EXCERPT: What can we do about the perception that Catholicism is for kids? For too long we have sent that message by design. We established the largest private school system in history, and even where schools declined or were not built we’ve made school age kids our number one educational priority despite Vatican policies to the contrary. We've even transformed Confirmation into the Catholic equivalent of graduation. The result? Millions of adults aged 20 to 60+ walking their life journey equipped with only a teenager's faith. Is it any wonder they find Catholic faith deficient? It is!
This is not Never-Neverland. We all grow up sometime, and so must our faith. When John-Paul II called for the Church to be an “expert on humanity” he did not mean an expert on childhood.
What can we do?
We can brand a grownup Catholicism where adult baptism (not teen confirmation) is the standard, and where people seek the kind of "faith-fitness" that comes from regular workouts.
I write CrossCurrents, for example, precisely to confront readers with a faith-view of current events that can stretch people’s thinking and build a more mature and muscular faith. Religious education curricula like "Generations of Faith” also flex adult faith, as do ministries like "Theology on Tap."
These are ready resources to firm up a flabby faith, so others begin to admire how strong and fit Catholicism is to face current challenges. Such rebranding can make the Church appear a source of wisdom rather than mere childish storytelling.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
#281: Losing Faith
EXCERPT: Listening to Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, I was especially struck by this passage:
Unfortunately, too many of our citizens have lost faith that our biggest institutions — our corporations, our media, and, yes, our government — still reflect these same values. Each of these institutions are full of honorable men and women doing important work that helps our country prosper. But each time a CEO rewards himself for failure, or a banker puts the rest of us at risk for his own selfish gain, people's doubts grow. Each time lobbyists game the system or politicians tear each other down instead of lifting this country up, we lose faith. The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates to silly arguments, big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away. No wonder there's so much cynicism out there. No wonder there's so much disappointment.
I noticed two things. First, Obama mentioned government (including lobbyists and politicians), media, and corporations—but he never mentioned churches. It is, of course, bad politics to criticize churches no matter how appalling their performance. Nonetheless his comments beg the question: are not churches also big institutions, and also sometimes guilty of abusing their powers?
Second, Obama twice spoke of losing faith. The irony is in using “faith” while overlooking the very institutions (churches) which claim to be stewards of faith. It’s a double irony, in fact: the public figure most vocal about this loss of faith is our head of state, not the head of any church.
This double irony makes me wonder several things. First, is Obama right that cynicism is widespread? Second, is it really due to a loss of faith in our institutions? Third, is our Church also implicated in this? Fourth, what is to be done?
Unfortunately, too many of our citizens have lost faith that our biggest institutions — our corporations, our media, and, yes, our government — still reflect these same values. Each of these institutions are full of honorable men and women doing important work that helps our country prosper. But each time a CEO rewards himself for failure, or a banker puts the rest of us at risk for his own selfish gain, people's doubts grow. Each time lobbyists game the system or politicians tear each other down instead of lifting this country up, we lose faith. The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates to silly arguments, big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away. No wonder there's so much cynicism out there. No wonder there's so much disappointment.
I noticed two things. First, Obama mentioned government (including lobbyists and politicians), media, and corporations—but he never mentioned churches. It is, of course, bad politics to criticize churches no matter how appalling their performance. Nonetheless his comments beg the question: are not churches also big institutions, and also sometimes guilty of abusing their powers?
Second, Obama twice spoke of losing faith. The irony is in using “faith” while overlooking the very institutions (churches) which claim to be stewards of faith. It’s a double irony, in fact: the public figure most vocal about this loss of faith is our head of state, not the head of any church.
This double irony makes me wonder several things. First, is Obama right that cynicism is widespread? Second, is it really due to a loss of faith in our institutions? Third, is our Church also implicated in this? Fourth, what is to be done?
Thursday, January 28, 2010
#280: Renewal Without Revolution?
EXCERPT: For us Baby Boom parents, Vatican II proved the Church capable of breaking with its recent past (based on a "quarantine" strategy, ghetto-fying Catholic life to protect it from the infections of modern life), capable of throwing open its windows and admitting the freshening gusts of renewal, of engaging the world outside.
For us, this gave the Catholic Church a public presence, even an influence, it had never had in "Protestant" America. Instead of a ghettoized curiosity, Catholicism became a public force for good. Vatican II made Catholicism a player in the cultural struggles of the 1960s at the very time most institutions were being dismissed as arrogant, unresponsive, and irrelevant.
