Growing Catholic Culture
Joseph Bottum has written what is sure to be a controversial article (Amy Welborn’s commentariat are already at it) for First Things entitled When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano: Catholic Culture in America.
Bottum’s argument is that there are signs of a new distinctively
Catholic culture emerging in the
absence. He traces that long absence to
the fratricidal struggles within the Church that emerged in the wake of Vatican
II and peaked during the 1970s. Bottum
spends a fair bit of time—perhaps too much time—recalling the excesses of that
decade in detail. He also traces the
gradual decline in the authority of the nation’s bishops, which has, of course,
been exacerbated by the clerical sexual abuse crisis. He concludes with a recounting of some
the recent liturgical struggles in a parish in the Diocese of Orange County.
After recounting this rather grim tale of institutional and cultural decline,
one might ask where Bottum sees signs of hope.
The answer is a new generation of Catholic young people who are, as he
puts it, “impatient” with the debates of the past. These are the people who are
swelling the ranks of the pro-life movement, clamoring for the return of
traditional devotions, and pouring over the pages of the Catechism of the
Catholic Church to fill in the cavernous gaps in their catechetical formation.
I’ve tried my best to present a digest of Bottum’s argument that takes
it seriously and does not reduce it to caricature. While I disagree with some of his specific
judgments, I think he gets many of the trends right. Since the early 1970s, there certainly has
been a drastic decline in what one might term the “thickness” of Catholic
identity and it’s hard to deny that the lack of a shared consensus about what
aspects of that identity were worth preserving were part of the cause. Who can argue that the ecclesial and moral
authority of the episcopacy is not at its lowest point in decades? And while
one can argue about how many younger Catholics are actually participating in what
might be called the “orthodox revival,” there is no doubt this movement is
having an impact on the broader Church.
Nevertheless I think that Bottum might do well to reflect more deeply
on the causes of the collapse of a distinctively Catholic culture in the
zealous iconoclasts and appears to echo George Weigel’s assertion that the
problem was that the Church opened its windows at the same time that Western
culture was entering a tunnel filled with poisonous fumes.
I think the truth is more complex.
Much of the richness of Catholic culture in the
owed its existence to the urban Catholic neighborhoods that were already losing
families to the suburbs even before Vatican II convened. My mother grew up in a
marriage was an Irish Catholic marrying an Italian Catholic. I grew up in a suburb in
Presbyterian and a Lutheran. Sustaining
distinct cultures in the
States
economic change and geographic mobility.
While the existence of zealous iconoclasts cannot be doubted, I think
it is also fair to say that the some of the beams supporting Catholic intellectual
culture had also rotted from within during the 20th century. The ecclesiastical repression following the
Modernist crisis—which continued through the middle of the century—produced an
enormous bitterness in many parts of the Church, a bitterness that could only
be held in check by a Herculean willingness to submit oneself to
authority. If you read Fr. Francis
Murphy’s (a.k.a. Xavier Rynne) Vatican Council II, you will find, under a veneer
of good humor, a deep anger at the curia and a clear sense that for at least
some people the Council was “payback time.”
Or, if Murphy is not your cup of tea, read some of the private writings
of people like Yves Congar or John Courtney Murray. The feelings expressed by these devout and
brilliant churchmen do not speak well of the Church’s internal life during
this period.
I remember an experience that encapsulated for me what it must have
been like to live through this. I was at
a retreat with a group of fellow parishioners and our leader was an elderly
Franciscan priest who I think would not object if I described him as “very
liberal.” He was mild and self-effacing
throughout the weekend until a couple of our more conservative parishioners
began to give him a hard time over a theological point. At one point, he snapped angrily, “Look, they
changed the rules on me, buddy!” and his body shook as he said it. He regained his composure almost instantly,
but just for a moment I thought I had gotten an insight into what had happened
in those tumultuous years after the Council, when decades of suppressed anger
were suddenly unleashed.
But I also knew in that moment that the struggles of this
good and holy man would not be my struggles.
Our experiences of the Church have been very different. Having returned earlier today from an almost
entirely content-free session of sacramental preparation for one of my
children, I find that there are aspects of the “orthodox revival” with which I
readily identify. Say what you will
about the Catechism—and much can be said about it—at least it provides something
solid for the brain to bite down on.
But something needs to be said, so I will say it: these
kids—of whom I, at the age of 40, am probably still one—still have a lot to
learn. When twentysomethings barely out
of RCIA feel comfortable using their weblogs to instruct bishops they’ve never
met on how to interpret curial documents, I hope I will be forgiven if I do not
see this as a great leap forward for Catholic intellectual life. Having a copy of the Catechism and access to
the
dogmatic theologian. Nor am I especially
enthusiastic about the growing number of seminarians and newly ordained apparently
eager to put the “smackdown on heresy.”
Many of my fellow parishioners are old enough to remember the last time
a generation of ecclesiastical Jacobins descended upon them and I think most
would prefer not to repeat the experience.
As a conservative, I’m sure Bottum understands that
cultures cannot be built so much as they have to be grown. But before I surrender the keys to a rising
new generation of gardeners, I’d like to have a sense that they have a deep
knowledge of what they are being called upon to tend, of its breathtaking
diversity and of the full sweep of its history.
I’d like to see greater respect for those who came before and a serious
effort to understand the choices that were made in the past, even if they might
make different choices today. I have to say that I would like to see these
things more often than I do, because much depends on it.
Terrific post Peter.
(Whoops, I was cut off)
I think you structure the ensuing debate in just the right way. Perfect touch. Were we all so adept.
Nice post. My parents are among those who simply tired of what they called Catholic conflict and left the church altogether having collectively spent something like 20 years in Catholic schools. My mother’s grade school was an original “German Catholic” parish, but our parish growing up was housed in a monstrously huge, post-war barn. The wish to obliterate ethnic identity in generic suburban houses and churches probably grew specifically out of the “ethnic” wars that two generations of Americans had been asked to fight abroad. I think a lot less attention is paid to this than it deserves, particularly by a Vatican that still tends towards pre-war European identity.
One comment that my mother has also made to me was that her religious teachers (we’re talking around 1940-1955) were pessimistic and moralizing and generally presented a view of life that was completely at odds with the optimism that was alive elsewhere in American culture after WWII. It was an identity she found easy to reject.
Thanks to Peter for expressing the crux of the biscuit so well:
“Having returned earlier today from an almost entirely content-free session of sacramental preparation for one of my children, I find that there are aspects of the “orthodox revival” with which I readily identify. Say what you will about the Catechism—and much can be said about it—at least it provides something solid for the brain to bite down on.
“But something needs to be said, so I will say it: these kids—of whom I, at the age of 40, am probably still one—still have a lot to learn. When twentysomethings barely out of RCIA feel comfortable using their weblogs to instruct bishops they’ve never met on how to interpret curial documents, I hope I will be forgiven if I do not see this as a great leap forward for Catholic intellectual life.”
I’ll put up my own life facts. Let’s see… age 47 not a baby boomer!, grew up in New Jersey as a Presbyterian with many Catholic relatives also in New Jersey. Saw a change in faithfulness as I grew up. Most of this started after WWII when allot of parents did not want their children to have it as hard as they did growing up. As this was going on in our families the country was changing, no right or wrong, if it feels good do it, relativity etc this came to a terrible bubble in the sixties with much less respect for life , authority or the older population. The Pope saw what was happening here and around the world hence Vatican II where he decided that Vatican I needed to be clarified unfortunately the teachings were what ever some one thought they should be,relativity. Pope John Paul II then thankfully wrote The Catholic Catechism of the Roman catholic Church. This is where I come in again I wanted to know which church Jesus started, the Roman Catholic Church I started studying then started RCIA because I stayed so much and now take classes and tech one I find having to explain the faith to many Catholics! The Priest coming from our seminars now are faithful to the Magisterium and the Pope I can not fathom why this should be a problem. Now, since I came from Protestantism I see both sides, if the Church changes to what ever any one wants then what was my reason except the Eucharist should I remain as it stops be Catholic and becomes Protestant, actually a sham. Now we still have allot of ideas from the sixites and we need to correct them remember that Pope VI said that the smake of Satan has entered the Church and that dear friends is the secularism of our world.
