“A Generation or Two of Real Darkness”
June 7, 2009, 11:13 am
Posted by Cathleen Kaveny
Donald Cozzens’s sobering assessment of the immediate future of the Church in the U.S. Is he right?
Are we basically headed toward a situation in which liberals and moderates drop out, and conservatives are left with an increasingly smaller leaner, and meaner church? Is the Church in the U.S. following the path of the Church in Europe?
Wow, that interview leaves no common ground at all. Either we’re some sort of draconian reactionary stiff small Church, or our beliefs are completely amorphous and have more to do with the vastness of space than with special revelation. Either we’re angry or agnostic–are those our only options looking forward?
I wrote an essay for Fr. Komonchak once upon a time, in which I examined a retraction made by Yves Congar in the first 30 or so pages of the second volume of I Believe in the Holy Spirit. Congar criticized an exclusivity of his early work, an overemphasis on the mission of the Holy Spirit which left less room than is theologically necessary for the primacy of Christ in the Church. After all, the Spirit forms us into the Body of Christ, which is not vague but a living reality. Hand in hand with this false theological dichotomy between the missions is a false ecclesiological dichotomy between order and charism.
Though Fr.Cozens was flipped off once here (mistakenly) as a”sociologist,” I think his vast experience has read the tea leaves pretty well.
I keep trying to think of good news in the Amrerican Church scene, with little to show for it.
By the way, i see a distinguished sociologist, Jim Davidson from Purdue, will give the Mutrnion lecture later this month on what American Catholcs think about the Church.
I expect it to be more upbeat, as ther eare still many wonderful folks laboring in the vineyard,many though personally disgruntled.
Will be interesting also to see if any impact on our religious women as the “visitation” winds down.
Bob, a correct umbrella term “social scientist” was my expression when I dismissed Cozzens. Although you may be referring to someone else’s dismissal of this apparently pessimistic priest.
To me, Fr. Cozzens is not searching for common ground but describing the climate and predicting the weather. To him, the forecast doesn’t look good.
One can presume, that as both a Priest and a “social scientist”, Fr.Cozzens would understand from the beginning, that those who speak The Truth and Live within The Truth will not bear false witness against their neighbor but rather will always be ready to”give an explanation of your Faith and a reason for your Hope.”
The Catholic Church is Holy despite those who have brought scandal to the Church. There is indeed a crisis in Faith, but through it all, The Deposit of Faith has remained consistent.
“Authority is the issue. Should a Catholic accept the solemn, repeated teaching of the Magisterium and the Pope, who is the Vicar of Christ on earth, or should he accept the assurance of a theologian that he can safely ignore the repeated teaching of the Magisterium and the Pope, the Vicar of Christ on earth?…It is as if someone said to you that for centuries the Church has been wrong in her constant teachings…But what kind of Catholic rejects the solemn teaching of Christ and His Church? Not to accept it is to say that you can be a good Catholic while rejecting Christ’s Vicar on earth and the Magisterium that was divinely established in order that the Deposit of Faith might be transmitted from generation to generation in all its Purity.”- What Went Wrong With Vatican II, Ralph M. McInery
Kathy rightly points out that Congar revised his earlier view, He says: “I was not sufficiently conscious of the unity that exists between the activity of the Spirit and that of the GLORIFIED CHRIST (italics in the English text), since the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Col 3 17). According to Paul, the glorified Lord and the Spirit may be different in God, but they are functionally so united that we experience them together and are able to accept the one for the other….” This is on page 12 of Vol. 2. I don’t have access to the French original. My sense, though, is that Kathy is reading too much into this passage.
More on Kathy on Congar re Cozzens: On page 16 of Congar’s Vol 2 he says: “In the modern era, excessive emphasis has been given in the Catholic Church to the role of authority and there is a juridical tendency to reduce order to an observance of imposed rules, and unity to uniformity.” I find it hard to deny that Congar has his finger on something very important here How else explain the deep seated clericalism that amounts to treating lay people as second-class Christians. My sense is that Fr. Cozzens is pointing out that this clericalism, which takes it for granted that the laity ‘s concerns, intellectual as well as pastoral, need not be heard and taken into account.
I know that there is no easy path to go from our present church structures to a more adequate appreciation iof the importance of more “collegiality” between clergy and laity. I, fo one, have no recipe. But the first step is to face up to the mess that we’re in with our present modus operandi. To claim that this modus is set up by the bishops and therefore it must be good is plain nonsense. This, it seems to me, is the big point that Fr. cCzzins, along with Peter Steinfels and Prof. Lakeland and many other serious people have been making.
On Trinity Sunday we should all acknowledge the Creed. Where does Cozzens not acknowledge the Creed? Maybe the differences expressed here are about those that have solace in the fact that the ‘deposit of Faith’ will always endure. Or, those like myself who see the failure of leadership that is resulting in a 1000 churches being closed and declining celibate priestly vocations resulting in declining membership. Fr Cozzens seeks an end to mandatory celibacy for diocesan priests. This will enable the staffing of faith communities and give a ‘surge’ to an emerging church. We Catholics in the No. America, Africa, Asia, and So America say NO to European decline , a decline overseen by a remote, fearful and isolated European leadership. Many of the US 16000 married deacons could immediately be available for Eucharistic celebrations and pastoral service. Service to the only growth for the Faith, namely to new immigrants. Or watch the decline for a generation and say hello to Europe…
Thanks, Prof. Kaveny for this post. I enjoyed reading it on NCRonline. (Disclosure – I respect and agree with much of Fr. Cozzens’ works as a psychologist and priest.)
Some interesting threads here reflecting lots of ongoing discussions by many groups in the church worldwide. Examples:
- Cozzens’ thoughts parallel the thinking of Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, prior superior general of the Dominicans. He uses the terms – communion and kingdom catholics. Their mindsets are:
“By Kingdom Catholics, I mean those of us who have a deep sense of the church as the pilgrim people of God, on the way to the kingdom. The theologians who have been central for this tradition have been people like the Jesuit Karl Rahner, and the Dominicans Edward Schillebeeckx and Gustavo Gutiérrez. This tradition stresses openness to the world, finding the presence of the Holy Spirit working outside the church, freedom and the pursuit of justice. They became very much identified with a publication called Concilium.
By Communion Catholics I mean those who came, after the council, to feel the urgent need to rebuild the inner life of the church. They went with theologians like Hans von Balthasar and the then Joseph Ratzinger. Their theology often stressed Catholic identity, was wary of too hearty an embrace of modernity, and they stressed the cross. They had their publication. It was called Communio.
Of course, all this is a bit of a caricature. I am able to go into a more nuanced analysis in my book. Most of us will feel some attraction to both of these traditions, but will probably feel a primary identification with one or the other. We will only heal the divisions if we stretch our imaginations open to understand why the others think and feel as they do. Before we can talk, we must sympathize, and feel how it is that their way of understanding the church offers them a home, a place in which to be at peace.
- Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., What is the Point of Being a Christian?;
lecture in April, 2006, entitled “Overcoming Discord in the Church
- review Michael Bayly’s “The Underground Church” – he quotes from Elisie Boulding’s “underside of history” which states that in any hierarchical and dominant or oppressive institution, there is a healthy and growing underside where people are trying to practice cooperation and nonviolence”….not unlike many of the prior posts about reaching out for common ground. Here is the link: http://www.progressivecatholicvoice.org/enewsletters/index_Feb08.html#Dialoguing
- another sociologist, Kautzer, explains that communities are movements to reform the Church structurally. The term encompasses a range of Vatican II-styled parishes and reform groups, from Voice of the Faithful to Call to Action.
Generally, all such parishes and groups are working for four basic reforms:
1) A formal role for laity in decision-making.
2) Fiscal transparency and accountability (an important issue, says Kautzer, given that a recent study found 85% of the dioceses looked into had serious problems of embezzlement).
3) An inclusive priesthood – one welcoming of married clergy, women, and gays.
4) A commitment to renewing and expanding the direction of Vatican II.
Kautzer goes on expanding on the thoughts of Cozzens: “…. acknowledges that the underground church communities are labeled “schismatic” by the Vatican. Others dismiss the movements as being like a modern-day Protestant Reformation. “It is in a way,” says Kautzer, “but the difference is that people aren’t creating new denominations. They’re saying, We are Catholic, but we’re just going to do it without Vatican approval.”
There are, of course, some potential pitfalls – including the ongoing struggle for funding and membership, and the potential for cult-like and/or unqualified leadership. However, it’s not as if qualified leadership is guaranteed by reliance on the Vatican, notes Kautzer. In addition, the Vatican itself encourages cult-like organizations, for example, Opus Dei. Many of these organizations, says Kautzer, are documented in Gordon Urquhart’s book, The Pope’s Armada: Unlocking the Secrets of Mysterious and Powerful New Sects in the Church.
Advantages of the underground church include not being restricted by Vatican pronouncements – many of which reflect a narrow and impoverished theology, especially around issues of gender and sexuality. As a result, the underground church, says Kautzer, “challenges dualistic categories that separate laity/clergy, men/women, celibate/married, the sacred and the profane, thereby embodying the notion of the priesthood of all believers and the sacred dimension of reality.”
- matching Cozzens points, Kautzer states: “As to why so many Church hierarchs are resistant to the type of change heralded by the underground church, Kautzer suggests that one factor is that many of them, especially those within the Vatican, “tend to be isolated and surrounded primarily by like-minded colleagues selected precisely because of their conformity and subservience.”
Drawing on the theories of human consciousness development pioneered by Ken Wilbur, Kautzer notes that the current pope, like his predecessor, operates primarily from a “traditionalist philosophical framework” – one that is highly authoritarian and dismissive of alternative perspectives and views. Most Catholics, Kautzer contends, operate from a “post-modern or even integralist framework” or worldview. In terms Wilbur’s model of human consciousness development, these are two stages beyond where the vast majority of Vatican officials are. “This gap in worldviews,” says Kautzer, “makes it difficult for people to communicate.”
Kautzer also draws on the insights of psychotherapist Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea, author of Perversion of Power: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church, when she describes many Catholic hierarchs as “narcissistic,” a state that Frawley-O’Dea maintains is “reinforced by the highly deferential treatment of unchecked power.”
In light of all of this, Kautzer, paraphrasing Gandhi, insists that: “We must be the change we want to see in the Church.” “If ‘We are the Church’,” she says, “then we don’t have to sit back and wait for the hierarchs to make decisions.”
