Recently on the blog we examined a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center that reported a decrease in the number of Catholics in America. The good news is that as many as 45% of Americans indicated some affiliation with Catholicism. That does not mean that they are all Catholics. Sometimes it means that they have a Catholic spouse or were once Catholic themselves but have fallen away, etc. What does remain sadly and soberly true is that only 20-25% of Catholics attend Mass weekly (as we are required to do).
Frankly, as a Catholic and a priest, I am stunned at the decline in Mass attendance that has occurred during my lifetime. When I was a young child, I remember jam-packed Masses: if you didn’t get there early you’d have to stand. In those days (the sixties) if you put up four walls, Catholics would fill them. There were waiting lists for the local parochial school. There were lots of religious sisters. There was not just one associate pastor or curate, there were two, or three, or even four.
But those days are largely gone. Yes, there are still some large parishes in suburban areas; some of them are even growing. But during my lifetime, weekly Mass attendance has gone from 70-80% down to 20-25%. And although vocations are beginning to rebound, the usual situation these days is empty convents and largely empty rectories. A parochial vicar is unknown in many parishes. In some parts of the country there isn’t even a resident pastor in each parish.
There is no way to describe this decline other than “stunning.” And I can hear all the usual arguments about why swimming around in my brain: We abandoned tradition! No, say others, we’re not progressive enough! There are too many rules! No, say others, our problem is that we abandoned all the rules! I could go on and on. Everyone has an explanation and there are lots of disagreements about them.
But what might God be doing? What might He be allowing? Now I know that I am walking on thin ice in attempting to consider this question, but please be assured that I am merely pondering it, not proposing a complete, definitive answer. I have often asked the Lord, “What’s up with the Church? What has happened, Lord?” Now I don’t claim that I received a bolt from Heaven in answer, rather I just came to a gradual and increasing awareness that what we are experiencing is really not new. There does seem to be a biblical precedent that God has frequently seen fit to thin His ranks, to prune and purify His people. Theologians call this “remnant theology,” since a remnant refers to a smaller portion of a much larger thing.
Remnant theology is seen in both the Old and New Testaments. The phrase refers to the fact that, of the many followers of God, many (if not most) fell away at critical periods, such that only a small remnant remained to begin again. Here are some examples from Scripture:
There were Twelve Tribes in Israel. But ten of them were lost in the Assyrian Conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel in 721 B.C. The prophets had warned the Northern Kingdom of its wickedness, but the refusal to repent brought the foretold destruction. Those who did not die in the war were deported and disappeared by assimilating into the peoples around then. They are known as the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Only a remnant, the Tribes of Judah and Levi, survived in the Southern Kingdom of Judah.
A remnant of Judah – Judah also grew wicked and prophets warned of its destruction. The Babylonians then destroyed Judah, and Jerusalem with it, in 587 B.C. They deported the survivors to Babylon. Eighty years later, the Persians conquered the Babylonians and allowed the Jewish people to return to the Promised Land. But only a remnant went back; most chose to stay in the Diaspora, preferring Babylon to the Land promised by God.
Gideon had an army of 30,000 and faced the Midianites, who had 60,000. But God said to him, “Your army is too large. Tell the cowards to go home.” So Gideon told the soldiers that if they didn’t think they were up for this battle they could leave; 20,000 left. With Gideon’s arm down to only 10,000, God said to Gideon, “Your army is still too large, lest you think you would win this battle on your own.” So God told Gideon to observe the men at the stream as they drank water. Most drank leisurely, but 300 of them lapped up the water like dogs! “That is your army,” said the Lord, “300 men and I will be with you.” Gideon won that day with 300 men whom the Lord had chosen. God thinned His ranks and chose only a remnant as His true soldiers (cfJudges 6 & 7).
Jesus, too, didn’t seem to trust large crowds. Some of His most difficult sayings came when there was a large crowd. In fact, anytime you hear mention of a large crowd in the gospels, fasten your seat belt, because it’s practically guaranteed that a hard saying is coming! Once when there was a large crowd, Jesus taught against divorce (Matt 5 & 19, Mark 10). Another time He spoke to crowds He declared that no one could be His disciple unless he renounced his possessions, took up his cross, and followed Him (e.g., Luke 14). Yet another time, Jesus taught on the Eucharist, causing many to leave Him and no longer walk in His company (Jn 6).
And surely we cannot forget Jesus’ sad lament that the road to destruction is wide and many are on it, while the road to salvation is narrow and only a few find it (cf Mat 7:13-14). Yes, only a few, a remnant.
These are just a few examples of remnant theology in the Scriptures. There are many more. I would like to quote one last passage from Zechariah because it also gets to the root of what God may be doing in our times, if my hunch is correct.
“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is close to me!” declares the LORD Almighty. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered, and I will turn my hand against the little ones. In the whole land,” declares the LORD, “two-thirds will be struck down and perish; yet one-third will be left in it. This third I will bring into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God’” (Zech 13:6-9).
It is a stunning passage to be sure. But it also shows God’s purpose in thinning His ranks. There is something very mysterious about why God allows so many to stray. And yet it is true that we are always free to stay or go. There seem to be times in the history of the Church and Israel during which God allows many to depart, even “causes” them to depart as this passage describes it. It is a hard mystery to stomach. But I suppose I understand one aspect of it.
An Image of why – In November it is pruning time here in the Northeast. My mighty rose bushes, some eight feet tall, will be pruned back to just one foot off the ground. And I do it on purpose! But if my roses are to thrive next year, the pruning has to be done. The roses do not understand what I do, but I know why I do it. It is necessary, though painful. And God, too, knows what He is doing. And we cannot fathom it any more than my rosebushes can understand why I prune them. But God does it. In the passage above, the one-third who remain must also be purified, refined as in fire. But when it is done, they will be pure gold. Those who remain and accept purification will call on God’s name. They will be a people, a Church, after His own heart.
To me it has become clear that the Lord is pruning His Church. He is preparing us for spring. And we are in fact enduring a difficult winter. But we’re being purified, cleansed. These are tough days for the Church, but I can already see signs of a great spring ahead. There are many wonderful lay movements and growth areas in the Church. I am very impressed with the caliber of men entering the priesthood. These are men who love the Lord and His Church and who deeply desire to speak the truth in love. In my own convent, we had 25 young sisters of the Servants of the Lord, a wonderful new and missionary order. They had to leave to find a larger convent because they were growing so much. They, too, love the Lord and His Church and want to spread His Gospel everywhere.
Though the number of practicing Catholics has diminished, I see greater fervency in those who remain. In my own parish there are many who are devoted to prayer, bible study, and praise of God. Eucharistic piety is stronger in the Church today through Eucharistic adoration and daily Mass. On the Internet there are many signs of excitement and zeal for the faith. Many wonderful blogs and websites are emerging to strengthen Catholics. EWTN is doing wonderful work and many Catholic radio stations have also begun.
I could go on, but I think you get the point. God has pruned and is purifying us. I have no doubt that there are still some difficult winter days ahead before a full spring sets in. But God never fails. He is renewing His Church and preparing us for whatever lies ahead.
Frankly, it is going to take a stronger and purer Church to endure the cultural tsunami that has been rolling in. The first waves hit in the late 1960s and successive waves look to be even more destructive, as Western culture is gradually being swept away. The Church will have to be strong and pure in order to endure the days ahead, to rescue those we can, and to help rebuild when the terrible waves have worked their last destruction.
I realize that this post will not be without controversy. I do not propose it as the only answer to the times. Neither do I claim that fallen-away Catholics have simply been pruned, as though we could know for certain that they will never return and be grafted on again. We should continue to evangelize and to seek to grow the Church by Christ’s own mandate. We cannot know the size that the Lord wants us to be, nor should we ever stifle the Spirit of Christ’s mandate: Go and make disciples of all the nations.
What is the value of one prayer? I suspect it is far greater than any of us imagine. Prayer changes things, sometimes in obvious ways, more often in subtle and even paradoxical ways. But prayer is surely important, even when we don’t experience its immediate effects. Perhaps this is why Jesus taught us to pray always and never to lose heart (cfLuke 18:1). St. Paul echoed this with the simple exhortation “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17). St. James also warned, “You have not because you ask not” (James 4:2).
