swims over to the public school from whatever sea they’re from, hangs out together for a while, and then swims back. Not that they’re bad schools – in fact, I’m really fortunate to live in a place with wonderful schools. But Catholicism has changed in the children’s lives from “the ocean in which we’re all swimming all day every day” to a compartmentalized experience: on Monday through Friday they go to school during the day, and then on Sundays and occasional after-school afternoons, they’re at the church to be Catholic.
I don’t know to what extent that compartmentalization makes it easy to discard the practice of Catholicism when they’re older, but I suspect that it is easier. It’s easier to leave behind a limited compartment of one’s life than the entire ocean in which one has swum for their childhood.
So here’s the thing: if we are going to rear our children outside the bubble, it puts a much bigger onus on we parents, and on our religious support system, to reconstruct a sort of bubble for our children’s sakes. Because, I guess I believe that our children can’t become Catholic without a bubble of some sort.
Of course, it isn’t just Catholics trying to figure this out. Jews, Greeks, Japanese, Muslims, many others in our community are also trying to navigate how to keep what is distinctive and important of faith and/or culture interwoven with the multicultural reality of 21st century American life.
Pilgrimages to the tombs of Peter and Paul can trigger two opposing thoughts, and I don’t think the thoughts are what Pope Benedict had in mind. Peter advised us always to be prepared to give reasons for our beliefs. Paul,, on the other hand, scorned “the philosophers” while waxing poetic about “the Seventh Heaven”. So I see Benedict’s metaphor, “roots and wings”, as signifying opposing views of how to attain religious truth.
As I see it, those two views present the continuing conflicts within Christianity between the rationalists — those who trust reason as against (shall we say) the mystics, that is, the believers for whom contradictions not only don’t matter at all, at all, but who seem to positively relish the contradictions at times.. To oversimplify you might say Peter and Paul exemplify the perennial Western conflict between science and poetic truth. Within the Catholic Church, at least as i see it, it is a fundamental conflict between those who trust our God-given reason to tell us the truth about Him, and those who put their trust in the mystics. This is the conflict between Peter and Paul. The problem is that our reasoning leads us inevitably to contradictions — and so do the mystical sorts of experience. For instance, most notoriously, reason leads us to think that God is both just and unjust, so He is impossible, while mystical belief sometimes leads to the mystics thinking that they, who are mere creatures, are and are not God HImself.
It seems to me that these contradictions are manifest in the problems that parents face when choosing how to rear their children. Children these days are bombarded by the surrounding culture with relativism, skepticism, and cynicism — AND by the irrationalism of fundamentalists of various stripes. By “the irrationalist fundamentalists” I mean those believers who refuse or simply can’t face the fact that our beliefs are in some measure self-contradictory, and hence apparently irrational.
The issue, as I see it, is: how shall human beings deal with the contradictions that the use of reason inevitably seems to confront us with? More specifically: how shall Catholic parents (or any Catholic for that matter) deal with the obvious contradictions that the Faith inevitably confronts us with?
It seems to me that in this world our answers will have to be simply: we don’t know how to deal with these contradictions but nevertheless we find reasons — evidence — which leads us to persist in accepting the good that the Faith offers. And that’s the hardest thing of all to do sometimes. (But that’s another thread or ten.)
These problems aren’t peculiar to believers. For about a hundred years now the world of science has been shaken at its foundations because of certain apparent inconsistencies have been discovered at the roots of math, problems having do do with infinities. (Sounds familiar?) The scientists, ironically, are now having to fly by faith because they are having to admit that science’s great tool — math — is not at all a consistent body of knowledge. Ironically, some scientists these days now turn to the Tao, the ancient Chinese “wisdom” which claims to know Truth, but which is also self-contradictory at bottom.
So, as I see it, both camps — t he scientists and the mystics — are presented with a similar problem: how to deal with fundamental inconsistencies of the foundations of our thinking?
If the theologians and philosophers of science are in quandaries about these matters, small wonder that parents are.
So what to do? I say follow Jesus who said “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life”. Catholics, Christians already accept that He is the Way. But what about the Truth? Well, there are many truths, and as Catholics we believe that the little truths of finite beings are images of the Infinite Truth which is God. So to find God and a resolution of the contradictions there seems to be only one way: try to think as well as we can and then when we find problems with our beliefs ADMIT that something must have gone wrong in our thinking, that something is wrong with our premises or we haven’t reasoned well or both.
It is at this point that i think the fundamentalist conservatives part company with the rest of us. They do not think it is right to lie or to deny the contradictions, but they think the solution is to *ignore the contradictions*, to avoid those who would criticize the faith as they understand it — as if their understanding of the Truth could not possibly be wrong. And so we have the Ave Maria Universities that try to protect the students from the facts of human intellectual experience.
No one can say what is best for all children. But having been a child and a student I am most grateful to my parents, especially my mother who was a very thinking Catholic, for having enough courage to teach me to tell the truth always — including telling the truth to myself as best I can. I think that if there is a God (and I usually do believe it) then He will bless me for telling the truth about Him as I see it, even if I conclude He does not even exist..
I have believed this since I was twelve. And I was most comforted when I found the Book of Job as an adult. Never forget the lesson of Job. God punished those who, unlike Job, couldn’t face what *seemed to be the truth about Him, that He is unjust”. But Job faced that truth and confronted God with it, and he was rewarded.
The lesson for us, I think, is to be like Job — to admit our limitations, our inconsistencies, and to continue to try to understand whatever truth about God we’re capable of, realizing always that He exceeds our grasp and so we will always fail at least to some extent. At least in this world.
I think that if children see that adults do genuinely see the children’s and young people’s intellectual problems (and they DO have such problems, beginning with Santa Claus), and if the children see that one can remain hopeful that the conflicts will be resolved eventually — indeed, that some of the conflicts are somehow resolved in Jesus Christ — then the children will feel more secure in their faith than if the older folks ruthlessly seal off their young minds from the contradictions that both the world and the Faith present.
Yes, other intellectual problems confront Catholic parents these days. But it seems to me that parents must have a fundamental attitude towards truth-telling in all these matters — an attitude of seeing that we don’t know everything, that we can all make mistakes, but that the grace of God is always available to help us move towards the truth, if not finally find it in this world.
My only though beyond this, based on my experience as a philosophy teacher, is: respect your children’s honesty. There will be no rupture between you if you do.
Oh, Lord, I just saw how long that post is. Sorry.
“But what about Catholics who think early exposure and going to school with people of different faiths is a good thing? What about Catholics who want to raise the next generation as Catholic while not fleeing a more pluralistic environment? ”
Or the question can be reversed: why does Professor Kaveny teach at a private, Catholic college? And why must one associate Catholic education with a “bubble” or narrow-mindset – “home schoolers” may take the trend to an extreme, however, there is certainly an opened set that gravitates towards Catholic education and culture due to the void in the public square and in public schools.
I would even go as far as saying that the Catholic education – especially if it is rooted in the classic form of grammar, logic, rhetoric – provides a much more diverse education and skill set than the large, bureaucratic and politically correct state schools (I went to public schools) that fail to teach even basic thinking skills or fundamentals or character if only because they cannot agree on objective standards and cannot comment values such as “virtue” because of the pluralistic, liberal nature of the system. Also, that religious history is not taught is egregious disservice to children and society.
Since there has been much talk of neo-distributism on here of late (which is awesome!) this issue is also one of subsidiarity – education of our children is something too important to be left to nameless bureacrats and a ineffective system.
This does not mean that we should shut ourselves in a “catholic ghetto”; however, we should certainly be looking at alternatives to centralized education policy.
Ann: “And so we have the Ave Maria Universities that try to protect the students from the facts of human intellectual experience.”
That statement is rather narrow-minded from the liberal camp, I think.
Students at Ave Maria or St. Thomas Aquinas in CA read and most likely have a better handle on Nietzsche, Plato, Aristotle, Marx and Freud than the average public university student.
In fact, I would say that if anyone is “protecting students from the facts of human intellectual experience,” it is the majority of state and secular private schools – even the ivy league – that for the most part deny the religious impulse and human longing for the divine in favor of the flat, sterile and safe humanism and positivism of Steven Pinker and others such para-scientists that dominate the top universities.
Apropos the prior thread and to this as well, I think:
“ David Nickol 10/20/2011 – 6:22 pm subscriber
Mark Proska,
I think it’s important to explain to 8-year-olds that Catholics who don’t go to Mass every Sunday are committing mortal sins and will go to hell. I had a pretty good idea of what dying and burning in a fiery pit for all eternity meant when I was 8. Kids can understand these things. No sense hiding the truth from children, and perhaps their crying and pleading with their relatives not to commit mortal sins would bring some people back to the Church. And what 8-year-old can’t understand, “Woman can’t become priests because God says so, and that’s that.”
David Nickol 10/20/2011 – 6:24 pm subscriber
Bender is right. Muslims understand how serious it is to give up the religion you were born to. Why can’t Catholics get this through their thick skulls? “
I like David’s tongue-in-cheek rejoinder @ 6:22 pm. That kind of nonsense will DEFINITELY convince children as they get older that they were born into a system of idiocy and the best thing to do is to get the heck out as fast as possible.
The religion into which you were born is basically an accident of birth. The religion to which you commit yourself is one that opens you to the world of the sacred and the profane, to know and understand the difference, and to choose accordingly. Failure to grow and mature in one’s faith results in a faithless adherence to empty traditions.
Brett –
I do not dispute that the secular schools do not generally give students a truly fundamental education. However, from what I’ve read of Ave Maria is does not encourage students to think self-critically, nor does it allow them to hear much of those who do criticize the Church. I took a couple of philosophy courses at a Jesuit college when I was at secular college,and believe me their idea of a fair presentation of the opposition was woefully lacking. They simply ignored the fundamental issues raised by non-Catholic philosophers is what they did. I’l grant you that that was a long time ago, but what these fundamentalist Catholic bubble colleges are doing looks to be in that same woefully inadequate tradition.
“Students at Ave Maria or St. Thomas Aquinas in CA read and most likely have a better handle on Nietzsche, Plato, Aristotle, Marx and Freud than the average public university student.”
Please cite chapter and verse. This is a gratuitous assumption which can be gratuitously denied.
Question again:
some folks here talk as if access to catholic educayion is readily available (never mind affordable.)
I think that’s a narrow perspective.
I’m still looking for more on continuing education, a challenge that Jimmy Mac talks baout I think and building an “all in” d talks about.
I don’t think that is built on telling kids they’ll burn in hell when they’re eight.
But… again I beleive the issue is how we allocate educational resources and think more about (youg especially) adults.
Don’t let Brett distract the discussion. He’s most welcome to Ave Maria.
What is the positive program for next generation ‘s Commonweal Catholics?
Cathleen–
Can you explain what you mean when you say “Commonweal Catholics”? I’ve been a subscriber for 10 years or more, read the magazine religiously, and comment in here from time to time–yet I don’t feel that I’m included in that moniker.
I’m not trying to be tendentious, I just don’t know what you’re looking for. Are you interested only in what liberals have to day? I’m fine with that–liberals can certainly have a thread dedicated to their opinions only–I just don’t know where you want to go with this thread, especially considering your response to Brett’s comment.