I’m a longtime lurker on the Commonweal blog, but this is my first post. I have several comments that I hope will contribute to (and not to derail) the conversation on this thread. The first point is on the size of the younger generation of orthodox, “JP2” Catholics. I don’t doubt that there are such people, but I suspect that they are still a fairly small percentage of the younger generation. This is the sort of thing that requires sociological survey data to substantiate, but my bet is that the data would not bear out the claim that there is a large “new generation of Catholic young people who are impatient with the debates of the past.” To claim otherwise seems to me to be conservative selection bias fueled by wishful thinking. I say this based the (obviously unscientific) sample of Catholic college students that I have taught.
Which brings me to the second point: speaking of “content-free sacramental preparation,” the students that I encounter are almost completely ignorant of the basic vocabulary, grammar, and content of Catholicism (e.g., students with twelve years of Catholic schooling who are shocked to learn that the Church teaches that Jesus is no less divine than God). On the other hand – and here’s where assigning responsibility for the decline in Catholic culture gets murky to me – they absolutely, without exception, know that the Church condemns abortion, homosexuality, and premarital sex. They often disagree, of course, and they can’t give a good account of the nuances behind the Church’s teachings, but they definitely know what they are. Indeed, it is just about the only thing they know. I think this is a consequence of the fact that the public face of Catholic theology – the theology that most people encounter most of the time – is just and only the teachings on sexual matters. Different people will disagree about whether this is driven more by the hierarchy or by salacious media coverage, but it does seem to be a fact.
Finally, as Mr. Nixon said, surely there are aspects of the “orthodox revival” that almost everyone can welcome. Liberal and conservative Catholics can certainly agree that it is a bad thing that most Catholics are almost completely ignorant of Catholic theology, and work together to rectify this problem. If I can be forgiven one last (perhaps divisive) comment, I think that more traditionalist Catholics need to do some soul searching here as well. It often seems to me that the First Things crowd assumes that any disagreement whatsoever amounts to wholesale repudiation—as if liberals who disagree with a specific set of teachings about sex or authority must, by that very fact, also deny the incarnation, the atonement, original sin, the real presence, etc. This assumption is false, but, in any case, surely we can all agree that it would be a good thing if more young people knew more about Catholic Christianity than the empty platitudes they know now. Again, I don’t mean to hijack the thread and turn it into a conservative vs. liberal thing. Thanks to Mr. Nixon and to Commonweal for a great blog.
H.P. you did turn this into Liberal vs. Conservative, a Roman Catholic is neither conservative or liberal. Also I teach a 9th grade confirmation class and these wonderful young people want the truth, if you lie to them and tell them the teachings are optional they will walk away from the faith. They need to know the teachings and why, that’s were parents teachers and the laity need to know the teachings of the Magisterium and also tradition and with each why, if you don’t know find out why. If any one has trouble with any teachings pray about it. Our Bishop has said keep your opinion out of the class room only Catholic truth needs to be taught! We also need to set an example and live a Holy life as possible we all fall short but there is confession. I do see a new spring time and thank God for the guide he has given us with the last two Popes they have taught so much with their writings read them they are wonderful. I know that coming here from being a Protestant (take the word apart) is sometimes hard to understand when you have been born a Catholic but what I saw in my cousins growing up I have finally found! I do find it hard to understand why so many complain constantly about this Church. This is where Jesus is, sometimes it looks greener on the other side but remember the Roman Catholic Church has the Fullness of the Faith and the Eucharist, the only church that does! Pray for understanding!
I too think a nice post.
It’s a mistake though to glamorize the good old days when we hated other faiths, were a narrow lot who identified ourselves by parishes and thoughtevery word from Father was gospel truth. In the old days too, we simply prayed paid and obeyed.
Surely there is concurrence on the need for better education -but, a major issue is who really needs it more, kids or adults?
Despite some small revival, we ar estill “a people adrift” and (as John Allen suggests often balkanized. Given the diminished number of clergy and religious, it falls mainly to the laity to teavh and witness the faith. Until we bring the Church closer together (as for exmple, the vision of the late Msgr. Murnion at NPLC) I fear the struggle will be too great.
I give up on this blog some people just want the Roman Catholic Church to fail. I wonder who is behind this? Satan Maybe, the smoke of Satan has entered the Church. If your thoughts do not lead to Jesus guess who is behind them…. I will continue to pray for all of you. You don’t even realize what you have in this Church but it will prevail, Jesus will not let it fall. Remember man is not perfect, not a one, none of us……. Make your lives better and Holy and that pebble in a puddle will cover the earth! Do not let the evil control any of you let Jesus in your heart, he is wonderful and will lead you just ask the Holy Spirit! Look around you and see the great world our God has created please be more positive, being so negative just makes you tired and feel helpless!
Mr. Nixon — a few questions or points of clarification. [Might I add, by the way, that it is extremely frustrating that this blog has no way to set off quotations by using italics or blockquotes? Why not allow those simple HTML commands?]
QUOTE: “I remember an experience that encapsulated for me what it must have been like to live through this. I was at a retreat with a group of fellow parishioners and our leader was an elderly Franciscan priest who I think would not object if I described him as “very liberal.” He was mild and self-effacing throughout the weekend until a couple of our more conservative parishioners began to give him a hard time over a theological point. At one point, he snapped angrily, “Look, they changed the rules on me, buddy!” and his body shook as he said it.”ENDQUOTE
With all due respect, I found this anecdote completely incomprehensible without more context. When you say that it was a liberal priest arguing with conservative parishioners, I imagine that they might have been arguing over, say, whether abortion should be publicly funded, or whether priests can be married, or something like that. But if those sorts of issues were on the table, I find it hard to imagine why it would make sense for the liberal priest to complain that “they changed the rules on me!” WHO changed WHAT rules? I can’t figure out how that comment would even make sense.
QUOTE: “I think the truth is more complex. Much of the richness of Catholic culture in the United States owed its existence to the urban Catholic neighborhoods that were already losing families to the suburbs even before Vatican II convened. “ENDQUOTE
From Bottum’s article: “The weakening of respect for the bishops’ authority had many causes. Broad sociological factors certainly played a role: the suburbanizing of the old ethnic communities, for example, and the rising suspicion of any authority since the end of World War II.”
QUOTE: “As a conservative, I’m sure Bottum understands that cultures cannot be built so much as they have to be grown.”ENDQUOTE
Doesn’t Bottum make that exact point at length?
BOTTUM QUOTE: “For the development of a new Catholicism, this doesn’t look the most-promising start. Rich local cultures may produce great works, but few people in the United States have that kind of cultural wealth anymore. Certainly not many Catholics. The number of Americans who grew up in a profoundly Catholic setting is smaller than it ever has been before—which creates a problem for a new culture. If Catholicism is something elected rather than received, can Catholics achieve what earlier cultures did?
“Their children, perhaps, will come from a thick-enough world that they can write the kind of strong Catholic novels, make the kind of strong Catholic art, prior ages knew. But in the meantime, a rebellion against rebellion doesn’t escape the problems of rebellion, and a chosen tradition is never quite the same as an inherited one.” END BOTTUM QUOTE
Peter, you are my hero.
I know I have posted before about a specifc incident, but I do so again for people who did not see it before.
In my 6+ years as a priest, I have served mostly in parishes where the vast majority of parishioners are/were senior citizens who are/were also cradle Catholics. I bring up the example of some seniors whose children are now in their mid-to-late 40s or early 50s. Many of these kids started attending to parochial schools during the early to mid ’60s. Many of these kids have not stayed with the Church as adults. Their parents are often heartbroken because of it.
I know that my findings are in no way comprehensive, but what seems consistent in what I have gained from these seniors is that they had very little training for being the principal catechists in the home, as parents are called to be. When these seniors were children, they received minimal catechesis from their own parents. After all, catechesis was the task of the parochial school and the Baltimore Catechism, of which neither was/is inherently bad, but the multiple generations of deferred responsibility led to the much-disussed lapse on faith on account of many cradle Catholics. Parents didn’t know how to explain some things.
