Only the Saints Can Save Us
This week I was invited to contribute a brief reflection to the Patheos web site on the topic “The Future of Catholicism.” Patheos bills itself as the “premier online destination to engage in the global dialogue about religion and spirituality and to explore and experience the world’s beliefs.” This week’s symposium featured contributions from, among others, Fr. Robert Barron, Fr. James Martin SJ, Sr. Mary Ann Walsh of the USCCB, and Kate Dugan and Jennifer Owens, authors of From the Pews in the Back. The series was coordinated by Elizabeth Scalia, who blogs at First Things under the nom de plume of The Anchoress.
My own modest contribution can be found here (Patheos site) or here (Washington Post’s On Faith weblog). Here is an excerpt:
The problem goes deeper than difficult doctrines or antiquated structures, problematic though these may sometimes be. Our children and grandchildren are abandoning the faith because they perceive — rightly — that its demands are at fundamental variance with the lives we have prepared them to lead. We have raised them to seek lives characterized by material comfort, sexual fulfillment, and freedom from any obligations that they have not personally chosen. Should it surprise us that they fail to take seriously our claims to follow one who embraced poverty, chastity, and obedience to the will of God?
A revival of the Church in our time will require believers who are willing to take risks on behalf of the Gospel. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Cardinal Law, rather than retiring to his sinecure in Rome, had instead made a penitential journey to Haiti and lived out his days in a hospital cleaning toilets and picking maggots from the wounds of street people. Some might have seen such a penance as inadequate to the offense, but it could not have been dismissed as an empty gesture. To renounce everything he had achieved for the sake of the Gospel would have been an act worthy of a follower of Jesus Christ.
“Our children and grandchildren are abandoning the faith because they perceive — rightly — that its demands are at fundamental variance with the lives we have prepared them to lead. We have raised them to seek lives characterized by material comfort, sexual fulfillment, and freedom from any obligations that they have not personally chosen. ”
In short, it is because they’re spoilt… I disagree with this assessment. That is not the reason why my students, my children and their friends have moved away from the church. By and large, they are idealistic, full of curiosity and willing to try out new experiences. They want to lead a good life. When they get a chance to live a period with less material comfort, sexual fulfillment, or freedom from obligations, they recognize the value of such a life.
The young people I see dismiss the church because in their eyes, it is not true (miracles etc. are at odds with science), it is not pure (the entire church hierarchy is corrupt), and it is not good (its contemptuous attitude towards women, gays, and thinking citizens is at odds with contemporary ethics).
Claire said “The young people I see dismiss the church because in their eyes, it is not true (miracles etc. are at odds with science), it is not pure (the entire church hierarchy is corrupt), and it is not good (its contemptuous attitude towards women, gays, and thinking citizens is at odds with contemporary ethics).”
These are things that are present in the church, but do they define the church? Whose fault is it that we have allowed the church to be defined by its faults? Gandhi once said “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
And he also once said “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” Is it that more than a few drops have become dirty in the church?
To be clear, I do not subscribe to the perspective of the youth around me; their criticisms only reflect a partial truth, and I find their sweeping conclusions exaggerated. I agree with the title of the post and it echoes this weekend’s beautiful first reading!
But the question is: why is the next generation abandoning the faith in large numbers? Peter suggests: (primarily?) because of the materialistic culture. I disagree. Who is right?
I concur with Claire’s take on this. I am weary of the complaint that it is materialism that is causing younger people to move away from the Church. My own adult children and their friends are hard working, loving, and skeptical of what passes for success in our driven society. Church-going is not a priority for them, yet they exhibit a sacramental sense of the world. They are not indifferent to the spiritual. Those of us who continue to attend Mass every weekend are more able, I propose, to “practice” our faith. Our parish community keeps us together, however much our backward and over priviliged hierarchy appalls us. If younger people don’t have this community, their understanding of the faith becomes less about love, justice and following Christ and more about exclusion of women, gays, etc., and abuse of power. The leadership of the Church becomes the face of the Church, rather than their neighbors. I wish I could offer solutions. I guess we all do.
I agree with Claire and Holloway. The notion that we’re losing people because Selfish Bad Catholic Parents are teaching their kids to be self-absorbed hedonists is wearying.
We have fairly lively discussions about religion with our kid, and the Church seems poised to lose him because he perceives Catholic–and much Christian teaching generally–triumphal and exclusive.
We keep trying to pull him back to the center–it sometimes helps to talk with him about not fixating on one or two teachings, but to look at the overall spirit of what the Church teaches–love the Lord and your neighbor as yourself and make that play out in all aspects of your life. We have tried to illustrate that in our own lives.