Jimmy Mac–
I would only ask that if you’re going to quote a response to my comment, that you provide my comment itself, so that people understand the context. Seems only fair.
Yes. I think conservative Catholics have thought a lot about how to pas on faith. Schulz’s article in America – and my own anecdotal experience suggest progressive Catholics haven’t done as well on that front. I am interested in finding positive approaches that aren’t reducible in the end to “homeschool” or “put your kids in Catholic school” or ‘tell them that uncle Albert is going to hell since he’s living in sin.”
The vast majority of Carholics in this country don’t send their kids to catholic school and don’t home school- and many don’t want to do either. I myself am grateful for my public school education, and for my education in pivate, non- sectarian schools. But the challenges with respect to roots and wings in the Catholic faith are far more considerable. So what is the strategy?
http://www.thomasaquinas.edu/a-liberating-education/great-books
Here you go, Bill.
Cathleen, it is rather strange to say that we should avoid “parochial” and insular attitudes and then call for the exclusion of “not-liberal-enough” viewpoints on the state of Catholic education.
I guess “tolerance” only goes so far for commonweal catholics ;)
Opps, Bill, I should have posted this link:
http://www.thomasaquinas.edu/a-liberating-education/syllabus
Now that is what a good Catholic education should look like!
(no matter if you are from the left or right)
What is the positive program for next generation’s Commonweal Catholics?
The most positive thing would be to drop the “Commonweal” and be happy to be just plain “Catholic.” Ours is not a Faith or a Church of division, we are a Faith and Church of communion. One Body in Christ, One Family of God. One.
And that oneness, that end of divisiveness, is brought about by the supremely positive program of love. How about showing some love? How about having some love? How about setting aside the contempt and the anger and the rancor and simply doing what Jesus has asked us to do, which is to love? Love for all, including one’s “enemies,” including loving those on the opposite end of the political/ideological/economic/cultural spectra.
But love means humility, love means sacrifice, including sacrifice of self, love means not making yourself first, but submitting to being last. Love means being not Commonweal Catholics, not NCR Catholics, not SSPX Catholics, but merely Catholic.
There is nothing more positive than love. And you will feel a whole lot better if your program is to stop constantly seething and raging and sniping and snarking and make peace, seek to reconcile, and love your brothers and sisters. Most especially love the Church for who and what she is — as she is — and not as you or I or would remake her to be.
Brett –
The list of works leaves out the two most devastating challenges to belief in modern Western philosophy — David Hume’s “A Treatise on Human Nature” and his “DIalogues concerning Natural Religion”. It does include Hume’s Enguiry, but that is not so devastating as the Treatise. Looks to me like an avoidance mechanism.
I am also suspicious of such a list. How much of each book were you required to read? It looks good, but I can’t imagine even the smartest kids reading all of that *well* in 4 years.
In other words, there seems no guarantee that the students become aware of the basic challenges to faith which they would meet in the secular schools.
There is no way of arguing this here. But I’m not too impressed with your curriculum, even if you do read some important works.
Ann: “In other words, there seems no guarantee that the students become aware of the basic challenges to faith which they would meet in the secular schools.”
Fair enough; however, I would suggest that we live in a “secular age” – as Taylor suggests – and that such challenges are, in fact, unavoidable in media, the public square, work place etc.
In light of this secular and hyper-critical reality, there should be a basic foundation (both in faith and academics) on which to build upon as they go out into the world.
This is what the “orthodox” catholics are doing and it is why their kids keep the faith even after challenges of secularism whereas liberal catholics are simply absorbed fully into the culture – much the same way liberal protestants are “disappearing” into the secular world.
Brett –
I also notice that there is hardly any history at all except of the ancient pre-Christians. Another fine avoidance mechanism — if you don’t learn the history of the Church you’ll not learn what there is to criticize about it. You will also lose Tradition in any meaningful sense.
Neither does the list present much in the way of Catholic theologians except for Augustine and Thomas. No, decidedly not my idea of good Catholic education.
PS – Ann, I didnt go to that Thomas Aquinas College, but I sure wish I did…it would have saved me a lot of catching up I am currently involved in ;)
“In light of this secular and hyper-critical reality, there should be a basic foundation (both in faith and academics) on which to build upon as they go out into the world.
This is what the “orthodox” catholics are doing. . .”
Brett –
I agree wholeheartedly with the first sentence. But it assumes that the best basic education available can answer all our important questions without running into terrible difficulties. Such an education doesn’t exist. Nobody has all the answers.
As to the second sentence, you wish. Learn some more history of the Church and I think you’ll find that the *self-styled* “orthodox” Catholics are no such thing. I mean they are wrong about some of the things that the Church has and has not taught as being “orthodox”. Indeed, this is one of the main themes on this blog == who speaks for the Church, if anyone does? And how?
“Indeed, this is one of the main themes on this blog == who speaks for the Church, if anyone does? And how?”
Hmm, I suppose I meant orthodox in the Chestertonian sense. I any case, I would suggest Matthew 16:17 as to who speaks for the Church.
Prof. Kaveny wrote: “I think conservative Catholics have thought a lot about how to pas on faith. Schulz’s article in America – and my own anecdotal experience suggest progressive Catholics haven’t done as well on that front.”
I would agree with that. When you feel attacked on many sides (as in a “culture war” mentality), you tend to be more deliberate in planning your defense. But Commonweal Catholics have a much more open attitude toward the secular world, following the lead of John XXIII, so there is less of a sense of urgency. Why protect something when you don’t perceive it as being under siege?
As for one possible strategy: There are lay communities and similar groupings that may be helpful. Of course, there are organizations to avoid (Regnum Christi, anyone?), but there are also others that may well appeal to Commonwealers–Focolare, Sant’Egidio, the Christian Family Movement, etc. None of these organizations would create the insular bubbles that conservative Catholics tend to treasure. (Perhaps we should call them echo chambers instead.) Yet at the same time, they may provide an environment of faith–an open environment that recognizes the Spirit’s presence, activity, and calling outside the walls of the church.
As other commenters have noted, raising Catholic children is very hard when done in a vacuum. I would wager that very few of us older folks experienced Catholicism in isolation.
Mind you, I don’t know exactly how to do this. I just offer this as one possible strategy.
Over=simple, Brett. Popes alone cannot tell parents all they need to know, all they need to do.
When I used the words ‘all in’ I should have mentioned ‘all in’ means lay formation. Would not both camps [left and right or progressive/conservative] agree that lay formation cannot be had in the parish or school setting as they are now functioning.?If that is true from whence will lay formation come? and can formation be separated from indoctrination?
I think the conservative families are thiking more about how and where their children are being formed but I’m not sure Ave Maria et al does the job.
We had a conservative school/dept at USF called the St Ignatius Institute run by Joe Fessio [now of Ave Maria] and the I I graduates I met were both con and lib. so???
A child growing up bathed in input from people with a secular worldview will be ill-disposed to believing in anything supernatural. Bearing that in mind, if you want to bend a child’s mind toward God, you’re almost obliged, I’d think, to isolate her from this aggressively secular society. Children are sponges.
Cathleen,
I’ve sent all three of my kids to public school, but one’s at the parish school now (which is hardly the homeschooling bubble — although my brother’s wife homeschools and he’s a Freemason– his wife’s not religious at all). My parents were regional leaders in CFM during my formative years, and we even visited Patty Crowley in her apartment in Chicago. For me the incredible thing is to discover myself with faith, though my siblings for the most part aren’t practicing, and neither are many of my peers: one Catholic youth minister I knew went to Willow Creek, and another is now atheist.
I feel lucky, like the sole survivor of a plane crash. What I most want for my children is something that’s beyond my capacity to give— faith: the certain recognition that Jesus Christ is the answer to their human need for justice, truth, beauty. And the best thing I can do for my children is to follow Him through all of my own human circumstances, awaken their hearts with beauty, and to encourage them in the “certain inexplicable process of spiritual verification” as RH Benson put it. Faced with children in danger of dying, a stubborn wife who would not permit baptism for the children, and meddling pious Catholic friends, Charles Peguy entrusted his children to Mary. The thing most worth passing on is faith. Catholic values or identity is worthless in comparison to this great pearl.
@Cathleen Kaveny (10/21, 7:16 pm) “What is the positive program for next generation ’s Commonweal Catholics?”
Great question, great post, and a great (and relatively well-focused) thread. Thank-you all.
I don’t know about a “program”, but I can say a little about what seems to have worked with our children, who are now teenagers and whose faith—particularly when I compare it with my own at their ages—continues to astound me.
1 – Find a community. For us that’s been a parish that we stumbled upon, that welcomed us and later our children. We were looking for a vibrant parish, having had good experiences of church elsewhere (e.g., childhood parishes, campus ministries, JVC). The one we found has been the great unexpected blessing of our adult lives.
2 – Find a community where at least some of the leaders and members *know* that they wouldn’t have made it through the week without God and the church:
*People who are in recovery.
*People with disabilities (physical, mental, emotional).
*People living, in Elizabeth Warren’s evocative phrase, “on the ragged edge of the middle class” or who have fallen off that edge.
*People who face discrimination and prejudice every day…but church is where they are known for who they truly are.
The gospel sounds different when it’s proclaimed in such a community and it works on your soul in a different way. (In my experience, at least.)
3 – Go to mass on Sunday. Decades ago, my mother was concerned about raising her children as Catholics in the town where my (non-Catholic) father had grown up. A wise parish priest advised her that the parish school was full of students whose parents were rarely at Sunday Mass (and that those children rarely remained practicing Catholics); and the best thing she could do for her children’s faith was to go to Mass on Sunday and take them with her. Children learn more from what we do than from what we say.
4 – Answer your children’s questions about God and the Church. They’re going to ask a lot of them. (Random fact: 4 year olds ask as many 400 questions a day.) Don’t worry too much about the answer to any one question. The main thing is for them to develop the habit of feeling comfortable with you (and others) talking about and asking questions about their faith and their church.
5 – Sociologists, if I recall correctly, sometimes frame the options people face when confronted with challenges within an organization (e.g., the Church) as Exit, Voice and Loyalty.
Exit: Culturally, the more “Protestant” option. There’s a conflict between you and the institution (the Church’s teaching on, well, whatever issue comes to mind), and it’s too much, so you leave.
Voice: You disagree with the institution, but you remain within it.
Loyalty: There’s conflict within the institution, or an attack from without. Your default mode is to protect the institution and remain loyal to it, and its leaders.
If I understand correctly what you mean by “Commonweal Catholics” Prof. Kaveny, then figuring out tactics and strategies for exercising “Voice” are crucial for those raising the next generation of Catholics. I know it’s been important for me.
6 – It’s a big church. About a billion members living. God knows how many in the company of the saints. What one pope, or one bishop, or one pastor says or does, exists in that context (as is true for all of us). Having that perspective has been, for me, helpful in not giving too much power or weight to, say, episcopal statements with which I disagree.
