Archives for April 2005

I can’t decide which is realer – California, where I’ve started a career, bought a house, started a family, found friends, planted a garden (well, the wife did), seen children baptized and shriven and joined to Christ in communion, etc.

Or New York, where I’m from, and where my parents live, and where my brother wants to get back to. It’s not apron strings; it’s terroir (to use a gag-inducing bit of winespeak). It’s the place. A couple of years ago, my boss took me hiking through Yosemite. It was, naturally, amazing, and I’m grateful to have seen it. But last summer, I took my kids walking through the dripping shale gorges and waterfalls of Treman State Park in Ithaca, and I could have wept for the beauty of it if I hadn’t been so mad at my kids and their utter lack of interest in walking slowly and contemplating the wonder of the place. (More particularly, I was mad because their constant agitation made it difficult for me to do the contemplating. If there’s one thing I lack, it’s serenity amid the chaos.)

And it’s the quality of interaction with family – even when it’s cacophonous (headed for airport, can’t check spelling) – and there were times on this visit when it was – it carries such weight, has such substance.

Peter Steinfels, top-dog religion reporter for the New York Times (I know, I know, don’t I read anything else?), has weighed in on the “But what will the kids think of Papa Benedict?” question. (Yes, everyone else reported on this days ago. In my world, time runs a little more slowly.)

The parts that caught my attention:

“Catholic teenagers were far less apt to affirm belief in a personal God, to report having ever undergone a very moving, powerful worship experience, or to say their faith was extremely important in shaping their daily lives or major life decisions.”

Belief in a personal God – that’s disturbing, and I would suggest it points to lousy catechesis. A very moving, powerful worship experience? Seems to me a body could go through most of life without having one of those, and yet remain a deeply committed, even holy, Catholic. As for faith shaping daily lives – um, they’re teenagers. Their faith is fledgling – at least mine was at that age, even if I was serious about it.

“There has been a lot of impressionistic talk, often verging on boosterism, about a new “John Paul II generation” of deeply committed, conservative young Catholics. So what should be said about this quite different-looking crop of John Paul II teenagers? How did this happen on the watch of the very pope who undeniably exhibited such magnetism among youth?”

I’d like to stand as a particular, concrete counterpoint to the “impressionistic talk.” True, I don’t know how many other people out there share my beliefs, and as ever, I like to use “willing to adhere to Church teaching” instead of “conservative.” But I’ll answer to “deeply committed.” But again, I’m a young Catholic, but hardly a teenager.

“The obvious answer is that one individual, no matter how charismatic a communicator of his convictions, cannot do it alone. Even the millions touched by World Youth Days are only a small – and often unrepresentative – fraction of young Catholics, who as a whole can be reached only at the grass roots, through parish worship, religious education, youth ministry and, of course, their parents’ example.”

Right on, Steinfels. So if there’s a problem, I’d say it’s there – parish worship and religious education. I won’t presume to judge about their parents’ example.

“If this whole infrastructure of religious socialization is creaky, undermanned, short on skills and resources, fearful of ideas and innovation or unresponsive to important demographic, socioeconomic and cultural forces, then even the most dynamic pontiff can enliven only a minority of young Catholics.”

That’s a cleverly lumped-together list. Creaky infrastructure? Amen. Fearful of ideas and innovation? Is this really the problem? Unresponsive to cultural forces? Is this another way of saying “refusing to yield to the times and blow with the prevailing wind”? And is that really the problem? Is there a lot of that kind of refusal going on in the American Catholic infrastructure of religious socialization? (I’m sincere in my question, not rhetorical.)

But it’s probably true that even the most dynamic pontiff will enliven only a minority. That’s the “creative minority” he’s referring to, no?

Last time I’ll dig into the Magister article below, but I didn’t want to let this line slip by:

He is distrustful of theologians who “do not love art, poetry, music, nature: they can be dangerous.”

Thereby hangs a tale.

The thought occurs that there have been a fair number of posts on this blog about NFP, contraception, and Catholic teaching on sexual matters. To anyone who might be tempted to accuse me of being obsessed with the subject, let me offer a word of explanation.

From the Magister article cited below: “The encyclical of Paul VI forbidding artificial contraception produced one of the most serious ruptures between the papal magisterium and the practice of the faithful in recent decades.”

I think this is true, and that the matter must be faced, discussed, thought about, dialogued over (hoo!), addressed, and otherwise taken on if the Church is to maintain its integrity. Not that the Church will fall apart, but that there is a real problem in the Mystical Body when the head doesn’t direct the, er, other members. The casual acceptance on the part of the faithful of a practice denounced as “instrinsically evil” is a serious rupture, indeed. (And to anybody who doesn’t think sex is such a big deal, I ask this: If it’s not a big deal, why do people feel led to disobey?)

I’m supposed to be working on another project, but I keep thinking about this one, suggested to me by a friend – a real investigation of how Catholics in the pews live out their Christian marriages. How they reconcile their practices with Church teaching. How they understand themselves and their marriage in relation to the Church. My views on the subject are easy enough to discern; I wouldn’t have to be grinding an axe. I could just listen. I think such a project would have merit.

I’ve read here and there that the pope favors a “smaller, more creative” Church. This is tremendously appealing to me. Christianity is no longer the dominant culture in this country (to the extent that it ever was), and Catholicism may be regarded as an oddball sect. Well and good. An oddball sect that knows what it’s about and has a mission to bring Christ to the world sounds okay to me.

With regard to the post below, this may prove helpful. A pertinent excerpt from the Cardinal’s letter:

“In a society which seems increasingly to downgrade the value of chastity, conjugal fidelity and temperance, and to be preoccupied sometimes almost exclusively with physical health and temporal well-being, the church’s responsibility is to give that kind of witness which is proper to her, namely an unequivocal witness of effective and unreserved solidarity with those who are suffering and, at the same time, a witness of defense of the dignity of human sexuality which can only be realized within the context of moral law.”

My question about the source of the authority stands, however.

Sandro Magister has written a piece on Benedict XVI’s agenda which includes this interesting entry:

HUMANAE VITAE. The encyclical of Paul VI forbidding artificial contraception produced one of the most serious ruptures between the papal magisterium and the practice of the faithful in recent decades. But today the focal point of the Church’s preaching has shifted: more than the pill and the condom, the Church’s attention is concentrated on the defense of every life from the moment of conception. The result is that even at the summit of the Church’s leadership calm discussions have begun again about the prohibition of “Humanae Vitae” as not definitive or rigid, but open to future corrections. Cardinal Georges Cottier, official theologian of the papal household, gave an authoritative first sign of a shift one month before John Paul II died: he admitted the use of the condom as a defense against AIDS, under accurately described special conditions. It is possible that the new pope will take further steps in the same direction.

I will look further into this, but one question first: is the question really whether the “prohibition of Humanae Vitae” is definitive or rigid? I thought Humanae Vitae reaffirmed the consistent teaching of the Church on this point, and that the authority of the prohibition was taken from the magisterium, not the encyclical. This makes it sound like the prohibition didn’t come until Humanae Vitae. I’m happy to be enlightened on this point. Anyone?

Posting will be (even) lighter over the next week or so. My grandmother died last week, and we’re going to upstate New York for the funeral – all six of us. I’ll try to check in now and then. Hope to see you (both of you) back here next week!