Sadly, neither he nor any of the other young Catholics find much nourishment in the local parish. People are elderly, finding volunteers to work with kids is nearly impossible, CCD is abysmal, and there is very little interest in getting kids involved.
The Church needs to realize that Catholic schools are no long readily available to most parents as more and more of them close or raise tuition beyond the means of many. The Church must learn to better serve its children receiving secular educations, and to fund and train CCD teachers better than it has.
Aside from that ditto rant, I think your comment about Cardinal Law is right on. Bravo there.
“The Church must learn to better serve its children receiving secular educations, and to fund and train CCD teachers better than it has.”
So, Jean (or anyone else) what exactly are YOU doing about this?
Richard, I don’t think this is about ME, Jean Raber. I think the diocese hasn’t come to terms with the fact that most Catholic kids can’t attend a Catholic school, and hasn’t figured out that parents and CCD teachers need better training and materials.
But I’ll take your bait by giving you one example of what I’ve done and why it’s not enough:
I was the ONLY parent who showed up to help with confirmation in any way shape or form (and I’m a lapsed Catholic). I promised to raise my kid Catholic and support my husband who is devout in his faith. I’m not fit to teach CCD because I don’t receive anymore.
But the night before confirmation, when my kid said he didn’t want to go through with it because he didn’t understand what it was all about (after a two-year confirmation program!), there I was downloading the rite of confirmation off the Internet and going through it piece by piece to explain it.
When the Church has to rely on bad Catholics like me for its catechesis, I’d say it’s reached a sorry pass.
Have I expressed all this to the Powers that Be in the parish and diocese. Oh, yah, you betcha. I am breathlessly awaiting their reply. Just as I’m waiting for Cardinal Law to make that pilgrimage to Haiti.
Add me to the list of those who agree with the cure, but not the diagnosis. For a long time, maybe, as Bill Mazzella likes to tell us, since the days of Constantine, the Church has faced an internal tension over how much it can allow itself to become part of the larger culture without compromising its core message and mission. In my view, the Church wants to be part of the larger culture and does not particularly challenge its members on the issue of materialism, so blaming parents and children for this particular shortcoming is wrongheaded and unfair. Instead, the Church challenges its members on other things, mostly having to do with sexuality and reproduction. But if you sit down and read the Gospels, you can’t help but notice that Jesus said very little about the latter and quite a bit about the former. This trope about materialism is usually just another one of the many ways we avoid having to take on or justify the Church’s unique teachings on sexual issues on something other than pure authority, and the increasing resistance of children of all religious denominations to go along with something that they don’t think makes sense, or, mea culpa, that their own parents don’t seem to be adhering to. Like Jean, that’s why I stopped considering myself to be a Catholic in good standing.
I’ve already expresedmy opinion on this at the America blog where Fr. Martin presented it.
But I like what J. Peter said and g;ad to see it as a matter of fofcus not only here but to a larger audience.
I agree with several here that we are too easy to blame our young folks and they will be a major part of the “Future of Catholicism.”
I like the concepts that Fr. Rohr provided at the conference on Emerging churches in Albuquerque recently.Instead of dealing with certainties , we need to emphasize the unknowing of the search as we contemplate and balance our lives in community.
I think tht fits a lot of our younger Catholics perceptions.
Meanwhile the toxic rift in our Church is much about certainties and power.
How much impact as it continues it will have on destroying faith is a big question.
Then there’s demographics and the coming Latino influx. Be careful, I think, that they will be a shot in the arm for one camp or other in the divide, because for all their values, the toxicity of that divide could drive then to other places unless they are well ministeted to and respected.
I’m fascinated by the scenario that Jean Raber paints: that of the “lapsed” Catholic who takes seriously, and fairly represents to her son, the church’s intentions in the sacrament of Confirmation. I can’t avoid the suspicion that in this she is being a truer disciple than many of us who scrupulously keep our de jure obligations.
It reminds me of a non-Catholic young woman I once heard say, “I’m not sure I believe in prayer, but I find that I do it anyway.” There is faith there that is not only almost certainly larger than a mustard seed but probably greater than that of many of us “practicing” Catholics.
And the image of a wayward contemporary prelate taking on the more radical corporal works of mercy in Haiti has made my day. The time when such as the inwardly humble Cardinal Bellarmine walked the earth and never stopped working with the poor as his ecclesiastical grandeur increased, are now at some distance.
I agree with everyone. How’s that?