7 – “The Church is the cross upon which Christ is crucified. If we wish to be close to Christ, we must be close to His Church.” (I hope I have that quotation right; it’s pretty close at least.) That statement by a retreat master appears repeatedly in Dorothy Day’s writings. I’ve found it helpful over the years—including as the sexual abuse of children scandal broke open in our diocese.
8 – Universal principles and Prudential judgments: It’s one huge advantage of belonging to an institution that has hundreds of years experience functioning internationally: there’s a “loophole” for almost everything. “Loophole” has too many negative connotations however. The Church, in the wisdom borne of thousands of years of experience all over the world, recognizes that just as there are “many rooms in my Father’s mansion” and “many fields in the vineyard of the Lord”, there are many ways of “being Church”, and many ways of applying the Church’s faith and teachings. Teach that. Take advantage of that. Be comfortable with that, and pass along that comfort to the next generation. (If it was okay to be part of the tiny minority of lay Catholics advocating for Mass in the vernacular in the first half of the 20th century, it’s okay to be a “Commonweal Catholic” in the first half of the 21st century too.)
Bearing that in mind, if you want to bend a child’s mind toward God, you’re almost obliged, I’d think, to isolate her from this aggressively secular society. Children are sponges.
David Smith:
It seems to me that if someone—even a child—has to be kept isolated to protect his or her faith, then that faith is not worth protecting.
“. . . and to encourage them in the “certain inexplicable process of spiritual verification”’
Fred –
intriguing phrase. Just what doe it refer to? I wonder if this refers to the sort of verification of the cliams of the Faith that kids are looking for from their parents and, later, from the general culture. Sounds like he’s talking about the *evidence* that we find in our individual lives that what the Church proclaims as true really is true. (Mainly that would be, I think, that God really does love ME.)
In other words, what is the evidence, the actual existential evidence that verifies the claims of the Faith. For St. Paul it was being struck by lightening, but us lesser folks have to look for less dramatic verification, and I from what I can see the verification differs from person to person.
So what are parents supposed to tell their kids to look for as, say, convincing evidence that God is present in the world and loves them and the rest of the world? Or *can* they tell their kids just what to look for? What convinces Jack is not always what convinces Jill.
“I feel lucky, like the sole survivor of a plane crash.”
Fred–
Don’t mean to pry, but was there something about your situation, beyond luck, that Commonweal Catholics can profit from? Why didn’t you “perish”?
Thanks to Jim P and Luke H for keeping the thread based in the “real world” and responding with practical suggestions and comments.
One of our supply priests noted that in our award-winning diocesan magazine, teen edition, teenagers from ONLY Catholic schools are ever featured. He was concerned with this, since those in the local parish are not well-heeled enough to afford the tuition or the 35-mile drive to the nearest Catholic high school. He felt that leaving out non-Catholic school Catholics could be construed that kids in the public schools are not “real” Catholics.
Food for thought …
Luke Hill…. great post. you lucidly explained what a “Commonweal Catholic’ is.
we were formed in the 40s 50s [with CFM like Fred K] . we thought the structure of the Church was OK and we had no complaints about the structure. Evangelizing of the ‘kids’ is difficult now because the structure of the Church is no longer seen as efficient or blessed. A Pope supervising 5000 bishops/franchises? and no democratic/judicial processes worth a damn. etc…We in the 50s still accepted the Church structure. we saw unpleasing individuals[mine was Spellman] but we still loved the system. Not so with the young today. How could you teach patriotism if the young were unwilling to accept the Constitution, the three separate branches of government, the judicial system etc… even if they had disdain for the individuals who ran things, you could still teach and have success if they accepted the gov. structure . The Church is faced with trying to get the young to look at the Message/Way delivered by an ‘ugly’ structure. especially when the structure tells everyone that the way they deliver and organize the message is ordained by God.
We need to emphasize that the message of the Way is louder than the structure.
ed & peg gleason
If my parents had been as hostile to the Catholic Church as many here, I would have made my escape the moment I reached the age of reason – - perhaps even before.
Patrick Molloy’s omment is nonsense!
Noone here is”hostile to the church – Crtitcial is not the same as hostile. Saying that is part of the infantilistic views that turn people away.
Maybe I’m a loner but I think the post isn’t that great because:
=it’s theoretcial:if the issues schutz cited was drivingmany young off and there’s no major prospect of change, there’s no magic bullet to do more than ask those labelled dissenters to hang in.
-It’s practicaity given the resources at hand and the divisions that exist make change deeply difficult without really prioritizing and shifting educational focus.
Many here speak out of their experiences, some long ago, but that is different from the world of today or the rapidly changing internet globalized world that’s already in process of coming.
-Some here want to discuss this as the liberal/consevative divide and who does what.
While I see myself as a liberal Catholic, I think many at Commonweal(“Commonweal Catholoics”) are centrist and they and the magazine are often quite centrist(which, of course, exacerbates the issue.).
I think Cathy’s post is deeply centrist! She should correct me if I’m wrong.
But in the world that Weigel declared as dead to centrism in the US Church, the possibilities are limited of coming to grips.
Maybe the question should be how to keep the faith alive in a world of tradtionalist indoctrination laid down by policy makers?
For that is and IMO will be the question the US catholic faces.
” — if you want to bend a child’s mind toward God, you’re almost obliged, I’d think, to isolate her from this aggressively secular society –”
For how long? 20 years? 40 years? She will ultimately have to function in society as it exists in all of its permutations and combinations. The old Catholic milieu of “Catholic everything” that was devised (certainly most necessarily in the 1700s and 1800s) to protect immigrants from being disenfranchised in all things by a militantly Protestant society gradually died of its own weight once Catholics entered the advanced educational system and learned how to live in the world.
The sooner children learn that they will need to be able to function in a world that is very different from what they have experienced (we hope) at home, the sooner they will be able to avoid the schizophrenia which most likely result from bursting the bubble/cocoon that many want to establish for them.
Mark Proska @ 7:44 PM.
Point taken.
I think that this is your posting to which David Nickol responded —
Mark Proska 10/20/2011 – 5:35 pm subscriber
“why do some people not go to church any more?…Reflecting on this incident now, what strikes me isn’t the arguments–it’s the assumptions.”
Indeed, what struck me was the assumption that it must be the church’s fault if a person does not go to church any more. Is it not possible the person might bear some responsibility? Even a beloved family member? I think your average 8-year old can understand, and profit from, a primer on just that concept, especially if she’s recently made her first confession. And it can be done without impugning the child’s Aunt/Uncle Whomever, who does not go to church any more yet considers herself Catholic, by simply answering the question in a general sense, without referring to anyone specific.
Etc.
This question (these questions) of how to attract young adults to living deeply and consistently their faith, and having that expressed by membership and commitment to the church, have been at the heart of my life and work for years. I have good news and bad news.
The bad news is that the children of friends who would describe themselves as progressive or liberal Catholics, by and large, do not demonstrate much of any real connection to the church. They have much more affection and connection to their college than their parish. I wrote an article years ago (1993? 1994?) for U.S. Catholic, “Some of the The Best Priest I Know Are Women.” In my years at two Jesuit Universities, I can count on one hand the number of young Catholics, male or female, who are deeply interested in the issue of women priests. My book, _A Faith That Frees: Catholic Matters for the 21st Century_ (ORBIS 2008) sold fairly well and won a Catholic Press Association award. Many tell me they like the book and that it is “awesome” and “great,” but I don’t know anyone who read it and radically changed into people on fire with love of church (As Charlie Brown would say, “Sigh!”). In the book, I argue that the cultural currents of our times are so turbulent, the young often have trouble navigating the waters. And what we disagree about today are not so much theological matters (God’s existence, Trinity, Eucharist, priesthood) but cultural issues (Whose God? Communion in the hand or one the tongue? Why can’t priests be married or female?)
The good news is that the church worldwide is an institution most of these offspring of progressive or liberal parents would like to be part of and support. On International Service Trips a small number of young adults are encouraged to see the church serving the poor and speaking for the powerless. Catholic Social Teaching is not only our best kept secret, as is often said, but a powerful analysis and program of action to address some of our global socio-economic ills (I hear the Pope will come out with an encyclical on Monday that is to the left of Obama and Pelosi).
We need to trust and hope. The church in the USA will no longer be a global leader in many areas. Our communities must be content with playing a smaller and less ostentatious role in global church affairs, not because that is necessarily right, but because it is sociologically inevitable. In the global church of 1.2 billion Catholics, the 70 million or so Catholics in the USA cannot dictate cultural expressions of the faith for the world.
I often remember the words of Fr. Cavanaugh in Rudy: “Kid, I’ve been teaching theology for thirty years and there are only two things of which I am certain. One, God exists, and two, I’m not him.”
In the USA and before us in Europe, the church has entered a quiet winter (and I’m amazed at how many, young and old, have stuck with us after the revelations of sex abuse by priests). Spring will follow winter… it may just not be in my lifetime or yours.
Peace,
Rick Malloy, S.J.
I wasn’t raised Catholic and never went to a Catholic school or college, though I did have two lapsed Catholic boyfreinds who had gone to Catholic schools. I wonder if going only to Catholic schools would cause a ghetto effect, or perhaps a desire to rebel from those teachings? If I had a child, I’d send them to public school, if only because I’d worry about them “shaped” in ways I might find objectionable. I remeber reading a book by James Martin SJ in which he mentions never having gone to Catholc schools or colleges, yet he turned out ok :)
Here are the results of a recent Barna Survey about what young people are looking for and an ND one about “emerging adults”. Mostly not surprising, but some new insights.
http://www.zenit.org/article-33663?l=english
One interesting finding;
” Barna also found that it is not so much doctrinal factors that motivate people to change churches. These days the reasons are much more subjective, focused on personalities, convenience, and the potential for relationships and experiences.”
If they want experiences, then learning how to do contemplative prayer would help at least some. (Shades of Rahner.)
A key test any strategy should pass, from David Nickol (10/22 11:13 am):
“It seems to me that if someone—even a child—has to be kept isolated to protect his or her faith, then that faith is not worth protecting.”
Assume the children and grandchildren grow up on Earth in the 21st century, immersed in life, family, and making a living. Most people are not Catholics. Most are not interested in Catholicism. (They understandably object when US Catholic bishops seek government help to impose on all the citizens specific teachings which the bishops hold but have had limited success in imposing on their own Catholic Faithful.) Some of those others whom I’ve known or heard of in the US and a dozen other countries are as charitable, loving, ethical, and morally strong as I can imagine. Interpreting their differences as attacks strikes me as reflecting an inflated view of one’s own importance and infallible omniscience, neither of which is readily demonstrated. I intend no claims whatsoever about equivalence or relative superiority, only that the world outside is misrepresented by a simplistic view of “us” vs. “secularism”.
Inside the Church, my wife and I have lived through three distinctive Church phases – the legalistic Latin era, the Vatican II era, and the fractionating, abuse-unravelling era of today. It is interesting, although not useful, to ask what we would have done differently for our sons if we had the magical gifts of clear foresight and prophetic wisdom from the authorities. The ongoing effects within the Church of exhaustion, dealing with current potential schisms, Curial turnover, expected conclave(s), heavy financial strains, and walkaways will converge and change the visible, audible institution, no matter what it may say. The next phase is in the process of gradually arriving. What are the concepts of “the Church” and “the faith” as practiced that a promising strategy aiming toward 2025 and beyond depends on? The missing history and Church history that Ann O. noted on the college syllabus teaches a lot about the non-persistence of the past in the future.