Perhaps one of the greatest joys of Heaven will be seeing how much of a difference our prayers made, even the distracted and perfunctory ones. Perhaps our simple utterance at the end of a decade of the rosary to “save us from the fires of Hell and lead all souls to Heaven” will reach the heart of one lost soul, prompting him to answer the gentle call of God to return. Imagine that in Heaven that very sinner comes up to you and says, “Though we never met, your prayer reached me and God applied His power to me.” Imagine the joy of many such meetings in Heaven. Imagine, too, whom you will joyfully thank for their prayers, people you know and some you never met. But they prayed and the power of their prayers reached you.
So, to pray for the living is a great and wondrous spiritual work of mercy; its value is beyond gold or pearls. Yes, what is the value of one prayer? The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man is powerful in in its effects (James 5:16). Prayer can avert war, bring healing, cause conversion, bestow peace and serenity, and call down mercy—sweet, necessary, and beautiful mercy. Prayer is inestimable; its value can never be told.
Praying for the dead, however, is a spiritual work of mercy that has suffered in recent decades. Too many Catholics today “miss a step” when loved ones die. There are often immediate declarations that the deceased are “in Heaven” or are “in a better place.” But Scripture doesn’t say that we go right to Heaven when we die. No, indeed, there is a brief stopover at the judgment seat of Christ.
The Letter to the Hebrews says, It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment (Heb 9:27). And St. Paul writes, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad (2 Cor 5:10).
So, our deceased loved ones go to the judgment seat of Christ. And that is worth praying about!
But what is the judgment in question for those who lived faithful lives? In such cases, the judgment is not merely about the ultimate destination of Heaven or Hell. The judgment in question would seem to be “Is My work in you complete?”
Indeed, the Lord has made all of us a promise:You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Mat 5:48). Such a beautiful promise! And yet most of us know that we are not in such a state now; if we were to die today it is clear that much work would still be required. And thus when we send our faithful loved ones to judgment, though we send them with hope, we are aware that finishing work may be necessary. Purgation and purification are necessary before entering Heaven, of which scripture says, Nothing impure will ever enter it (Rev 21:27).
Again, this is worth praying about. It is a great work of mercy we can extend to our deceased loved ones, to remember them with love and to pray, in the words of St. Paul, May God who has begun a good work in you bring it to completion (Phil 1:6). Pray often for the souls in Purgatory. Surely there are joys there for them, knowing that they are on their way to Heaven. But surely, too, there are sufferings that purgation must cause. St Paul says of Purgatory, Each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (1 Cor 3:13-15). Yes, there is fire, but thank God it is a healing fire. There are tears, too, for Scripture says (regarding the dead) that Jesus will wipe every tear from their eyes (Rev 21:4).
How consoling and merciful our prayers must seem to our beloved who have died! How prayers must seem like a gentle wind that speeds them along, onward and upward toward Heaven!
Praying for the dead, then, is the last and greatest spiritual work of mercy. For by the grace of it, and through its help, souls attain the glory God has prepared for them from the foundation of the world.
Many of us who are a bit older, say age 50 and older, remember a time when the Church, at least in terms of numbers, seemed much more vigorous. And those who remember even longer, who were born before 1950 and lived in the northern cities, remember a time when Catholic parishes were like enormous factories, some as large as 10 to 20,000 members with 15 or more masses celebrated on Sunday, all before noon.
The great influx of Catholic immigrants from Europe brought exponential growth to the Catholic population of this country making Catholicism the single largest religious group by far. And those Catholic immigrants huddled together largely in ethnic parishes which actually created ethnic neighborhoods, knitting together both faith and culture, seeking survival in the land, that at times, seemed hostile to them and the Catholic faith. All this made Catholics fiercely loyal to the faith and made the parish, the hub of the community, the center around which all else revolved.
Alas, this vivid reality receded between the 1950s and the 1980s, leaving large structures behind, difficult to maintain, which are now being closed in large numbers. Sweeping social changes, a cultural revolution, and the slow assimilation of Catholics into the wider American culture led to the demise of the system, that is hard not to admire for its organization, and effectiveness.
How things collapsed so quickly, is a matter for some speculation, but even in genius of the system of ethnic Catholicism, there were probably the seeds of its own destruction that were sown. For the fierce clinging of Catholics to their faith was as much due to ethnicity as it was the Catholic faith.
Ethnicity, made of many Catholics a kind of collection of fiercely independent groups whose allegiance to the local bishop, and connection to the wider Church, was often secondary and tenuous. At some point, fierce independence, comes home to roost.
Add to this, that ethnic identities which defined the first several generations of immigrants, tended to fade by the 3rd or 4th generation. It would seem however that the fiercely independent attitudes did not so easily fade. And thus, we still see that, among many Catholics today, their Catholicism is somewhat secondary, tucked under their political views, and world views.
As we shall see in the description below, and as most bishops know, shepherding Catholics is like herding cats. And this struggle is not all that new. It was well on display even in the glory years. Despite the outward appearances of deep unity, there were many fissures just under the surface.
As a brief study of this, I would like to quote somewhat extensively from the first chapter of a book by John McGreevey entitled Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the 20th Century Urban North wherein he rather vividly describes the strength of the immigrant church, but also describes some of the more negative trends within that vivid and powerful system of ethnic Catholicism. And while his overall book focuses more on the African American Catholic Experience, perhaps his writing in the first Chapter on the wider ethnic experience, might provide something of a opportunity for us to reflect on the roots of some of our modern struggles to maintain unity and discipline in the Church.
As always, the author’s work is in bold, black italics, my (Few) remarks are in plain, red text. I have reworked the order of some of his reflections, and am excerpting a much longer chapter. I hope you’ll find his description of the Urban Ethnic Church as thrilling and vivid as I do. The excerpt is long but well worth reading.
[From the late 1800s through the middle part of the 20th century] successive waves of European immigrants peopled a massive, and impressive church largely in the northern cities of America. In 1920, Catholics in Chicago could worship at 228 Catholic parishes… [The area of the city called] back of the yards area physically exemplified this. There, residents could choose between 11 Catholic churches in the space of little more than a square mile: two Polish, one Lithuanian, one Italian, two German, one Slovak, one Croatian, 2 Irish, and one Bohemian.… Their church buildings soared over the frame houses and muddy streets of the impoverished neighborhood in a triumphant display of architectural and theological certitude. Yes, I have always appreciated that older Church buildings to reflect a time of greater theological certitude. And while one may criticize the presence of opulent church structures in poor neighborhoods, the immigrants eagerly built them and thereby demonstrated a kind of priority of the faith which is less evident today.
[Even as late as the] 1950s, a Detroit study found 70% of the city’s Catholics claiming to attend services once a week, as opposed to only 33% of the city’s white Protestants , And 12% of the city’s Jews. Catholics really used to pack the Churches. I remember as a youth if you were late for mass you had to stand in the back.
The Catholic parishes, whether they were Polish, Italian, Portuguese or Irish, simply dominated the life and activities of the community with quite popular and well attended programs. Yale sociologists investigating in the 1930s, professed amazement at the ability of priest to define norms of everyday social behavior for the church’s members.
The Catholic world supervised by these priests was disciplined and local. Many parishes sponsored enormous neighborhood carnivals each year. Most parishes also contained a large number of formal organizations including, youth groups, mothers clubs, parish choirs, and fraternal organizations–each with a priest moderator, the requisite fund raisers, and group masses. Parish sports teams even for the youngest boys shaped parish identity, with fierce (and to outsiders incongruent) rivalries developing in sports leagues between parishes. CYO rivalries were still legendary even into the 1980s in many areas.
These dense social networks centered themselves around an institutional structure of enormous magnitude. Virtually every parish in the northern cities included a church (often of remarkable scale), a convent, a parochial school, a rectory, and occasionally, ancillary gymnasiums or auditoriums. Even hostile observers professed admiration for the marvelous organization and discipline of the Roman Catholic Church which carefully provided every precinct, Ward, and district, with churches, cathedrals, and priests. The parish I attended as a youth in Glenview Ill (North Chicago) had a rectory that was externally a replica of Mt. Vernon. The parish plant took up a whole city block. Every grade of the parochial school had its own separate building. There was an indoor pool, a credit union, a large indoor “playdium” that allowed for everything from roller skating, to basketball, to volleyball. The Church and convent were also magnificent.