We do best when we train everyone to be a catechist, and that includes parents, singles, teachers, and whomever. We must not regress to a long-standing catechetical model as existed in many places and homes long before the Second Vatican Council. We must prepare everyone to be a catechist because the explanations that each of us can give can only help people understand that Jesus founded the Church for the sake of us knowing more about God and His love for us.
I hope the days end soon when people say “I was a Catholic, and then I found out about Jesus.”
Posters: Please make sure to include an e-mail address with each post. Not including an e-mail address is as rude as sending an anonymous complaint letter to your pastor. Guess where those letters end up.
If you wish to e-mail me, use the link from this post rather than from my previous post as I believe I incorrectly typed in my address. Robin, please write me. I promise that I not asking you to do this for the sake of entering into a fight.
Fr. O’Neal sort of raises what I find the glaring omission from this interesting post — the role of the Catholic family. I’ll take these JP II Catholics a lot more seriously when I see how they raise their children. (Lest that make me a “liberal” may I state that my three role models as fathers, all of whom I fall far short of, with 22 children among them, include one Vatican II catholic, the guy that introduced me to Opus Dei, for which I remain grateful, and a high official in the Mormon church.) But remembering the 50′s and 60′s I’m kind of appalled at the perpetual emphasis on the bishops rather than the home as the place where Catholicism is passed on. My father was neither well-catechized nor ostentatiously Catholic, but his struggle to live it in his life remains an inspiration.
Finally, I’m more than fed up with the yammering about “excesses” in the 70′s. I’m far more upset with those who sat on their tails and bitched, whose natural environment in the present age seems to be Amy Welborn’s weblog.
Gene,
Thank you for pointing out my “sort of”. I didn’t want to hog the microphone, so to type.
Many saints from varied periods of the history of the Church grew in sanctity because of what their parents taught them. It works in a manner similar to how vocations increase due to holy and happy people living their vocation and being as good a witness as they can/could be.
Stuart,
The quoted passage about the angered priest and the frustrated couple is such a good one precisely because it’s unexplained. What we all know is that there was a generation of ambitious priests and religious who did not “sign up for” the pontificate of John Paul the Great. They were “promised” things with a wink and a nudge. I am not completely lacking in sympathy for them. Their mistakes were human ones. One can understand their anger, even if one does not agree with it. We could have done better keeping these people effectively intergrated into the life and future of the Church. How do we do this? This question gets us back to Bottum’s concern with the growth of Catholic culture.
Peter, I take it that you understand from O’Neal and O’Grady’s posts that the catechesis was no better pre-Vat2. And I am surprised that you do not know this. Obviously no one told you about the 7 minute masses etc. Surely, some of the older Jesuits at Berkely should have told you.
At any rate what should be clear by this thread is that neither liberals nor conservatives can claim to own this church as too many have written even here.
Some see the challenge of the bishops from all sections of the church as a negative. Here is what Bottum writes:
“There’s a tone of contempt for the nation’s bishops you hear widely from Catholics in the United States: left or right, active or inactive, orthodox or heterodox. Even when particular bishops are praised, they are usually cast as exceptions—which is surely a sign of the general crisis of authority that afflicts American Catholicism.”
To merely characterize this as a crisis in authority is to misundestand what is happening. The challenge to the bishops is to be true to their calling to serve rather than dominate. To wash the feet of the disciples not just build million dollar edifices.
The fact that Catholics have grown up is not a negative. Now we have to press for greater content from our pastors and let them know that their job is more than fund raising.
We, both conservatives and liberals, might be doing more good than we realize.
Bill:
I would sure love to see pastors care less about raising funds. The sad reality is that in many parishes, less than a third of the parishioners are frequent givers, whether it be basic offertory or a capital campaign.
My diocese (Charlotte) and my neighbor dioceses of Knoxville and Raleigh must engage in many campaigns on both parochial and diocesan levels simply for the sake of building up an infrastructure that has been insufficient to meet the needs of the Catholics who have moved into the region for the past twenty years. I’m convinced that many of the campaigns would not be needed if more Catholics gave the equivalent of what they pay for a latte per week. Yup, a little will go a very long way.
In regard to bishops, I hope we receive good shepherds rather than only keen administrators or moving-and-shaking politicos.
My diocese is bankrupt. It’d almost be nice if they could get back to raising funds!
Can anyone confirm or deny my suspicion that the bishops are much more the nexus of what is Catholic than they were before 1980 (say), and this is perhaps an unintended consequence of Vatican II? Or is it a function of the much smaller ration of priests to bishops in our day?
Gene,
I would like to know the details of how bankrupt your diocese is? My guess is it neatly excluded some assets and parish buildings.
That said I don’t consider poverty a bad thing in the diocese. Now that would be returning to the gospel.
Gene, When almost all urban Catholics lived within walking distance of a very large church, and nearly everyone attended Catholic schools and was educated by actual nuns and priests, I am sure their identity had nothing to do with who was bishop. Love it or hate it, if you read “Charming Billy” by Alice McDermott I think you get a good idea of what “Catholic” identity used to convey. She is Irish-centric, but my mother lived basically the same life in a largely German parish (the church was closed shortly after she got married in it in 1958).
If I may repeat a point I made before, I think it is important to note that neither Peter Nixon nor Joseph Bottum seem to have an accurate picture of the years following Vatican II. There are so many nuances.
Indeed there was a lot of confusion which prompted Greeley to describe the new church as a “Confused Church” as opposed to the old church which was a “Confident Church.” He writes that he liked the confused church better.
I doubt that the ‘confident’ church will ever return. But there seems to be a lot of people trumpeting “sounding brass and tinkling cymbals” in an effort to restore it.
“What we all know” is that a number of priests of ambition and bishops too signed up for the regime of John Paul “the Great.”
I too am tired of the wqhining oabout thje excesses of the 70′s.
Instead we read daily about another problem of power misuse in the Church I trace that to a commitment to loyalty to rome above all else, right or wrong.(Sort of reminds me of the loyalty the neocons want to demand for the executive branch’s policies. Be on point is all that matters and you can reap your reward.)
The problem of adult religious education is vast – the efort by our Bisjops in Our Hearts were Burning needed a non-clericalist support to really unpin many from the pews; after some effort here in our area inbitially, ennui quickly set in when most clergy didn’t care.
While a number of evangelizing groups have arisen across the Catrholic spectrum , the majority of those in the pews remain unmoved.
This not simplistic doom and gloom -it’s a call to be united, despite differences, in enlarging mature faith. If you think your view is the only one, you’re part of the problem and not the solution.
I will be terminating my posting at this site as I have been asked to “Tone it down”. I apologize if I offended anyone for being faithful to the Pope, the teachings of the Magisterium or tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. The strange thing is that this came from a Priest who told me I acted as though I was the first Catholic. That I needed to use my e-mail address which I know is optional and can be unsafe as I have gotten offending e-mails by people who should have answered me on the blog instead of by e-mail. I really thought that we are suppose to defend our faith but I guess not. I wonder though, has any one gotten an e-mail telling them to “Tone it Down ” when they tear the Church apart and just complained until their hearts are content or is this what we are to do. I really need to find another class as to clarify this. I will pray for all of you, this is not an insult!
I may sometimes also need to be asked to tone it down. No one should hesitate to do so.
In answer to Barbara, in spite of my last name most of my ancestors were German (or English), and my Irish ancestors immigrated to rural Canada before the 1840′s. So my experience, and background, has very little to do with ethnic urban Catholicism — what I did see of it as a college student in the late 60′s left me rather unimpressed, at least as a vehicle for passing on a living faith. And I’m pretty sure that had nothing to do with Vatican II.
So I think of family as a positive, indeed necessary, influence of faith transmission quite aside from the urban ethnic nexus. The faith hero of my mother’s family, for instance, was the son of German immigrants who spoke no English until he went to school, lived in a minimally Catholic rural area in the midwest, yet lived a Catholic faith that legitimized Catholicism in a rather anti-Catholic area and inspired even those like myself who never had the good luck to meet him.
I fully endorse the comment about the significance of nuns for handing on the faith — there were of course the bad ones who are the subjects of charicature, but the others were the best catechists I have experienced.