The purpose of the education under discussion to me should be to implant beliefs and knowledge that one hopes will hold up wherever the kids go and whatever they do in a future that seems today to be unusually unforeseeable. Raising the kids in a quasi-monastery environment ill prepares them if they eventually step out the door. Sorting out the fundamentals from the frivolous is the challenge. Luke H. offers some sage views on proceeding.
If my parents had been as hostile to the Catholic Church as many here, I would have made my escape the moment I reached the age of reason – – perhaps even before.
Patrick Molloy,
I don’t get the point of writing these kinds of messages. Are you claiming to be better than the other people who write here? At least make some constructive criticisms. Don’t be a hit-and-run poster.
Hope my post above doesn’t sound too pessimistic. There is great hope in what will emerge from the millions of Latinos in the church in the USA. And there is great hope in the quality of some young Catholic adults, who against all the odds, are quite committed to the Catholic faith and way of life. But I think it is only realistic to predict that the numbers in the next 25 years will be much smaller and less influential in society as a whole than the brick and mortar days of 1945-1965.
Rick Malloy:
“I’m amazed at how many, young and old, have stuck with us after the revelations of sex abuse by priests.”
I am amazed as well. But among the People of God in Philadelphia (still my roots) that doesn’t mean that they are not outraged.
Mark,
To find myself in church on Easter Vigil is increasingly a mystery that’s beyond me: whether you call it luck, election, or preference. It is a mystery worth contemplating for each of us, however. I’m 44 and grew up in the 1970s, graduated high school in 1985. I can see certain signs along the way that fill me with gratitude.
Early on, I found something attractive about the Church that made me hold on through the years:
The faith of my parents, the larger community of CFM, beautiful music (singing Ave Verum Corpus in choir), a woman of great suffering who taught CCD.
The defining moment for me was dropping out of college after two years, and living with l’Arche DC for a year (picked at random from the Palotti Center guide to volunteer opportunities). I knew that I couldn’t develop self-discipline for my own sake but only if others needed it from me. An older man befriended me and introduced me to Chesterton, Percy, O’Connor— CUA’s Newman Bookstore. I also discovered the Classics of Western Spirituality, Balthasar, and Henri de Lubac’s Catholicism (still probably the greatest synthesis of social justice and orthodoxy). I also heard Vanier preach a weeklong retreat in Quebec, and this really helped me to mature in the faith.
About 9 years ago, my wife and I chanced to hear Msgr Lorenzo Albacete speak at a local college, and we became involved with Communion and Liberation. One thing CL has given me is a deeper experience of the faith that I had intellectualized for many years. I’m happy to be growing in the faith and thus able to pass things on to my kids.
Ann — the full context of Benson’s quote is his book, The Friendship of Christ (google it). Despite the title, it’s one of the least sentimental introductions to Christian spirituality that I’ve read…
Re bubbles: My son’s Catholic elementary school was full of parents who believed that keeping their kids in Catholic school would “set” the faith at an early age and ward off secular influences later on. This always conjured up images of kids’ brains as soft cement that needed to be protected until it hardened up.
Re ghettos: I think that Catholic school MAY set up a ghetto mentality for those inside it, but it does immerse children in the faith and help them see it is part of daily life. And there is also a “ghetto” mentality that sets in among kids who are relegated to CCD; they see religion as something that happens on Sunday (where they’re bored) and on Wednesday nights (when they get yelled at by the CCD teachers) and has little connection to “real life.”\
Ergo, pitfalls to both “bubbling” and “unbubbling” the kiddies.
Fred K. mentions being formed in CL.. All lay movements have a formation program that almost all Catholic parishes and Catholic schools don’t have. Movements that are both secretive and conservative i.e. Legionaries and Opus Dei while they have ‘forming’ process they are based on an 19th century ecclesiology. Community of Sant’ Egidio, Focolare, CL have a formation programs but they are not at all known.. and the various marriage ministries e.g EE ME Retrouvaille have formation but for the leadership.. The US parishes/staff while not hostile to movements, certainly are not welcoming. the retreat system seems to be hitting hard times too. So if the schools and almost all parishes cannot do the ‘forming’ of laity where do they go to find their way to a deeper connection?
If the parents are not being ‘formed’ who really believes that money, buildings, accss will magically form the kids.
Our answer was to hook up with an inner-city multi ethnic parish with a wide out reach’
I will continue to say ‘If there is no lay formation …get ready for the smaller unpurer Church faster than you think’.
7 minute video of how our parish works. Days and Hours
http://thegubbioproject.org/video
I have always understood it to be a “rite of passage” for younger Catholics to wander off and pursue whatever is attractive to them at the moment. Eventually some/many of them “come back” because of marriage, encountering something like the Cursillo movement (does it still exist?), or perchance happening across a parish or lay involvement that captures whatever vestige of Catholicism that exists within them.
The latter was my experience, after spending many years in a non-denominational church. I was fortunate to find a supportive lay movement (Dignity/USA) and then my current parish (www.mhr.org), both of which forced me to challenge whatever beliefs and unbeliefs that I harbored – and still harbor!
I guess I was fortunate in that I was raised by my parents and parish with a strong sense of Catholic identity, but with a rote experience (understanding was not required nor expected) of “the faith.” I suspect that the younger people under discussion don’t have that experience because apparently their parents didn’t either. It doesn’t take long for churchianity to deteriorate into nothing except for some faint cultural and superstitious attachment.
Until and unless the Catholic church develops a sense of humility and a spirit of openness to people where they are, without the “circle the wagons” approach that seems to be in the ascendancy these days, it will continue to bleed some of the best and the brightest who need nurturing and encouragement, not rules, rubics and regulations.
A start maybe?
http://www.irishcatholic.ie/site/content/sacrament-opt-essential
“My son’s Catholic elementary school was full of parents who believed that keeping their kids in Catholic school would “set” the faith at an early age and ward off secular influences later on.”
Hi, Jean, I don’t think this works. The image I use is one of planting seeds, which we hope will sprout, flower and bear fruit some day. Insert here all the possible outcomes in the parable of the sower.
Jim, I like your analogy better, of course.
In picking up Cathleen’s “roots and wings” image, I have to say that many of us Bad Catholics, who struggle with the Church, are pretty good at giving our kids wings but few roots.
We make piss poor catechists b/c of our own doubts, and I wonder if we might do better to raise the kiddies in another denomination, where at least they will be exposed to SOMEthing.
Why not take my kid back to the Anglicans, where they’d latch onto his musical talents and organizing energies instead of telling him there is no place in a Catholic church for a trombone, and to sit down and do his CCD handout.
Plus no difficult questions about birth control, homosexuality, or why Mom isn’t good enough to take communion anymore.
He would have A faith if not THE faith.
Instead I refer the kid to his dad, who is devout and loves the Church, but finds it difficult to engage. Usually a lecture about art or Rahner ensues which falls on deaf ears, b/c the kid has plugged back into his iPod.
While generational, um, generalizations are over-simplistic, still, perhaps there’s something here for this question.
Boomers, as a generation, tend to be idealistic, believe in institutional responses, and therefore believe in the reform of institutions in accord with institutional ideals. (VOTF, anyone? Call to Action? Both groups are commonly criticized for having older members (though of course both groups are younger than Church leadership,) when they might just be representing a generational paradigm.)
X-ers don’t give a damn about institutions. (They grew up during Watergate.) Pragmatic rather than idealistic, they are the generation that, unlike previous generations, don’t return to the Church to baptize their kids. Why should they? It’s not just an institution, but one whose corruption is increasingly apparent. Philly and KC aren’t the end of that story.
Millennials, coming of age now, are people who seek connection, but tend to do so via the new media rather than traditional means. (Note how the new media are ever-present in creating everything from flash-mobs, to the OWS protests.) Raised outside the Church, it’s not clear what the Church has to offer them.
Effective evangelization has always engaged the dominant culture. (See, e.g, Paul’s sermon on the “unknown God.) The Silent generation (which includes most US Church leaders, and was the generation that never managed to elect a president from its number,) and the Boomers (most of the peace-and-justice crowd are Boomers,) aren’t noticing what the younger folks are seeking, instead appealing to concepts that attract their own.
Small-group evangelization, personal connection apart from liturgy, opportunity for spiritual formation, and practical, personal and effective service opportunities seem to draw younger Christians. Too much emphasis on dogma and doctrine, or even the big ideals that appeal to the Boomers seem to miss the point for them. I suspect that with the diminishing number of priests and the scandalous misbehavior of Church leaders, the Church will become in time a loose network of spiritual directors and clients, small house churches led by whomever, leadership authorized not by laying on of hands but by the recognition of seekers that they have something meaningful to offer, and intentional communities (like the new monasticism.) In short, we’ll return to something more like early Christianity.
Fred–
That’s an interesting journey, thanks for sharing. What struck me were:
“The faith of my parents…”
“…Balthasar, and Henri de Lubac…”
“…my wife and I…”
Lisa Fullam’s generational analysis is interesting, but one trend it doesn’t address is the growing number of women putting off childbirth. In our family, we have two Boomers and one Millennial.
My son describes us to his friends, who regularly think we’re his grandparents, as “harmless old hippies.” He likes our music, books, and seems to respect our historical perspectives.
As far as I can tell, his friends are very concerned with peace and justice issues, and it seems to me the Millennial generation sees gay rights as an issue of some urgency, akin to the way previous generations felt about racial civil rights. My kid wanted to know what churches don’t hate homosexuals the other day.
To what extent might this growing age gap between parents and childen affect the transmission of the faith?
How to give “roots and wings” to the next generation?
I’d start with history of the institutional fundamentals, i.e., worship and formal ministry, and how said history has and has not kept true to the gospel message.
(age-appropriate, of course)
Present-day progress in transportation and human survivability offers grounds today for expecting that humans will be living off the Earth before the 21st century comes to an end. I have the joy of 2 recently born granddaughters. They will see this happen and may be among the travelers. One is about to be Baptized as the first step into the faith of her ancestors. The other already seems to have the chutzpah and potential that it would take for her to go and live wherever she wants. What kind of roots and wings do we owe them?
The pope (above) seems only to be looking as far as “every corner of the world”. Is he aware that humans have gone beyond the corners and walked on the moon? Does that matter to Peter’s Successor?
Rick Malloy (10/22 4:12pm) usefully distinguishes between theological and cultural issues, better than many discussants who find the two inseparable. Is the essence of the faith really found in the current issues that generate so much observable heat and division: Communion in hand or on the tongue? One or two kinds? Facing East (What’s East away from Earth?)? Mandatory celibacy (no marriage), meaning some married priests? No female priests? Segregation by sexes at the altar rail? Mandatory theoretical celibacy (chastity) for priests? Latin?
Discriminating between core and collaterals is important if roots and wings are expected to survive beyond the initial stages of easy implantation.