Brooklyn alone contain 129 parishes, and over 100 Elementary schools. In New York City more generally, 45 orders of religious men, ranging from the Jesuits to the Passionist Fathers, lived in community homes. Nuns managed 25 hospitals. The clergy and members of religious orders supervised over 100 high schools, as well as elementary schools that enrolled 214,000 students. The list of summer camps, colleges and universities, retreat centers, retirement homes, seminaries, and orphanages was daunting. Absolutely incredible numbers. And remember its just Brooklyn being described.
St. Sabina in Chicago was a typical example of an immigrant parish. The parish was founded in 1916 upon request by Irish-Americans. The male members of the 7000 member parish were mostly policemen, streetcar operators, lower management persons, and teachers. Within the tenure of the very first pastor, the parish erected a church costing $600,000 and contracted the work to members of the parish to provide jobs during the depression. They built the school, convent, and rectory as well as founding a staggering array of athletic, religious, and social organizations. By 1937 the Parish plant also included a community center with a full basketball court that seated 1800 people. Attendance at rollerskating shows often climbed to over 10,000. Parishioners packed the church and a hall for 11 separate Sunday masses, and ushers organized large crowds at multiple Friday evening novena services. $600,000 in the 1930s was an enormous sum of money, almost 9 million dollars in inflation adjusted dollars for 2013. I am presuming that the 600K was for the whole plant, not just the Church.
[The Catholic system of neighborhood-based parishes had little equivalence among the Protestants.] When examining the splendidly organized system constructed by Roman Catholics, Protestant analysts bemoaned the parochial chaos in the fragmentation of membership which the Protestant groups had experienced. The general Protestant lack of geographical parish made it impossible to know who should be responsible, or to hold anyone responsible for the church and of any given area. Synagogues faced similar dilemmas. Most synagogues drew members from a broad area, and competed with neighboring synagogues in terms of ritual and programs.
[In the immigrant years, the Catholic parish made, cemented, and ruled over a local neighborhood]. An observer noted how the church building occupied an entire block, adding that the buildings resounding bells, with its immense throngs of worshipers, with its great tower so built that illumined it reveals by the night the outlines of the cross help define the area. Put another way, The neighborhoods were created not found. For the parishioners, the neighborhood was all Catholic, given the cultural ghetto constructed by the parish. Yes, the Church was the true hub of the community.
Catholics enacted this religiously informed neighborhood identity through both ritual and physical presence. A powerful indicator of the importance of the Catholic parish was found in the answer of Catholics (and some non-Catholics) to the question “where you from?” Throughout the urban North, American Catholics answered the question with parish names–Visitation, Resurrection, St. Lucy’s, etc. All of this meant that Catholics were significantly more likely to remain in a particular neighborhood than the non-Catholics. [And Catholic neighborhoods resisted strong demographic shifts and swings much longer than other urban neighborhoods]. This naming the neighborhood for the parish was common in Chicago.
For American Catholics, neighborhood, parish, and religion were constantly intertwined. Catholic parishes routinely sponsored parades and processions through the streets of the parish, claiming both the parish and its inhabitants as sacred ground. Catholic leaders also deliberately created a Catholic counterpart for virtually every secular organization. The assumption was that the Catholic faith could not flourish independent of the Catholic milieu; schools, societies, and religious organizations were seen as pieces of a larger cultural project. The instinct that faith and culture must be intertwined is a sound one. It is clear that as Catholic culture waned, so did the faith. More broadly, as a Judeo/Christian culture in the US has waned, so has belief and practice of the faith.
[Catholic life was also for deeper in daily life that most Protestant expressions]. Where both Jews and Protestants emphasized the reading of text, Catholics developed multiple routes to the sacred. Theologians describe this as a “sacramental” imagination, willing to endow seemingly mundane daily events with the possibility of grace. When asked, “Where is God?” Catholic children responded “Everywhere!” God was most visible during the mass, when the parish community shared Christ’s body and blood. But God was also visible in the saints lining the walls of the church, the shrines dotting the yards of Catholic homes, the statue of Mary carted from house to house, the local businesses shuttering their doors on the afternoon of Good Friday, the cross on the church steeple looming above the neighborhood rowhouses, the priest blessing individual homes, the nuns watching pupils on the playground while silently reciting the rosary, the religious processions through the streets, and the bells of the church ringing each day over the length of the parish. A magnificent description of sacramental imagination here. It is the genius of Catholicism and we have lost a lot of it to our peril. Thankfully we have recovered some of it in recent years.
And Yet, McGreevy goes on to describe some of the fissures that would later come home to roost, namely, a fierce independence and almost refusal to live in the wider Church.
Each parish was a small planet whirling through its orbit, oblivious to the rest of the ecclesiastical solar system.… All parishes, formerly territorial or not, tend to attract parishioners of the same national background. The very presence of the church and school buildings encouraged parishioners to purchase homes nearby helping to create Polish, Bohemian, Irish, and Lithuanian enclaves within the larger neighborhood.
[But] The situation hardly fostered neighborhood unity. Observers noted that various clergy had nothing but scorn for their fellow priests. Pastors were notorious for refusing to cooperate with (or even visit) neighboring parishes. A Washington Post reporter agreed, “the Lithuanians favored the polls as enemies, the Slovaks are anti-Bohemian. The Germans were suspected by all four nationalities. The Jews were generally abominated, and the Irish called everyone else a foreigner.”A kind of extreme parochialism
Most of the parish is also included parochial schools staffed by an order of nuns of the same ethnicity as the parish in which they served. Eastern European newcomers resolutely maintained their own schools instead of filling vacant slots in nearby Irish or German schools. Yes, and even I, born in 1961, remember how Irish and Italian Catholics were barely on speaking terms with one another. In one parish I knew, an Irish girl married an Italian man. There was quite a set-to about it and the couple could not worship in either of their home parishes, but had to find a third.
A 1916 Census survey revealed 2230 Catholic parishes using only a foreign language in their services, while another 2535 alternated between English and the parishioners native tongue. Even small towns divided the Catholic population into Irish, Italian, and Portuguese parishes. Detroit’s Bishop Michael Gallagher, himself the son of Irish immigrants, authorized the founding of 32 national parishes out of a total of 98. In 1933, Detroit Catholics could hear the gospel preached in 22 different languages. A kind of Balkanized scene.
Episcopal attempts to quash national parishes, schools, and societies only strengthened national identities. After one conflict with the local bishop and the Polish community, one participant in the revolt noted that such revolts “gave proof that we will not permit anyone to destroy a national dignity, pride and traditions. Another statement from a Polish group warned of ominous consequences if Poles were to be “deprived of the care of a Bishop from among our own race.” Cardinal Medeiros of Boston was never really accepted by that Archdiocese since he was not Irish. And his painful tenure there is detailed by Philp Lawler in his Book The Faithful Departed. And his tenure (1970-1983) was long after ethnic rivalries had largely abated in the US. The fact is, most American Bishops knew they had a huge mess on their hands, and beginning in the 1950s began to limit the formation of National Parishes and even outright closed some that were smaller and contentious. Even to this day a few breakaway Polish National churches still refuse the authority of the local bishop.
Rather than face outright revolt, bishops working with national groups pastoral appointments generally assigned an auxiliary bishop were senior cleric to handle and mediate intramural disputes. Outright revolt was a real possibility. Rebellion against Church authority did not begin in 1968. It had roots going way back. True, dissent from Church teaching was rare, but the rebellion against lawful Church authority likely set the stage later for what that authority taught.
Despite Episcopal concerns… 55% of Catholics in Chicago worshiped at national parishes as late as 1936. In addition, over 80% of the clergy received assignments in parishes matching their own national background.
Overall the period of ethnic Catholicism is glorious to behold. I am sorry I largely missed it. Such a vibrant and tight knit expression and experience of the faith! But it would seem, there was also a dark side. A local unity existed to be sure, but it was only 8 blocks wide. The overall experience was of balkanized Catholicism and hyper-parochialism.