The key point here is not the objective reality of Vatican II, but rather our personal (and collective) experience of it. Sure, the Council changed the Church -- but more importantly, it also changed us! Once the dust settled, we were no longer the same people. We were still Catholics, to be sure -- but that no longer meant docile people going through the motions and rituals of Catholic life out of obligation or the comfort of conforming to generations-old family ways. Being Catholic now meant, rather, accepting stewardship of a vast ancient legacy offering priceless wisdom to a world beset by abuses of power.
Sadly, this change in us may be the source of the generation gap between us and our children. Perhaps our problem is not that Vatican II has failed, or that its changes have not lasted, or that a reactionary and fearful hierarchy is bent on restoring the pre-conciliar status quo.
For the most part, in fact, the reforms of Vatican II have lasted. They are still with us, and so our kids grew up in a Church that we know has changed. But it did not change them, because they have never experienced these changes as change.
We remember pre-conciliar Catholicism, so for us there is a "before" and an "after" -- and we experienced living through the transition from one to the other. That shifting experience changed us as well as the institution, but our kids never lived through that shift.
Whereas we had Vatican II's constant shifting as our coming-of-age church, our children had John-Paul II's charismatic globe-trotting. Now, J-P II’s papacy was unthinkable without Vatican II's changes, but he neither sought nor brought the kind of radical overhaul accomplished by John XXIII and Paul VI before him. Our children experienced renewal precisely as the status quo of Catholicism.
In short, the very thing that was the transformative experience of our lives became something our kids just took for granted. The Catholicism they knew in the 1980s and 1990s was nearly as stable as 1950s Catholicism. In that sense, their experience of Church was more like our own parents' (their grandparents') experience.
Who can blame them for not seeing the Church as we did—as a place of change, and hope, and even revolutionary promise?
For us, this gave the Catholic Church a public presence, even an influence, it had never had in "Protestant" America. Instead of a ghettoized curiosity, Catholicism became a public force for good. Vatican II made Catholicism a player in the cultural struggles of the 1960s at the very time most institutions were being dismissed as arrogant, unresponsive, and irrelevant.
The key point here is not the objective reality of Vatican II, but rather our personal (and collective) experience of it. Sure, the Council changed the Church -- but more importantly, it also changed us! Once the dust settled, we were no longer the same people. We were still Catholics, to be sure -- but that no longer meant docile people going through the motions and rituals of Catholic life out of obligation or the comfort of conforming to generations-old family ways. Being Catholic now meant, rather, accepting stewardship of a vast ancient legacy offering priceless wisdom to a world beset by abuses of power.
Sadly, this change in us may be the source of the generation gap between us and our children. Perhaps our problem is not that Vatican II has failed, or that its changes have not lasted, or that a reactionary and fearful hierarchy is bent on restoring the pre-conciliar status quo.
For the most part, in fact, the reforms of Vatican II have lasted. They are still with us, and so our kids grew up in a Church that we know has changed. But it did not change them, because they have never experienced these changes as change.
We remember pre-conciliar Catholicism, so for us there is a "before" and an "after" -- and we experienced living through the transition from one to the other. That shifting experience changed us as well as the institution, but our kids never lived through that shift.
Whereas we had Vatican II's constant shifting as our coming-of-age church, our children had John-Paul II's charismatic globe-trotting. Now, J-P II’s papacy was unthinkable without Vatican II's changes, but he neither sought nor brought the kind of radical overhaul accomplished by John XXIII and Paul VI before him. Our children experienced renewal precisely as the status quo of Catholicism.
In short, the very thing that was the transformative experience of our lives became something our kids just took for granted. The Catholicism they knew in the 1980s and 1990s was nearly as stable as 1950s Catholicism. In that sense, their experience of Church was more like our own parents' (their grandparents') experience.
Who can blame them for not seeing the Church as we did—as a place of change, and hope, and even revolutionary promise?
Monday, January 11, 2010
#279: Gentle Giant
EXCERPT: Arriving in New York City in September, 1968 for the flight to begin my junior year abroad, my father and I accepted a lunch invitation from John Sexton, a Fordham lay theologian and Brooklyn high school debate coach I had met on the high school debate circuit. During lunch he gifted me with a copy of A New Catechism, a work commissioned by the Dutch hierarchy to communicate Catholic beliefs in light of Vatican Council II.