Rick Malloy (10/22 4:59pm) also expressed “great hope in what will emerge from the millions of Latinos in the church in the USA.” Two points.
- Each of the the Catholic Latino immigrants viewed warmly for helping sustain the size of the US Church is a loss of one Catholic in the country of origin. As seen from the See of Peter, the net change in Catholics in the Americas is zero. A less parochial field of view is warranted in a global church.
- A lengthy Pew Research Center report (2007) describes US Catholic Latino views and practices. One noteworthy feature is the description of what most US Catholic Latinos look for and go after, either in the Church or, if necessary, elsewhere. Most remarkable is its similarity to what Lisa Fullam attributes above to younger Christians. This deserves attention in view of the rapid expansion of that fraction of the US Church and present questions about what moves real people.
http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/75.pdf (good summary pp. 1-8)
More in http://m.npr.org/news/front/141275979
Honest question:
Why should young people “drifting away” from the Catholic Church bother a “Commonweal Catholic?”
(Please remember the monikker is yours. I didn’t start it.)
If a child has been taught:
-God loves you and this love is most evident through everyday life.
-What happens in the sacraments are more related to sociological aspects of life than spiritual – that is to say – what is “obtained” through the sacraments (grace/forgiveness/union with Christ) can be obtained in other, just as powerful ways
-The Scriptures are primarily human creations that certainly relate powerful stories of God’s interaction with humankind, but are not really all that “authoritative” since they primarily reflect the times in which they are written and the needs of the communities for which they are written
-Jesus is Lord and is God’s unique presence in the world, but did not purposefully form the Church – and even if he did – what evolved betrays his original vision of inclusivity and justice – AND one does not need the Church and its sacraments for intimacy with Jesus
-The institutional Church is primarily a political and sociological institution that has certainly been responsible for great work in justice and charity, but is also responsible for great damage to humanity
-The contemporary Catholic Church exists in opposition to the justice vision of Jesus in regard to women, homosexuality and other aspects of human sexuality – that is, women should be ordained, and homosexual acts should be accepted as moral (when consensual) and homosexual marriage should be accepted as sacramental *and* contraception should be formally accepted as moral and ethical…
….how could expect young people to remain attached to either a) the necessity of their spiritual experience being related to a religious institution, even a Christian one or b) the Catholic Church as it understands itself – and has always understood itself.
And if a family believes all of this, why would they care what the children did about their spiritual lives? As long as they were good people (which is quite possible without membership in a religious institution) with a heart for justice…why care?
Is it just about culture?
Then doesn’t that make Commonweal Catholics the New Cultural Catholics – a type they have spent decades scoffing at themselves?
I don’t understand it. If I believed that the Catholic Church as it exists and has existed for most of its history, was only a faint reflection of the intentions of God through Jesus Christ – not only would I cheerfully *not* be Catholic, I wouldn’t give a flip if my adult children never set foot in a Catholic Church again.
It’s all sentiment and emotion and that point.
“-The institutional Church is primarily a political and sociological institution that has certainly been responsible for great work in justice and charity, but is also responsible for great damage to humanity.”
Mark,
What you and many others miss is that within the hierarchical church is the Church (people) of Jesus, despite itself. We are a church of sinners, striving, struggling, working on doing the Will of God by loving God and neighbor. We work to build up the church and part of that building up is to hold leaders accountable. So we are stuck with each other while we let Jesus do the judging at the end of it. As some pointed out above we need the Eucharist as well as justice, the Last Supper as well as the Good Samaritan. In that church of sinners we all have a chance through Christ our Lord.
“Mark”: Speaking of monikers, I’m not really into yours. And by “not really into,” I mean it I view it as a violation of our terms of service. So if you want to come out from behind the nom de Web–something you once criticized on your own site–then please do. If not, you’re not welcome here anymore. Sorry.
Lisa, thanks for [10/23/2011 - 12:26 pm]. A feeling it left me with was that we’re paying far too much attention to the externals, to communities, rather than to God, the quiet and ignored center of it all. Perhaps that suggests that we’ve lost that center – that we no longer all believe in even approximately the same God – all we can do is worry ourselves about organizing social stuff and decorating the sanctuary – pretending that the other, essential thing, is just a given – let the theologians talk about that, and when they do, we’ll decide whether we agree or disagree.
I sympathize with Jean, who’s homesick for the placid, complacent, compliant Anglicanism she left. Catholicism today is a mess.
Mark: maybe this man has it right after all:
” It is false to the point of absurdity to see in a “belief,” perchance the belief in redemption through Christ, the distinguishing characteristic of the Christian: only Christian practice, a life such as he who died on the cross lived, is Christian…. Even today such a life is possible, for certain men even necessary: genuine, primitive Christianity will be possible at all times…. Not a belief but a doing, above all a not-doing of many things, a different being…. States of consciousness, beliefs of any kind, holding something to be true for example — every psychologist knows this — are a matter of complete indifference and of the fifth rank compared with the value of the instincts…. To reduce being a Christian, Christianness, to a holding of something to be true, to a mere phenomenality of consciousness, means to negate Christianness. ”
Friedrich Nietzsche. Twilight of the Idols/The Anti-Christ, Penguin Classics, 1990
I wonder what most of today’s young people would make of this? (I have treasured this for many years now …..)
” God does the choosing and you find out about the rest gradually from your folks: How you have landed in a turbulent and global household with the galaxy’s most eccentric rules; that the lights are never to be put out and the stranger never to be turned away; that the meals are to be served whenever there is hunger; that the groceries must be generously depleted and generously replenished with everything everyone has; that those who fret and grouse and cheat and lie and steal and kill must be relentlessly sought out and brought back to life; that those who break the rules and those who abandon the house must be pursued to the remotest frontiers of their souls and forgiven; that those who pass judgment on the violators of house rules, like those who take their author for granted, are doomed. And that those who inhabit the household must always remember that what is outside is ending. ”
Michael Garvey, Finding Fault, 1990.
Jack Barry (10/23/2011 – 2:55 pm) writes:
I think you’re too sanguine, Jack. Arthur C. Clarke was disappointed in what we did with space technology. He’d expected that we’d be much, much further along than we are. It seems that as a society we lack the imagination, creativity, vision, daring. We’re just plodding along, pretty conservatively and clumsily.
It’s probably worse than that, Jack. The Church Latinos find here is a dry, cold, stiff, unwelcoming place. Their Catholicism is far richer, far more vibrant, and much more personal and alive. If the Church in the US doesn’t learn from and adapt to that – if it doesn’t want to – there may be a mass exodus out two doors – to warmer, more intimate churches, and into the secular cloud. Latino kids grow up here, strongly influenced by the dominant culture – or lack of culture. If all they see in the Church here is bickering gringos, why would they go there?
Mark (10/23/2011 – 3:43 pm), nice.
Yes, it seems to be all about externals. Even – and this bothers me a lot – the sanctuaries have been externalized. Both left and right focus almost exclusively on externals – the left on a militant attitude toward social progress and the right on the ceremonies of an imaginary past. The Catholic God has been buried in externals.
Hmm. Intramural politics. Is it forbidden to use pseudonyms here? I don’t like them, personally, but I thought you allowed them.
You know, commenters on this blog usually try to offer interesting questions and news bits. And while I’m neither a good Catholic nor the brightest bulb on the chandelier, I really do try to stay on topic.
But I’m increasingly puzzled by the trajectory these conversations seem to be taking with more frequency.
Take this conversation: Instead of talking about how to help kids who attend public schools–perhaps because their Catholic parents believe putting the kiddies out there with the real world is preferable–we’re back to what constitutes a “Commonweal Catholic,” which is usually the wind-up to an explication of how “Commonweal Catholics” are Bad Catholics.
And then there are the side track challenges to the blog’s policy on pseudonyms and how to transmit the faith in an age of impending interplanetary space travel. (I’d say warning the kiddies about the Ferengi and their flexible moral code might be wise …)
It isn’t the rancor, which we’ve always had (I particularly treasure being called passive aggressive and my use of the term Bad Catholic “nauseating” by my friend Kathy), but the way serious questions seem to fall apart and fragment until they’re no longer even intelligible.
Jean, that is a great topic in itself. Some time ago, when we were discussing liturgical changes, Fr K. commented that he was more worried about the divisions in the church than about the issues themselves. At the time I wondered in frustration whether his comment was merely a way to evade answers, but I started paying attention (instead of dismissing and immediately forgetting about divisive comments), and I am beginning to see that we have a big problem on our hands. Your comment – “the way serious questions seem to fall apart and fragment until they’re no longer even intelligible” – is thought-provoking in that respect.
I noted some time ago that America’s blog seems to have descended into a place where dialogue no longer happens. Instead, we witness sterile shouting matches between opposing camps, neither of which listens to the other side.
I don’t say it’s impossible to be a bubble-less Catholic, but I think it works best for our children if they live, somehow, in some way, within a bubble of Catholic daily life.
Think about how much less of a bubble even the *family* is. When my folks were growing up, there were strong social pressures for Catholics to marry Catholics. Not so much anymore. To what extent does that put at risk the transmission of the faith? (I’m really asking – I don’t know. I assume it makes it riskier.)
(Then think about someone like Jean, who, while perhaps not feeling entirely connected to the church herself, nonetheless spent hours with her son preparing for him to be confirmed in the Catholic Church. Bad Catholic? I think not!)
I’m at least sorta a Commonweal Catholic – I’m Catholic, my kids go to public schools, I’m out in the world. Heck, I even subscribe to Commonweal. And I’ve got to say – we’re struggling to keep the bubble inflated. We haven’t given up. But it ain’t easy.
Jim Pauwels 10/23/2011 – 11:59 pm :
I’d think it would be nearly impossible. Without it, at least for the formative years, you’re probably sunk, but finding a good bubble where you happen to have to live seems daunting. Sad how being conventionally religious has changed so quickly from mainstream to countercultural.
What would you say are the indispensible components of a good bubble?
Okay. Any more assertions, express or implied, about why Commonweal Catholic aren’t really Catholic and don’t really care if the next generation is Catholic will be summarily deleted. Bender, Brett, Just Mark, you’ve made your point. Now bye-bye. Jean, Jim, et al., the public school/ccd thing is key I think. Is there asemi-permeable bubble?
As an elementary teacher in a public school, the biggest change I see is parents abdicating the power they do have to influence their children’s lives. When I get involved with the parents, they suddenly realize what they must do to try to help their kids. Parents need to be supported and empowered in society to do the right things with their kids. As far as catholicism is concerned, it’s the same thing. Whether public or private school, a strong parent’s influence can never be replaced. Parents do not realize that they are the most powerful influence (for good or for ill) in their child’s life. No one else will impress the child more than the two people who gave him or her life. That’s the message young parents need to be reminded of —their unique power, and getting thm to accept it is an imperative for a healthy society.
Sounds good, Denise, and positive, but in fact most parents, I think, when operating within the larger secular society, have relatively little ability to circumscribe the lives of their children. If a child wants to free herself, she will, one way or another. There’s just a tremendous amount of external pull – tangible and intangible – countering the internal pull.