The fierce and proud independence of the ethnic parishes reacted poorly with the rebellion against authority that was coming in American culture. And today, many of the problems that existed then have only grown: the resistance to the authority of the Bishop, the insistence on a perfect designer parish, and the tendency to tuck the faith under other loyalties that have taken the place of ethnicity such as politics and worldview. These things were certainly simmering in the vibrant ethnic years. And sometimes they weren’t simmering, they were right out in the open. Shepherding Catholics is like herding cats.
Still, I am sorry I missed it. But but at the end of the day, we ought resist the notion of overly idealizing any era. Scripture says, Say not, “How is it that former times were better than these?” For it is not in wisdom that you ask this. (Eccles 7:10)
Ah the Immigrant Church in all her glory, along with all that was gory.
In the first reading for the second Sunday of Easter, (in the C cycle) we read from Acts 5:12-17. And as I heard this reading effectively proclaimed at the liturgies this weekend, it occurred to me that there is a portrait of the Church here. But even more, it is a challenge for us, to be the sort of Church that is described!
For, in many biblical descriptions of the early Church, there is an affirmation of what we in effect are. We see the ministry of St. Peter, of the first apostles: bishops, priests, deacons, and the lay faithful. We see sacraments being celebrated and the basic structure of the liturgy set forth. And in these sorts of passages our Catholic faith is strongly affirmed. We see the Church in seminal form, already with her basic form in place, her basic structures, all of which are recognizable to us.
But in this brief passage from Acts 5 we also see a more challenging portrait for the Church. This is because this brief passage speaks and points deeper than structures. It points toward the fundamental mission of the Church, a mission in which she courageously proclaims the truth, is evangelical, summoning many new followers to Christ, and brings hope and healing, and drives out demons.
Here is where all the structure hits the road, and is meant to bear fruit for the kingdom of God. And thus in this brief passage are many challenges for us as a Church. For all our structure, and all our organization, do we accomplish these basic works of God? That is the challenge of a reading like this. Let us look at this brief passage in four stage and ask some probing questions. Here is the full text, and then the commentary:
Many signs and wonders were done among the people at the hands of the apostles. They were all together in Solomon’s portico. None of the others dared to join them, but the people esteemed them. Yet more than ever, believers in the Lord, great numbers of men and women, were added to them. Thus they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and mats so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on one or another of them. A large number of people from the towns in the vicinity of Jerusalem also gathered, bringing the sick and those disturbed by unclean spirits, and they were all cured. (Acts 5:12-16)
I. Courageous clergy – The text says, They were all together in Solomon’s portico. None of the others dared to join them, but the people esteemed them.
Note that in this passage, we see a remarkable thing, clergy, in this case the first bishops, the apostles, and they are out and about among the people of God! They are making a bold and public proclamation of Jesus Christ. They are willing to get into the danger zone. They are not just speaking among friends, and whispering quietly at close Church gatherings. They are out in the Temple, the very stronghold of some of their strongest opponents. They are risking their lives to announce Jesus Christ. They are risking arrest and detainment.
Note that here they are not hidden in some rectory, not detained in some parish council meeting, but out in the public square. And that are not in any safe corner of the public square, but in one of the more dangerous areas. They are engaging the issue, they are announcing Jesus Christ in some of the places where people and powerful leaders have most fiercely resisted and threatened them.
Here are courageous clergy. They will not gainsay (deny or qualify) the truth, they will not compromise. Their own safety is secondary. They want only this, to announce Jesus Christ, and him crucified; to announce that he is Savior and Lord, and that all must come to faith in him in order to be saved.
Within a few brief verses, these apostles will be arrested for their bold proclamations (Acts 5:17ff). And yet, they will praise God that they were deemed worthy to suffer for the sake of the name (Acts 5:41). They will also experience rescue by God, and that no weapon waged against them will prosper.
Are we, the clergy, like this today? It is so easy for us to hunker down our in our rectories, to hide in staff meetings, and to focus almost wholly on internal matters. Too easily, and too often, we have ceded the public square, be it the local park, or the culture in general. We have ceded these to our opponents, and the devil himself.
We fearfully hide, and many of us do not even wear clerical attire in public. If we speak boldly at all, it is only in the church. And, as many laity sadly note, even in there, we are shy and retiring, avoiding controversy and speaking only abstractions in generalities.
Rare indeed is the priest who boldly proclaims Jesus Christ, who are not ashamed of his doctrine in this present evil age. There is hope, yes, hop in the many younger clergy, who themselves having been fed up for years with vague generalities from the pulpit, and a “do no harm” mentality among the clergy, are now emerging to more boldly preach Christ. We can only hope that this movement will grow and that the clergy will once again be found in both their pulpits, and in the public square firmly and prophetically announcing Jesus Christ to a world gone mad.
Note to that the text says “they were altogether in Solomon’s portico” but the Greek word here is far more descriptive, and more specific than to simply imply they were all physically together in one place. The Greek word is ὁμοθυμαδόν (homothumadon) meaning, “to have the same passion…to be of one accord…to have the same desire.” from homou meaning, “the same,” and thumos meaning “passion, or desire.” In other words, these apostles were of one accord, one desire, one mind. They agreed on priorities and were focused on the one desire, on the one thing necessary.
Here too, we can only pray that our leaders, the Pope, bishops, priests and deacons and lay leaders in the Church, will all begin to focus on the one thing necessary, will be of one mind, one heart, one desire. Yet too often, we, like the laity, are so easily divided into camps, fighting and bickering among ourselves about which way is best, squabbling over legitimate diversity, and thus failing to find deeper unity on the essentials.
Divided, we present an uncertain trumpet; and who will follow an uncertain trumpet? But, there is some hope that, in recent years, younger clergy are less divided among themselves. Dissent is less of a problem today among the clergy then twenty years ago, and certainly thirty years ago. Most younger priest have deep love for the Church, her teachings, and our holy Pontiff, the Pope. The Lord is restoring the lost unity among the clergy, and making us more of one mind. But the devil is still at work, trying to divide us.
Oh that we would see the kind of unity described here wherein the Apostles were agreed among one another, and preached coherently, and with unity Jesus Christ, crucified and yet raised from the dead.
And us we see, in these opening lines, clergy who are courageous, out among the faithful, and among enemies, boldly preaching, and unified in the essentials. Here is a vision for the Church that is both challenging, and sadly lacking today. And yet, there are signs of hope. The Holy Spirit is not abandoned His Church. After years of strife and division, one can see reform and improvement underway. It will become more essential, for it is clear that persecution is descending rapidly upon the Church.
Increasingly, clergy, and all Catholics, must be willing to accept that they must stand and Solomon’s portico, not an easy place to preach the gospel, and preach it anyway. We must be willing to preach the gospel, in season and out of season (2 Tim 4:2).
II. Engaged in Evangelizing–the text goes on to say, Yet, more than ever, great numbers of men and women, believers in the Lord, were added to them.
The essential work of the Church, “Job 1,” is the Great Commission: Go therefore unto all the nations, teach them all that I commanded you, and baptize them, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:19). Here then, is a Church focused on this essential mission, that of adding great numbers to those who know and love the Lord Jesus, and are called according to his purpose.
Oh that every pastor, and every parish, would understand that they have obligations to bring every man woman and child with in their parish boundaries to know the Lord Jesus, and to worship him in spirit and in truth. Too many parishes have an “enclave mentality” rather than an “evangelistic mentality.”
The evangelization plan of most parishes amounts to little more than opening the doors and hoping people come. This is not enough. It is not enough to relegate evangelization to some small committee. Evangelization is the work of the clergy, and all the people of God together and consistently working it. Every parish must be summoning every denizen of its parish boundaries to know Jesus, to love him, to worship and obey him, and to experience his healing power in Word, Sacrament and in the Sacred Liturgy.
Too many of our parishes are mere buildings in a neighborhood, fortresses of rock, expanses of parking lot. Meanwhile, thousands within the parish boundary know nothing of Jesus, or what they know of him is erroneous. Are the clergy of the parish along with their people out in the neighborhood, engaging their neighbors, and being the presence to them? Or, are they simply in the rectory, in the Parish Hall, having sodality meetings, parish council meetings, debates about what color to paint the women’s restroom, and whether the right group is sponsoring the spaghetti dinner this year?