Concludes with: ““The prospects for reform are dim if we rely solely on insider tactics,” said Kautzer. This is especially true given that the new priests coming into the priesthood tend to be very conservative and authoritative; that Vatican II priests, bishops, and cardinals are either “dying off or being forced out”; and that Pope Benedict XVI has stated publicly that he wants a smaller, purer Church, and that he wants reformers to leave unless they can support everything the hierarchy teaches. “[The pope] doesn’t care if you leave,” says Kautzer. “He’s happy to push you out the door.”
This isn’t true, however, of all cardinals and bishops, many of whom are not as isolated as the pope. They are acutely aware of what such an exodus would mean financially for the Church. Even some conservative Catholics are worried. Writing in the February 2008 issue of the Catholic World Report, Russell Shaw refers to David Carlin’s book, The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America, and notes that: “Carlin concludes that the outcome of the crisis will probably be the de facto collapse of the Church in America and the retreat of Catholics into the status of a ‘minor and relatively insignificant sect.’ Traditionalists will have won the internal Catholic power struggle, mainly because the progressives will have drifted away. But in the end, the small band of traditionalists will find themselves isolated in ‘a new Catholic quasi-ghetto,’ with about as much influence on the culture as the Amish and Hasidic Jews have now.”
Finally, here is a statement about the Irish Catholic Church by a priest and PhD student of B16: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0607/breaking27.htm
Tom Roberts, the interviewer, began by saying that he thought something new was emerging in the Church. Fr. Cozzens commented on this: “From your point of view, the church is emerging,” he said. “It’s pregnant with possibility, but how it’s going to emerge, I don’t know.” Prophecy, after all, is not given either with ordination or with a Ph.D. And I presume that’s why the comment used in the head to this thread is placed in the conditional mood: “It could be…”
Bernard, I take Congar’s “modern era” to be, not our own recent history, but 1830-1950, with an emphasis on 1890-1920. Something along those lines. His trilogy is decades old by now.
What Congar rightly retracts is, again, an overemphasis and exclusivity between Christ and Spirit, and, probably derivitavely, between structure/ hierarchy/ order and charism/ spontanaeity. These tensions have been with us since I Corinthians. But the peaceable Spirit has no intention of competing with Jesus Christ. And vice versa. The dichotomy is our fallen contribution.
Bill, thank you for the wealth of information you’ve given.
Cathleen, I see the institutional RCC continuing to shrink in size (recent stats suggest as much if we allow for the probability that as Latinos assimilate into the wider culture, they will join right in with their Anglo counterparts: liberal, progressive, conservative, reactionaries, stayers, departers, etc.).
Unless the cardinals wake up and smell the coffee (and I’m not convinced they will — esp. in light of the hierarchs appointed by JPII who will linger on for a number of years), there will continue to be a legalistic, clerical mindset at the highest policy levels of the church, not to mention in most chanceries around the globe.
On the other hand, I suspect we will continue to see offical RCC parishes that tend to gravitate toward liberal/progressive or conservative/reactionary perspectives. Most parishes, though, will continue to be “mixed,” i.e., populated with Catholics who support the Novus Ordo, do not want the Tridentine liturgy (and will avoid it if offered in their parishes), but otherwise avoid the fray vis-a-vis ecclesial politics, liturgical controversy, etc. In other words, most Catholics will continue to come to Mass on weekends, drop their envelopes in the collection basket, get their ticket punched, and go home.
Parish closings will continue but, at some point, will reach a floor with the aforementioned scenario. In the meantime, unchurched/unaffiliated Catholics will continue on with their lives, and other Catholics who miss Vatican II will form new Catholic communities that draw their inspiration from the gospels and epistles — but prepared to welcome gay marriage, female priests, etc.
or it could be, that it is time to revisit the Prophecy in the Message of Our Lady of Fatima.
…and, no doubt, Benedict Ratzinger is pleased with developments leading to his “smaller but purer” Roman Catholic Church.
“But the peaceable Spirit has no intention of competing with Jesus Christ. And vice versa.”
This is true. The Holy Spirit, The Lord and Giver of Life who proceeds from the Love between The Father and The Son, is the Perfect Complement of Love to begin with.
If we focus onto a broader realm of Catholicism ……
“Is the poor, southern, non-white world also to become anti-Christian because the white, capitalist world is claimed as Christian? Such a scenario is not wholly devoid of plausibility. Let liberation theology be “excommunicated” in Latin America; let the black millions of central Africa be alienated from the churches by a prolonged while-black conflict centered upon a South Africa firmly supported by the United States and Western Europe; let the classic Christian communities of the southern continents be deprived of the eucharist, and starved of life; let a diminished priesthood retreat into the realm of the sacral, reasserting its segregation from the laity, and its concern with more important clerical matters than torture and starvation; let an other-worldly and authoritarian form of Christianity be proclaimed again as the only one fully acceptable to Rome; and we are almost there. It is not impossible.”
Adrian Hastings, African Catholicism, SCM Press (1989).
What we are seeing now is nothing more than a resurgence of our earlier history (sans large numbers of priests and sisters/nuns):
“ …. the “churchifying” process of the decades after 1840, when priests and nuns developed a multifaceted ministry to a massive immigrant population, urged regular sacramental practice, heightened clerical control, and promoted a new sense of Rome’s importance. The fruit of “churchification” would later mature into the triumphal moment of American Catholicism in the mid-twentieth century. But this often idealized church proved ultimately anomalous: the short-lived product of a time when immigration slowed to a trickle, upward mobility surged, and the massive church infrastructure combined with social and political pressures to ensure common experiences and shared sympathies.
The version of Catholic churchification set down in “The Faithful” challenges linear ideas of modern progress. We often think of the sweep of modern history as liberating to the “ordinary” person, granting individuals greater autonomy as time goes on. Yet churchifying meant suppressing much lay autonomy. It also meant systematizing religious experience by inculcating a strongly cultic vision of priesthood, emphasizing concern for exact performance of duty and proper execution of rubrics, promoting the trade in indulgences and ecclesiastical titles, and cultivating a more passive ideal for the laity. Greater use of clerical garb in the late nineteenth century encouraged this trend-as did the increasing prominence of another distinctively clothed cohort, women religious. Yes, bishops and priests often called the shots, but nuns (who outnumbered priests after the mid-1800s) provided the workforce and public presence that allowed a “Catholic culture” to thicken. “
A review by James P. McCartin of “The Faithful: A History of Catholics in America” James M. O’Toole http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php3?id_article=2401
Being a grandfather with a large extended family , I go ballistic when I read that the Pope, heirarchs ‘want a smaller, purer Church’ . If these childless, generational ignoring celibates preached this nonsence in a homily at a large well filled suburban church it would be empty the next week. They have no generational perspective.. why should they. When the Cardinal wanted to ‘fix’ the SSPX before he retired this summer and created the ‘mess’ you get an idea of the range of their perspectives. They have trouble imposing church weddings and baptisms in their own extended families.Smaller, purer… don’t say that to me…
I think Cozzens is optimistic. Over the weekend, I was at a meeting a St. Joseph’s Seminary and the rector was talking about preparation for minor seminarians after high school and they are sending some to Stubenville, Oh and Ave Maria college in Florida. That’s all that needs to be said.
Any rector or bishop who is still living in the world of “minor seminarians” and sending them for college to Steubenville or Ave Maria indicates a complete lack of knowledge about formation, psychology, development and reflects some of the earlier comments about “clericalism”, “smaller church”; ritual priesthood; etc.
Mr. Gleason – interesting point. What does a “smaller” church say about faith formation, the family, parish development, etc.???
In terms of McCartin’s book – if my memory serves me, in 1900 there were less than 10,000 religious sisters in the US; by 1950, there were over 150,000. There is a history lesson in those numbers that speak about a church that existed for less than 70 years in the US that expanded, increased, and became culturally mainstream. My guess is that our current period is closer to what the church in the US looked like for most of US history if you limit your discussion to clerical, brothers/sisters, orders. The significant difference is that there are 20 times more catholics; more catholic parishes/hospitals/schools. It gets to many of the questions about defining “church” as necessary to be clerically led, restricting sacraments to clerics only. It does go to “ecclesiology” – the church (wide, encompassing definition) is the sacrament of Christ; each parish is the sacrament of the church; and in each parish/community the church as sacrament has sacraments (both capital S and small s).
Kathy, Vol.2 of Congar’s trilogy was published in French in. 1979. In the paragraph I cited on page 26 the verb forms are all prresent perfects, i.e., x has been…. Why would I accept the time frame you propose for the period to which Congar is referring? Is the Englins text a bad translation? On your reading, should the verb forms not be of the form “x was….?
I doubt that you can recruit Congar into the position you are defending.
Mr. Dauenhauer – review Kathy’s dates for Yves Conger. He lived many years later than that. She does not even have the right time frame down much less his correct biography; impact on the church, Vatican II, etc.
What is the European church like?
I know it is small in attendance. When I lived in Berlin for a few months, I went to a couple of churches. Both were very small in attendance. But, both were in a Muslim neighborhood in a secular city in a Protestant region. One was definitely liberal. The other seemed mainstream. Both had middle aged priests. Nobody seemed conservative, but I didn’t get to know them that well.
Cozzens says here that there is a broad middle of Catholics. I think that is very true. He seems to think these middle road types aren’t authentic or informed. That seems jaundiced.
I wonder what the Catholic Church would look like if those who profess to be Catholic were all Faithful to the Magisterium in the true Spirit of Vatican II. (which is what the Pope actually desires to begin with.) Maybe you should ask the Pope whether it is true that he desires a smaller Church rather than a Faithful Church.
Bernard,
It’s a minor point but in order to dispense with it, I just meant that when the term “modern” is used by historians it doesn’t mean “contemporary.” It’s the name of an era in post-Enlightenment western history. A quick google shows the following:
From a wiki article on “modernity”: Modern can mean all of post-medieval European history, in the context of dividing history into three large epochs: ancient history, the Middle Ages, and modern times. In the context of contemporary history, politics and other subjects, it is also applied specifically to the period beginning somewhere between 1870 and 1910, through the present, and even more specifically to the early 20th century, though the late modern times would be marked by the late 18th century (Industrial, American, and French Revolutions).
The description of the journal Modernism/ modernity (Johns Hopkins Press): Concentrating on the period extending roughly from 1860 to the present, Modernism/Modernity focuses on the methodological, archival, and theoretical exigencies particular to modernist studies. It encourages an interdisciplinary approach linking music, architecture, the visual arts, literature, and social and intellectual history. The journal’s broad scope fosters dialogue between social scientists and humanists about the history of modernism and its relations tomodernization. Each issue features a section of thematic essays as well as book reviews and a list of books received. Modernism/Modernity is now the official journal of the Modernist Studies Association.