On the other hand, if you can at least equalize the pressure – in a parent-friendly community – you probably stand a good chance of keeping the family from disintegrating and the children from being sucked out. A “strong parent” can’t do it alone, except in exceptional circumstances. Or so it seems to me.
David, you definitly have a point, and it reminds me of Hillary Clinton’s book, It Takes a Village. We as a society are the only ones who can strengthen it. I believe our outreach programs concerning churches are good. But less people are going to church. I see that when we talk about religions at school. That’s where the parents come in, to roll out of bed and take their children to church, starting at an early age. Teachers need support, and not bashing in order to do a good job with the students. In the end, there is an enormous amount of pressure on parents. However, instead of caving their resolve needs to be strengthened internally and externally. Grandparents play a huge role today; more than ever because of working parents and jobless parents. I see it at school. Remaining positive is essentiel in order to “save” as many kids and parents as possible.
David Smith: “Mark” has posted under the person’s real name here before. Every time something like this happens someone thinks the problem is with pseudonyms. It’s not. (Although we strongly prefer real names.) The problem is with multiple identities.
And, friends, do not feed the trolls. And trolls: get lost.
This post prompted an interesting and unsatisfying discussion between Raber and me on our Sunday coffee outing. He says he’s pretty much given up talking to The Boy about the faith: “Maybe when he’s 32 and has a kid of his own he’ll want my advice, but right now it’s a waste of time because he thinks he knows everything.”
Maybe it’s useful here to differentiate “influence” from “control.” If I wanted to control the kid, yes, I’d give up. No point in it. He’s got an argument for everything. However, I DO think I have an influence.
As my friend Jim P noted, you plant the seeds, even though the ground doesn’t look very fertile at the time. Maybe the seet stays dormant for years–decades–but you never know when they might produce something wonderful.
Denise, thanks for your posts. I have nothing but respect for the public school teachers my kid has had, for their willingness to work with us, for their ability to pinpoint problems, for their quick action when crises arise.
David S. has raised an important issue, I think. He menitoned kids one way or another becoming “free” if they’re determined to. Becoming independent of parents seems to be part of human development — adolescents typically rebel no matter what the culture.
Our culture emphasizes freedom. The civil culture has made it almost an absolute good — you may do what you want so long as you don’t hurt someone else. Even the Church empnasizes freedom of conscience at times.
But how many kinds of freedom are there and when must it be curtailed — and most crucial — by whom? By the state? The family? The Church? One’s self? I don’t think kids are taught to think about these issues in school. And I suspect that at home the issue(s) of freedom are highly specific, e.g., what time do I have to be in? Can I miss Mass and still get fed? Etc., etc.
Ann, yes, our culture emphasizes freedom and makes it an absolute good.
Isn’t it that emphasis on freedom as an absolute good that that allows parents to build the bubble they want for their kids and themselves without interference from the larger culture?
Should the larger culture do more to reinforce our children’s religious education?
I am chary of giving any kind of unequivocal “yes.”
Cathleen has done a lot of reading up on the Puritans and she can address this better than me, but the Puritan’s New Jerusalem wasn’t too good a deal for the Quakers and Anabaptists.
Irene -
Another problem with teaching her how to fish: It can put a real damper on the social possibilities of a gorgeous afternoon spent floating around on sparkling water under beautiful blue skies when the two of you are surrounded by buckets of lively dirty worms and smelly dying fish.
Grant G =
Please delete above.
Jack Barry 10/24/2011 – 2:42 pm
Deep apologies
JB
As I was driving this morning thinking of Cathleen’s former post concerning her niece’s comment on why more people should attend church, it reminded me of the childlike faith most kids have inately. I see it as I teach kids and how curious they are about religion even though they may not attend church. One thing that I think is helpful to kids is seeing a childlike faith in their parents as well. They need to see the dependence their parents have on a higher power minus all of the sophistication. I believe if kids see their parents dependence on God pure and simple, unrelated to the issues of the day, we may influence a generation to go to church. They will want that simplicty, that has become my rock, and I hope a rock for all of us.
Denise–
Hear, hear! Suffer the little children, in all of us.
So young people are “leaving the Church”. What is the solution? I ask:just what is it that we want the young people to have that we have had?
Thanks, Mark. Ann—We want them to have the examples of faith that we have all had in our lives—from parents and grandparents and neighbors—the village.
Denise, “the village” is hard to build. I’ve attended MANY different churches in my life by choice and circumstance, and the three that meet the attributes you’ve been talking about was my mother-in-law’s Wesleyan Church, the local Methodist Church, and Cristo Rey, which serves a largely Hispanic population in Lansing. I’d say the rest were largely clubs, their works confined to the “clubhouse” whose main work seemed to be collecting “dues” and decorating the premises for the holidays and putting on nice programs.
Dioceses might do well to study the attributes of these “village churches,” regardless of denomination, and issue some best practices for other parishes.
I suspect one attibute of “village churches” is a CCD program allows kids ask questions (and doesn’t blow them off with rote answers from the CCC). If you don’t let Our Young People ask their impertinent questions and answer with love and patience, you’re going to lose them.
And you deserve to.
It’s small comfort to recall that adults have been very similarly concerned about the state of the young ever since Socrates ran a public school in ancient Greece.
The Pope noted “the two things that children should receive from their parents: roots and wings”. His poetic metaphor made instant sense to me – three words encapsulated the primary purposes of an enormous assortment of stuff that a child absorbs, discovers, and stumbles into in the course of growing up. But, the words don’t identify for parents’ practical purposes what is meant by “roots” or “wings” any more than the words “the faith” do.
“Faith” suggests beliefs, rules, practices, traditions, theology, morality, liturgy, sacraments, and more. Another view brings to mind Mass attendance, belief in Real Presence, Scriptural dictates, clergy gender, use of Confession, God’s view of women, clerical celibacy, and sex in its many manifestations. The catechism on the shelf adds more in 700 pages. Yet, within recent memory, the once near-universally recognized importance of Sunday Mass, Confession, no mixed marriage, and fish on Friday has shrunk from very high to low.
Discussion of passing on “the faith” could be more fruitful if the critically important components that one hopes will persist in the children’s unforeseeable future were identified.
Great stuff on the American Catholics survey at NCR.
Lok at the points of difference among differen tgeenerations and what they coincide on: worship, Eucharist,community BVM.
(Forget magisterium).)
There is a move toward a kind of beginning Church practice that for devoted or hnaging on Catholics is committed to the breakin gof the bread and comunity in a deep sense.
Where are those values shining forth to attract or keep the young generation (who will be shaped as Dantonio notes) by more experience than just the value of prsonal freedom?
Bob N. –
One amazing finding in that report is totally amazing to me. It has been known for a long time that the Eucharist is the most unifying factor in the Church. This report discovered that a significant portion of American Catholics think that the Church teaches that Jesus Christ is present *only symbolically* — but nevertheless these people believe that Christ is really present, body and soul.
Amazing grace! How could that come about that they believe correctly in spite of their misunderstanding? What is it in their backgrounds that pointed them in the right direction? Is the mystical strain in the Church even stronger than some of us think it is? Or what?
“Is the mystical strain in the Church even stronger than some of us think it is? ”
If it’s not the glue holding us together, it’s at least one of the primary ingredients.
I would add to my previous comment (note the following attempt to steer us back on-topic :-)), that with the diminishment (I won’t say collapse) of Catholic culture – the deflation of the bubble, if you will – I believe that some of the ‘folk religion’ elements of Catholicism, like it’s mystical strains – are perhaps more likely to get passed across the generations, as families assume an ever-more-important importance for transmitting the faith.
ever-more-important importance – sorry about that. Guess I was visiting the department of redendancy department today.
Jean–I was referring to the metaphorical village that Hillary Clinton references in the title of her book a few years back. Actually, in my mind I was thinking of the envelopment of family that I grew up with; where everyone was a church-going catholic. However, I raised my children with no family around, like so many “nomadic” families today. However the phenomenon of moving from family may not be as prevalent now due to the economy and lack of industrial movement. But as a nuclear family moving from roots, I felt a singular responsibility to pass my deeply rooted faith onto my kids with not a lot of help. That was in the ’80′s and 90′s. Judging from my students today, their challenges are more economic, and frankly, I would like to pinpoint the breakdown of church going. What has happened?
Jim P. –
The only way to fully “protect” kids from outside influences would be to live in a cave. So how do you handle the intrusion of opposing values into your home by the general culture?
Does CCD provide responses to challenges to Church teachings? It used to be that the Church engaged in apologetics — it gave us arguments to persuade us that the Church’s teachings are true and argued against others who attacked the Church. Actually, the approach was sometimes rather belligerent. The teaching was particularly hard on historians who misrepresented the Church, but I”m not so sure the teachers were always that objective. Do the CCD classes still take an apologetics approach?
From what I heard from my friends my age, that approach was pretty much dropped for their kids after Vatican II. Their kids were pretty much just taught “Here is what the Church teaches” and that was it.
One thing I did that might help, some day.
While traveling we stopped at a Benedictine monastery for Mass. When we arrived, well ahead of time, a monk approached and recruited us for the presentation of the gifts. And so, when the time came during the liturgy, we solemnly walked up the center aisle, I carrying the wine, and my children carrying, one the bread and the other the offerings, to the altar where the priest, surrounded by dozens of monks, took the gifts from us. My children were intimidated and almost didn’t go through with the ritual, but now, many years later, they still remember it with awe. It was a liturgy that left a mark in their memory.
“Does CCD provide responses to challenges to Church teachings? It used to be that the Church engaged in apologetics — it gave us arguments to persuade us that the Church’s teachings are true and argued against others who attacked the Church. Actually, the approach was sometimes rather belligerent. The teaching was particularly hard on historians who misrepresented the Church, but I”m not so sure the teachers were always that objective. Do the CCD classes still take an apologetics approach?”
Hi, Ann, from what I’ve seen, religious ed isn’t like that anymore. It’s mostly focused on teaching our children the basics of the faith. My boys went to religious ed earlier today. One learned about saints, the other about the Eucharist. There isn’t much of an apologetics slant to it; maybe it should incorporate more than it does, as there are certainly some aggressive Evangelical congregations in this area.
Jim –
I wasn’t just thinking about the little kids. What about the adolescents? Are they taught the reasons why the Church is critical of so much of our contemporary morality? Are they taught that some of the historical criticisms of the Church are not well founded?
In other words, do they hear the *reasons* for the beliefs?
Hi, Ann, I can’t speak to what it taught everywhere. In our parish, the adolescent religious ed is pretty focused on preparation for confirmation. From what I’ve seen, it doesn’t focus too much (maybe not at all) on apologetics. From what my parents have told me, I think it was more apologetics-laden years ago.
CCD for older students needs the following:
Evening meetings with food.
A “case study” approach to application of Church teaching, with cases suggested by the students.
Humor.
“Safe” leaders that kids feel comfortable asking questions.
Involvement by the priest.
NO WORKBOOKS.
Emphasis on service projects driven by the students, not forced down their throats by the teachers.
“Pilgrimages” to cathedrals, other Catholic churches religious music concerts, arts shows, holy sites as available. (The Detroit Institute of Arts years ago had a wonderful exhibit on Eastern Church icons.)