Fellowship is fine. But evangelization is Job 1. Too often, in parishes, we maximize the minimum, and minimize the maximum. We are too inwardly focused to be outwardly focused. And many souls are loss because of our loss of engagement in the primary work of evangelization.
If America has become a darkened culture, and it has, it happened on our watch. Go ahead and blame this or that factor, but the primary reason is us. It is not enough to blame bishops, is not enough to blame pastors, it is all of us, priests and people who let this happen.
This passage from Acts makes it clear that the early Church was growing and adding great numbers of men and women. But the point is not numbers, per se, the point is souls being brought to Jesus Christ for healing.
Does your parish have a vigorous sense of its obligation to every man woman and child in its parish boundaries? If so, are you knocking on doors, or in the public square inviting people to Mass, calling them to Jesus? Or are you just ringing the bell hoping they come? Is your parish engaged in the public square, are you out in the local market? Is your parish out in the public areas? Or are you just a piece of real estate with an access road into a large parking lot with the building at one end?
The early Church was engaged in Job 1, calling people to Jesus. What of your parish? And what will you do, if necessary, to get the parish more focused on Job 1. It is not enough to complain about your pastor, what will you do?
III. Hope and healing. The text says, Thus, they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on one or another of them.
And here too, we see described the essential work of the Church, which is to bring hope and healing to the multitudes. Sadly, today, we have allowed the Church to be defined more in terms of what we are against, than what we are for, and what we offer. It is true, we must stand foursquare against many things in our culture today, to include abortion, fornication, promiscuity, homosexual acts, Same-sex unions, embryonic stem cell research, capital punishment, and so forth. But we cannot simply be defined in terms of what we are against. We must effectively proclaim what we are for.
And what we are for, fundamentally, is a health and healing of the human person, both individually and collectively. Vast numbers, today, are among the walking wounded. They are devastated by the effects of sin, of strife, and a very painful situations. Some have physical ailments, other, spiritual ailments. Some have been victims of abuse, abuse that has often come from broken and dysfunctional families so common today. Others suffer financially.
In the midst of all this, do those who suffer see, and experience the Church as a place to find healing, support, and encouragement? Sadly, although it is unfair, we have too easily allowed the Church to be defined, as a place not of healing, but as a place of harsh criticism and judgment only. It is a true fact, that we must speak the truth in love, in the increasing darkness that is our culture. But it is also true, that we must provide forgiveness, mercy, healing, and hope to those weighed down by the burdens of this modern, confused and sinful age.
Sadly today, many set up a false dichotomy. In effect, they assert that if there any rules at all, if there is any mention of sin at all, it is not a place of healing or of love. But this is a false dichotomy. For, properly understood, law and love are not opposed, but are facets of the same reality. Because God loves us, he commands us. His love and his law are one and the same.
We have a lot of work to do today, as the Church, to re-propose the Gospel to a cynical rebellious age. But even though this work is hard, we are not excused from doing it. We must be known as communities of healing, where sinners can find a home, hear the truth, but hear it in love.
For too long now, we have allowed our opponents to demonize us. But as our culture continues to melt down, as our families are in the shredder, as the effects of sin loom ever larger, we must continue to articulate a better way, the way of Jesus. Is it hard? Sure! But it was not easy for the first Apostles, and yet they did it anyway.
We see in this gospel, the amazement of many at the healing that was found even in the mere shadow of Simon Peter. The sick and the suffering were amazed at the power of Jesus, in his early Church, to bring forth healing.
Do people see our churches, our parishes this way? How many parishes even had healing masses? While it is true that suffering and the cross are part of the Christian walk, do we even aske God for healing today? Do we even lay hands on the sick and ask for healing? Yes, we do have the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, but do we celebrate it merely as a ritual? Do we actually, and boldly request healing from God? Do we even expect it? Do the sick and the suffering, the addicted and the tormented, know that they can come to a Catholic parish and have clergy and people lay hands on them and pray over them? Are parishes places where people know that people will walk with them in their journey of repentance, and give them encouragement?
Or are we just going through the motions, a series of parish meetings, reading the minutes of the last meeting, and figuring out how to raise funds for the next trip some casino, or for some parish carnival? How are we known and perceived in the community? re we a clubhouse, or a lighthouse? Are we just some big meeting hall, or are we a meaningful hospital with ministry and healing for people with real suffering and sorrow?
It is very clear from this passage is the earliest Christian Catholic community was powerfully experienced as a place of healing. Even the mere shadow of Simon Peter was sought for its healing power.
A word about this “shadow.” The Church is called not only to directly engage individuals, but also to indirectly engage them. Because we are human beings, we do not always have the resources or the capacity to engage everyone at a deeply personal level. But even here, the shadow of the Church is meant to fall on the community, and bring healing. Perhaps it is the ringing of the church bells, perhaps it is the clergy and religious sisters who move about the community in visible attire. Perhaps it is processions of the faithful in May, or Corpus Christi processions. Perhaps it is the beauty of religious art, and Church buildings Perhaps it is simply the memorable stories of the Scriptures as beautifully retold in art and poetry.
Whatever it is, the Church is meant to engage the culture, both implicitly and explicitly. It is clear, that the synthesis between faith and culture, in our current times has broken down. Holy days have been replaced by holidays etc. And as the world becomes increasingly secular, all the more reason, for us to publicly celebrate our faith to make our presence in the culture or widely known.
Even if every parish has not yet had the capacity to engage every man woman and child in the parish boundaries, its presence through arts, architecture, and cultural influence can and must be felt. The shadow of the Church, bringing healing and a saving summons, must fall on everyone, even if not directly, at least indirectly.
Sadly, in recent times, Catholics have been all too willing to abandon their faith, their culture, their distinctiveness, such that the shadow of Catholicism no longer brings a moment of coolness in the heat of our cultural stupor. Too many church buildings look nothing like a church. Catholics hide their faith, no longer wearing signs of the faith, having their houses adorned with Christian symbols and so forth. We have sought to fit in, to blend in and to be almost invisible.
Once again, the shadow: the healing shadow, the cooling shadow of the Church, and of faith, must be felt in our culture.
IV. Delivering from Demons–the text concludes by saying, A large number of people from the towns in the vicinity of Jerusalem also gathered, bringing the sick, and those disturbed by unclean spirits, and they were all cured.
We have already discussed the importance of the Church as a place of healing. Here, the church is also described as a place of deliverance. It will be noted that the text describes that many were troubled and disturbed by unclean spirits, by demons.
One of the great tragedies of the modern church, since the 1970s, has been our retreat from the spiritual work of deliverance. It is indeed a shocking malfeasance by many in the clergy, who have surrendered to their work, one of their most essential works, and relegated it to the secular order.
For, it often happens that people arrive at our rectories, and they are tormented by demons, they are troubled. Perhaps they hear voices, perhaps they experience a dark presence, perhaps they are tormented by depression and anxiety. And while it is true that there are psychological dimensions to this, we cannot, and should not, simply conclude that such people only need psychotherapy. Perhaps, in fact likely, they do. But they also need deliverance.
The Scriptures are clear, demons, and satanic influence, are realities of life faced by human beings. Demons are active and operative. And, while it is wrong for us simply to reject the help that psychotherapy and medical intervention can play, we, as God’s ministers must be willing to play our role: to pray for deliverance over the people of God from the demons who torment them.
The faithful too, must be engaged in deliverance ministry. The Scriptures do not present the deliverance from demons as merely a work of the clergy. The Lord gave authority to drive out demons not just to the 12 but also to the 72, (cf also Mk 16:17-18, inter al).
A chief and central work of the Church is to deliver people from the power of Satan, to transfer them from the kingdom of darkness unto the Kingdom of Light, to shepherd God’s people out of bondage and into freedom. When people come to us, tormented by demonic incursions we can, and ought to pray for them. Parishes should be places where people can find clergy and others trained in deliverance ministry to lay hands on them and pray for their deliverance.
Deliverance ministry also involves walking with people for a lengthy period, helping them to name the demons that afflict them, to renounce any agreement with those demons, to repent and to receive deliverance and the power of Jesus name. Any good deliverance ministry will also interact with good psychotherapy, good medical intervention, and insist on the regular celebration of the Sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion for those who need deliverance.