In my own catechetical teaching I had a couple of interesting experiences. I hope I was never content-free, but I felt caught between the families who were actively passing on their faith, mostly but by no means always rather more “traditional” than I, although I don’t think that was ever an issue, and the kids who had never had any faith training at home and sent their kids to me so they wouldn’t have to take them to mass (only a slight exaggeration!) I’m afraid I tended to lose the former in order to try to help the latter.
I spoke in an earlier post about my fatherhood role models that I don’t live up to — all of them are engineers of some sort, all suburban, all conspicuously aware of emerging issues of balance as opposed to falling back on old verities. Also all soft-spoken, if that matters. So I don’t really associate the family transmission of faith (Catholic or otherwise) with the old ethnic monolith — that I never really was part of anyhow!
As to the local diocesan bankrupcy, yes there are assets (parishes, schools) in dispute, but my strong impression is that the child abuse claims that broke the bank were responsibly handled at the parish level by both clergy and laity, and the disaster happened because the archbishop’s office (a) couldn’t bother to deal with an out of the ordinary predator (“I was victimized by sexually aggressive 8-year olds”) and flat out lied to the people who repeatedly asked them to take action, so I don’t really see why parishes should lose their churches, etc. — but that may not have been what Mr. Mazzella meant?
Peter,
Thanks for a very well thought out presentation on a very complex and controverisal topic. I suspect that many of the perplexities and divisions in the church in the U.S. mirror those in the culture and society at large. If I am right, then it will not be possible achieve clarity and unity, not to mention charity, within the church very easily, as along as Catholics are so profoundly influenced by and divided by American culture generally. The disillusionment and dissatisfaction of the faithful with the bishops and the clergy more generally, to the extent that it exists, mirrors a similar set of attitudes toward politicians and professionals in other fields. The sexual revolution, in particular, is as much a Catholic phenomenon as an American one generally.
Before 1960 Catholics had long felt they were Americans, but perhaps Americans with a difference. With the election of John F. Kennedy, Catholics gained more acceptance than they had ever had before as real Americans. (We had all heard about the rejection of Al Smith in 1928 largely on grounds of his Catholicism.) The Vatican Council played into this also. It seemed to make it easier for Catholics to be at ease as Americans. Most of us took to being real Americans like ducks to water. Earlier there was strong pressure on Catholics to attend Catholic schools and colleges. Then suddenly everything changed and Catholic highs chools began to see admission to an Ivy League school as reflecting the excellence of the education they provided rather than as the road to perdition. There is likely to be no going back on much of this. One of the less controversial things Benedict said in his talk in Munich was something to the effect that he did not want to repeal the Enlightenment. Even if he wanted to, he could not.
What to do, as Lenin said. The creation of a distinctive Catholic culture–a long the lines of the Amish culture, say–does not seem to be a live option. In a way that seems to be the goal of a certain pizza entrepreneur, but he seems to be having trouble with his grand project. It is not easy to see a grand way forward. That is not to say that we cannot all find useful things to do.
I would like to add a note on those wonderful JPII Catholics that are coming along. Many of them, I suspect, are simply American Catholics of the American Conservative persuasion, admirerers, at least in spirit if not in suscription, of First Things, of Father Neuhaus, of George Weigel, and perhaps of Michael Novak. I recently encountered a young priest, one year out of the seminary. He spoke once of John Paul the Great, and he conspicuously prays for “our President, George W. Bush”. We got to two churches, attend mass daily, and encounter a variety of presbyters. He is unique in these matters. What really startled me, though, was his statement one day that the Eucharist is a symbol of unity and that is why nonCatholics cannot receive communion. The missalet in use among us cites Canon Law to the effect that members of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Assyrian Church and the Polish National Church are welcome to receive communion. This young man seems to have uncanonical views. I thought of dropping him a note but decided against it. Should I disturb his conscience by sending him to the missalet? I was reminded of this when Robin, who is preparing some young people for confirmation, said that the Catholic Church is the only one that has the Eucharist. I strongly suspect that this is not the teaching of the Catholic Church.
What follows is a message I sent a couple of months ago to the members of our local Just Faith group. Maybe it’ll be of some use to repeat it in this context.
i wrote:
“In his book on Karl Rahner, Mark Fisher says that for Rahner the great sacrament is the Church. For Rahner ‘the Church is not one among other groups competing for people’s allegiance in a pluralistic society, but the place where faithful people recognize that God offers divine life to all, and where they revere that life in its many forms.’
“Unless I am mistaken, this means that we belong to the Church not primarily as a way to gain the salvation of our souls. We belong to it primarily to praise and thank God for having, in and through Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, and the sending of the Holy Spirit, offered a share in God’s own life to every person without exception. Our participation in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, is always first and foremost an act of praise and thanksgiving for this great gift. We do find salvation, because we belong to the human family for whom this gift has been given. It is our great privilege as Catholics to be part of the Church that God has chosen to make known this divine gift and to praise and thank God for it in the way that God has called us to do.”
I concluded this remark thus: “For me, this is a glorious new way of thinking about the Church and my membership in it.”
I had a traditional pre-Vatican II upbringing. It certainly wasn’t “bad.” But what came out of Vatican II is so much more profound. Regrettably, this joyful theology of the Church is, at least in my experience, hardly preached or reflected in chatechesis at any level. I’m just happy that I lucked into learning about it.
I really can’t get exercised about whether what I’ve learned is liberal or conservatve. I just wish that when people think about the Church and their membership in it, they rejoice in the hope and promise it embodies for all people everywhere and speak and conduct themselves accordingly. That doesn’t preclude strong disagreements and debates. But it would preclude any self satisfaction at another’s expense.
JPII The Great?
Certainly that is a misprint. If there IS a contemporary pope who qualifies for that title, it is John XXIII.
Actually, I don’t like the idea of calling ANY pope “The Great.” At best, popes provide a tone that relies heavily (assuming good papal intentions) on the adoption and implementation of that tone by The Church, i.e., the rest of us.
I was educated in a Catholic school where the dogmas of the Catechism were strictly taught, including pro-life, young-earth (3000yrs old), anti-evolution (although not under the deceitful guise of intelligent design; we were taught the teleological argument), Vatican II was mentioned as was the gospel of life and its implications for gay rights (in fact, we were supplied with material that suggested that homosexuality was an illusion) and other sexuality issues.
I am 18 years old and I have left the Church because of these issues. I am a student of the natural sciences, where evolution forms the corner stone of biology and the benefits which we reap from it (to deny evolution happens is to deny antibiotic resistance), I have homosexual friends, I have non-Catholic friends as well as Muslim friends, Christian friends, Hindu friends and atheist friends. I found this ‘Growing [Conservative and Fundamentalist] Catholic Culture’ to be incompatible with my intellectual and social life. In particular, I recall that a pro-lifer came to speak in support of all of these things at my school and my social circle was outraged that we were subjected to such a speech because one of our friends was gay.
I concluded that this culture ran counter to the ideal of love that was written in the texts of the Bible and the Catechism. I suppose I am here because I am still concerned for the Church and its culture.
In my opinion, this culture will drive extremism. It requires one to twist their concept of love and freedom while holding on to a narrow and discriminatory triumphalism. Jesus did not just die for pro-lifers, He died for all of mankind. Be careful of what you grow in your garden because many plants have poisons and thorns.
Shaun,
Can you tell us in what Catholic school you were taught “young earth creationism”? What texts did they use? Who were the authors? And the school that taught young earth creationism was populated by Hindus, Muslims, homosexuals and atheists? A truly remarkable place.
Jimmy
I omitted the quotation marks. I should have said: “He spoke once of ‘John Paul the Great’”.
Joseph:
I was actually commenting on mlj’s “the pontificate of John Paul the Great.”
mlj: sit down, take a deep breath and discover the truth: the world is “populated by Hindus, Muslims, homosexuals and atheists” … among others.
Shaun said that he has friends who are in those categories, not necessarily that they were polluting the weak, impressionable minds of the school he was in, sending everyone therein to hell in a handbasket.