Letting kids insert appropriate intentions in the Prayers of the People for Sunday’s Mass.
Bring back the St. Francis blessing of the animals and let the kids help with that.
Jim P. –
Hmm. Since it’s been 2 good generations since VII I”m wondering if your generation (the children of my friends?) are prepared to give reasons also. In other words, you didn’t get the apologetics either. Not that what we were taught answered all of the questions well. I remember arguing with old Sr. Vincent about evolution when I was in high school. She couldn’t accept it. But least she wasn’t the kind who just shut kids up. I was fortunate to have such teachers. Not everyone did. And I always considered myself very fortunate to go to a secular college, not the closed-minded Jesuit school next door. (The latter has changed a lot since then.)
I also remember arguing with the assistant pastor about whether or not the table really existed. Ah, those were the days. Priests actually had time to argue with adolescents.
Jean, if you ever move to these parts, I’m going to make it my life’s mission to have you appointed youth minister at our parish. Consider yourself warned.
Hi, Ann, my Catholic formation was during the halcyon butterflies-and-banners days of the 1970s. We were taught neither apologetics nor doctrine. We did a lot of great art projects, though.
Things like Catholic Answers were invented for my generation.
As for arguing about whether the table really existed … were you precociously arguing for the essential “tableness” of the table at that tender age? :-)
Hi again, Jim –
Yes, I fear I was a natural-born skeptic from a very early age. I guess that’s why I can sympathize with those who don’t just swallow whole what Rome puts out. And I wasn’t the only kid who used to argue such things. The Jesuit boys got into the conversations pretty early. (Of course, they thought they knew everything:-) It is just so saddening to think that the young don’t have priests — or enough deacons? — to argue with anymore.
I’m wondering if your generation’s lack of apologetics has something to do with your generation’s rejection of so many Church teachings. From what you say, I’m starting to think that you all were simply not given enough reasons to secure your Faith rationally, so when the general culture challenged you, you either just abandonned certain teachings or abandonned the Faith completely.
Yes, some of your generation do simply accept what the Church teaches on purely theological grounds. But for most people that isn’t enough. We need reasons — if not reasons proving everything (we can’t have that), at least enough reasons to think that the Faith is not just superstitious nonsense palmed off on us by super-ignorant, anti-scientific, sex-hating, power mad clergy.
Hmm. At any rate, sounds to me like the younger generations need more intellectual help from the Church than they’ve gotten.
Jim P. == again –
Maybe what kids need these days are anti-Hitchens handbooks. I mean instruction so they can take on such arguments as Hitchens et al put out. Hitch says there is no God? So what proofs are there that there is a God? Or is it a matter only of probability? Or are there other sorts of reasons for just believing He exists? If so, what are they? And what about the sexual morality the Church teaches — how does it know that pre-marital sex is wrong? How to prove it? And that homosexual marriage is wrong? And that birth control is wrong? And what makes you think that priests are not just power-mad liars out to boss as many people as possible? Etc., etc., etc.
(And those are just some non-theological issues!)
Give them reasons for these things. (And when the evidence turns up against the Church’s position, change!)
Clarification — I didn’t mean that literally about the handbooks. I meant that adolescents should get at least some instruction in these matters, enough so that when they are in secular colleges or out in the world they’ll at least know what the issues are, some of the vocabulary for talking about the issues and where to get help, that is, whom to read, as my generation knew to go to the likes of Chesterton and Lewis and, Yes, Commonweal, and others who were prepared to defend Church doctrine rationally. I guess I’m sort of asking for a Catholic intellectual village to help raise these kids. And it might even help the parents too.
Perhaps this thread is mostly done, and I don’t think I necessarily have an “answer” to the question Cathy asked. But as anecdotal evidence, FWIW:
I grew up in the 1980s in the kind of Catholic neighborhood where people routinely protested nuclear weapons, practiced the various works of mercy, etc. (My mother met several other couples when she was invited to someone’s house to discuss the bishops’ letter on the economy.) My own family consisted of my Catholic mother, who took us to church every Sunday but never read theology and didn’t subscribe to any Catholic media (no Commonweal or NCR or anything) and my Protestant-agnostic father. But there were a lot of *very* Catholic families we knew — peace-and-justice Catholics with a number of kids, often also had foster or adopted kids, always involved in social justice work, lots of liturgical stuff too — they were going to mass, singing, being ministers, having family prayers, decorations around the house, going on retreat.
Of all the kids I grew up with in that atmosphere, I think hardly any are still actively practicing Catholics. I alone — and I quit the church at 13, as soon as I could convince my mother I was old enough not to *have* to go every week — am really serious about it now, in my early 30s. (So serious I’ve dropped the last seven years on theology grad school.)
What definitely stuck with everyone else was the social justice thing. All those kids are now activists (or lawyers who are activists) doing amazing work in the world. They’re probably in much better shape to meet their maker than I am.
So what about me? I really think the church, the encounter with God through Jesus and his Body, saved my life. I think, without statistical evidence but nevertheless, that Rahner was right: the Christian of the future, in this secular world, will have experienced something, and will not be able to deny that thing, and will be looking for some intellectual and worship structure that will let him or her make some sense out of that thing. If I go more than two weeks without going to mass I start to backslide — I get crazy and depressed. I *have* to be Christian, and within that I have a very strong preference for remaining Catholic, strong enough to have combated everything the church has thrown at me so far, because that’s where my roots are and that’s where I ultimately found some healing and hope, and the liturgy has been enormously meaningful to me. (I am pretty upset about the new mass translation. I am attached to the old one, seriously attached. I think it’s beautiful. I’m not really looking forward to trying to make the transition.)
I guess what I’m saying is I’m not sure you can raise Commonweal Catholics. What you can do is put them in the way of the church — take them to mass, even send them to Catholic schools, whatever — and then see what happens. If you want some added insurance, I think Luke is right to say that finding a community where the kids can see other people who *need* this is probably helpful. Many of my students now (freshmen at Fordham) are so secure and sheltered; I don’t think they necessarily have much of a sense of the drama and poetry and craziness and the sense that the living God is out there acting in the world — the grandeur and awe and fear of the Lord. I blow their minds when I talk to them about the resurrection of the body, the light that the darkness cannot overcome. Nobody ever seems to have mentioned this to them before — that the Christian faith is not only about being nice to other people (although there’s a lot of that too!) but is about the great stand of life against death, in a very rich sense. The sense of God’s kingdom opening up here and now within us and in our midst, even through the brokenness of the world: they don’t, mostly, seem to have that. I’m a Catholic in large part because I *need* to be, because I share the Catholic sense that the world is so flawed and broken, and I find it absolutely necessary to share the Catholic faith that God has done, and is doing, and is about to do, a new thing.
In short — and this is a lot longer than I meant it to be, but I’m long-winded — I think you need to feel it. If you don’t feel it, it won’t stick. The institution is too flawed to adhere to on a purely intellectual level.
(Reading the bible might help too.)
Thank you, Catherine. I agree that Mass, the Eucharist is absolutely central to the Faith, and the presence of the Lord among us is what makes sense of the rest of this broken world. But I think different people need different things, and we need different things at different times in our lives.
The Church and its teachings are criticized in our broken world (sometimes fairly), and these criticisms can be very destructive of many people’s faith. So we need not just theological understanding and the experience of grace in the sacraments — most of us also need to see that our beliefs about the Lord are not just the wishful-thinking, superstition that the Hitchenses of this world portray it as.
I don’t think these are either/or matters.
“Many of my students now (freshmen at Fordham) are so secure and sheltered; I don’t think they necessarily have much of a sense of the drama and poetry and craziness and the sense that the living God is out there acting in the world — the grandeur and awe and fear of the Lord. I blow their minds when I talk to them about the resurrection of the body, the light that the darkness cannot overcome. Nobody ever seems to have mentioned this to them before”
Catherine –
I haven’t taught in many years, but i’m still interested in college kids especially. Would you please expand on this? How did you yourself become aware of the presence of God around you? How do you get your kids to see or at least to look for Him? I’m suprised that they’re interested in the resurrection of the body. That seems like one of those old dogmas that has lost its meaning for contemporary people.
Ann — Well, as I said, I have no idea what the real statistically-sound answer to the question is. I mention a resonance with theological drama (and scripture) only because that’s what I think separates me (excessively regular church goer and occasional theologian) from the kids I grew up with, who *should* have been the ones to stick with it. They had two-parent Catholic families who were really dedicating their lives to the church, not just on Sunday mornings — families who built their lives around the faith. They knew (in age-appropriate terms) about the social teaching of the church. I didn’t. (I was a pretty dense kid. It’s only as an adult that I’ve been able to look back at my neighborhood and put all these data points together. At the time, the Catholic church to me meant (a) boring Sunday mornings (b) the Crusades and (c) repression of women and gay people. Even though I was living in this neighborhood with all these Ploughshares people!)
So, I agree with you that different things work for different people. But I do think that somehow a feeling of excessively high stakes needs to be involved, if one is going to keep being a social-justice Catholic (as opposed to a social-justice non-Catholic.) This is why I tend to attribute my Catholicism in large part to my tendency towards depression. (In some moods I say that Christianity is not the most obvious religion for the healthy-minded, and I am definitely a sick soul, so it works really well for me. Thanks William James.)
What got me back into the church was threefold. One, I finally, in college, became properly aware of the fact that the Church *did* have what I’ll call loosely a left wing. (I got involved in SoA activism.) Two, I realized that all those years of being dragged to mass had, in fact, had an effect; I found myself responding strongly to a couple of liturgies I attended. And three, in the early Bush years, I was *so* depressed, to the point of paralysis. And sometimes I would go to church, and I would feel, you know, the world is not all about me. Church made me less solipsistic, and I continue to need that daily or weekly encounter with others, because my natural tendency is definitely towards solipsism (which I think is the root of my various depressive episodes. Obviously different people have different root causes, including some that are chemical.)
But I was really ignorant; I was feeling my way back into the church long before I really did any serious theological reading. I just knew that there was something there.
As for the resurrection of the body, while I take it less literally than your average medieval artwork, I think from a feminist and ecological point of view that it’s a pretty important doctrine. It reminds us that the goal is not for our souls to escape our bodies/”this world” and go to heaven; rather, the goal is the redemption of creation, the mysterious emergence of life out of death, and that that process involves our bodies and the material in some way. So it’s less that I want to go to the mat over a literal interpretation (“this is exactly how the end times will play out”) and more that I think the doctrines of the bodily resurrection both of Jesus and of us are saying something very important about God’s love of material creation. I’m not saying all my students are necessarily on board with this (in fact, well over half of my students are simply not Christian–they may be nominally so, but not in any way that matters to them) but they clearly have never thought of it like that. I use a nice interview that N.T. Wright gave to Time magazine to get us going –
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1710844,00.html
I think still that we need to focus on a unifying and inviting view of Catholicism.
The old apologetic wanted to “refute” enemies whether truthfuly or not and the “new” apologetic is not much different.
Startring with the top down CCC approach isn’t working, but…
a glimmer of hope: in last nights mail an “initiative report ” from Ctholic Common Ground(still alive and maybe hoping to breathe?)