Yes, our parishes must be known as places of deliverance. Places, where trained clergy and lay faithful know how to walk with, lay hands, and deliver the faithful from demonic incursions, torments, and afflictions. In rare cases, where there is full possession, exorcism must be employed by trained clergy appointed by the Bishop.
Deliverance ministry can and must become regular features of parish life once again. Sadly, too many priests and parishes have gotten “out of the business” of delivering souls. They have become content merely to issue references to the local psychotherapists, or psychiatrist or social workers. It is simply not enough. Priests and parishes have to reengage the chief work of the Church of delivering souls from bondage and bringing them to Jesus Christ the author and perfecter of our freedom.
Such a powerful and challenging portrait of the early Church. As Catholics we have the glory of reflecting quite clearly the structure and form of the early Church. But sadly, structure alone is not enough. We must also be infused with and and come alive again with the gifts described in a passage like this.
Share this reflection from Acts with your Pastor. But do not make it all depend on him. Pray for him, and also take your own rightful role in the parish and the wider community for effective change and powerful ministry. God deserves it, and his wounded people need it.
In the early hours of the resurrection appearances on the first Easter Sunday news began to be circulated that Jesus was alive and had been seen. These reports were, at first disbelieved or at least doubted by the apostles. Various reports from both women and men were dismissed by the apostles. But suddenly in the evening of that first Easter Sunday there is a change, and a declaration by the apostles that the Lord “has truly risen!” What effected this change? We will see in a moment. But first note the early reports of the resurrection and how they were largely disregarded:
The women who go to the tomb first discover it empty (Mat 28:6; Mk 16:6; Luke 24:5; John 20:2). The Gospel of John, which is most specific indicates that Magdalene went straightway to Peter and John and speaks anxiously, not of resurrection but of a stolen body. Peter and John hurry to the tomb to investigate. But meanwhile the other women have had a vision of an angels who declare that Jesus had risen and that they should inform the apostles. They depart to do so. Here is first evidence though the risen Lord had yet to appear.
John sees and believes – Peter and John arrive at the tomb after the women had departed. They saw only the empty tomb but it was clearly not grave robbers for the expensive grave linens were lying outstretched. Peter’s reaction is unrecorded but the text said, John saw (the grave clothes outstretched) “and believed” (Jn 20:8). Exactly what he believed is not clear. Did he believe what Mary had said? Or does the text mean he came to believe in that moment that Jesus had risen? It is not clear but let us suppose that he has come to believe that Jesus has risen. Does this mean that the Church now officially believes that Christ has risen because one of the apostles (one of the first bishops) believes it? It would seem not. That will have to wait for later in the day. Peter and John depart the tomb.
Mary Magdalene had followed Peter and John back to the tomb and, after they leave, Jesus appears to her. Here is the first appearance of the risen Christ. Does this now mean that the Church officially believes that Jesus is risen? It would seem not. That will have to wait until later in the day. For scripture testifies that Jesus appeared elsewhere to the other women who had gone to the tomb but that when Mary Magdalene and the other women report that they had seen Jesus risen, the apostles would not believe it (Mk 16:11; Luke 24:11) Hence, though we have appearances we cannot yet say that there is any official declaration by the Church that Christ is truly risen.
Jesus appears also to two disciples (not apostles) who are journeying to Emmaus that late afternoon. At the conclusion of that appearance they run to tell the apostles who, once again, do not believe it (Mark 16:13). So now we have had at least three appearances but no official acceptance by the Church’s leaders (the apostles) that there is any truth to these sightings.
So when does the resurrection become the official declaration of the early Church? Up till now the stories had been rejected by the apostles as either fanciful or untrue. Even the possible belief of one of the 12 (John) was not enough to cause an official declaration from the early Church. So, what causes this to change? It would seem that, after the early evening report by the disciples returning from Emmaus, Peter slipped away, perhaps for a walk, or some other purpose, and according to both Paul (1 Cor 15:5) and Luke (Lk 24:34) the risen Lord appeared to Peter privately and prior to the other apostles. Peter then reports this to the others, and the resurrection moves from being doubted, to being the official declaration of the community, the Church. The official declaration is worded thus:
The Lord has truly risen indeed, he has appeared to Simon!” (Luke 24:34)
The resurrection is now officially declared. Notice, the world “truly” (some texts say “indeed”). It is now an officially attested fact that Jesus has risen. Neither Magdalene, nor the women in general, nor the disciples from Emmaus, nor even John, could make this declaration for the Church. It took the college of apostles in union with Peter to do this. Hence the dogma of the resurrection becomes so on very Catholic terms: The first bishops (the apostles) in union or in Council with the first Pope (Peter) make this solemn declaration of the faith.
When I wrote a similar article some years back, some argued in opposition that the Church “did not exist” at this point since Pentecost “is the birthday of the Church.” I do not accept that “the Church did not exist at this time” (For I think she did exist, but had simply not been commissioned to go forth to the nations as yet, that would wait for Pentecost. Further even if one will piously hold Pentecost as the birthday of the Church, our existence precedes our birth by at least nine months, and the Church’s existence surely also precedes her “birth”). But let us side-step the whole debate by holding saying that this exercise of the Church’s teaching authority in this event is proleptic. That is to say, what would fully be the case later, is here seen operative in an anachronistic, yet real manner (For example, Mother Mary is saved by Jesus and preserved from sin not apart from Christ’s saving act, but in a proleptic way, in anticipation of his saving grace). Thus, the apostles and their office which were fully operative after Pentecost, are here active as the result of a prevenient grace, an anticipation of the future reality of the Church to teach authoritatively out of her basic structure and the charism given to Peter and the Apostles more fully or widely at some later time. But again, I stand by my point that the Church did exist at this time and that we do not have a proleptic but in fact a proper action of the magisterium at this very point.
But did the women and the laymen’s declaration mean nothing? In fact it does. And the Lord upbraids the apostles later for being so reluctant to accept the testimony of the others (Mk 16:14). He calls them “hard of heart” for this reluctance. But he does not undermine their authority to make the official declaration, for in the very next verse he commissions the apostles to go forth and preach and teach in his name. Surely the Lord was not pleased after he had promised many times to rise from the dead that they were so slow to listen to the voices of the first witnesses. Should they not have concluded it was the third day and that the Lord had promised to rise and connected the dots? Did he have to personally appear before they would believe?
Alas, it would seem so. Jesus’ first bishops were not perfect men, far from it. But they were the leaders he had chosen, knowing their weakness. So too for today, the Church’s leaders are not perfect and may take far too long at times to make decisions or give clearer teachings or impose necessary discipline. But, in the end it is they who are nonetheless commissioned to teach officially.
This whole event also teaches us that the bishops and even the Pope are not always the first to hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church. The more frequent pattern is that the Lord begins reforms and sends apparitions, not to the leaders, but among the faithful. Reform movements and messages are often received there first, and only later does the Church, through her anointed and appointed leaders, affirm or uphold certain things as worthy of belief, and set aside others as problematic.
Finally it should be noted that one of the apostles, Thomas, was absent. Even after the official declaration of the Church went forth he still refused to believe (Jn 20:25). Here too the Lord is merciful to him but in the end is clear that Thomas has fallen short. And Thomas has fallen short in a more egregious manner, for he has refused the collective and solemn declaration of the Church, not merely disbelieved the testimony of one or a few disciples. Jesus goes on to declare blessed those who accept the solemn testimony of the Church though they have not seen him with earthly eyes (Jn 20:29). That’s us!
Months ago, I was asked to give a talk during Lent at my parish. The title of the talk was to be “Disagree with the Church?” As many of us know from experience, speaking in front of friends can be more challenging than talking with people you may never see again. By the time I gave my talk last Friday, there was an extra challenge: For weeks, there had been much public debate, within the Church and society, about several teachings of the Church. I approached the question as an invitation to grow.