I think that many historians of Catholic thought would suggest that there was a kind of entrenchment in the modern era as a reaction (many would say “overreaction”) to thinkers such as Schleiermacher and Hegel–intellectual revolutions that mirrored the political uncertainty of the age.
Congar may have meant “nowadays,” but I doubt he would have used the word “modern” simply to describe his own immediate context, because it is a technical term.
But I don’t think this is a major issue.
Perhaps the one thing that is really new is that this is probably the end of the feudal church. This is mainly due to the fact that that the church cannot use state arms and pressure to contain the “laity.”
Other than that huge fact there is not much new about the church. There have always been liberals and conservatives, those who hold onto their power and those who seek spiritual leaders rather than secular one which the hierarchy has mainly been since the fourth century.
The peculiarity of the American Catholic Church is the intense piety of the Irish who have really dominated the church up to now. Very few of us have been exposed to nuns who were not Irish. That Irish piety stemmed from the conflict with England in which the people felt the church was its defendor. Italians and French have been irreligious way before the Vatican Council. They have too much experience with the hierarchy to take them seriously.
So it is really the same except that the laity will take back the church. The reason this is possible is that the hierarchy has always relied on the state arms to control the “laity.” The other factor is that women are exerting more influence than ever. In the past it was in the background. Now it is upfront and center.
Reformers have always asserted the same things we are are saying now. The difference is that reformers are not getting killed for their critique.
Nothing new. Just that the cancer is a lot more obvious.
Fr. Jim Martin, S.J. had a post on the America blog a few days back reflecting on a retreat that he had just directed. He said something to the effect that every time he steps away from the hyperbolic climate of the Catholic blogosphere and re-imerses himself in pastoral ministry he finds himself re-inivigorated with hope for the Church.
I very much have to second that opinion. I teach in a Catholic high school and I am so impressed with the young people I encounter on a daily basis. There are many of them who have a healthy faith and a desire to be active in the Church. Their faith is lived at the local level, and they are largely unaware of the polarizing debates that occupy so much of our time here.
Sorry!!! My HTML skills are a bit rusty. Here’s the URL:
http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=30264439-3048-741E-5443065584408931
The trouble is that the American Church in the last two generations has become not only more and more Republican, but more and more Neoconservative..
The bishops should know that War & Peace is the genuine spiritual issue of our time—not the fringe fight about whether Kerry should receive communion or not.
We all wonder why the hierarchy wear ear plugs against the screams of the children in Gaza and we spend so much time “dialoguing” with the American branch of the War Party.
.
Donald Cozzens got some things right; one is the emphasis on obedience and looking the other way. “There is no quo like the Status Quo.”
When I was a kid at Xavier High School, Jack Lowe, SJ used to preach that the central commandment was to serve those who hungered and thirsted for justice.
The Polish Church was not sick at heart and holding hands in a darkened chapel in the 1980s.
Alone in Solidarity it had 10,000,000 citizens in that once occupied nation
Barack Obama’s Cairo speech has still not be commented on in the Catholic press and it’s Monday morning. Including the Catholic Left!
But already the tiny number of Peacemakers in the Jewish left has sent out a call “to stand with the President” against the Israeli strategy of painting all nations–like a checkers board–Black for Very, Very Bad and Red for Imperial Crimson.
Guess how many are in Red.
Where is the Catholic Left when we need them?
I can only add as a statement of faith. If Rome is the truth, then “The gates of hell will not prevail.” It will look dark, but never be dark. What schemes others design are dashed against the rock that is Christ. The Holy Spirit will prevail over all plans: liberal, centrist, or conservative.
I believe that Fr. Cozzens is a man who reads the signs of the times well. I am discouraged at the thought that it may take another two generations of pain before we see the light in the Church…because I probably will be in the kingdom by then.
I love the Church — as People of God — deeply, and I draw much inspiration and comfort from the Liturgy of the Hours. This morning, as I prayed Morning Prayer and thinking of this post, Psalm 42 touched me and filled me with hope as I prayed in the name of the whole Church:
My tears have become my bread,
by night, by day,
as I hear it said all the day long:
“Where is your God?”
These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I would lead the rejoicing crowd
into the house of God,
amid cries of gladness and thanksgiving,
the throng wild with joy….
Hope in God; I will praise him still,
my savior and my God….
By day the Lord will send
his loving kindness;
by night I will sing to him,
praise the God of my life….
With cries that pierce me to the heart,
my enemies revile me,
saying to me all the day long:
“Where is your God?”
Hope in God; I will praise him still,
my savior and my God….”
Father Martin’s post on the America blog puts the whole thing into perspective for me.
“The Spirit is always at work in the church and in the lives of believers. And while ugly suspicion, rampant mistrust and widespread contumely in the church–especially between warring “factions”–is a continuing scandal, the Spirit moves beyond all that, into the hearts of believers.”
Fr. Martin’s refreshing New England break seems to have put him in a very good mood. And his buoyant hopefulness is appealing. I am not surprised that people are encouraged by his reminder that we can, after all, trust in the Spirit. And I agree, Yes, we can, in the long run.
In the short run, suspicion may be well-earned, mistrust well-founded. “Widespread contumely,” nasty, prideful arrogance, is perhaps most dangerous when exercised by the powerful against the weak, but it is un-Christian wherever you find it. Still, St. Paul, while deploring factionalism, was not shy about speaking his mind, with a certain edge, to “factions” he thought on a wrong course.
On the whole, I agree more with Fr. Cozzens’ sober but not unhopeful appraisal of the immediate situation.
Guess it depends upon your starting point in terms of appreciating Fr. Cozzen’s comments. I interpret his comments as hopeful and direct – in the short time, like any change process, pain and suffering; in the long term, the spirit will guide, reinvigorate, and grow the church.
Here is an interesting viewpoint from Austrialia:
“It would have been fascinating to have been a fly on the wall in Rome yesterday when Archbishop Phil Wilson and Bishop Bill Morris had a meeting with B16. Were Phil and Bill being carpeted — or were they giving Benny an earful of the sort of advice that Pewter wouldn’t mind giving His Holiness? There is much speculation in the informed sectors of the Church. Word is that some of the Aussie bishops have begun to find their voices again and are beginning to tell Rome that there is a significant crisis brewing in the Great South Land of the Holy Spirit. If things continue as they’ve been going, within a decade or less the Church will simply not be able to provide the sacraments regularly across large regions of this land. Will Rome listen — or are they still advocating we’ve got to pray even harder for vocations? Pewter wrote today’s reflection last December but the thoughts are worth reflecting on as we wait to get some feedback as to who was calling the shots in the Holy City in the last few days.
From the Pewside #4…
It has been an interesting and stimulating few days for the pewside folk this week. Sunday began with an infant baptism during Mass, one that incorporated the best of the Vatican 2 liturgy. This was a ceremony for everyone present, not a ritual to be performed in private for a few. Here were the People of God en masse welcoming the baby as one of them on their journey together. And what a baby he was. With such a calm but curious demeanor about him it was possible to imagine he knew and understood the importance of the baptismal service.
Then a few days later, during a special Mass for the occasion, the Sacrament of Healing for the Sick was given to the many parishioners in God’s waiting room, some of whom had made serious sacrifices to be present. Again it was a Vatican 2 innovation at its best. Most could recall a pre-Vatican 2 era when the Last Sacrament was given only to those ‘in extremis mortis’, and they welcomed the change.
All praise to our energetic and young priest — he is in his sixties, young by today’s priesthood standards — who explained in lucid detail each step in the Liturgy of both Sacraments. His care to keep the pewside folk well informed was appreciated. Some thought there might also have been an element of self-preservation in his careful explanations. Unfortunately there are often a few crypto-Lefebvrists in any Congregation only too willing to complain to the Bishop or higher authority about a deviation by the priest from the strict orthodoxy they ‘know’ to be the one and only true Liturgy in all these matters.
One of the continuing mysteries of the Institutional Church is why Rome can ignore petitions signed by thousands of the faithful but will act swiftly to follow up with an inquisition any complaint by a gaggle of conservative fundamentalist Catholics who think the priest is being too modern in his liturgical interpretation. And the priest is understandably cautious. No one wants to rock the boat and spend his retirement in a rented caravan on the edge of town being fed by the goodwill of St Vincent de Paul.
Perhaps this caution was wisely shown in the Clergy appointments for next year. At a time of acute shortage a priest was given to serve the Latin Mass Community, a symbolic act recognizing the growing power of a small but significant group in the Diocese. The winds of ‘the reform of the reform’ of Vatican 2 are blowing strongly.
Next week we have our parish census. If previous habits are followed the results will be kept secret or ‘spun’ to put the best interpretation on them. However it is expected that our Mass going numbers will not differ significantly from the rest of Australia’s with 15% only comprising the bulk of practising Catholics. This remnant will gladden those who believe the church must become smaller, leaner, purer and more Catholic, like it used to be in the good old days before that disastrous Second Vatican Council. Others will understand that the quality of a priest and the spirituality of a parish are not measured by the number of ‘bums on seats’ at Sunday Mass.”
The Church has “grown up” in America as a church of immigrants in need of social protection and finds it very challenging to transition to a church of mainstream citizens. Nearly every church conflict finds its roots in that dilemma, whether it’s sexual abuse, financial transparency or the role of conscience: accountability and autonomy versus authoritarian prerogative.
But why is it so hard?
It seems to me that a requirement for a celibate priesthood inevitably leads to the development of a distinct hierarchical culture that demands authority in exchange for the great personal sacrifice of foregoing family life. The demand for authority will be increasingly rejected by those whose material needs are such that they are more likely to contribute to than receive from, a strong “social justice” ministry, as being not worth the cost. Secularization in other areas of life will contribute to the exodus.
Anyway, that’s how I see it.
Cozzens says (among other things):
our first authority has to be the Gospel,” followed by conscience as we understand the Gospel. “I’m going to Gospel values ahead of conscience. The third authority should be the church as not only the bishops, but the sensus fidelium [Latin for "sense of the faithful"]
The Gospel as interpreted by who?
Conscience as defined by who?
Sense of the faithful: Doe this mean by majority vote?
“The Gospel as interpreted by who?” By informed Catholics who take time to study it and biblical commentary.
“Conscience as defined by who?” By each Catholic listening for the quiet voice of God within.
“Sense of the faithful: Does this mean by majority vote?” Of course not. But the majority is not necessarily wrong, either.
Yesterday, I used the word “mixed” to describe most parishes in terms of their leanings.