Honore is Bryan Hehir, who notes the message of Bernadin is what’s needed”we could walk more than one road and stay within the capacious framework of the Catholic vision of life.”
The major lecture by Sr.Patricia Wittberg stressed the importanc eof thinking about the generational differences and sugested parishes and comunites arrange regular metings between millenials and Gen Xer’s with older Catholics to help build leadership in the coming Church for they will be the source of life for the future Church.
The NCR study underscores the importanceof knowing these differences and the need to build using God’s people.
Against the glimmer of hope is leadership that loves Bill Donahue and EWTN and answer men that will only speak on point.
We can talk about CCD or kid’s education, but what they see in the behaviors of the ecveryday world today is what will shape them.
If it’s perceived as more negative divisional religion, the outlook is not very bright!
Again, thanks, Catherine. Yours is a very valuable perspective, I think.
Interesting that the Crusades were an issue for you. It shows that even kids have a notion that history is somehow important — that kids think. Yes, they feel too, probably more than thinking. The question is: how much and when can we trust our feelings? (Back to Rahner and the mystics?) I’m just emphasizing that the Church needs to minister to both thinking and feeling.
Bob N. ==
Yes, that old “let’s refute our enemies” was often too simple and, as I mentioned, belligerent. (See the troglodite Bill Donovan!) But there really are misconceptions about the Church that need to be countered. Take the Crusades. They were indeed horrible. But these days kids aren’t taught the whole truth about them either — that the Christian actions were initially a response to the terrible armed aggression and forced conversion of other people by the Muslims. It is politically incorrect according to some these days to say that Islam has been a violent force in the world. However, its early history confirms that image. So when you see that there were definitely two sides to the story of the Crusades those big bad popes don’t look quite so satanic.
Kids need to know that there are those who are out to destroy the Church because they really do see it as a great force for evil, and kids need to know both sides of history. Some of those people who want to destroy the Church — e.g., Hitchens, Dummett — are part of the culture that forms our general world view. I mean the world view of the American media. And the American media are what form the world view of the young — and to a large extent us old ones too.
Most of all I think that kids need to know that the official Church is not the whole Church. As I see it, that is the most important message of VII so far. If they don’t understand that, then they probably will be overwhelmed by an image of the Church of Christ as mere superstition, a plot for perverted clergy to boss the rest of us, etc., etc., etc..
Still, I’m with Catherine, that ultimately our response to the world and our circumstances are highly individual, unpredictable and, yes, mostly unmanageable without the grace of God. (Maybe there’s the key — the grace of God? Maybe that’s what the kids aren’t finding in the Church? Maybe they don’t even know what to look for? Back to Rahner?)
Ann: on history: Part of my being able to come to grips with Catholicism in my twenties was developing a far more sophisticated sense of history than I had as a 12-year-old. The Catholic Church *was* Western Europe (OK, with the exception of some dissident Christian groups and, of course, Jews, but, roughly speaking, you know what I mean) for a thousand years. It’s crazy for leftists (like me) to want to just shift all of what we see as the “bad stuff” onto the Church, without also understanding that all of the “good stuff” came from there too. It was the air that everyone breathed. It is impossible to do the counterfactual “what if there had been no Church.” (And, in fact, given what I know about the pre-Christian ancient world, I am not in the slightest convinced that what we would have gotten without Christianity would have looked any better from a left-wing point of view. I think we probably got a pretty good deal all things considered, although we certainly didn’t get the kingdom of God.)
So given that, I could take a deep breath and say, you know, there have been some pretty amazing people “throughout history” (to use my students’ favorite phrase) who have found this whole Christian and Catholic thing integral to their understanding of God and the world and what it means to be a human being. Perhaps there might actually be something of value there, something I could learn from.
Hey — I just accidentally turned on a revealing kids’ show on PBS TV.
There’s this very little kid (first grade?) who is complaining to his friend that everything changes. He doesn’t like change. His T-shirt shrank. His beloved old shoes don’t fit any more. “Why do things have to change?” he asks (Very pre-Socratic of him.) Well, he goes off to school to find out.
Who does he ask? the science teacher. They mess up some stuff together (apples, sugar, cinnamon, etc.) and watch it cook. The result is “delicious applesauce” says the kid. “Great observation” says the science teacher. Then the teacher notes that the applesauce can’t be changed back into fresh apples. “This is what is called irreversable change”, she says. (Mind you, this is a program for very little kids, and she’s already talking about “irreversible change”.)
Now they’re looking at ice melt. Now they’re helping it melt, pouring warm water over it.
Now they’re looking at a decayed Halloween pumpkin. EwwwW! Everybody observes it. “Smell it with your nose,” says the science teacher. (What does she smell it with — her heel?) “I found a tiny little seed”, says another kid. “Decayed pumpkins are wonderful!”
Then a kid says, “We change too.” (Now pictures in sequence of flowers blooming.) Says the teacher, “And that’s what you’re doing. You’re growing and growing and growing …” Kid: “I like what I do, I like what I see. Ready, set, grow.”
“Knock knock”. “Who’s there?” “Orange Orange ya glad your mama is buying you new shoes?”
Teacher: “Growing and changing are both wonderful. OK, scientists, it’s time to go home.”
Original kid: “I learned that change can be kind of cool. That got me to thinking . Maybe I can wear my new shoes my whole life. They’ll grow with me. They’ll get bigger and bigger. . . bigger than a giraffe, bigger than a skyscraper. . .I love getting bigger and bigger! So keep asking lots of questions. See you later, scientists.” Kid goes to bed.
———
Hmmm. What kind of values are the little ones picking up from this sort of program?
“Maybe what kids need these days are anti-Hitchens handbooks. I mean instruction so they can take on such arguments as Hitchens et al put out. ”
Hi, Ann, as you probably know, there is an entire cottage industry of defense-of-the-one-true-faith books, pamphlets, websites and so on, written for a popular audience. I have to say, I find most of them pretty off-putting – they seem to me to be distinctly lacking in charity, and I have no appetite for triumphalism.
Jim P. –
Yes, that sounds like the old triumphalism. And it doesn’t work. In fact, it works against the Gospel. But, as I added, I didn’t mean that handbood remark literally.
I guess I”m suggesting a Catholic culture that really does dialogue with the “world outside”. I was very encouraged today to read Benedict’s speech at Assisi. I think he’s moving in the right direction. I just think based on my old experience teaching sophomores that kids really are challenged by the outside world. Some just succumb to it and give up their beliefs without much thought. Some become so frightened at the possibility that they might have to change their beliefs even a little that their minds sort of freeze. Pitiful. And some would like to engage with the wider culture, but sadly, I think, there isn’t the sort of intellectual leadership from the Church that the young especially need.
At least my generation had the Murrays and Maritains (though the Vatican disapproved of them) and the Greenes and Percys and O’Connors. Who is there these days for the young? Kung? He’s older than I am.
I hope folks are still reading these comments. In regard to educating contemporary young Catholics, roots and wings, I want to call attention to a development in a story that Commonweal has followed closely: the USCCB’s Committee on Doctrine has issued a new response to Sr. Elizabeth Johnson’s’ book “Quest for the Living God.” The bishops have reviewed the letter that Sr. Johnson sent them in response to their original critique. They find that they were on the mark in that original critique, and have provided more detailed information and citations from the book.
The press release, which includes a link to the new statement, is here: http://www.usccb.org/news/2011/11-205e.cfm
Back late to this discussion, but glad it continues.
And, yes, thanks to Catherine! Sounds like your church raised up some mighty fine Unitarians :-), but I’m glad you came back. I think many do after they go through that phase of thinking they know everything.
I nominate Catherine for DRE in Jim P’s area. My kid says I frighten Our Young People. When they were planning on going to Occupy Wall Street, Lansing version, I asked them what they were going to tell the TV cameras they were pissed off about. Blank looks all around.
In the good ol’ leftist tradition, they decided they should write a manifesto. And, in the good ol’ leftist tradition, they ended up arguing about what to put in it and ended up in about five different splinter groups and nothing got done.
A good lesson, though not the one they thought they were going to learn.
Perhaps it is ths same inability to articulate a clear goal that stymies and makes Catholic CCD ineffective?
Jean –
I think that lack of articulateness is one of the greatest problems in our whole culture. I don’t usually pay much attention to the intellectuals who write about what is wrong with our culture, but they have been saying for a couple of generations now that Americans, at least the ones who consider themselves “educated”, have been losing the capacity to say what they mean clearly, and this has resulted in the use of ugly language across the board.
I don’t doubt that one reason that the internet is so full of invective, and crude invective at that, is because of the frustration at not being able to say clearly what they want to say.
We need a common vocabulary and set of assumptions to communicate about any meaningful subject. That means good instruction in English, including poetic expression, and history of various sorts, not to mention some rudimentary science. But education doesn’t give that any more. I read just yesterday that a former dean of Harvard College has written a book saying that these days teachers teach only what they want to teach and kids take only what they want to take. There is no commonality == there is no community of learning, there is no global village. It would be an exaggeration to say that everyone is stranger to everyone else, but in some ways I think that’s true.
I also read that Harvard College is in process of developing a core curriculum. Let’s hope the rest of the schools follow (as they usually do follow the Ivies). The curriculum of St. Thomas U. that Brett offered us recently is an effort in the right direction, but it offers mainly the ancients, and they’re not enough.
It used to be that there were some reputable Catholic intellectuals who would, in effect, speak for the culture. These days the only really great intellectuals/artists who do so are, I think, some of the movie-makers. But kids still need the words and ideas that go with the ideas to speak about the films. However, they seem to get their deepest ideas from the lyrics of pop music, and how deep are they?
I’ll stop the rant. Sigh.
Ann, our dean frequently sends around “food for thought” articles that revolve around the fact that students think they deserve much better grades than they get and have an inflated notion of their own ability to think critically and convey their ideas in writing.
I had coffee with a friend this morning whose children are many years older than my teenager. It doesn’t sound like CCD was much better 10 or 20 years ago. Her parish took a “family-oriented” approach which required kids and parents to do the workbooks together, and for parents to sign off on various lessons.
She said she thought her kids went through confirmation for her sake … and then just quit going to church altogether. They’re in their 20s and 30s now. None have returned. So far.
I compare the post-confirmation drop-out rate after RCIA and Confirmation at our parish with dismay, particularly when the Methodists and nondenominatonal sects here in town seem to have vibrant teen programs.
Perhaps Catholicism, with its “top down” power structure just isn’t good at asking the people it serves what they need?
Jean –
Education is intrinsically a top-down structure in which we all start at the bottom and move up as we earn more knowledge, skills, whatever. And there is a top-down structure in higher education — some schools are still more demanding than others, and they’re better schools for it.
But that’s not my main point. My point is that even high school kids need vocabulary and a certain amount of historical background to even start asking the important questions and talking about them rationally. LOok at your kid and the Lansing project — those kids knew something important was going on, but they didn’t have enough information to say just what is it. The schools, not just the CCD have failed them. And no doubt the colleges have already failed those kids’ teachers. (But don’t start me on the deficiencies of the university education departments.)