I can testify first-hand that it is reasonable, and to be expected, to find ourselves asking questions about a teaching of the Church. In all areas of our lives, we mature and better understand when we ask questions and seek answers. Christian faith is also a revealed faith. We do not decide what to believe. We do not construct a faith. We receive a faith. God reveals it to us and fulfills it in the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus. The Lord has entrusted the Church with the work of articulating the gift of the faith, in every age, in every time. If we believe that God desires all that is best for us, then one way to examine and work through a question or disagreement is to think of the parent-child relationship: A parent insists on certain things for the good of a child, because at some stages of development, the child simply cannot grasp why the rule or parental guidance is wise, right, best, and prevents harm, for the child. Perhaps you remember, as I do, your parents saying “As long as you live under my roof, it will be done like this.” God desires we live under His roof, and as the new translation of the Roman Missal makes clear, we welcome Him under our roof. Our relationship with God is not between a parent and an immature child. As children of God, we desire to build a harmonious relationship with the One who desires that we grasp all the good He has to offer us. Psalm 19 captures the beauty of living under God’s roof.
Blessed those whose way is blameless, who walk by the law of the Lord. Blessed those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with all their heart. They do no wrong; they walk in his ways. You have given them the command to observe your precepts with care. May my ways be firm in the observance of your statutes! Then I will not be ashamed to ponder all your commandments. I will praise you with sincere heart as I study your righteous judgments….With all my heart I seek you; do not let me stray from your commandments…. In your statutes I take delight; I will never forget your word.
When you find yourself disagreeing with what the Church is teaching, God calls you to a deeper conversion and to mature in the faith. We believe in a faith that cultivates the intellect and nurtures reason. Questions are welcome! Struggling with the Church can be part of conforming our minds and heart to Jesus and to the faith He gave us. It is committing ourselves to practicing a grown-up obedience that discovers the meaning of the Latin root of obedience, obedire– to listen. We commit to take up the issue in a spirit of humility, to pray that we will listen to God’s word, to study the teaching of the Church, to discern the path toward truth. For many of us, this may be the work of a lifetime. Often it is the work of conversion, of configuring our minds and hearts more and more to the mind and heart of Jesus, Our Lord. The fundamental principle for the Catholic is that one cannot separate love of Jesus, and the teachings of Jesus, from the teaching and love of the Church. We affirm this whenever we pray in the Creed “I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.” The Church is the sacrament of salvation, it is the place we enter most fully into the life of the Risen Lord.
Asking the foundational Question
I came of age in a time in the Church during which the question of women’s ordination was being actively discussed and debated. I wondered as a lay woman “Am I crazy for wanting to work for the Church?” “Will I be able to speak honestly and credibly about the role of women in Church and society?” “Is the Church inherently sexist?” The question that seemed most popular, the question that seemed to get the most attention, was related to ordination and the role of leadership and power in the Church. The most popular question though is not always the most fundamental question. We need to go to the beginning, where we will find questions, and answers, that help us ask and get answers to the later questions. The foundational question is “What is the role of women in the Church, when women are created in the image and likeness of God, and yet the sin of sexism has persisted since the Original Sin?” Jesus has always called women to holiness, to be full and active participants in building of the Kingdom of God. In every age, the Church has honored women who have fully and perfectly lived the Gospel in their lives and are models for women and men in all ages. As Blessed John Paul II said in Mulieris Dignitatem, although the Church is not inherently sexist, she has at times failed to fully recognize and appreciate the “feminine genius” and call forth the gifts of women. This failure has been a loss for the Church. Understanding sexism, and differentiating it from the vocation of priesthood, helped me appreciate the Church’s teaching that women and men are equal, different in some ways, and complement each other. Today is an age when society is questioning the role of gender, suggesting it is something we can choose, something we can change. Society is skeptical that gender is something that God gives us, when He creates us, to express who and what each of us is fundamentally. In fact, it is impossible to separate me from being women or to understand me without understanding me as a woman. I believe the Church’s teaching offers a model of preserving the unique gift of male and female, and their relationship, to what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God.
Embracing Mystery
Often, areas of possible disagreement with the Church grow from facing the limitations of the human experience. One effect of Original Sin is that we have an impulse to want it all and to want things our way. Sometimes, we can’t see that “our way” ultimately may harm us. The Church’s teaching can feel like it is impinging on our human freedom, rather than freeing us for God. Trusting what we can’t always see or understand is another cost of discipleship.
My husband and I came face-to-face with this before we met and after we married: We were single longer, and met and married later, than many others. For the years we were single, we had to trust that whatever vocation God had created us for and called us to, He would reveal it and give us everything we needed to live it. Being single was sometimes especially challenging for me as a woman, because I had always wanted to have biological children, to be a mother. We had to trust again, when we received the devastating diagnosis of infertility and wanted to remain faithful to the teaching of the Church – some of her most beautiful teachings – on life, marriage, family, and sexuality. In our loss, we have received some priceless gifts. First and most importantly, we were reminded that with God all things are possible. If God intended us to have children, then it would happen in some way that was consistent with the eternal truths He has entrusted to the Church and written on every human heart. If God had not called us to this vocation, then we wanted to trust we would discover what God had in mind. Our prayer life became stronger and richer, because we had placed ourselves in God’s hands and committed ourselves to discerning His will for us and our marriage. We have discovered that we share in people’s lives in a way that we would be unable to if we had children. We have opportunities to serve the Church in ways that have been unexpected and wonderful. None of this fully takes away the sorrow of what cannot be or our sense of loss. However, turning loss into new life, and seeking solace for sorrow, has turned us toward the loving, always-present embrace of God. A friend, realizing that she is not called to have biological children, “I look forward to Heaven, to seeing with God’s eyes the fruit of why He called me to this vocation.” I love that sense of hope and confidence in living with the mystery of the unfolding of God’s plan.
The Thinking Disciple
Is it wrong to question the teaching of the Church? No. Questioning is the practice of faith seeking understanding. Is it wrong to disagree with the Church? It depends! If disagreement is one stage in the process of ongoing conversion, then it is just that. Like Jacob wrestling with the angel in Genesis 32, it is the age-old story of the child tussling, questioning, stretching with the parent. I think God welcomes and enjoys the match and your maturing. If disagreeing is the easy way out of praying, studying, discerning, discussing, and receiving the Sacraments, then you are cutting yourself off from growth, Grace, and God. God invites you into the closest possible relationship with Him, so that you can be with Him forever in Heaven. Will you say “yes?”
I was but a lad at the time, merely seven or eight years of age, but almost everything on the T.V. terrified me. Terrible reports from Viet Nam, (where my father was at the time), the Tet Offensive nightly reports of death and casualties (was my daddy one of the ones killed?). Riots and anti-war demonstrations in America’s cities and college campuses. The first stirrings of militant feminism. A second hideous year of hippies with their “summer of love” nonsense, which was just an excuse for selfish, spoiled college kids to get high, fornicate and think they were some how doing a noble thing. There was the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, later that year also of Robert Kennedy, the riots and burning cities that followed King’s assassination. I remember my mother who was teaching on the South Side of Chicago have to flee for her life and finally be rescued by and escorted out by police. There was the ramp up to the yet more hideous Woodstock festival that would happen the following year. 1968 was a terrible year, a year that I do not think we ever recovered from. It popularized the sexual revolution, drug use and lots of just plain bad behavior. In the Church sweeping changes were underway and this added to the uncertainty of those times. Even if one will argue they were necessary changes they came at a terrible times and fed into the notions of revolution. And then the whole revolt against the magnificent and prophetic Humane Vitae, thus ushering a spirit of open dissent that still devastates the Church.
1968 was a terrible year. When I mention that year and shake my head, I often get puzzled looks. But I stand by my claim, 1968 was a cultural tsunami from which we have not yet recovered.
Thus my interest was peaked when I saw an article by James Cardinal Stafford also singling out that year also for being a year of intense darkness. I’d like to share some excerpts of the Cardinal’s article. He focuses particularly on the devastating effects of angry and open dissent set loose in August of that Year by theologians and priests who rebelled against Humanae Vitae. In that decisive moment the Cardinal sees that the violent revolution raging outside the Church decisively entered within her and that we still real for this today.
English historian Paul Johnson dubs 1968 as the year of “America’s Suicide Attempt.” It included the Tet offensive in Vietnam with its tsunami-like effects in American life and politics, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee; the tumult in American cities on Palm Sunday weekend; and the June assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in Southern California. It was also the year in which Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical letter on transmitting human life, Humanae Vitae (HV). He met immediate, premeditated, and unprecedented opposition from some American theologians and pastors. By any measure, 1968 was a bitter cup….
