Over the past few months I have been working my way through the Diocesan Pastoral Plan with my Along the Way reflections. This week I reached the point in the plan’s vision statement where the vision of “helping young children and parents encounter Jesus in a personal way” was the topic of the day. What began as typical (but brilliant, or course) reflection grew into something different from my usual reflection.
I walk several miles every day as part of my exercise routine. As I walked my mind kept coming back to this reflection, so that it went through a process of development and growth over the past week or so. Very often I will listen to podcasts or eBooks as I walk. It seems that everything I listened to this past week had something to say about the topic of a personal relationship with Jesus. Of course, the insight of these podcasts and books contributed additional insight to my reflection. By the time I finished the reflection it was several times the length of my usual Along the Way submission. However, I feel that the process was helpful for me and, I hope, for you. I’m not sure how Fr. Jason will break down the reflection into installments for publication in the North Star but there is more than enough material for four or five installments.
The reflection plays out in several parts. In the first part I reflect on the need for a personal relationship with God and how we can get in the way of such a relationship for ourselves or others. We want to encourage such a relationship, not become an obstacle to it. In the next and largest section of the reflection, I consider what we are talking about when we refer to a “personal relationship” with God. Finally, I reflect a bit on how we can help to promote such a relationship for ourselves and others.
Recently, in a national plebiscite, the people of Ireland voted to overturn a provision in the Irish constitution that prohibited abortion, like the prohibition found in the CNMI constitution. It was a shocking development in this most Catholic of countries but not entirely surprising. Ireland has been under the pall of the sexual abuse scandal for several years. The church lost a great deal of the credibility it once enjoyed. Further, a pro-choice political position has become conflated with the women’s movement in the minds of many, so that respecting the rights of women seems to include a presumed right to abortion. While a dramatic development in Ireland, this type of thinking is quite common in the United States.
Last Sunday after Mass the celebrant, a retired priest with whom I often get in extended conversations, commented about recent surveys which underscore the extent to which young people have left the church. In the past it was not uncommon for young people to leave the church in their late teens and early twenties but then to return in their late twenties as they married and began to raise families. The return is not as common as it once was.
The largest category of respondents in these surveys are referred to as “nones”. That is, people who do not see themselves affiliated with any religious denomination. Among the “nones”, the largest portion are from a Catholic background. The survey data suggests that they are not following the traditional pattern of returning to the church.
My priest friend struggled to understand why this was happening and how to reach out to the young people, so that they don’t loose the Faith. We tossed ideas around for a few minutes but then he had to help some parishioners and my wife was waiting for me, so we said our “good byes”.
I’ve taught religious studies and theology at local Catholic universities for several years, so I know that these issues are not new. They are critical issues with which the church is struggling, Academics are trying to understand the phenomenon and a lot of ink has been spilled in that process. There is no one factor to blame, though a variety of factors are contributing to this development.
To be honest, the sex abuse scandal has done a great deal of damage. In the past a bishop or pastor could simply explain that this is what the church believes on an issue and most Catholics would go along with it based on the authority of the church. When people feel betrayed by those they were taught to trust, there is a sense that if I couldn’t trust them on other issues (sexual abuse), how can I trust them on anything else? While the vast, clear majority of clergy are good, honest and faithful disciples of Jesus, the few who have been wolves in sheep’s clothing undermine the good work of everyone else.
Many Catholics are willing to admit that most of the clergy are good people who are really trying to do their best and that the abusers are the exception, the “bad apples” that must be discovered and removed to protect the vulnerable in particular and the church in general. Most bishops nowadays go out of their way to be transparent on this issue and to avoid any hint of cover-up or protecting predators. Those who fail to do so don’t last very long.
Healing from the scandal will take a long time. As with any relationship, once there is a betrayal it takes a long time to rebuild the broken trust. In the meantime, this is one of the factors that contributes to the “nones”.
Another factor is politics. It is an old poison that has been an issue in the church since the time of Constantine. The church has the right and the responsibility to speak out on social issues. It is called to be a moral teacher in the community, to help people understand why some actions are good and others are to be avoided. There is a danger is that the church can forget it is a moral teacher and act like a king. Instead of informing the conscience of people, it is too easy at times to simply say “do this”. People might have accepted such an approach in the past but that is not what the church should be doing. The teaching task of the church is to help people understand why a course of action is good or bad from a moral perspective. Such an understanding gives people the tools by which they can reach their own decisions in the face of almost any moral challenge.