I read some of the entries on the symposium, but not yet all of Peter’s, which I like from the excerpt. One reason I like it is that Peter seems to grapple with the realities of the present in looking to the future, whereas many of the entries were largely repeating personal wish-fulfillment scenarios or laying down ideological challenges, such as if we don’t do what I want, we’re doomed. If we do, we’re in paradise. Or just talking about how much good there is in the church. Which there is, of course. But that’s not the question at hand.
Peter’s seemingly blanket reproval of Catholics and parents especially does sound like too much of a blanket, I agree. So many parents have it tough in a tough culture, but they are trying, and not just accommodating. And as my daughter grows up I am increasingly aware (as if I didn’t know before) about how poorly Catholics (in my experience) support and “do” youth ministry and childhood education. The Protestants and Evangelicals in particular are WAY ahead on that score. I wonder if that is a hangover from the glory days of Catholic schools, which were supposed to take care of everything? I don’t know, and that is another discussion.
But I think in the excerpt Peter pivots sharply to the indisputable point of witness and lives of integrity. That is what young people judge a faith by today, and indeed the saints will save us, if we are salvageable. Nothing is a given anymore. It is about Catholics of all stripes and stations living the Gospel.
“I’m fascinated by the scenario that Jean Raber paints: that of the ‘lapsed’ Catholic who takes seriously, and fairly represents to her son, the church’s intentions in the sacrament of Confirmation.”
This has come up before and somebody always finds it fascinating or inspiring that a bad Catholic can still love the Church and hope to be reconciled with it. Mine is hardly a unique or inspiring story, believe me.
Moreover, teaching my kid about Confirmation wasn’t that hard; as a former Anglican (who would go back if Raber didn’t have a great big cow every time I talked about it) I found that the Rite of Confirmation in the BCP was just about identical to the Catholic one So you could say that good Anglican catechesis is what saved my kid from not being confirmed as a Catholic.
But wouldn’t it have been nicer for my kid to have learned about being Confirmation from “real” Catholic?
Wouldn’t it have been nicer if the priest or deacon had bothered to show up at jus ONE of the meetings and answered the kids’ questions (Do animals have souls? do all practicing homosexuals go to hell like my Baptist friend says? So many lost teaching moments!)
Wouldn’t it have been nicer if parishioners were fighting for the honor to be sponsors for the confirmants, instead of having to be begged or imported from other parishes?
I think David G’s comment about the “hangover from the glory days of Catholic schools, which were supposed to take care of everything” is entirely on topic here.
OK, I’ll shut up for awhile now.
“The young people I see dismiss the church because in their eyes, it is not true (miracles etc. are at odds with science), it is not pure (the entire church hierarchy is corrupt), and it is not good (its contemptuous attitude towards women, gays, and thinking citizens is at odds with contemporary ethics).”
Have Church positions on miracles, the composition of the hierarchy, or attitudes towards women changed in material ways over the last half-century? If not, would that not make it difficult to ascribe rates of change in abandonment of the faith, however you want to define that term, to those phenomena?
“The young people I see dismiss the church because in their eyes . . . “
Is it any wonder that this is what they see — this false image — when so few today bother to praise and defend the Church and, dare I say, love her? All too often, all they hear is crappy and lousy the Church is, from the Pope to the bishops to the liturgy to the music to the art to the theologians to the progressives to the traditionalists, all they hear is how it all sucks. So is it really any wonder, when all they have heard is people (Catholics no less!) bitch and moan and complain about the Church, that they end up holding the Church in such disregard?
Correction –
All too often, all they hear is crappy and lousy the Church is . . .
All too often, all they hear is how crappy and lousy the Church is . . .
“Instead of dealing with certainties , we need to emphasize the unknowing of the search as we contemplate and balance our lives in community.
I think tht fits a lot of our younger Catholics perceptions.”
Bob Nunz –
Unccertain — yes, that is a central characteristics of the young these days, and they have reason to be uncertain. Nietzsche and Dostoievsky are often included in the core curricula in even the least demanding colleges, and both thinkers are powerful value and culture-destroying writers. (For instance, “doing your own thing” comes straight out of Nietzsche). Yes, Dostoievsky preaches love but also shakes their faith in the existence of God, While this pseudo-education is going on the Church ignores these existential problems and claims certainty about all sorts of issues, certainty that was never justified and the kids know it.
As long as the Vatican tells its thinkers to shut up even about crucial moral and theological questions which the young are interested in, the Church will continue to be the intellectual wasteland it is and the young will search for living waters elsewhere.