I should have described most mainstream parishes as filled with Catholics who are basically indifferent to what is transpiring in the RCC. Indifference, of course (as a professor friend once reminded me) is the opposite of love.
How many Catholics love their church enough (or at all) to complain and do something about it?
Not many, sad to say.
There is always reason for Hope. He is Risen! This does not change the fact that at The Great Commission, Jesus instructed His Disciples to go, and make Disciples of all Nations by witnessing to the Truth, not by bearing false witness.
“The Gospel as interpreted by who? Conscience as defined by who? Sense of the Faithful:Does this mean by majority vote?” These questions bring us to the Heart of the matter. Christ Founded His Church so that The Word would remain consistent. The Truth is not a matter of opinion.
While there is always reason for Hope, there is still much work to be done. When those involved in a Peaceful demonstration, equipped with their Rosaries, at a University that defines itself as The University of Our Lady, are considered trespassers because they understand that the Right to Life of every Human Being from the beginning is an unalienable Right that is endowed to each Human Being from their Creator, something has gone terribly wrong.
Here are Gospel Readings that are consistent with the Church’s teaching regarding the Universal Truth of the Sanctity of the Life of every Child in their Mother’s Womb:
“Do not be afraid Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will CONCEIVE in your Womb and bear a Son, and you will name Him, Jesus.”-Luke 1:30-31
“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the CHILD leapt in her Womb.”-Luke 1:41
Should it then surprise us that Science is consistent with The Word of God regarding the beginning of Human Life at Conception?
Nancy, this is NOT a thread on abortion.
Barbara – excellent insights. Mr. Schwartz and JJ – your questions and hopefully a response that goes well beyond the pathetic repititions by Bayly:
THE GOSPEL AS INTERPRETED BY WHO: “In light of this very Catholic way of understanding the ongoing process of discerning and discovering God’s truth, I, as a Catholic, respectfully disagree with the contention that the “one way and truth” of the Catholic faith excludes those who dissent from the supposed “rules” of our Catholic tradition.
An understanding of the Catholic Church as some kind of exclusive club with an inflexible set of rules fails to reflect basic Catholic theological tenets articulated by folks like Karl Rahner, as well as by the example of community modeled by Jesus.
CONSCIENCE AS DEFINED BY WHO? I think a better and more inviting way of understanding the Church than as an exclusive club, is that of a shared pilgrimage of a diverse group of people united in their commitment to embody God’s loving and transforming presence through their words, actions, and relationships of compassion and justice.
Perhaps the commitment to embody such values should take precedence over “rules.” Jesus certainly wasn’t averse to breaking the religious rules of his day when responding to the demands of compassion and justice.
Those of us frequently accused of trying to “change the rules” of the Church, tend also to be those who are willing to embark on those very Catholic journeys of “courageous engagement with what is new, with what seems strange.” We also tend to be people who have been denied any voice in developing the “rules” that others are so intent on lifting up as absolute and thus unchangeable.
But in reality, the Church’s understanding, and thus teaching (or set of “rules”) on, for example, human sexuality, has been primarily shaped by men within a patriarchal culture. If we want teaching that truly reflects a universal – i.e., catholic – perspective, then a more diverse and inclusive range of voices and experiences needs to be taken into account – including the voices and experiences of women and gay people.
THE SENSE OF THE FAITHFUL – Also, once we acknowledge the significant role that human experience plays in the process of continually discovering God’s truth about human life and relationships, the role of the laity – all members of the laity – comes into much clearer focus.
Australian theologian Paul Collins, for instance, reminds us that, “Consulting the laity in the formulation of doctrine is part of Catholicism’s theological tradition. Also, the whole Church’s acceptance of papal and episcopal teaching is an integral part of testing the veracity of that teaching. The hierarchy does not have a monopoly on truth.”
Collins finds support for such claims in the writings of the great English theologian, Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-90), “who said unequivocally that the laity has to be consulted in matters of doctrine, especially when teachings concern their lives so intimately.”
Wrote Newman: “The body of the faithful is one of the witnesses to the fact of the tradition of revealed doctrine, and . . . their consensus through Christendom is the voice of the Infallible Church.”
Many of us within the Catholic Church have come to realize the ancient spiritual truth (and thus Catholic truth) that not only can our beliefs shape our reality, but our reality can and should shape our beliefs. That’s the kind of living, growing Catholic Church that most Catholics want to live in and contribute to.
Such an understanding of Church could be imagined as a great sheltering tree. And just as a tree is comprised of different parts, both straight and curved, firm and supple, the Church too is not as rigid and uniform as some may wish to believe it to be. Like a healthy tree, the Church needs both anchoring roots and growing branches that are reaching ever outwards. That such a reality leads to tension is inevitable. But such tension doesn’t have to be divisive or destructive. It can be creative and life-giving.”
Yes, we have and accept “infallible” teachings and truths that are, in a sense, unchanging. Yes, those beliefs are reflected via tradition, scripture, and leadership (apostiolic succession properly understood). But, every generation of the church and its culture must express these unchanging truths and beliefs in their sacramental and tradition practices.
Bill, I am not the author of The Gospel. I believe in The Spirit of Vatican II which did not change the truth regarding the Teaching of the Magisterium.
Some additional thoughts around concepts such as “dissent”; “community and eucharist”; “priesthood and orders” from Robert McClory reacting to the new bishop’s order to not read the prior bishop’s book (Bishop Raymond Lucker of New Ulm): Revelation and the Catholic Church – Vatican II in the 21st Century:
“(He) shared how Francis Sullivan (Gregorian professor from 1956 to 1992 in his book: Magisterium: Teaching Authority in the Catholic Church writes that:
It would be inconsistent for the magisterium to propose a moral norm as a requirement of the natural law . . . and not offer convincing reasons that would appeal to the intelligence of those to whom this teaching is directed. . . . It would be a mistake to rely too heavily on merely formal authority in proposing it for acceptance by thinking people.
In other words, “the Church cannot simply say: ‘We’ve got all the answers now. Just listen and be obedient.’”
Declared McClory: “The reasons we hear for some of the Vatican’s propositions put before us are ludicrous. We are told, for instance, that contraception is contrary to the natural law and that everybody with a thinking mind knows that. Yet a lot of people that I think have thinking minds don’t know it. It’s not that they haven’t heard the teaching of the Church. They’ve heard it, thought through it, and they disagree.”
Are such Catholics lacking in obedience to the magisterium? Not according to Sullivan, who writes:
If, in a particular instance, Catholics have offered their religious submission of mind and will to the authority of the magisterium by making an honest and sustained effort to achieve internal assent to its teaching, and still find that doubts about its truths remain so strong in their minds that they cannot actually give their sincere intellectual assent to it, I do not see how one could judge such non-assent to involve any lack of obedience to the magisterium.
McClory noted how the term “submission of mind” used by Sullivan refers to the our offering of religious respect, our willingness to hear the teaching of the Church with an open mind. He also shared how Francis Sullivan, the author of Magisterium, was professor of ecclesiology at the Gregorian University from 1956 until 1992, serving as dean from 1964 to 1970. William Levada, the current Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, received his doctorate under Sullivan in 1971. Indeed, Sullivan has taught ecclesial doctrine to many, many bishops.
Referring to the above quotes from Sullivan, McClory declared: “This is Catholic doctrine which, as far as I know, has never been challenged by anyone except extreme right-wingers. We need to know these types of authentic Catholic teachings if we are to deal with bishops who are tyrannical, with bishops who say, “No! No! No!” to everything. People need to say: “That’s wrong! I’m sorry, your excellency, but you are wrong.”
The teachings of Fr. Richard McCormick, a famous Jesuit and an expert in moral theology, were also highlighted by McClory.
McCormick is well known for articulating the criteria for responsible or faithful dissent from a given Church teaching. This criteria holds that:
We must make a sincere attempt to understand the teaching in question.
We must consider the reasons for and against the teaching, remembering at all times the
importance that Dei Verbum places on the experiences of the believer.
We must be willing to identify and confront our own biases and prejudices. In other words, we
must be open to a serious examination of our conscience.
We must hold respect for the general trustworthiness of the Church.
“If one can follow those criteria with a good conscience,” says McClory, “no one can tell you you’re disobedient or try to kick you out of the Church.”
“We also need gutsy members of the laity and gutsy priests – priests who are willing, despite concerns about their career, pension, or parishes to take a stand,” McClory declared, reminding that “Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston left office in 2004 only after a group of 85 priests wrote a statement saying, ‘You need to leave.’ The Vatican heard that, because it was the priests to whom it’s more inclined to listen.”
McClory listed other steps that can be taken by Catholics so as to counter an authoritarian regime: organize a lay synod; find a parish that is supportive and in which one can be spiritually nurtured; form a network of small faith communities that may or may not be connected to a parish; form an alternative, intentional Eucharistic community – similar to what is happening in the Netherlands and elsewhere. There are a great number of such communities emerging throughout the U.S., notes McClory. “In these communities, the Eucharist is always essential and fundamental but it is not necessary for a priest to preside,” he said.
Of course for many, such communities are cause for scandal. There have even been calls for the excommunication of those involved in such communities. Yet in supporting intentional Eucharistic communities, McClory shared thoughts on Eucharist and community by the great Vatican II theologian, Edward Schillebeeckx, OP.
Schillebeeckx’s extensive research shows that in the first thousand years of the Catholic Church there was an intimate and unbreakable union between Eucharist and community. Reflecting on this union, McClory noted how “Eucharist comes out of the community. It does not come from any other source.”
For instance, the Council of Chalcedon (451 CE), declares that: “Only someone who has been called by a particular community (the people and its leaders) to be its pastor and leader authentically receives ordinatio. It is an appointment or incorporation of a particular fellow Christian as minister to a community and indicates him as its leader. An absolute ordinatio . . . is null and void.” By this last sentence, the Council of Chalcedon is saying that it is not an authentic ordination when a bishop ordains a priest who has not been called forth from and by a specific community.
In light of this ancient Catholic belief and practice, Schillebeeckx writes: “The essential connection between community and ministry . . . shows that the difference between the power of ordination and the power of jurisdiction was not only unknown [in the early Church] but inconceivable in ecclesial terms.” Thus Cyprian of Carthage (250 CE) declared: “No bishop is to be imposed on the people whom they do not want.” And Leo I (435 CE) decreed: “He who is to preside over all must be chosen by all.”
Schillebeeckx also notes that “for the early Church the community itself is the active subject of the ‘we offer the bread and chalice.’” Furthermore, “all the local community with its clergy chooses its own bishop, and the person who is called must in principle accept the choice by the community of his own free will, e.g. Ambrose and Augustine.”