I think those minimizing the importance of the orthodox Catholic revival in America are simply whistling in the dark. While I agree that the younger orthodox crowd, one of which I suppose I am, are not a majority of Catholics in America, they are certainly becoming the most influential part of the layity and increasingly the clergy.
Let’s face it, that majortiy of Catholics don’t even go to mass more than two or three times a year. Sure, most of them disagree with many church teachings, but what else is new. What about the ones who are going to mass every week, better yet, every day, or who participate in conferences, adult education, and ministries, or who’s kids participate in Catholic youth groups and conferences? My experience is that those that are participating in the daily life of the Church are, as a group, increasingly more orthodox.
The criticism of the “twentysomethings” and their weblogs is a little disingenous I think. In other postings on this site, many of these same critics call for more lay involvement. The posting on “Take Back Our Church” was very much in this vein. It seems for some lay involvement is only worthwhile if it agrees with the “progressive” Catholic view. At least these “conservative” bloggers are carrying on a conversation about the Church and Catholic issues.
I see the same dynamic that Sean does. But one wonders what it means in terms of the fostering of a Catholic culture. Here at my university in Chicago, the Catholic students demanded that confessionals be built at the Catholic center and that a Marian garden be built in back. They got both. 10-15 years ago the (then female) director of the same center could’ve been found leading “Mass” at the school’s Episcopal center. That couldn’t happen today. The students would not tolerate it.
I hope to become the most orthodox of Catholics before I die, though, given my procliivities to question authority and my sometimes misguided reliance on my own conscience, that’s not likely.
However, that does not stop me from accepting the Church as the best repository of the teachings of Jesus Christ and trying to fight against my own nature.
I think orthodoxy is different from the “orthodox movement,” however.
The orthodox movement strikes me as an unsympathetic, punitive call for those of us who are not living up to all the teachings of the church to get out and stop threatening their purity. Or at least to shut up about where we don’t “get it.”
Like that’s going to save any souls.
First of all, I want to thank everyone for their comments, which have been largely constructive and illuminating.
Second, I want to clarify my story about the Franciscan priest. The exchange that provoked his outburst was between himself and two men who were his generational contemporaries. It was clear from the context that the “rules” that had changed were the written and unwritten conventions that had structured Catholic life prior to Vatican II.
The point of my story was to link back to the discussion in the previous paragraph about the anger that was clearly bubbling under the surface in many places in the Church in the years prior to the Council. This anger had often been suppressed due to the high value the Church placed on submission to authority. I think this was particularly true in religious communities. One of the things that Vatican II did was to bring that anger to the surface. In some areas, this proved constructive; in others, less so.
One of the things I was trying to suggest is that those of us who think that a few babies have gotten thrown out with the bathwater over the past 40 years nevertheless have an obligation to enter imaginatively into the world as it existed when those decisions were made. Respect and charity for those who have trod the path of faith before us demands it.
I used to be active. I used to go to mass every week, was moderately active in ministries (I have three young children, there’s a limit to what I am willing to do), and donated a lot of money (relatively). But I got tired of being the demon of the Neo-orthodoxy so I said goodbye to all that. No doubt those who remain are more orthodox than I am. A self-fulfilling prophecy if there ever was one.
mlj: Despite your eagerness to obtain personal information from Shaun in order to verify his story, I doubt you want to name the institutions you’re talking about, or how you came to know what went on there fifteen years earlier. Or do you? In any case, it seems obvious, but apparently it needs to be pointed out to you, that going to confession and devotion to Mary are hardly airtight proofs of conservatism.
>>going to confession and devotion to Mary are hardly airtight proofs of conservatism.<<
Fair enough. But they are proofs of their interest in orthodoxy, and that’s all anybody should really care about. It’s certainly all I care about. I have no dog in the left v. right fight.
Another interesting anecdote from around my parts that cuts across lines: When the chaplain at the student Catholic center here was reassigned after it was disclosed he had an unfortunate tendency to have sex with other adult men, the students rallied around him, but not uncritically. What was interesting was that the students spoke in terms of sin and forgiveness. They deplored the priest’s actions and did not think, by and large, homosexuals belonged in the priesthood. But they equally deplored the idea that the priest should be publicly scapegoated.
Jean,
I don’t think the point of the “movement” if there is one is to force anyone out of the Church or to be unsympathetic. Many, if not most of the people I have met that fit in this category, in fact, have an enourmous amount of sympathy because they were, themselves, holding some of the views or engaging in some of the behaviors that the Church opposes – and remember, the Church opposes them because they are contrary to God’s law.
The problem in the past is that the Church in America won’t even talk about what the teachings of the Church are for fear of offending someone. How many homilies or adult education classes about contraception or abortion did you hear from 1965-1990? mlj’s last post is a great example – we should not turn our backs on each other, but neither should we deny the reality of sin.
Sean H, I think you are wrong about not wanting people to be driven out of church. I think that is exactly what many, perhaps including the Pope, want — a smaller, but leaner and more eager set of congregants. So hopefully, you will reap the reward of this renewal with a bountiful harvest of new vocations.
Well, Sean H, I will never forget the sermon I heard in 1968 claiming that Bobby Kennedy, the father of eleven children, had been struck down to punish the US for the evils of contraception.
Maybe there’s a reason not too many priests have followed up on that one.
Since the elephant in the room (Humanae Vitae, of course, not abortion about which there is no end of talk) is out of the box, am I the only one (and I am a firm believer in natural law) who still looks at it as a piece of rather discreditable backstage deal making rather than a reflection of the law of God?
Sean says: The problem in the past is that the Church in America won’t even talk about what the teachings of the Church are for fear of offending someone.
Jean asks: On what do you base this sweeping generality? Do you have studies that measure the talk about church teaching pre- and post- 1965? We would all be interested in seeing the data.
If you cannot show your data, then the most charitable assumption I can make is that this must be a subjective judgment based on the fact that YOU have not heard either the TYPE or QUANTITY of talk about Church teaching to suit YOU in YOUR locale since 1965.
A less charitable assumption is that you are recklessly bending the historical truth of the Church in America since 1965 to better aggrandize the triumph of the orthodox movement.
Jean,
You are right. I lack a statistical sampling that supports my assertion, yet I continue to hold to my opinion, notwithstanding. It is, in fact, my subjective judgment based on my own experience. I will say my experience is atypical in that, due to my family life and career, I was a member of about 15 different parishes in seven different states and a foreign country since I was a teenager – and I wasn’t always that observant. Nonetheless, it’s just my observation based on my limited experience.
I think that experience is pretty typical, however. I think most American Catholics get their information on the teachings of the Church (particularly the more cotroversial ones) more from the media than from the Church itself. I know I did, and now that I am getting better informed (thanks for the CCC B16), many of the men and women that I deal with in the Church in adult catechesis, prayer groups and the like, have described similar experiences.
Barbara,
I will reverse the situation and ask are those that support, for example, women’s ordination trying to drive out the orthodox Catholics? I don’t think so, but it seems to me a fair point. If by saying one supports the teachings of the Magesterium, he or she is “driving out” dissenting Catholics, what is such a person to do? It may be fair to observe that the Holy Father will not compromise the doctrines of the Church in order to “keep up the numbers,” but is that the same as “driving out” dissenters? Considering the huge numbers of dissenters in a Church of 1 billion souls, the Church heirarchy has not done very much to “drive” anyone out.
Gene,
What say you to the prediction of Pope Paul when Humanae Vitae was issued tha the widespread use of artificial contraception would lead inevitably to the broad and indiscriminate use of abortion? Could it be he was right?
May I ask Sean and mlj and others who are talking here in talks of orthodoxy just a couple of questions. Do the younger people that they talk about in terms of a swing to orthodoxy concern themselves with the issues of social justice, the issues that have to do with seeking toreform the structural features of society that effectively support the perpetuation of poverty? If so, what does that mean in their practice of the faith? Second, according to the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Vatican II, by virtue of baptism the laity have, by virtue of their baptism and not by reason of some episcopal delegation a distinctive mission in the Church’s work that no one else can discharge in their stead. What do these new champions of “orthodoxy” think that this mission amounts to?
The little contact that I’ve had with this “new generation” gives me little reason to believe that they think about these two matters very much. Am I wrong?