We desperately need a theological epistemology — one which recognizes the limits of the Church’s theological explanations and the limits of its certainty about moral issues, but an epistemology which preserves our faith that we can be certain enough about such matters to advance God’s plan for the world, including ourselves.
Still, both young and old need to know with some degree of certainty that what we are told to choose is truly *real* love of God, neighbor and self, that our moral programs are not based on hit or miss sentimentality or on self-serving ethical principles with self at the center or on the morally distorted forms of life touted by the Janssenists in the Vatican.
Look at the fundamentalist groups — their certainty is appalling, but oh so very attractive, at lest for a while. But after fundamentallism . . . what?
I am wondering how many of you recognize the call to apostasy on this page? Hint: Apostasy is not a theological epistemology.
Have Church positions on miracles, the composition of the hierarchy, or attitudes towards women changed in material ways over the last half-century?
MAT,
They have, to a certain extent. But not enough.
Nancy –
Has it ever occurred to you that *you* could be wrong about what the Church is?
Is it any wonder that this is what they see — this false image — when so few today bother to praise and defend the Church and, dare I say, love her?
Bender,
I think in order to defend and love “the Church,” one has to have a definition of what “the Church” is and is not. For those who want to defend and love “the Church,” they will have a definition that minimizes or excludes the indefensible and the unlovable as not really “the Church.” The same can be done with “America.” For example, some of the most severe critics of the United States (those in the Tea Party movement) seem to believe that the United States as it currently exists is tyrannical — having gone deeply wrong at least as early as 1913 with the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment and the institution of income tax — but they still love “America.” They want to “take back the country.”
Also, traditionalist Catholics like the Saint Pius X Society love their version of “the Church,” which is not your version of Benedict XVI’s version.
What is “the Church,” and why should we defend and love it?
Hint: Apostasy is not a theological epistemology.
Nancy,
Alleging apostasy does not even rise to the level of Catholic apologetics. It’s just name calling.
I think someone needs to explain how people can become rich and powerful (for example, the six Catholic Supreme Court members) and still be a good Catholic, detached from the things of this world. If I said I didn’t think a Catholic could make a good president, or Supreme Court justice, or CEO of a Fortune 500 company, I would denounced for anti-Catholicism. But Catholics seem to want to have it both ways. You can be rich, successful, and powerful in this world, and also lay up treasures in the Kingdom of Heaven.
“I am wondering how many of you recognize the call to apostasy on this page? Hint: Apostasy is not a theological epistemology.”
I give up. Where is it?
Honestly, I have no idea what you’re even talking about (which probably surprises no one here), but why can’t you just say what you mean and stop with the oblique, hintsy-wintsy wink-wink-nudge-nudge insinuations.
MAT: science has progressed enormously in the past half-century. Ethics, I think, have changed a lot as well. Even if you believe that Church positions are unchangeable, the world around us has changed, and new responses need to be developed to resolve the new questions that come up.
David: when you were a kid, did you ever hear the following story (that I read in a book in my grandparent’s house)? ” Jesus and Peter went out for a walk. Peter spotted a penny on the ground, and thought to himself: “why should I bend down and pick it up? It’s so small that it’s not worth it”; but Jesus picked it up. Then there was another penny, and again Peter didn’t bother to pick it up, but Jesus did. Then another one, and more along the way. At the end of their walk, Peter was tired and hungry but had nothing to eat. Jesus pulled out of his pocket a whole bunch of change and was able to buy them a nice snack.”
The Church is becoming exclusive, and the moral certainty crowd like that, they keep telling Cafeteria Catholics to become Episcopalians. Our youth are being taught to be inclusive. The two do not mix.
Our youth see nothing wrong with their gay friends, the Church, no matter what it says, would prefer they did not exist.
This just in from Raber who attended the local parish men’s club meeting.
Chairman Al reported from the parish council that Father wants the men’s club to think about ways to make more young people feel welcome in the parish. Father also directed the men’s club to cut down the basketball hoops outside the Bingo hall that the boys use for pick-up games after Mass b/c they were scuzzy looking.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Jean, given your keen insight, perhaps you might offer the pastor some concrete suggestions or even volunteer your time to work with young people. I’m sure that would be at least as helpful as all you do for this forum.
A man had two sons. He came to the first and said, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’He said in reply, ‘I will not,’ but afterwards he changed his mind and went. The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did his father’s will?” Mt 21: 28-31
Jean, this story seems to be the right one for most of this discussion. You have the ‘lapsed’ son doing what the father asked; there is a professing son who is disobedient while the one who stands apart (in apo-stasy) is obedient; there are the sons who do not go to Church in order to be obedient to the Father; and the sons who go to Church but act against the father’s will.