Of course, the division between the power of ordination and the power of jurisdiction meant the opening of the door to absolute ordinations, says Schillebeeckx. “For although the ordained person might not be assigned a Christian community, he had all priestly power in his own person,” he writes. “This view opens up the way to practices which would have been unthinkable to earlier Christians.”
Schillebeeckx cites a number of examples of such practices, including the private mass and any notion that sees the priest as ”the one set apart from the people.” Such a notion implies that “priestly celibacy is the only adequate expression of this essential separateness.” Therefore, “to give permission to the priest to marry would be equivalent to blurring the distinction between layperson and priest.”
Observes McClory: “All of us in the second millennium grew up with the notion that somehow the priest is invested with spiritual powers that he holds independently from the community.” Clearly, such an understanding is at odds with the first thousand years of Church teaching and practice.
That such discrpancy has caused problems and tension in the Church is undeniable. And it is “against the background of the existing church order,” writes Schillebeeckx, that “new and perhaps urgently necessary alternative possibilities can be envisaged only through the medium of what must be called illegality. From the history of the church it seems there is a way in which Christians can develop a practice in the church from below, from the grassroots, which for a time may compete with the official practice, but which in its Christian opposition and illegality can eventually become the dominant practice and finally be sanctioned by the official church.”
Schillebeeckx is not suggesting we return to the practices of the early Church. Those times and their cultural and social milieus are beyond our reach. There is no going back. Yet what he is suggesting is that the “urgently necessary alternative possibilities” that many in the Church are not only longing for and envisioning but beginning to embody, should draw upon the early Church’s understanding of Eucharist and community, and reinterpret and embody this understanding in our current age.”
Steve Taylor: “If Rome is the truth ….”
I think if you’ll check out the Gospel of John, in the very first few verses you’ll find out Who is the Truth …. and I don’t see the word Rome mentioned anywhere therin.
Also, maybe it is time to remember this: I am the Lord they God; Thou shall not have strange gods before Me.
Rome is not the truth, it is simply home to the Vatican where the Vicar of Christ resides. Equating the city of Rome to God would indeed be one strange god.
Nancy: un miracolo! I agree with your statements above.
Did we all read the same article? My takeaway is that Cozzens says most Catholics are happy with things they way they are, and that a small minority grieve over some of the pendulum swings away from recent changes (no altar girls, etc.).
I think national studies (Pew, for ex) would support the fact that most regular churchgoers across the board tend to be conservatives. As I hedge slowly back to Anglicanism, I’m still sitting mostly with Republicans and traditionalists who gripe when anybody wants to sing new hymns.
What Cozzens says of Catholicism is probably true for Christianity in general, though evangelicals will likely see fewer backsliders given their ability to respond to parochial needs much more nimbly than hierarchical churches.
Bob Schwartz: I agree! I fear that Cozzens’ prescriptions might actually make the patient more ill.
Jean, I am not sure that view, if it is Cozzens, tells the real story. The church would be losing membership but for the influx of “new” immigrants, mostly Catholics from Latin America. It would be more accurate to state that the people who have toughed it out until now probably won’t abandon the church in the near future, but there are an awful lot who have not hung on this long.
The simple answer to Cathleen”s question is yes. The Church is smaller, leaner and meaner than most Catholics would like. The sad truth is that the Church can be true to its beliefs and still still stretch enough to allow those of us who don’t quite fit in to do so.
Bill DeHaas –
I can’t figure out just what the Schillebeeckx-McClory position is. First they seem to say that the original view, which held for a thousand years, was that only the community could choose the priests and bishops. Then they seem to hold that bishops may ordain without community approval.
If the former, then it would seem to follow that after the first millenium, when the bishpps did ordain without community approval, that there weren’t any real ordinations, which implies that there weren’t any real priests and bishops. In other words, why aren’t Schillebeeckx and McClory being inconsistent? What are they getting at?
I think that from a socio-historical perspective we simply cannot ignore the effects that the Enlightenment (i.e. the Modern world) has had on the consciousness of the Western world. I am not a fan of every single strand of thinking from the Enlightenment however one of the inescapable legacies of it is that and educated mind now must seek to be free from the tutelage of any external force that might inhibit its exercise.
Clearly, for the Catholic church forged as it was particularly since Trent in a medieval frame of reference, this posed a huge challenge. The Second Vatican Council was, I think,an aquiescence to Modernity while at the same time seeking to displace its negative features.
The legacy of the Second Vatican Council, and more broadly the legacy of the Enlightenment, remain the historical task before the Catholic community.
I read some of the commentary and some (many) Christians have already embraced a post-Christian (meaning christ as the exclusive and universal saviour and with it the uniqueness of the Jewish experience) religious consciousness. Many sisters and priests already have as have, I think, the vast majority of Catholics.
Ego locuta est, causa finita est!!! It sounds a bit arrogant (as in l’etat c’est moi) but from a certain point of view it really does characterize the way people actually live.
Ann – I am no theologian and Fr. K can probably best answer your questions but here goes.
Simplistically, my explanation is that their analysis of church ecclesiology/history in the first 10 centuries showed that the community was the center of their faith – from that community eucharist, liturgical leaders, community leaders were elected and appointed. Thus, community was the sacrament expressing itself in eucharist with freely elected leaders.
In response to various issues, scandals, problems – the church became more centralized and one emergent fact was that priesthood was separated into a distinct category, orders and an ontological state. This, over time, separated the priest from the community – in a sense, we wound up with two parallel communites – parish/diocese churches and the clerics who served them.
It appears that they are trying to draw some lessons and conclusions going forward from this analysis – resourcing back to an earlier understanding that community/eucharist must be linked and that priesthood emerges from that reality; not a separate order.
But that is merely my opinion.
Barbara, thanks for the long view perspective.
So if the disaffected left a long time ago, and the church is left mostly who like things the way they are, then why does moving the Church toward a more bottom-up structure with more lay influence strike some here as a good solution to making the Church less “mean”?
I didn’t mean to suggest that only the meanies (whoever they are) stayed, just that the perception that the people in the pews are mostly satisfied kind of misses the point that, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, it’s all the people who should be there but aren’t that really define the Church’s dilemma for the future.
While there is much weeping and wailing over the fate of the RCC, we might consider it’s current standing in comparison with that of liberal, mainline Protestant Churches, which are now all but dead now in the US (at 13% of the US population, and rapidly falling into further irrelevance). That great liberal bellweather, the Episcopalian Church, has declined to a mere 2.5 million members (and shrinking)! The RCC has 67 million members who are registered as ACTIVE in their parish. So, it looks to me that those who keep crying for the RCC to become more like the liberal Protestant Churches (who really, at this point, are nothing more than political arms for the DNC), are asking the Church to commit suicide (by, among other things, embracing the culture of death–infertile (gay or contraceptive) “marriage”, abortion, etc–that the Protestant Churches actively promote).
I laugh, I really do, everytime some angry, dissenting “Catholic” calls for the ascension of personal conscience over Tradition–that quintessentially Protestant move. If you want to be a Mainline Protestant, go join their genuinely moribund movement. Really, the Holy Father is right: we don’t need Protestants inside the Church! As for the RCC, I must confess I’m not worried. As a younger, self-professed JP II Catholic, I see that in my generation the Church is very much alive, and many of us believe that the “Baby Boomer” period of open dissent is slowly fading into oblivion (is there any evidence that it is not? That’s an honest question). The great irony is that older, “spirit of Vatican II” Catholics resent our generation precisely for our fullness of faith. If I had a nickel for every 50 something Catholic I’ve met who thinks it’s crazy that my husband and I don’t contracept because we think it is a sin against chastity…..
Just in case some one wants to accuse me of being a “conservative reactionary”, I should note that I do not vote Republican (which does not mean that I vote Democrat); I agree with the Holy Father that the war in Iraq was unjust; and I pray quite fervently for the canonization of that great exemplar of Christian love, Dorothy Day.
Thanks for posting, Jennifer.
My question: what do you think about the many, many, ND students–who go to mass, go to do social projects, love God, love their neighor, and who cheered Obama at graduation? They think the Church is very much alive–but they’re not of the same stripe that you are.
My guess is, and the statistics bear it out, that most of the young ND Catholics have views very similar to other Catholics of their generation. They love God, love the church, work for social justice, weep over the sex abuse crisis, are opposed to abortion -but not to contraception. They are conflicted about gay marriage.
The ND grads are among the best and the brightest. They’re about your age. What do you think of them? Should the ND class of 2009 become Protestants?
As for the question that was originally raised in this thread, I don’t see that liberals and moderates will drop out (at least, no en masse). It has been my experience that most cafeteria catholics don’t really want to leave the Church, because they do still recognize the importance of the sacraments (except for confession, many of them skip that one all together). At the same time, most of them are WOEFULLY under-catechized. One wonders if they actually understood the faith whether they would be more willing to embrace it. The problem of catechism (perhaps we really should call it a crisis) is largely the Church’s fault, and I think is the main source of the problems we face today.
Also, for what its worth, to compare the US with Europe is both hopeless, because both historically and culturally inapt. Europe itself is dying, literally (their demographic future is really quite grim and shocking) and spiritually. Nothing similar is happening in the US, and there are deep reasons why. De Toqueville is a decent place to start for a proper investigation into Cathleen’s question. Ratzinger is also quite brilliant on this point.
Dan Callahan on the notion that “Europe is dying”:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1252/is_20_132/ai_n27861902/
I am one of those 67 million registered Catholics, and I bet my sister and my mother are too. Even as the Catholic Church lays claim to me, and somehow has the temerity to claim to speak for me, I no longer lay any claim to it. Jennifer, the RCC is approximately one generation behind the mainline Protestants and is losing exactly the same kind of membership — it’s just that the influx of immigrants has masked the decline.
Your knowledge of European demographics is as glib as it is inaccurate. Birth rates have actually rebounded in many European countries.
Jennifer, just out of curiosity.
Where did you get your Catholic education–did you go to a Catholic college?
How would you recommend educating young people?
Ann, I am not a theologian either, but I will hazard a guess at Schillebeckx’z point.
In the first centuries, ordination was understood as something done by the community. Bishops ultimately were the ones who were seen as acting for the community.
That shifted to an understanding of ordination as an absolute transfer or sharing from bishop to priest, with the community only marginally involved. Bishop, as bishop, ordains rather than community, through bishop, ordains.