That book traveled with me to France, and became an inspiration to me that ultimately convinced me to drop my political science studies and pursue theology. At the time, I had no idea that Schillebeeckx was principal author – indeed, I did not even know his name.
But I knew it two years later, beginning my master’s degree in theology at Harvard, when I learned that Schillebeeckx would arrive in spring term as Erasmus Lecturer in Dutch Culture, In addition to the lecture series, he announced a Divinity School course in “Dutch Theology and Church Life.” I quickly signed up for what turned out to be a graduate seminar with only six students.
Schillebeeckx expressed mild shock at the lengthy reading assignments typical in American universities. Giving us a short six-book list, he asked: “How can anyone do justice to so many books in a few weeks?”
When he announced that each student would be responsible for an in-class presentation on one book, we realized he was giving us a special role: half the lectures in this world renowned theologian’s course would be student lectures! To this day, I have a vivid memory of my own lecture and the way our lively post-lecture discussion was facilitated by Schillebeeckx himself, and ended with his quiet, sincere praise for my work.
Early on, we students began cultivating this gentle man outside class. Fr. Schillebeeckx proved himself a charming guest, eager to absorb any experience of American culture and church life, open-minded in his outlook, unfailingly modest in his opinions. During one Divinity Hall dinner, we pressed him for some wisdom about reconciling Catholic tradition with the tougher challenges of a secular age. He back-pedaled for a while, and when pressed finally declared it was up to us, the next generation, to work out the answer. His one lament about Harvard: among the faculty, only Harvey Cox showed interest in him!
At semester’s end, we finished our last class with a photo session. I still have the picture of a middle-aged Schillebeeckx surrounded by six eager young theologians. He was nearly 60 already, but would live and work for nearly 40 more years, dying December 23 at 95.
He left Harvard with two of my things. The first was my own personal copy of the (then new) album Jesus Christ Superstar, which we gave him as a farewell gift—and which he regarded as an emblem of modern culture’s take on Christianity. The second was my final paper, delivered too late for him to read before leaving. Midway through July he returned it to me by mail; I still have it, with his margin notes and his generous evaluation on the last page.
That book traveled with me to France, and became an inspiration to me that ultimately convinced me to drop my political science studies and pursue theology. At the time, I had no idea that Schillebeeckx was principal author – indeed, I did not even know his name.
But I knew it two years later, beginning my master’s degree in theology at Harvard, when I learned that Schillebeeckx would arrive in spring term as Erasmus Lecturer in Dutch Culture, In addition to the lecture series, he announced a Divinity School course in “Dutch Theology and Church Life.” I quickly signed up for what turned out to be a graduate seminar with only six students.
Schillebeeckx expressed mild shock at the lengthy reading assignments typical in American universities. Giving us a short six-book list, he asked: “How can anyone do justice to so many books in a few weeks?”
When he announced that each student would be responsible for an in-class presentation on one book, we realized he was giving us a special role: half the lectures in this world renowned theologian’s course would be student lectures! To this day, I have a vivid memory of my own lecture and the way our lively post-lecture discussion was facilitated by Schillebeeckx himself, and ended with his quiet, sincere praise for my work.
Early on, we students began cultivating this gentle man outside class. Fr. Schillebeeckx proved himself a charming guest, eager to absorb any experience of American culture and church life, open-minded in his outlook, unfailingly modest in his opinions. During one Divinity Hall dinner, we pressed him for some wisdom about reconciling Catholic tradition with the tougher challenges of a secular age. He back-pedaled for a while, and when pressed finally declared it was up to us, the next generation, to work out the answer. His one lament about Harvard: among the faculty, only Harvey Cox showed interest in him!
At semester’s end, we finished our last class with a photo session. I still have the picture of a middle-aged Schillebeeckx surrounded by six eager young theologians. He was nearly 60 already, but would live and work for nearly 40 more years, dying December 23 at 95.
He left Harvard with two of my things. The first was my own personal copy of the (then new) album Jesus Christ Superstar, which we gave him as a farewell gift—and which he regarded as an emblem of modern culture’s take on Christianity. The second was my final paper, delivered too late for him to read before leaving. Midway through July he returned it to me by mail; I still have it, with his margin notes and his generous evaluation on the last page.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)