First we have the peodphilia scandal, mainly covered up by orthodoxy. Next we will have the financial scandal where it will become clear that a substantial number of the orthodox clergy are robbing the laity blind.
But that is ok as long as orthodoxy prevails and ‘doctrines’ are adhered to.
Orthodoxy first, orthopraxy second.
>>Orthodoxy first, orthopraxy second.<<
In point of fact, yes. The primacy of logos over ethos harkens back to the heart of the biblical witness and to the earliest reflections on the meaning of the Christian creed. This is a logical priority; not a chronological one. To err here is to err everywhere. The distinction (not separation!) is a basic one, and divides theology that is Christian from theology that is not.
Bernard asks about the enthusiasm of the “young orthodox” for discharging the responsibilities laid upon all Christians by virtue of their baptism. What can I say to this? It is my fallible, correctable opinion that it is in this area that they are models for all of us. They positively revel in this responsibility. Again, my impressions. Nothing more than that.
Bill asks a number of leading questions about the role of “the orthodox” in covering up what he knowingly mislabels “pedophilia” and supposed looming financial scandles. There are no answers beacuse they are not really questions.
The Catholic communities of the fifties and earlier are dead and they will never rise again. Nor will the culture associated with them.
“Catholic culture” and Catholic communities (or Catholic ethnic communities) were mutually supporting and when the communities dispersed the culture dissolved with it.
There is a dynamic in some parishes today to attempt to recapture some of what has been lost. Some people want to go back to some sort of orthodoxy, as though a decline in orthodox belief caused the Catholic communities to break up in the first place. Others try to recapture “community” itself as a primary value, as though a “community” of people who attend a church is the same thing as the church within a community that existed before. But each side is trying to do something that cannot be done.
Religion won’t restore the communities that were the source of the living culture because religion wasn’t the source of their destruction. The advance of secularism did this and secularism is propelled by (dare I say it) capitalism. (Note that I am not saying that capitalism needs to be overturned, although we do need, and I direct this especially to Catholics on the right, to really really think about what it is and what it requires of people).
However, there some theologies fit into secularism better than others. And I think that Catholic theology over the past 600 years or so has tended to ride the same wave that produced Protestantism; the idea that personal obedience to The Law was the primary thing a body owed to God. When morality and worship were individuated in this way, and when The Law became separated from reason and primary over reason, we had the potential for the detachment of people from each other. Our churches (and I mean all churches) are now primarily congregations of separate individuals pretending they are a community. But committing oneself to a community (like so many other old fashioned commitments) just isn’t thought to be necessary for a person any more.
John Paul The Great (and I have no problem calling him “The Great” in this context) attempted through his writings and especially through his Catechism, to turn the clock back to our earlier Thomist tradition, when morality was linked to virtue and its pursuit. This was the science of excellence made to produce happiness defined as joy. These are all words we don’t use in the same way as he did, true enough. But this is the underlying thrust of the new catechism and what makes it so revolutionary. Without this thrust, the new catechism would be as dead as the old one and Catholicism becomes just another choice, which, along with no choice, is one of the options people see themselves as having in America. We are all individualists and consumers now and we will stay that way unless we can break out into something else.
So the new Catholic culture is a radical return to our old roots. I see some people taking this up, but I see more people trying to either out sell Catholicism in a Protestant country (and losing) or trying to recapture a dead past.
Bill,
I ask honestly for you to identify the cover-up, such as it was, as being the work of orthodox vs less orthodox bishops and priests. I live in Boston, and although the current characterization of Cardinal Law seems to be that he was a very orthodox or conservative bishop, until the controversey arose he was considered at most a moderate, and by many a “progressive” bishop. For example, he forbade many prolife groups from meeting in Catholic Churches in the diocese – something that Cardinal O’Malley now allows, and he regularly feted pro-choice politicians, something that Cardinal O’Malley avoids. Cardinal Mahoney, certainly not a conservative by any stretch, continues to fight legal battles to protect archdicese records on priest abuse from law enforcement. I think it is both inaccurate and unfair to characterize the priest abuse problem as an “orthodox” issue.
Sean –
Your question to me is a serious question, so I owe you something of an answer. I wasn’t aware that Paul VI had said that; it seems anachronistic, but I do know that a bit later Elizabeth Anscombe, probably a more serious anti-contraception thinker than either pope Paul or JP II, said (quoting from memory) “If you want abortion work for contraception.” In either case, acknowledging the limits of my personal background, I think both statements are wrong.
A couple of considerations — I don’t know if you are old enough to remember the contraception controversy of 1962 – 1968, or if you have the personal contact with the Catholic couples who had very large families that are behind my opinion. But let me say that the process in Humanae Vitae was terrible (matched only in my experience by the new liturgy impostion, which I don’t even want to think about.) But serious Catholic married people felt, with very good reason, that they had been betrayed. Serious priests also felt betrayed, and the sacrament of penance, which by my conversations with father (old enough for HV to be irrelevant) was having a renaissance in the early 60′s went to hell, largely as far as I could tell because the priests, far from being defiant, were simply embarrassed to get near family life. In the absence of serious discussion we got sloganizing (“Every sex should be open to the transmission of life.) It bothers me a lot that the whole vocabulary and line of argument used against contraception has been replaced under JP II with the hokey “Theology of the Body” — again terrible process, by the way. It’s like the conclusion has to stay the same and have the marketing boys think up a new rationale.
You may respond that the orthodox (a term not in use at the time) didn’t have these problems — unfortunately, and this is a good example of how we are limited by our personal experience, the guys that took a hard line on sex tended to have blatant personal “issues” behind it. (And, by the way I am not one who has any use for the “new, young, with it” priest that emerged in the 60′s)
The unfortunate result of the HV fiasco was not only that married voices (hell, include the unmarried voices with kids) were disregarded in the contraception controversy, but much more significantly their enthusiasm about having children as something they choose, something they enter into enthusiastically never got going in the Catholic church. You might respond that I’m asking to have them, make that us, congratulated for not making “choice” in the wicked sense, but there’s more to it than that. In my personal experience I can’t tell you how many women of my generation looked back at the women of their mothers’ generation who had been “open to conception” and saw only a prison where I saw the greatest experience you can have in life — and even women whose Catholic mothers of the WW II generation sternly admonished them never to have children and got trapped the way they had. It’s a shame that “Should we have another child?” probably the most important moral issue a couple have to face, is simply not a Catholic question. I’ve many times felt sad at how few Catholics show the enthusiasm about being parents that I always seem to find in my Jewish and LDS contemporaries.
Apologies for rambling! One final point — I probably had a (small, I presume) part in ensuring that one abortion didn’t take place. I had a long conversation with a college friend shortly after my daughter was born, in a culture in which being a parent was kind of non-U. He kept asking doesn’t she interfere with this and that, keep from doing what you used to, etc. Maybe I was just having a good day, but I kept responding that no, it made me more fulfilled in all those things. I think he was as surprised as impressed. Not too long after his significant other found rather to her shock that she was pregnant — in circumstances which in 1965 or 1975 would usually have been “Of course you need to have an abortion.” But they didn’t. Maybe I’m overestimating my contribution, but I can’t imaging that any of the “orthodox” lines would have had any positive effect at all.
Apologies again for the long post. Looks like he found my weakness.
I agree that HV was a turning point — I think that prior to HV, a lot of Catholics (like my parents) hoped the Church would stake out a middle ground on sexuality, that reaffirmed the primacy of marital relations and the marital relationship as being the proper place for for determining the number and spacing of children. I think, also, that there is a significant proportion of people (my father) who saw HV as a rejection of science, and the incorporation of beneficial scientific progress. Of course, my father likely did not accurately forecast the sexual revolution, let’s just say that he resented being caught in the middle of a policy that was intended to forestall the “slippery slope” from contraception to extramarital sex to abortion, even assuming that slope is real. My father, like most married Catholic men of his age and time, never contemplated the latter two. And I am guessing that the Church would have an easier time of maintaining congregational adherence to the latter two if its policy on the first weren’t perceived as being so manifestly unreasonable and intrusive.