Schillebeeckx is calling for a renewed understanding of the relations among community and bishops in the sacraments. While some with either understanding might judge ordinations with the other understanding as invalid, the vast majority of ordinations are uncontroversial.
Some followers of Schillebeeckx have advocated a radical position suggested by some of his writings, that it is the community, without the bishop, who ordains. I think Schillebeeckx was saying it is the community that ordains, usually with the bishop, but that is just my opinion years after reading the theologian’s books on this. (Kathy and Bernard’s discussion of Congar above reflects a similar position, that the spirit alive in the community should not be isolated from the apostolic mission from Christ.)
Good on ya Jennifer
I often wonder if priests like Cozzen’s ultimately really care much about the shrinking Church in America. They never did anything about it but make it worse. For decades, people like him have been the ones who predominantly presided over our seminaries and parishes. All the while pondering these things and talking to each other while more and more Catholic families drfited from the Church. Now we are supposed to listen to his wisdom. I don’t get it.
Jennifer says: So, it looks to me that those who keep crying for the RCC to become more like the liberal Protestant Churches (who really, at this point, are nothing more than political arms for the DNC), are asking the Church to commit suicide (by, among other things, embracing the culture of death–infertile (gay or contraceptive) “marriage”, abortion, etc–that the Protestant Churches actively promote).
Jean replies: Talk about having a laugh!
To characterize mainline Protestant churches as arms of the DNC is ludicrous.
I’m sittin’ in morning prayer services in the “Episcopalian Church” mostly with conservative Republicans. As a Democrat, I take it as a given that I’m going to be surrounded by the GOP in any organized religion. (Unless, of course, I wanted to go back to the Unitarians, which, arguably, is neither a religion nor organized.)
Anyhoo, sitting in the pew with Republicans doesn’t bother me. What DOES bother me are those glib and jeering Catholic responses to the complexities of life like “the culture of death” and “cafeteria Catholics.”
Good on, ya, Jennifer, for making sure those phrases live on and keep dividing Catholics as much as possible.
Cathleen:
I did not go to a Catholic University: I went to a top-ten state school, and thus spent most of my time huddled away in a small Newman Center. I am mostly a self-educated Catholic; through the Catechism, papal encyclicals, as well as the Patristics and the Doctors (with a preference for the Angelic Doctor, maybe not surprisingly). I’m not sure if this helps, but I’m a convert; I was raised by committed atheists, and was myself a committed atheist until I was 18, and I started doing serious philosophy. I was baptized at 19 (my RCIA classes were a joke, btw).
I’m not sure what to say about the current undergraduate population at Notre Dame; I’m not there, and I don’t know them. It is true that many of them supported Obama, and given the political options, and the basically useless directives of the USCCB, I can’t say I really blame them. Whether or not they should become Protestants depends on whether or not they believe, as many in this thread apparently do, that personal conscience is an essentially autonomous moral tribunal to be elevated above the teaching authority of the Church. I did not suggest, nor did I mean to suggest, that anyone who disagrees with the Church’s teaching on contraception should become a Protestant. Because the Church has largely lacked the courage to promote this teaching, most Catholics do not follow it, because they don’t understand the practice of the virtue of chastity, or its importance for married love. It follows from this, unfortunately, that at least of half of them that enter into “Catholic” marriages are merely on the road to divorce…
Although this is merely anecdotal, and therefore basically worthless, I can’t resist the urge to mention that all the graduates of Notre Dame that I know (who are mostly now doing graduate work in philosophy at various departments around the glove) were vehemently opposed to Fr. Jenkins move to invite Obama. Perhaps we philosophers are of an especially rigorous caste of mind.
As for educating young people, it starts at home, and early. But the faith really has to be taught; we can’t fudge around the tough questions and pick the issues we like, because what results is the loss of the logical coherence of the whole. We must embrace all the virtues, chastity and obedience as well as justice. And we must take seriously–equally seriously–the plight of the poor AND the unborn. When we do this, we will no longer identify as liberal or conservative (which really is just a fight over what sense of liberal capitalist one wants to be), but as Catholic, plain and simple.
The demographic crisis in Europe is undeniable and well-documented. If there were not a crisis, then my female European friends would not be contemplating taking the tens of thousands of dollars their goverments are begging to give them in order to have just ONE child. This particular issue, however, seems like a topic for another thread. I certainly did not mean my remarks to be glib; the problem is grave and real; so grave and real that the Austrian doctor who invented the Pill has publicly expressed deep regret about its invention.
Also, if so many undergrads at Notre Dame are confused about Church teaching, this is surely as sure a testament as any to the loss of Notre Dame’s Catholic character. With less than half of the faculty being even nominally Catholic, it is no surprise that students there will reflect the same opinions of the broader secular culture at large.
“Just in case some one wants to accuse me of being a “conservative reactionary”, I should note that I do not vote Republican (which does not mean that I vote Democrat); I agree with the Holy Father that the war in Iraq was unjust; and I pray quite fervently for the canonization of that great exemplar of Christian love, Dorothy Day.”
This does help, Jennifer and shows that you are not mesmerized by authority. Shows that dialogue is possible. You might tell us why the “Holy Fathers” have not canonized Dorothy Day.
“For decades, people like him have been the ones who predominantly presided over our seminaries and parishes.”
Sean, give us a break. For over thirty years we have had your type of priests wherin we have witnessed more foreign priests than ever. The priests ordained by JPII priests are generally out of touch with reality. By the time the priests that you are condemning die, there will be more foreign priests than natives.
Spare us.
Here’s something else for the self-taught Catholic: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1252/is_16_132/ai_n27860946/
I’m not sure why referring to the “culture of death” is glib and jeering, unless we take the writings of JPII in the least charitable light possible. We live in a culture that is very antithetical to the Christian idea of the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death, and I for one take this to be a very profound symptom of moral decay. Perhaps we can disagree about whether or not this is the case, but either way it is surely an issue of pre-eminent importance.
Nor is my claim that Mainline Protestant Churches are political arms of the DNC ludicrous (though perhaps I could have made my point differently). Statistically, 56% of mainline protestant clergy identify explicitly with the DNC (for United Church of Christ it jumps to 74%, Episcopalians 66%), but this includes the Southern Baptist convention, which I think significantly skews the numbers. Whatever your personal experience may be, these statistical facts cannot be ignored.
At any rate, I think I am done commenting here. Sorry to have ruffled so many feathers for loving the Church.
Come now. Is this what “loving the Church” looks like?
Hey, I think you guys could be nicer to this Jennifer Frey person.
When I first started commenting here a few years ago, I used to be a lot more conservative. I don’t think reading this blog was at all helpful in the widening of my thought. (In fact, when I read Bill Mazzella’s comments, I still want to run out and join the John Birchers.) BUT, the blog brought me to read Commonweal magazine which has helped. Why don’t you send Jennifer a subscription? Heck, I bet we can start a collection and pay for it among the commentors. I’ll contribute $5. How ’bout it, Grant?
Grant, thank you for the reference to the article by Darlene Fozard Weaver, “Conscience:rightly formed and otherwise.” While it is true that” the proper formation of conscience is comprehensive and is a lifelong process involving the total person–one’s reason, emotions, and social experience, imagination, and intuition…” to begin with, the proper formation of conscience from the Catholic moral perspective requires Faith.
“In short, blind obedience cheats conscience of its dignity.” Which is exactly why Christ Has Founded His Church, to reflect the “Light” of Truth.
“Come now. Is this what “loving the Church” looks like?
Sometimes you have to use “tough Love.” :-)
Jennifer, I don’t want you to leave the conversation–I’m curious, not about the culture wars–I know all about them, but about other things –if you don’t mind answering. What, generally, first drew you –a complete outsider–to the Catholic Church. Liturgy? Doctrine? Fellowship (hah!)?
“Sorry to have ruffled so many feathers for loving the Church.”
Pulleeeze, give me a break!
Those who don’t learn the lessons of ecclesial history………..
There’s an orange bridge in California. I can get it for you on the cheap.
I also hope Jennifer will stick around and answer Cathy Kaveny’s latest questions. I’ve known a few people who have bridged the wide chasm between atheism and Catholicism, and I’m fascinated by their stories. I hope Jennifer will decide to relate more of her faith journey.
As for the Catholic culture wars [sigh], it’s a shame IMO that even the secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Religious Education has chosen to take sides in the intra-family disputes:
http://www.zenit.org/article-26086?l=english
Jennifer –
Please don’t stop coming. You have an unusual perspective that is very valuable — it’s particularly good to get the perspective of a young conservative. We’ve already got some old-fogey conservatives :-) So stick around. You won’t be alone, and we really don’t mind feather-rufflers. At least some of us appreciate them. But as St. Peter said, be prepared to give reasons for your hope.
i’ve refrained from much comment, but I thank Cathy for not only the thread but her continued perceptive comments.
Strikes me the thread itself is about what Cozzens is saying.
Folks invested in Church, sharply divided, speaking out of theri personal bubble.
But, that’s blogdom…
Still, I think Barbara had the best comment of all about another generatiopn before we move on.
Sounds like Cozzen’s (IMO) pessimism in the near term but optimism in the long haul
May I add something to the culture war at this late time? Thank you all for posting, I have found it interesting to see the different political and theological perspectives play out in formulating a perscription for the Church, much like medical doctors fighting over a diagnosis. I found a quote in C.H. Haskin’s seminal work “The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century” (or was it Dawson’s “Religion and the Rise of Western Culture”?) from Robert of Sorbonne “Nothing is known perfectly which has not been masticated by the teeth of disputation.”
Now, my experience seems to be athypical. I am a Catholic, a former seminarian (2003), a Catholic High School teacher, a Canadian, married and seperated, under 30, pro-life, pro-contraception, a fan of Schillibeexcks, Rahner, Copleston, Lonergan, not a fan of Obama. In university our chaplin and a close friend was Opus Dei, yet at the seminary Raymond Brown was a conservative scriptural source.
The hard and fast lines, though usefull in describing trends, are not always accurate. It is the polarization and the ideological camps that are hurting thought in the Church. I like JPII, not theology of the body. I like Maritain but dislike his off-hand dismissal of transcendental Thomism. I dislike the Jesuit embrace of liberation theology’s Marxism yet love Chesterton’s redistributionism.
The Church, much like the people who make it up, is much more nuanced and complex than the simple political camps.
Jean, I don’t recommend the American Presbyterians or the United Methodists. But I point them out as examples of Democrat-friendly hosts for church socials.