The summer of 1968 is a record of God’s hottest hour. The memories are not forgotten; they are painful. They remain vivid like a tornado in the plains of Colorado. They inhabit the whirlwind where God’s wrath dwells. In 1968, something terrible happened in the Church. Within the ministerial priesthood, ruptures developed everywhere among friends which never healed. And the wounds continue to affect the whole Church. The dissent, together with the leaders’ manipulation of the anger they fomented, became a supreme test. It changed fundamental relationships within the Church. It was a Peirasmòs [i.e. a trial, a test of faith] for many.
During the height of the 1968 Baltimore riots following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I had made an emergency call to [an] inner-city pastor…He described the view from the rectory while speaking on the phone…his parish was becoming a raging inferno. He said, “From here I see nothing but fire burning everywhere. Everything has been set ablaze. The Church and rectory are untouched thus far.” He did not wish to leave or be evacuated. His voice betrayed disillusionment and fear. Later we learned that the parish buildings survived.
Memories of the physical violence in the city in April 1968 [following the king Assassination] helped me to name what had happened in August 1968 [in the explosion of dissent against Humanae Vitae]. Ecclesial dissent can become a kind of spiritual violence in its form and content.
What do I mean? Look at the results of the two events. After the violent 1968 Palm Sunday weekend, civil dialogue in metropolitan Baltimore broke down and came to a stop. It took a back seat to open anger and recriminations between whites and blacks. The…priests’ August gathering [against Humane Vitae] gave rise to its own ferocious acrimony. Conversations among the clergy…became contaminated with fear. Suspicions among priests were chronic. Fears abounded. And they continue. The Archdiocesan priesthood lost something of the fraternal whole which Baltimore priests had known for generations. 1968 marked the hiatus of the generational communio….Priests’ fraternity had been wounded. Pastoral dissent had attacked the Eucharistic foundation of the Church. Its nuptial significance had been denied. Some priests saw bishops as nothing more than Roman mannequins.
Cardinal Shehan later reported that on Monday morning, August 5, he “was startled to read in the Baltimore Sun that seventy-two priests of the Baltimore area had signed the Statement of Dissent.” What he later called “the years of crisis” began for him during that hot… August evening in 1968….Its unhinging consequences continue. Abusive, coercive dissent has become a reality in the Church and subjects her to violent, debilitating, unproductive, chronic controversies.
The violence of the initial disobedience was only a prelude to further and more pervasive violence. …Contempt for the truth, whether aggressive or passive, has become common in Church life. Dissenting priests, theologians and laypeople have continued their coercive techniques. From the beginning, the press has used them to further its own serpentine agenda. (These are excerpts, Click HERE for the full article).
Yes, a terrible year, 1968. And we have yet to recover. Discussion in the Church has often retained its painful, divisive, and, as the Cardinal notes, “spiritually violent” tendencies. Bishops are excoriated by the right and left in the Church, and even by priests, who promised them obedience and respect. In effect, Bishops are treated more like elected officials, than the anointed leaders and fathers they are. And whatever imperfections the bishops have individually and corporately, this does not excuse our treatment of them as though they were simply elected officials accountable to us. We are neither docile nor loving and supportive of them. And when we have concerns about the course they set, we do not speak to them, or of them, as Fathers, but we lay them out as though they were political enemies. Discourse in the Church which should be marked by charity and a family love is, instead, modeled on angry and protesting political discourse, the acquisition of power and the hermeneutic of suspicion and scorn.
And this is true not only in our treatment of Bishops but also of one another. Catholics who are passionate about the family, the life issues and the sexual issues go to one side of the room, and Catholics passionate about the social teachings of the Church to the other. And from their sides they both hurl blame, venom, scorn, and debate who is a true Catholic and who really cares about what is most important. We do this rather than appreciate the work that each of us does in essential areas and we fail to understand that the Church needs two wings to fly.
The easiest thing in the world is to get Catholics fighting and divided. And we take the bait every time. The media knows it and so does the President. Shame on them for doing it, but shame on us for being such an easy target.
And to a large extent it all goes back to those angry August days back in 1968 when priests and laity took the violence and discord of that awful year and made it the template for Church life; when there emerged a kind of spiritual violence, and discord, when there developed a hermeneutic of suspicion; and when there was an embracing of a distorted ecclesiology of the Church as a political entity rather the Body of Christ.
Perhaps such tendencies were decades in coming, but, as Cardinal Stafford notes, there was something about that hot and fateful August of 1968, something in that awful year slouched into the Church and grew like a cancer. It is still too much with us today and it is has infected us all. Somehow it’s still August, the scorching heat wave lingers, and the hazy air reminds us of the summer of our discontent, that awful and fateful year of 1968. Usquequo Domine…usquequo? (Ps 12:1)
This song says, I need you, you need me. We’re all part of God’s Body. Stand with me, agree with me, you are important to me, I need you to survive.
There is a line from the Book of Hebrews that says this: And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Heb 10:24-25). The teaching is clear, we must come together each week for Mass and learn to live in deep communion with one another. We are not meant to make this journey alone. We need encouragement and exhortation, food for the journey, company and protection.
In the days of Jesus its was almost unthinkable for a person to make a lengthy journey alone. Once a person left the relative safety of the town the journey got dangerous. There were robbers lying in wait along the roads just looking for vulnerable targets. For this reason people almost always made journeys in groups.
This is a good image for the spiritual journey we must all make. Alone we are easy targets. We are vulnerable and without help when spiritual demons attack.
The Bible says: Woe to the solitary man! For if he should fall, he has no one to lift him up. (Ecclesiastes 4:11) Belonging to the Church and faithfully attending and being formed by her in a deep and meaningful way, has a powerful and protective influence.
There are many dangerous influences lying in wait for us on our journey. Frankly, without the teaching of the the Church and her Scriptures I would have made some pretty dumb mistakes and been mightily confused. As it is, I have communion not only with the current members of the Church, but I make the journey mystically with billions who have gone before, with Apostles, saints, and preachers and teachers of old who have handed on a glorious and wise Tradition, the Scriptures, and teaching; the cumulative and God-given wisdom of centuries and millennia. I do not walk alone, I walk with those who have made this journey before me and know the pitfalls as well as the good paths, the true and the good from the false and fraudulent.
The Words of an old hymn speaking of the Church come to mind:
Yet she on earth hath union
with God the Three in One,
and mystic sweet communion
with those whose rest is won.
O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
like them, the meek and lowly,
on high may dwell with thee.
And I also make this walk in deep communion with those here present. Yes, in my twenty-three years as a priest I have taught the people of God the Word of God, but I have learned far more from them than I ever taught them. Yes, I have learned from the people I serve what it means to have faith, to persevere. I have experienced correction when necessary, and encouragement in the struggle. And I will say that it is impossible to fully recount how my membership in the Church has blessed me. I could not begin to count the ways. I know my parishioners have prayed for me and that their prayer and example has put a hedge of protection around me. I pray for them too, and who knows what power my prayers have been for them?
Ah, but what of the sins of the Church? Even here I will say we have learned from our failures and struggles. Yes, in the Church, if we are faithful, we learn not only from good example, but even from the difficulties that inevitably arise in any community. We learn to be more patient and forgiving. We learn from the mistakes others make as well as from their gifts.
Don’t journey alone, it is dangerous. Find a parish, get involved and live in real communion with others who can lift you up if you fall, encourage you when you are faint of heart, instruct you when you wonder, and complete in you what is lacking. Alone, I am lacking, but together and with the Lord, we have all the gifts we need to get to the Promised Land of Heaven: Companionship for the Journey! And what a companionship: those here present, and mystically but very truly, those who have gone on before, all one in Christ Jesus.
Recently on the blog we examined a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center that reported a decrease in the number of Catholics in America. The good news is that as many as 45% of Americans indicated some affiliation with Catholicism. That does not mean that they are all Catholics. Sometimes it means that they have a Catholic spouse or were once Catholic themselves but have fallen away, etc. What does remain sadly and soberly true is that only 20-25% of Catholics attend Mass weekly (as we are required to do).