I am not about to sort them out, though Mt seems to side with the lapsed, unprofessing son who does the father’s will, and does not seem as happy with the ones who profess their allegiance to the father, and yet does not do what is asked of him.
(and Nancy, apostasy IS a theological epistemology)
On a hopeful note about Cardinal Law going to Haiti???.. Bishop Casey from Galway Ireland resigned after a scandel of fathering a child, went to minister to Indio tribes in the rain forests of Panama. And Talking about apostasy…Peter after denying Christ 3 times…..
Ed,
It seems to me that that bishop would have done better had he accepted his responsibility and helped raise that child.
Peter, I’m afraid I don’t get it. I think you’re saying a) young people disagree with the church’s teaching; and to the extent that it’s not a problem with the rhetoric (the joyless orthodox, in your view) b) that disagreement is based in their own selfishness and materialism–due to their bad parenting by selfish and materialistic parents.
That doesn’t fit my experience with my students (and I’ve been teaching fifteen years). Some students disagree with the church’s teaching. It also doesn’t fit with my experience of adult children of friends who are no longer practicing Catholics. They are very good people. They think the Church is wrong (on women, sex, etc.) but thye’re far from materialistic. They volunteer, they recycle, they try to live a zero footprin lifet, and they worry about the effects of what they buy on the people who make those things in China. They are raising their own children to be good people, and to be good stewards of the earth.
Conversely, some attachment to material goods has often gone along with those who proclaim their own orthodixy, who emphasize spiritual poverty–which doesn’t preclude a lot of material materialism. Richard John Neuhaus’s colloquia (and I’ve attended some) generally met at the Union League Club in New York–not the Automat. Opus Dei headquarters are in prime real estate in New York.
The thing is many of those who disagree think it’s better to walk a way and forge a coherent life somewhere else rather than beat there head against a brick wall trying to change what isn’t going to be changed in their lifetime. By the way, they’re not relativistic–far from it. They think official church \teaching is objectively wrong and harmful. .
Why are some of our children *not* abandoning the faith? Let’s look at them — for example, purportedly in Africa and in some countries of Asia.
I think that in countries where Catholics are persecuted and must hide and take risks to practice their faith, they offer a great witness to their faith, and it’s just hard for a youth to turn away from such heroism.
I don’t know about Africa. Maybe AIDS, malnutrition, diseases, wars, abject poverty, and generally threats of death at random times, are forcing people to meditate on the larger meaning of life?
In an earlier comment, Roger Evans wrote,
Not quite. Not altogether.
This also brings to mind what Hammarskjold wrote on Whitsunday, 1961:
Readers of “The Tablet” know its weekly feature, “The Living Spirit,” that often contains provocative gems. Here is one from the July 17th issue:
“We all know that Christ has been eliminated from our lives. Of course we build him a temple, but we live in our own houses. Christ has become a matter of the Church, or rather of the churchiness of a group, not a matter of life …
“One thing is clear: we understand Christ only if we commit ourselves to him in a stark ‘either/or.’ He did not go to the cross to ornament and embellish our life. If we wish to have him, then he demands the right to say something decisive about our entire life.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
I’ve been involved with catechetical ministry for a long time. Kids are skeptical since we live in a world class pagan culture and little confirms what we teach. In public school they meet all kinds of people and are friends with many who are not Catholic. I find that kids are attracted to our faith tradition by adults who are excited about it, engaged in continued discovery about who Christ is and what the church is, themselves, and who are willing to listen respectfully to the kid’s struggle not only with faith but with life itself. The grown-ups are having trouble running the world and the young certainly see that. We might serve them if we support them in discovering/holding onto the thread of hope for good inherent in the gospels. And then we have to hold that with them.
We are a church of sinners, struggling on our way to eternal life. We should not avoid being with a group of Christians celebrating the Eucharist. The Eucharist and those gathered in his name there, are our nourishment and joy. It gives life to us. Where else do we find such great words as: “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ”
So we should not avoid the church, the people, despite many poor leaders.
Robert S., maybe you could go read my reply to your post again. I HAVE volunteered and I HAVE offered suggestions, but I certainly am not going to ask to teach CCD when I don’t even receive anymore. Talk about scandal!