I don’t think rank n file Anglicanism is going DNC anytime soon. But the clergy shifted some time ago. Go to seminary, become a liberal–or else. The seminaries/formation houses are where the real power is, and they determine the long-term orientation of a denomination, and heaven help you if you’re the one kid in the class who refuses to play Enneagram and Labyrinth and Celtic Spirituality with all the other boys and girls.
Such interesting times…
I agree with JC. It’d be nice to see the liberal (and, presumably, older) folks that dominate this thread be nicer to Jennifer Frey (who seems to be in the 20s). Not necessarily nice in content, of course, but in tone. At least in the way of Prof. Kaveny. Sure, Prof. K has the advantage & experience of working with the young. But, really, does one need that kind of experience to be nice in tone?
Now to some of the content… I agree with Jean Raber that mainline Protestant members may not necessarily be liberal. But that is only one experience. My own experience is both: I’ve met some conservative mainline Protestants, though also more on the liberal side of the political divide. But if you look at ecclesiastical policies and political stands, I think Jennifer Frey isn’t wrong about the liberal drift of mainline Protestantism in the US. Raber’s and Frey’s general takes aren’t necessarily contradictory, but they need clarification.
I thought everyone’s comportment toward Jennifer Frey was the soul of courtesy. Not sure why she decided this place isn’t for her, but I hope she feels welcome to return.
One final thought on the Cozzens article. If we are the church, and Jesus promised to be with us until the end of time, then istm the only way we can screw it up is if WE screw it up. If lean, mean and small isn’t for us – and personally, in most areas of life, I’m all in favor of gentle and Rubenesque – then, as Captain Picard used to say (and still does on the Sci Fi channel), “Make it so”.
On the question in Prof. K’s original thread…
*Are we basically headed toward a situation in which liberals and moderates drop out, and conservatives are left with an increasingly smaller leaner, and meaner church?
Interesting to ponder…. The Church will be probably “smaller” and “leaner”. But “meaner”? Well, it depends on whose perspective we’re talking about.
*Is the Church in the U.S. following the path of the Church in Europe?
But has the US Church *ever* followed the path of the Church in Europe since early 20th century? It is true that the old immigrant American Church was influenced by Europeans for a long time. But a lot changed after WWI that affected European Catholicism the way it didn’t in the US. Besides, until the 1980s different European countries changed differently: Ireland and Spain, for instances, were different from France, which was different from Germany and Austria.
In short, I don’t think there are easy answers to these questions.
As someone who is more than willing to “get” as well as I “give” I would like to say that the tone of response one generally gets on this site is more or less directly related to the tone one starts out with. I think the responses were at least as civil, if not more so, than Ms. Frey’s original comments, which, to refresh, included the following:
“I laugh, I really do, everytime some angry, dissenting “Catholic” calls for the ascension of personal conscience over Tradition–that quintessentially Protestant move. If you want to be a Mainline Protestant, go join their genuinely moribund movement. Really, the Holy Father is right: we don’t need Protestants inside the Church!”
You have to take other people seriously for them to take you seriously. Surely that’s part of the golden rule we can all understand.
Adam
You said “at the seminary Raymond Brown was a conservative scriptural source”.
I am a great admirer and I would say that Brown was, as he claimed to be, a centrist, a position he got to by hard thinking. I just wondered what you meant.
Barbara wrote: Birth rates have actually rebounded in many European countries.
Is it true? Here is an article from 2006, with stats from 2004, that suggests otherwise. Perhaps it has changed since, but here are the stats. In addition, if European birth rates have gone up in the last few years, it’s possible too that many (most?) of new births came from immigrants from Africa, the Middle East, etc.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4768644.stm
FERTILITY RATE
In Europe 2.1 children per woman is considered to be the population replacement level. These are national averages
Ireland: 1.99
France: 1.90
Norway: 1.81
Sweden 1.75
UK: 1.74
Netherlands: 1.73
Germany: 1.37
Italy: 1.33
Spain: 1.32
Greece: 1.29
Source: Eurostat – 2004 figures
A clarification . .. . at the end of one of my comments above, I said “what drew you to the Catholic Church. . . fellowship (hah)?
I meant by that (hah) to refer to the common criticism that Catholics after mass don’t socialize, don’t have coffee and donuts, don’t act as welcoming as other Christian groups do.
I should add that the above stats reflect mostly Western European countries. Birth rates in former Communist countries in the east may or may not be higher.
Regarding mainline conservative denominations: this article is not new, but niether does it seem dated in its findings. One of the authors is Dean Hoge.
http://www.firstthings.com/article.php?year=2008&month=05&title_link=001-mainline-churches-the-real-reason-for-decline-8
On Frey’s and Prof. K’s exchange about Catholic college students, I understand the desire for focusing on ND. But I’d suggest too casting a wider look beyond ND, indeed beyond Catholic colleges and universities. (My impression is that conservatives focus overwhelmingly on “liberal” places like ND, BC, and Georgetown while liberals overwhelming on “conservative” places like Steubenville and Ave Maria.)
I don’t have stats at hand but would assume that the majority of Catholic college students are at non-Catholic institutions. It is there, perhaps, that the focus should be. More reading of research on them, and more anecdotes and impressions from posters at non-Catholic institutions.
Jim Pauwels,
Thanks for the link to the article on mainline Protestant churches. Long, but worthwhile to read. A couple of money quotes:
In our opinion, the mainline Protestant membership loss is simply the next stage of this process of declining commitment to the church and to Christian faith and witness. The cultural revolution of the 1960s may have hastened its onset and added to its severity, but it was not its major cause. Most conservative religious communities came through the cultural turmoil in fairly good shape; the mainline Protestant churches were already too weak to mount an effective response.
The underlying problem of the mainline churches cannot be solved by new programs of church development alone. That problem is the weakening of the spiritual conviction required to generate the enthusiasm and energy needed to sustain a vigorous communal life. Somehow, in the course of the past century, these churches lost the will or the ability to teach the Christian faith and what it requires to a succession of younger cohorts in such a way as to command their allegiance. Admittedly, doing so has become increasingly difficult for churches as close to the very center of American culture and institutional life as the mainline denominations are. The challenges posed to Christianity by various secular ideologies and moral systems have been truly formidable in recent times. Mainline Protestants in general and Presbyterians in particular are well educated. Many of their forebears read such authors as Darwin, H. L. Mencken, and Aldous Huxley. In response to the currents of modernity, denominational leaders promoted ecumenism and dialogue, but they did not devise or promote compelling new versions of a distinctively Christian faith. They did not fashion or preach a vigorous apologetics.
I’m on a roll here… Last comment: Having read through the article linked by Jim Pauwels, I however do not think the Catholic case necessarily follow or reflect the mainline Protestant one.
Indeed, it’s precisely because of its large size that the Catholic situation is more messy than the Protestant situation which, to simplify, split into the mainline and evangelical camps. (That each camp has its own liberal, centrist, and conservative wings, is another story for another day.) The divide among Protestants is clear institutionally, and therefore they don’t engage in the nastiness among Catholics – at least, not to the same level of nastiness.
Sorry Joseph, what I meant to get across was that I had been in extremely conservative environments (Opus Dei) to extremely liberal (the seminary, where the rather centrist Brown was viewed suspiciously as a conservative). We agree that Brown is very balanced, one of my favorite SS (scripture scholars).
I think my experience is not alone, in that the reality of the situation rarely fits the politico-theological camps so carefully outlined by combatants on either side. But the true answer to the challenges of the futur for the church lie, not in prophesing the future or calculating the best strategy, but in assessing the goals. Success will be measured very differently for the monastic Catholics (those whose sympathies are with the withdrawl, fortified sense of church) or the friar Catholics (those actively engaged in and with the world). In the end, we all want the church to thrive but what a “thriving church” looks like is central to the debate.
Historyman–
Not to go too far off topic, but the 2.1 replacement level may not seem critical, but it is. Though decreasing population size has salutary benefits environmentally, for example, remaining under 2.1 could eventually bring severe economic consequences, especially in an ageing population like that in Europe. The UN, in its “Replacement Migration” report in 2001, estimated that by mid-century up to 700 million “replacement” migrants from Africa and Asia (where some countries have fertility rates as high as 6.0) may be needed to sustain population levels in Europe.
http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/migration/migration.htm
Historyman, good point–70 percent of Catholics go to state schools, but not much attention is paid to what is going on there.
Birth rates in France and Sweden and, I believe, a couple of other countries have risen pretty clearly due to the efforts of countries to promote family life. You’re right, it’s not ubiquitous.
I would say that a leveling or decline in population in a densely populated region with a high, possibly unsustainably high, standard of living is not my idea of a crisis or a dying civilization.
Slower population growth obviously has social welfare implications for an aging population, but “dying civilization” is hyperbole. I am not obsessed with population, but countries with rapidly expanding population and no discernible plan to deal with it face much more pressing social problems than Europe does.
Historyman, not every change in the social compact is a crisis. Really and truly, what is most likely to happen in Europe is that people will have to work longer into their lives. That’s a bummer, but it’s hardly a crisis especially when you consider how late they generally get started in the workforce and the relatively high rate of unemployment.
C’mon, Kathy. Saying that Anglican clergy have to learn the Enneagram and Celtic Spirituality or whatever in seminary is like saying that Catholic priests have to learn to learn how be woman-hating pedophiles.
Ditto epithets like “cafeteria Catholics,” Jennifer, that make people who are honestly struggling with Church teaching feel discouraged and hypocritical.
Anyhoo, rejoice! I have rejoined my former “faith community,” and the RCC is more faithful by one for my bailing.
I’ll go play on “Anglicans Online” from now on.
“Are we basically headed toward a situation in which liberals and moderates drop out, and conservatives are left with an increasingly smaller leaner, and meaner church?”
My parish consists primarily of those who dropped out long before many here started talking and worrying about it. We are in this parish in spite of the official church’s attitudes, authoritarianism, and onging conservative bent.
We are back for as long as we feel welcomed in this localized intentional community. It was painful for most of us to leave in the beginning and would be painful to leave again if things change. But leave we will. Personal integrity and faith are infinitely more important than institutional membership. My salvation does not depend on being a Catholic; never has, never will.
I did not mean to imply that anyone was rude to Ms Frey, but rather that maybe we could try to be more than just civil, but actually inviting. When I first posted here, and even perhaps as recently as a year ago, I was a often a jerk. The fact that her tone was not all that nice is not justification for us to do the same. Every angry conservative who posts here is a potential convert!
This is the difference between the magazine and the blog. Even now, the comments here rather than the posts, usually only serve to get my conservative side angry, while the CWL magazine makes my conservative side think.
By the way, can’t Ms Frey get CWL free as a grad student?