And no, the sloganeering does not help. I’m speaking of the usual statement that using contraception is tantamount to telling your spouse that you are not giving your entire self to the marriage or something like that. I find this “slogan” to be banal, psychologically obtuse and more than a little offensive, coming as it does from men who do not have firsthand experience with a marital relationship.
I would like to know what the logical connection between contraception and abortion is. Or one what grounds anyone would maintain that one’s position on the one must necessarily affect one’s position and the other. (I realize that it was was once believed that the sperms was a homunculus, but I doubt anyone is going to say that.)
mlj – The primacy of orthodoxy over orthopraxy. Perhaps you would be kind enough to provide me with some biblical citations for your position. It seems to me that there is primacy of orthopraxy in both Testaments. I’m usuallly happy to be corrected.
Sean H
You say:
“I think those minimizing the importance of the orthodox Catholic revival in America are simply whistling in the dark.”
I do not minimize the importance of what you are pleased to call the “orthodox revival”. But I do wonder how extensive it is and how deep it goes. And I sometimes wonder whether is it some form of generational rebellion. I also wonder how many of the tenets of “orthodox” are indisputably teachings of the Church and how many are pious opinions. Time will tell.
“While I agree that the younger orthodox crowd, one of which I suppose I am, are not a majority of Catholics in America, they are certainly becoming the most influential part of the laity and increasingly the clergy.”
I agree that often the younger clergy I have encountered seem to be of this persuasion. But I also have the impression that they are sonmetimes ill-prepared theologically and badly educated generally. One fellow I have heard on Sundays–more often than I would like to have–confuses pious opinions he has imbibed–I know not whence–with the teaching of the Church. The result is that those who know the difference may neglect what he says even when he happens to be right and those who do not, if they are listening, are imposed upon.
“Let’s face it, that majority of Catholics don’t even go to mass more than two or three times a year. Sure, most of them disagree with many church teachings, but what else is new. What about the ones who are going to mass every week, better yet, every day, or who participate in conferences, adult education, and ministries, or who’s kids participate in Catholic youth groups and conferences? My experience is that those that are participating in the daily life of the Church are, as a group, increasingly more orthodox.”
For what it’s worth I attend mass daily and participate in some forms of adult education at the parish level. I have even taken to going to benediction on First Fridays. I also consider myself entirely orthodox. I suspect you are also. But there are probably matters having to do with theology, church history, Scripture, etc. on which we disagree. Should this be a matter of concern? I think we should hesitate to impugn heterodoxy without a careful investigation.
Where are all the young Catholics bloggers in this debate?! Anna Nussbaum, come out of the woodwork! (Unless that’s against the blog-o-sphere’s set of rules.)
Let me offer, in their stead (since I am surely not a blogger), an unscientific, non-conclusive post-script to this conversation.
I find the entire notion of a “growing Catholic culture” to be fairly outlandish, at least from the perspective of the younger demographic of the Church. Why, you ask? Let me give two anecdotes by way of an answer.
The first deals with my home state, Wisconsin, a bastion of Catholic and Lutheran faiths (Madison being the exception). In my journey of growing up there and going to college, I find very few young people that are exemplers of what we might call a “Catholic culture.” Instead, we see widespread evidence of the “spiritual but not religious” epidemic (touched on in a previous Commonweal article). This happens despite many of the young people growing up in Catholic families and adhering to at least a nominal form of Catholic practice.
The second is my time in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Any opinions on the Society and those who associate with them aside, the people who choose to join JVC do so (most often) because of a religious compulsion to help the poor. Yet, even in this more “spiritual” environment, I find evidence of the same epidemic. People often have a hard time with Catholic doctrine, and even people who profess to be Catholics will say things such as, “I simply don’t understand why the Pope is necessary.”
It seems to stem from a common problem – at some point in their lives, these young people had a serious question about their religion and it was never answered to their satisfaction. Most common among these is theodicy, but issues about tolerance (or intolerance) come in a close second
So, I wonder, why is it that so many of my fellow “young Catholics” are victims of this disease, and what is its cause. Additionally, in view of this surely weighty and erudite study that I have just completed, is there ground for saying Catholic culture is growing given the circumstances just described? From my perspective, it seems not.
Sean (and mlj too), sorry that my questions to you were not sufficiently precise. Let me try once more. First, what do the “new orthodox” (for want of a more proper term) consider to be the practical implications of the Church’s social teachings for their religious practice? I’m referring to texts like those discussed, e.g., in Kenneth Himes, O.F.M., et al “Modern Catholic Social Teaching ” (2005)?
Second, what do they take the practical implications for the Catholic laity to be of #s 31 ff. of Vatican II’s “Dogmatic constitution on the Church”? Surely, they draw so more or less specific conclusions from these documents. Would you please give me a clue about their conclusions, at least as you understand them.
Bernard,
I don’t know how clearly I can answer that. My sense is that they see the Church as having its own politics and thus do not see the mission of the Church as being identical with any social-political movements, perhaps pro-life stuff notwithstanding. The idea that the “young orthodox” are unanimously Republican is not true, though they seem to be much, much more friendly to the Republican party than to the Democrats. My sense is also that that could change overnight. I guess I’m not sure what else you’re driving at and I can’t be much more specific. I’ve never once (!) heard any one of them agitate for the ordination of women, if you’re wondering about things like that.
These are personal impressions. Nothing more.
Bernard,
As to Catholic Social Teaching, I think one difference among some of my contemporaries is that this teaching is better realized through personal rather than governmental means. When I read the texts of the encyclicals in the Himes book – I have never read it, but I am familiar with a few of the documents it addresses – I do not see a call for a particular set of political, primarily governmental. solutions, but to personal actions and accountability.
Sean H and mlj, thanks. The lay people I know best, and they are, for the most part, not young, seem to take the social doctrine pretty much as optional. From my perspective, social change that is truly structural will require some communal efforts, at least some of which will be governmental. For example, the present issue of public policy toward illegal immigrants will end up being addressed somehow. Whether it is addressed in a way that is more or less consistent with Catholic moral principles is a far from trivial issue. Many of the Catholics I know unfortunately just seem to regard this as an issue that has no significant relationship to their faith.
If the teaching is better realized through individual rather than governmental means, then they have essentially decided that gross social inequality is acceptable and that they will live in a society that , basically, has rejected Catholic social teaching. In addition to bypassing the plight of immigrants, individual witness will not provide greater access to health care, for example. I am so glad that these young people were not instrumental in the mid-60s, when the food stamp or Medicare programs were created. I am not a socialist, but they really need to start connecting the dots of what they profess with what kind of society they want to live in. Why this begins and ends with abortion, where a governmental solution is proffered as the only acceptable norm, has always been a mystery to me.
Sean H
Above I typed “impugn heterodoxy” for “impute heterodoxy” .
Barbara,
In your opinion, is it possible for another Catholic to argue, reasonably and in good faith, for contrary economic policies, though on precisely the same grounds–namely, that those policies are in the best interest of the poor and the common good?
Let me ask the obvious: why does it have to be “either/or”?
Is there not a place in the care of the poor, sick and destitute for the Great Society-type programs AND the Catholic Worker movement?
Government has a primary goal of the provision of care to those who need it. At least it did prior to the current regime. There is an economy of scale and weight of law that can be more effective than the sum total of individual efforts, no matter how well intentioned.
You don’t believe that? Try protecting your neighborhood with volunteer vigilantes; your homes with a volunteer fire department; your country with a volunteer “well-armed militia.”
Barbara,
mlj is correct. You assume other’s motives – i.e. that they don’t care. I tend to favor free market solutions for most econimic problems, including the problem of poverty, becaue I think they work best – for everyone. I favor them because I do care, not because I don’t. Are they perfect all the time? Probably not, but neither are governmental solutions.
I do not judge by intentions, but by results. If you look around the world at those societies that have benefitted the majority of their citizens the most, they are (without exception) based on free market approaches.
Have the Great Society Programs resulted in a better society? Does making people dependent on a large beauracracy make them better able to function? Does it help them become better people?