Jim McK, I’m not sure what you’re even talking about. I don’t receive b/c I have not done the Church’s will in all areas of my life–a will that I see as distinct from the Father’s in some cases–and I don’t feel sorry about, so I don’t receive. That doesn’t mean I don’t try to live out the faith in other ways that make sense to me.
Enough about me. Maybe we could get back to Peter’s thread, to which I reacted somewhat viscerally. After sleeping on it and reading Fr. Imbelli’s post, I’m thinking maybe we need some goads in our lives.
Jean,
This is not about you exclusively, but also about Nancy’s “apostates” who stand with God in serving others, and about all those young people who “do not go to Church” because live lives molded by the Church’s values. Each of these says no to God or the Church, followed by a yes to God or the Church in their actions.
And all contrast with those who say yes to God or the Church, and then no in their actions — the priests who promise celibacy, and then father children; bishops who profess equality, but act as aristocrats; the laity who speak of welcome while shaming those who want to come; etc.
IOW, you are a good example of the subject of this note. Maybe not a perfect match in terms of age or extent of alienation, but certainly of the fact of alienation
I just want to add that this thread shows the broad variety of Catholics, including Barbara – who in many ways I see as a soul mate in thought-(and I thought of Joe. J wo often writes here or Jo McGowan whose Commonweal piece on staying away was met with a spate of interesting letter in the next issue) to reverts like Jimmy Mac to the very orthodox here.
But more will keep moving away as they see the lack of insight into the breadth of the Church enhanced by more inanity (see the thread above.)
The discussion so far seems to me to ask, “What is ‘abandoning the faith’?”
I infer from Peter’s post that it means kids don’t go to Mass when they’re not forced to by their parents, many of whom have stopped attending.
But–and I know regular, joyful Mass goers who live good Catholic lives probably get impatient and see these types of questions as weasle-y–I think “reversion” may occur oftener than people might think. Lord knows that’s what I’m counting on.
But, not to take away from Peter’s concerns that there seems to be a disinterest in Church among Our Young People, I don’t think you can say anyone has abandoned the faith until they’re dead and buried. And maybe not even then …
Jean: I receive b/c I have not done the Church’s will in all areas of my life–a will that I see as distinct from the Father’s in some cases–but I don’t feel sorry about it, so I receive.
Anyway, I come to communion as an unworthy receiver, to be healed — that’s why the words of the centurion that we speak right before communion are an important moment of the liturgy for me.
I thought that today’s texts were particularly strong on communion. On a day on which we are told to talk to God as to a daddy, and on which we are told that the sinners of Sodom would have been redeemed by a few just men, and that we sinners have been redeemed by Christ, it would feel strange for me to stay apart because of some personal flaws!
“Each of these says no to God or the Church, followed by a yes to God or the Church in their actions.”
Jim McK –
You don’t get it. The “apostates” are not saying No to God — they are saying No to the pseudo-god presented by fallible men in Rome, men who have been known on occassion to lie and cover-up truths. What they say cannot be trusted.
I said God OR the Church, not God AND the Church.
That distinction is quite interesting in itself, since Church can be either the voice of God or the voice of some men. Or both.
But I said OR to make the very point you accuse me of missing.
Gene Palumbo, I think you misunderstand me. I didn’t mean to say there are no virtuous hierarchs. But the cases of Romero and Bellarmine are quite distinct (though in no way to the disadvantage of the former).
Broderick’s wonderful biography of Bellarmine is one of the inspirations of my life, so I tend to harp on the consistent humility and persistence in evangelical values by the then most famous Catholic in Europe who had so many honors forced upon him under obedience.
The appeal of saints has already been touted by people in youth ministry for some time. I can remember hearing this two years ago, and I am not at all current with the youth ministry scene so it must have been old already! It came up as the result of some kind of study done about postmodernism and high school aged youth. So, I am wondering if this is “old hat”; and I ought to confess, I never much believed it in the first place. I do have some questions.
First of all, which saints? The role models or the wonder workers? Second, why do we expect saints to be exempt from the hermeneutic of suspicion applied to authority figures generally? Third, isn’t there a pretty standard riff about “heros” being important for adolescents? If so, how is this any different? I’m not knocking the saints, or the kids, but if the problem we are facing is really new, I don’t see how the same old solutions are going to address it.
I was thinking of future new saints: inspired people who will come out of the current generation and will propose new solutions and start the way towards implementing them. At this level of generality, it’s so abstract as to be almost useless, but the point I think is that a very small number of dedicated people could be the leaven of change.