Jean, I’m certainly sorry to see you go, and if you don’t mind my saying I hope someday you’ll be in a place, and the RCC will be in a place, in which you discern your way back.
If you do go the Episcopal route and want to preserve naïve notions about the forcefeeding of new age spirituality in the seminaries, I suggest not getting to know as many Episcopal seminarians as I have.
Catholic seminaries, otoh, do tend to have cultural corruptions of their own, including, in some cases, women-bashing. That is somewhat balanced by the fact that if you can’t get along with women in your pastoral assignments you’ll get sacked.
Fewer Catholic seminaries nowadays sack you for believing the Catechism. But in every seminary it’s generally safest just to be polite and do what you’re told, and don’t disagree on any significant point.
Geez, I was an Epicopalian for 25 years, and I never met an Anglican priest who wasn’t pretty practical, well-grounded and intelligent.
But maybe that was all an act. Wow! Maybe I could write a novel a la Dan Brown, about a cabal of Anglican seminarians who seem all nice and normal, but are secretly fiddling with the Enneagram while playing Celtic Woman CD’s and funneling money to the DNC on the side.
Lotta Catholics out there who do nothing but gripe, sometimes viciously, about “cafeteria Catholics” who are trying to impose their will on Church teaching (which was never my intention, though I’ve certainly run afoul of it), and then sniffle into their hankies when people just can’t see their way to stay.
Scuse me if I find that “Sorry to see you go” somewhat ingenuous. To my ears, it sounds more like “You’ll be sorry when you wake up in Hell.”
OK, really AM outta here now.
Jean–
Be ecumenical and continue to participate in this blog. ;)
Jean – seconding, thirding and fourthing William’s request!
Jean, I’ve accepted the fact that your ears do that to every good wish I have for you. Doesn’t matter–I wish you well!
JC: Is that right, 70% of college students are at non-Catholic schools? Another reason to be less ND-focused, and there should be a thread devoted to this topic.
Indeed, the presence of Catholic students at non-Catholic institutions is nothing new and has produced huge impact since WWII. Before WWII, many fewer Catholics could afford college (same with Americans in general). The GI Bill enabled many to do so, and at non-Catholic schools. One result was greater socialization between Catholic & non-Catholic students, leading to, among other things, inter-religious marriages and job networking outside the ethnic/religious conclaves.
My sense is that so many posters on dotCommonweal are products of Catholic higher education and/or work at Catholic schools. As a result, conversations on Catholic students tend to focus on Catholic institutions. This is a major bias that should be overcome or balanced with discussion about students at public and private non-Catholic institutions.
Isn’t the 70% figure about right for elementary and high schools as well as college?
The whole pretense that there is Catholic education in this country is laughable imo. There is a small group (30%) at Catholic school, and the rest of the Church is not even discussed. I suspect that has more to do with drifting away from the Church than anything that goes on in the Catholic schools.
Jean,
Don’t be so quick to count yourself out of the Catholic Church. The “I’m changing denominations” model really does not fit either Catholic or Anglican theology very well.
I hope you and Jennifer both find places where you will come to know Christ more intimately, and will be able to share your insights with the whole Church.
Yes, dear Jean, please do be ecumenical. At least visit once in a while.
I say good on Jennifer because she had the courage to step in here and give a perspective that I knew sher would be attacked for.
Despite Bill’s contention that somehow reactionaries have been controlling the Church in America, that was not my experience. Also, the idea that JP II was the problem and not part of the cure is just factually worng. First, statistically, this isn’t true. The highest rate in reduction of regular mass attendance and Catholic identification occurred between 1960 and 1979. The rates of decline slowed after JP II became pope. Second, as a person who came to adulthood right around the time of this change I can say that had someone like hime not been pope, I doubt I would have remained a practicing Catholic. The Church was becoming moribund. Without the JP II priests many here complain of – I doubt there would have been any priests at all.
My point about Cozzens is simply this – why do we care about the musings about the coming age of darkness by one of the people who turned out the lights? I am not ascribing evil or ill intent to the man, but it seems to me that much of the Catholic leadership in this country was, and remains obtuse about the affect they are having. Although a couple decades older than her, my experience mirrors Jennifers in many ways. Although not a convert, CCD every Sunday was, in a word, a joke. No one cared whether you knew, let alone understood, any Church teachings. The Gospel boiled down to – be very nice to everyone. Unlike Jennifer, I went to a Catholic college, but I can say she didn’t miss much. The priests cared more about the nuclear freeze and Nicaragua than imparting the faith. Despite the fact that drugs and sex were rampant right accross the quad from their residence, they didn’t need to talk about sin or Satan, they had Ronald Reagan.
It seems to me that people like Cozzens and many of the bishops were either too busy changing the Church into primarily a social service or political action organization, or were engaged in conversations with each other about theology and ecclesiology that they didn’t notice that families by the thousands were trading Sunday soccer tournments for going to mass.
Two things:
1)Sean continues to go on from inside his anti-progressive Catholic bubble – underscoring the point Cozzens makes of our situation.
And so it goes…
2)A question: Are comments here supposed to be adult conversation (apropos of Barbara vs. Ms. Frey) or is it about being “more than civil?”
Many times, I think we bend over backwards to be nice to folk whose arguments may be repetitive or not ad rem or just plain overly slanted.
“Unlike Jennifer, I went to a Catholic college, but I can say she didn’t miss much. The priests cared more about the nuclear freeze and Nicaragua than imparting the faith. Despite the fact that drugs and sex were rampant right accross the quad from their residence, they didn’t need to talk about sin or Satan, they had Ronald Reagan.”
Sean, I didn’t realize you and I were classmates! That captures my experience to a “T”.
“The whole pretense that there is Catholic education in this country is laughable imo. There is a small group (30%) at Catholic school, and the rest of the Church is not even discussed. I suspect that has more to do with drifting away from the Church than anything that goes on in the Catholic schools.”
The older adult generations attended Catholic schools at a much higher percentage, so there is still a living memory in the Church of widespread Catholic education. It’s part of the culture still, but the culture is changing and will change at an accelerating rate in the coming years.
Also – if 30% is accurate, it’s still quite a large number – millions of children.
Putting on my dad hat now – my experience with Catholic schools with my own children (who are still of school age) is that the Catholic schools have become private schools for the upper-middle class. I’m not commenting on the Catholic character of the schools – I suspect that the vast majority work hard to maintain a Catholic identity with all-lay staff – but on the fact that the biggest separator between the 30% and the 70% is economic means. In other words: if you’re poor, working class or middle class, you will struggle to afford Catholic schools, and you may well decide that it’s beyond your means. And yet it is the poor whom the Gospel gives us an imperative to serve. How do we form them in our faith if they don’t go to Catholic schools?
One other thought – in the city of Chicago, the Catholic schools are a lifeline for many families, Catholic and non-Catholic, whose only other choice is the Chicago Public School system, generally considered one of the worst in the country. To them, it is definitely not a joke.
To put it more bluntly, there is a lot of agonizing in many cities about whether Catholic schools are supposed to primarily serve Catholics or Christ. Obviously, most serve both — but as the proportion of Catholics being served declines in areas where the schools must be subsidized by the diocese, it is clear that there is a great deal of pressure to consolidate or even eliminate schools that serve students with fewer alternatives. Of course, the emergence of voucher schools has itself been responsible for declining Catholic school enrollment in many of these cities. The high priced Catholic high schools are largely unaffected.
After reading the various posts above on Catholic students at non-Catholic schools, I can’t help thinking it would be great to discuss this topic at length in separate threads during this summer.
Because starting posts on this site (as elsewhere) are often dictated by what is in the news, it is not surprising that a topic like this doesn’t get the attention I think it deserves. While I enjoy reading many a topic started here, I’ll admit to special fondness when it morphs or gets diverted into another topic. This thread, for example, or one on the Oxford Chair of Poetry last week.
Oh well, perhaps some unfortunate news of closure of Catholic schools in the Bronx or Chicago will get our minds racing on Catholic students.
Speaking of summer, here’s another topic I’d be delighted to hear from dotCom posters: What are you reading (or planning to read) for pleasure this summer? :)
To folks who criticize the Church for turning into “primarily a social service or political action organization,” need we remind them that Jesus himself lived a life of social involvement. He would also find himself caught up in the politics of his time for being perceived as a threat to the established socio-political order — and he would be nailed to a cross for being seen in this light! (Pontius Pilate didn’t shed any tears over Jesus’ crucifixion.)
Vatican II encouraged the Church to open the windows, engage the world in all its realities. The Church is more than just for prayer and worship. Its message of God’s unconditional love is totally meaningless if it is perceived as being indifferent to human suffering, injustice, and other socio-political ills. Before I graduated from parochial grade school in 1962, I can remember more than once hearing our Dominican sisters tell us of the importance of the Catholic missions: Feed my belly before you try to feed my soul!
Jesus taught us about the Father, and Jesus prayed and worshiped in the Temple. But, more important, Jesus trod this earth and challenged the religious — and, by extension, the political — authorities of his day. He upset the order and got killed for doing so.
The Church is rightfully engaged in social justice and political involvement to bring about improvements in the human condition. If you want to follow me, Jesus told the young man, sell all you have and give the proceeds to the poor. And, one should add, be prepared to give up your life for the Kingdom’s sake.
Jean Raber, I’m gonna’ miss ya’ — unless, I hope, you come back to this site from time to time.
God bless you in your faith journey!!!
Historyman, if you can wait a few more days, our “Summer Reading” issue is on its way! Maybe once it’s out we’ll open a thread to share some reactions and recommendations.
“Of course, the emergence of voucher schools has itself been responsible for declining Catholic school enrollment in many of these cities. ”
Hi, Barbara, by “voucher schools” do you mean charter schools?
I use them interchangeably, but you’re right, charter schools are the programs that are making life difficult for Catholic schools in D.C. and New York.
Sorry it took so long to get back to this thread but I had trouble getting out of my anti-progressive Catholic bubble – sure is comfy though.
Joseph
I don’t think anyone denies most of what you say. What I am talking about is the trend that resulted in the Church being treated as just another social service organization. That’s not the same thing as saying the Church has no responsibility to the poor, or that Christ did not teach that we do or that it is at the core of Christian love. For example, when members of the Church, including clergy and religious, so separate the salvific nature of Christ and the Church from social justice that they ally themselves with organizations and forces that seek the Church’s destruction, is it any wonder that people go elsewhere. You talk about the Domincan sisters – how many are left? More revealing – which Dominican communities are thriving and which are now slowly dying?