Contrary to Jimmy Mac’s statement, until the last few decades, it has never been the government’s role to provide for people. It was first the person’s own responsibility, and then his family’s, and then his neighbors’ (or church’s). Is getting food stamps or aid from a huge secular bureacracy somehow better than feeding our own neighbors? Isn’t it possible that be creating these huge, impersonal, governmental solutions that we have actually harmed those we sought to help?
Sean said: Contrary to Jimmy Mac’s statement, until the last few decades, it has never been the government’s role to provide for people. It was first the person’s own responsibility, and then his family’s, and then his neighbors’ (or church’s). Is getting food stamps or aid from a huge secular bureacracy somehow better than feeding our own neighbors? Isn’t it possible that be creating these huge, impersonal, governmental solutions that we have actually harmed those we sought to help?
Jean observes: I think Sean is right in many ways. I misspent my youth pushing socialist causes with the mistaken notion that if the government played Robin Hood and gave everyone enough money, we would all live happily in communes without poverty, crime, racism and greed. “Imagine all the people, living life in peace.” La la la.
I heard a minister on NPR’s “News and Notes” some months back talking about the importance of people in his church taking personal responsibility for the people in New Orleans, about them spending their own time and money helping others, because that’s what Jesus did.
He was very eloquent. He was absolutely right. And I agree completely that government handouts can be dehumanizing.
By the same token, this minister also said that the churches and congregants did not have the wherewithal to study and build levees, decide how much margin of marshland to leave intact around New Orleans, detect toxicity levels on building sites, etc. etc.
The reason people like me vote for politicians who support some level of government support for the poor is because as much as people want to help, churches and neighbors before the last few decades were NOT picking up the slack.
My own parish does not help the indigent. It is taking in only about half of what it needs to operate and relies on Bingo and Texas Hold’em tournaments to make up the difference.
What we do have in our community are “coffee can health care plans.” You’ve see ‘em, I’m sure. Coffee cans in the grocery store, pizza parlor, insurance agency and bank with pictures of little kids who need chemotherapy, braces or a bone marrow transplant.
People in my rural area throw in five or ten bucks when they can, but in a town of 1,700 people, that’s only going to earn you $17,000 bucks, tops. When a bone marrow transplant costs, conservatively, $150,000, Little Billy’s outta luck.
Apparently, Jesus missed the point in teaching the Good Samaritan lesson. He should have had the man who was robbed informed that the reason the robbers took his money, goods and beat him up was that the economy is not structured right. He could help the guy temporarily but what he really needs is a long term solution.
Moreover, he would say “I am not refusing to help you because you are a Jew. It is because the policies keep us apart. If your leaders and mine got together we can solve this through policy rather than a useless individual act.
Its the economy, stupid. Sleep well.”
It is consistently amazing to me that people fail to recognize the role of government in their own success and well-being, even as they decry the role of government in shoring up the well-being of others. Take health care services: There is a very large tax incentive that encourages employers to provide it for their employees. Hospitals would be out of business without government funding, through reimbursement, tax exempt financing and a whole host of other incentives, for instance, the subsidies that are provided to graduate medical education. And then there’s your parents or grandparents, whose medical care you will not be called upon to fund, because the government set up an insurance program for them.
This is a pretty academically advanced crowd: How shall we count the ways that government shores up higher education? Who among us would really have been able to go to college and succeed if we had to pay its true costs out of our own pockets?
Mortgage interest deductions: No government policy at work there? Have you ever considered how relatively privilged home owners are, tax wise, over renters?
I’ll believe your plea for the benefits of the unfettered free market when its principles are applied equally to the middle class and above.
We all know that the government dole works in two ways. While conservatives cluck about the dehumanizing effects of welfare for people, with some justification, I never hear them clucking about welfare for corporations.
I live near a city with several auto manufacturing plants that applied for and received local property tax abatements.
The city paper ran a series of stories outlining how much tax revenue was lost due to those abatements that had to be picked up by small businesses and homeowners.
City officials said they had no choice, because the auto plants were threatening to pull up stakes and lay off workers (which they have since done anyway).
A friend who lives in the city wrote a letter to the city council asking for a property tax abatement on her home because she planned to hire local labor to paint her house, re-asphalt her driveway and shingle her roof. If she didn’t get the abatement, she’d hire people from out of town to do the work.
The council didn’t respond to her request. Guess they didn’t want her to feel dehumanized.
Anyone who has a mortgage benefits from welfare, i.e., they write off the interest. This is not the case in Canada or the UK and somehow they manage to buy and keep homes.
How long would churches survive if their members did not get a tax deduction for contributions thereto?
Beware of the welfare ox … it gores many ways.
Jimmy,
I agree with some of what you say. That is why I support a flat tax without deductions. The problem is, so-called progressives are the ones that oppose this type of tax. They would rather be able to use the tax system to influence behavior than simplify it.
Jean,
“Corporate welfare” is something of a canard. All taxes are born by individuals. People act as if corporations are big money holes where revenue goes in and never comes out except in taxes – as if the economy is a zero-sum game. If a corporation pays taxes – it is you that pays them, not the monster corporation – either in increased prices, decreased services, and/or lower profits that feed growth and dividends that fund mutual funds and massive state retirement systems that own most of the stock – that is regular people. Now, I agree with you that some property tax schemes can be harmful to average people, but that is just another example of why government solutions to economic problems inevitably have negative side effects.
Bill,
The Good Samaritan? More likely the story would be that the first two passed him by because they pay taxes to handle that problem -where are the police? It is the one that takes personal responsibility who helps. That is my point. Look at the hurricane Katrina example. Religious charities and private citizens were far more responsive and effective. The government had to be involved because only it had the resources. Even then, we are finding that they were wasteful – big surprise there.
Sean:
Maybe Katrina is not the best example to use.
That debacle is the fault of HOW this current government mismanaged the response, not a fault of government per se.
FEMA under the Clinton administration most likely would have responded in a much more efficient manner. It was better organized, managed and situated in that administration’s hierarchy. The farce that it has become under “Compassionate Conservatism” is deliberate and shameful.
Sean H. says: That is why I support a flat tax without deductions.
Jean replies. Well, I guess this is just one crazy kinda day, because guess what?!
I supported Jerry Brown b/c of his 13 percent tax/no deductions program.
It wouldn’t save us that much money personally, but it would cut down on the amount we have to spend to keep the IRS afloat, ensure everybody pays their fair share, and get rid of all this influence jockeying for tax relief by special interest groups.
Actually, I don’t assume that they don’t care, to whoever “jumped to that conclusion” (two can play that game). What I assume is that they don’t know many people who are actually living in poverty and don’t understand how taxes and government spending and financial incentives are structured.
I would add that, the subsidies that are in place with respect to health care (in particular), education (less so) and housing (somewhere in between) artificially inflate the cost of those goods so that if you are not in a sweet spot where you are able to obtain government facilitated subsidies you are either not going to be able to afford the good at all (pretty clearly the case with health care) or it will be much less accessible (education), or much more costly or otherwise economically disadvantageous (housing).
Just FYI, for all intents and purposes, poor people pay a flat tax (they dont’ tend to itemize). To understand flat taxes, I will not even talk to someone until they have read the views of two or more economists whose thinking diverges. Otherwise, the discussion is just a form of blind man’s bluff.
Barbara, I never thought of it before, but yes, poor people do pay a flat tax.
Actually, our household pays a flat tax, since we are not able to give to charity at the level required for a write-off, though I suppose if we were scrupulous about in-kind giving we might.
I don’t know what the answer to health care is. It seems awfully complicated and overwhelming. We were without it for about a year due to my husband’s layoff, (boss said health care and salaries were too high, fired everyone and hired younger workers willing to work without health benefits cheaper).
And we were too rich for the dole, so we paid over $400 per month for meds for a special needs kid out of pocket.
Our doc’s offered to help us out with samples, but I felt as though I was taking drugs away from the truly needy, so declined. They did give us a lower “not insured” office visit rate, but noted they could only do that temporarily and encouraged us to go to the county health department if we continued without insurance.
I now have insurance through work for my son and me. We pay through the nose for pemiums, so are no further ahead financially, since the premiums and co-pays equal the above $400 out-of-pocket costs.
We maintain it only because you can’t really be without hospitalization if you have asthmatics in the family.