Prof Kaveny and others here say that the people leaving the church are “good people.” I don’t doubt this at all. But, aren’t Christians supposed to be more than just good? Aren’t we supposed to love our enemies, and be perfect as our father in heaven is perfect? Maybe that is what Peter is getting at.
I always liked the phrase “May the saints preserve us.” It was heard in barrooms as often as in chapels.
The assumption behind that phrase may have been that we had “made it” and only needed to retain what we had. Now the call is to regain what we have lost.
“But I said OR to make the very point you accuse me of missing.”
Jim McK –
Sorry, but I don’t get what you’re saying. At any rate, I’m sorry that I misread your post.
Roger Evans –
I remember reading somewhere that Robert Bellarmine, far from being the heavy of Galileo’s inquisition, was actually supportive of his scientific efforts. But the trouble was (besides Galileo’s own irascible temperament) that Galileo did not yet have enough empirical evidence to establish his theory. This required that the old literal interpretation of Scripture should continue in force until proven otherwise. Had there been more evidence Galileo would not have been in such trouble. Do I remember this correctly?
Ann Oliver:
Without being by any means a specialist in the subject, my understanding is that anything Bellarmine did was at the direct orders of the pope, and we know what that meant for the early Jesuits. The most definite statement on the case that I know of from the Cardinal is this one (in a document that Galileo kept and prized to the end of his days because it declared him an honorable man):
“The declaration made by the Holy Father and published by the Sacred Congregation of the Index was intimated to him [i.e., Galileo], wherein it is declared that the doctrine attributed to Copernicus that the earth moves round the sun and that the sun is the center of the universe and does not move from east to west, is contrary to the Holy Scriptures, and therefore cannot be defended or held.”
As you imply above, this statement was the simple truth. As for Bellarmine’s being “actually supportive of [Galileo's] scientific efforts,” Broderick says (p. 372) that theology was “the only science which he valued much,” but there was mutual respect between Bellarmine and Galileo. Also some of the latter’s big supporters were Jesuit, Benedictine, and Dominican scholars whom Bellarmine listened to.
When Paul V consulted Bellarmine about the Copernican theory, the 74-year-old Cardinal allowed that, “regarded as a physical reality, he did not think it compatible with the Scriptures, though, like many other speculative theories such as Bruno’s plurality of inhabited worlds, it might freely be held and discussed as a hypothesis more satisfactory than that of Ptolemy” [p.377].
The Galileo story seems to be far, far more complicated than the many urban legends around it would imply.
Ann, my curiosity was also aroused after Roger Evans’ comment about Bellarmine, and I found his biography (or, better named, eulogy) at:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02411d.htm
By the way, I really liked your comment on Nietzsche etc.
Galileo: For Copernicanism and for the Church, contains a letter from Bellarmine in which he correctly questions the adequacies of Galileo’s proofs of heliocentricity while also asserting that heliocentricity was wrong because it contradicted both scripture and philosophy. I assume by philosophy, Bellarmine meant Aristotelian philosophy.
Hello All,
I am not a young person, but I teach philosophy (in secular universities) to college aged young adults, including Roman Catholic young adults. I don’t keep statistical data on my students’ views, but over the years I’ve perceived some broad consistencies in their attitudes.
My experiences are probably different from those here who teach in Roman Catholic universities. I have found that in most cases my Roman Catholic students are not noticeably different in their moral and political beliefs from my other students. Indeed, in most cases the only way I have been able to identify any of my students as Roman Catholics is when they have chosen to tell me so outside of class. What I found especially interesting early on after I started working as a university professor was how many students I met who told me (without my asking — I would never pry) that they were Roman Catholic and had stopped going to church or otherwise practicing the faith they were born into soon after they started college. One might attribute this to the usual stereotype of young people rebelling, but I think there may be a more interesting explanation for this.
I think Peter is only half right in his original post. I agree with Peter that young people in this country are indoctrinated into views that appear to be at odds with the Roman Catholic faith, at least on the surface. But I would disagree that two of the main “culprit values” are materialism and sexual fulfillment. I think the “culprits” (if that’s the right term) are a trust in the sciences and a firm belief in liberalism in the philosophical sense, that is, that people should have equal rights and be free to live as they choose so long as they do not infringe upon others’ like freedom. (I would agree with Peter in part that one of the main “culprits” is the view that our only obligations are created obligations, but that’s not a view that liberals young or old hold with much consistency.)
My strong impression is that the college age students I work with, whether Catholic or not, generally view the Roman Catholic Church as being indifferent to the sciences and opposed in certain instances to equality and freedom. I limit myself to one (ultrasensitive) example: Only two of the many Roman Catholic students I have worked with over sixteen years ever voiced any objections to the prospect of legalizing same-sex marriage, and all my students have had ample opportunity to do so in the many applied ethics classes I have led. I think that with only very rare exceptions, all the students I’ve worked with simply accept the reports of studies that support claims that no one is harmed by same sex relationships (including especially the children of same sex couples), and they view same legalizing sex marriage as simply being consistent with a general principle of equal rights for all.
As the parent of a 14-year-old I’m trying to support in the Church, I’ve found lots of food for thought here.
Peter V. about college students reminds me that our son’s journalism club took a tour of the MSU State News offices earlier this year on Good Friday. I asked him whether any of the jobs student were doing appealed to him and what he found interesting on the trip.
Among his observations, “A lot of people had ashes on their foreheads.” The newspaper office just just a block from the student parish.
Yes, cool people doing cool work having come from an ancient rite of penitence that saints and sinners alike have received down the ages. Certainly nothing a parent can say could compete with that testimony that the perhaps Church is not the boring drag it seems to be in our insular little local parish .
My experience at secular schools also tallies with Peter’s; for young Catholics, the faith is not about trying to pass laws to make everybody live according to the rules of the Church, but about looking inward and living a life that is faithful to Christ’s teachings in the larger world.
Following up on Jean’s comment, the more being Catholic is viewed as encompassing “trying to pass laws to make everybody live according to the rules of the Church” the more young people feel that the faith of their parents puts them in inflexible opposition to their non-Catholic friends and co-workers. This is a lot to expect of young people — and maybe simply too much to expect of young people who have been raised to truly assimilate the notion of equality among individuals. Your view has to seem intuitively and overwhelmingly correct in order to breach that dam.
“the faith of their parents puts them in inflexible opposition to their non-Catholic friends and co-workers”
This is pretty much what a lot of fundie-gelicals want to do, and they do it purposely. My Baptist in-laws and our Baptist neighbors down the street do not allow their kids to go to the homes of kids outside their church, and no non-Baptists are allowed in their homes. Non-Baptist kids who want to go to church with them or attend their VBS are OK, if they show a sincere desire to become baptists. They restrict their own adult friends to Baptists only. The impetus behind some home schooling is to separate children to better indoctrinate.
I’ve known Catholics like this. It’s not the type of Catholic I want to be.
The problem with the Catholic drain is self-initiated, self-imposed and can be self-corrected — but don’t count on it:
“Authority has simply been abused too long in the Catholic Church, and for many people it just becomes utterly stupid and intolerable to have to put up with the kind of jackassing around that is imposed in God’s name. It is an insult to God himself and in the end it can only discredit all idea of authority and obedience. There comes a point where they simply forfeit the right to be listened to.”
Thomas Merton in a letter to W. H. Ferry dated 1-19-67, as quoted in a letter to the Editor in 10/2/98 NCR.
“It is not so much the authority one questions in the Roman Catholic church as the lack of the qualities of good leadership, including respect for the persons involved, the efforts at persuasion, and the explanations to which associates and subordinates are entitled – in fact, the lack of ordinary good manners.”
Abigail McCarthy, Mending Catholic Manners/Of Several Minds (article), Commonweal, January 11, 1991.
“Now the call is to regain what we have lost.”
I suspect that way too many have not had what some think they have lost. As I have said elsewhere, way too many of us are pious agnostics. “Conversion” is not something about which Catholics have really been taught and consequently don’t take seriously. “Accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior” gets belittled as a concept by Catholics in general as being too fundie/prody/whatever.
We get nervous at the idea of assessing what it is that we actually believe about the Godhead and how we are to deal with that. I happen to believe that conversion is a life-long process rather than an “Eureka” moment. But I think many Catholics who mouth that do so as an excuse to avoid the necessity of covnersion. Being hatched and baptised Catholic is a far cry from becoming a Catholic Christian.
“The Church needs to realize that Catholic schools are no long readily available to most parents as more and more of them close or raise tuition beyond the means of many. ”
The Mormons don’t run primary and secondary schools. The operate Institutes of Religion adjacent to school campuses — sort of a professional CCD that is taken seriously and works. But most of all, Mormon parents accept their responsibility to raise their children their faith. The have weekly family home evenings that live out their belief that family is a central aspect of living out their religion.
Can you actually imagine Catholics supporting a CCD program as successful as Mormon Institutes, or, even more strangely, actually replicating a weekly family home evening? And we won’t even get into the concept of the self-funded missionary program for women and men!