Please Don't Go

It's always somebody or something else, isn't it? It's the NYT, Paul Elie, and Hans Kung--not the hierarchy's cover-up of the sexual abuse scandal, its turning away from Vatican II, its ham-handed lobbying, its rejection of core aspects of our faith, e.g., sensus fidelium. "[M]ost polls suggest that those who dissent from Catholic teaching are also those who miss Mass most weeks of the year anyway." Given your animosity to polls on Catholics I'd love to know which ones you refer. In any case, the recent Pew one indicates that 35% of those who attend at least weekly want significant change to the Church and all of it in the progressive direction. You might notice if 1 out of 3 of those sitting next to you in the pews went away followed to those that attend less regularly. Then there would just be the chosen few huddled together in a cult-like cocoon. Good luck paying the heating bills.

Vince, I wasn't asking you for the Church's definition of "sensus fidelium" (the one in Lumen Gentium), but YOUR definition, the core belief that you arrogantly claim the Catholic Bishops have abandoned. In any case, you can't even be eligible to be a tutor if you're not able to give definitions of the terms you use, as when you think size is not critical to the definition of "sample size", or when you think "faithful" is not the key component in the definition of the "sense of the faithful." You make these definitional mistakes all the time, even in your last comment. You state that "10% of Americans are former Catholics" That could well be correct. But, they would be former or Ex-Catholics (by your own use), so the media (and you) should not be including them as Catholics in polls. Pope Benedict on Dec 7, 102, to the International Theological Commission, said "Today, however, it is particularly important to clarify the criteria used to distinguish the authentic sensus fidelium from its counterfeits. In fact, it is not some kind of public opinion of the Church, and it is unthinkable to mention it in order to challenge the teachings of the Magisterium, this because the sensus fidei cannot grow authentically in the believer except to the extent in which he or she fully participates in the life of the Church, and this requires a responsible adherence to her Magisterium.” - this is exactly what Vatican II's Lumen Gentium holds (see Nos. 12 & 18).

Beth, you speak for many, as does Paul Elie. Kevin - "Instead of going to another church on a Sunday, what if we spent a few hours writing letters to our bishops and meeting with them to express our concerns in a positive way?" It is my experience and that of many other Catholics I know that writing letters to bishops is as effective as putting them in the trash can. There is no response and you have wasted a lot of time, some paper, and the cost of postage. Meeting with them to express our concerns? If you are not a "professional" in the church (preferably a male cleric) or you are not a wealthy and/or powerful member of the laity, your chances of meeting with your bishop to express concerns are between zero and none.

Beth, you may find my blog reflection in response to this post a kindred reading, from http://christineemccarthy.com: My Facebook feed was filled Friday with frustrated status updates: theologians, priests, and concerned Catholics are uproarious over Paul Elie’s New York Times Op-Ed piece, “Give Up Your Pew for Lent.” Elie, the reputable author of the excellent The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage and, most recently, Reinventing Bach, provocatively suggests that Catholics consider temporarily vacating their parishes today to visit another tradition’s house of worship. In so doing, Elie hopes Catholics take the opportunity to reassess their relationships to their faith tradition as a way of forcing themselves out of the resignation so many North American Catholics feel in an age marked by the sex abuse crisis, financial corruption, the mismanagement of the Curia, a host of condemnatory statements on the status of homosexuality and female priesthood in the Church, and so on. As an added bonus, the cardinals preparing for the conclave in Rome might take notice were American Catholics to leave church en masse in search of the Spirit elsewhere and elect a pope who is ready, willing and able to respond to the desolation felt by the faithful. The overwhelming response (according to my FB feed and shared blog posts) has been largely understanding yet ultimately slamming: most see Elie as well-intentioned but misguided while some see his proposal as worse than Garry Will’s recent thesis, Why Priests? A Failed Tradition and Frank Bruni’s sweeping condemnation of the celibate priesthood (see here for Jim Martin’s piercing response). Dan Horan at datinggod.org cautions that Elie misunderstands the sacramentality of church and Eucharist and encourages not just individualism but a “self-excommunication”: He is absolutely correct about the need to ask “what is true in our faith,” but the beginning and end of the search does not take place in spiritual lone rangers exploring on their own. The source and goal is the community, is relationship, is Body of Christ. What is most true about our faith is the radicality of relationship: with God, with others, with all of creation. Kevin Ahern also takes issue with Elie’s proposal, calling it a boycott of the Eucharist, and while that is, de facto, what it amounts to, a boycott of the sacrament is not Elie’s intention. He is simply asking American Catholics who feel resigned about the direction of their church to act on it, to shake themselves and their faith lives up, by worshiping God elsewhere for one Sunday. Elie’s spiritual sensitivity is clear when he writes that “I hope and expect to return to the Oratory church the following Sunday. But I can’t be sure. To some degree, it’s out of my hands, a response to a calling.” A calling of the spirit–that is what he’s asking each Catholic to look for, not because we should be spiritual lone rangers, but because everyone’s faith journey must walk the line between self and community and it’s okay and sometimes necessary to retreat every once in a while from what is still beloved and comfortable no matter how resigned one may feel towards the beloved. Elie reminds Catholics that they have a choice and a say in their church, but the call of the spirit does not occur by magic. We as Catholics need to seek the spirit out, to pray on it, intend to be guided by it and trust in it–and that total trust in the spirit means that we can’t know for sure where it will lead us and that that place towards which we are led may be outside of the familiar trappings of one’s own parish or tradition altogether and we ought to be open to that. Essentially, while not explicitly stated, Elie is asking each Catholic to engage in a benign form of self-care that is open to God’s self-communication and to not to be too attached to the ways in which that self-communication makes its way to us, not to “put God in a box” as it were, even if that box were the holy sacrament of Eucharist. An openness to the spirit and attention to one’s own relationship to self, God and church is absolutely necessary because if we are to be truly radically engaged with God, others and creation we must first know who we are and that sort of knowledge is never static but always changing and needing attention, reflection, and love. Ultimately, I disagree with Ahern’s statement that Elie “seems to make the Eucharist more about himself than Christ” and I rather think that Elie’s understanding of Eucharist is more relation- than act-centered: we are the body of Christ no matter where we are because Christ is not only in the Eucharist nor will Christ be wholly absent from our lives should we give up one Sunday Mass to become students of the way God’s light shines in other faiths. Having said that, did I seriously consider not going to Mass today? No, not in the least. In fact, I had an almost childish inner reaction in that I really did not want to give it up because I love it so much and that alone made me consider how wise and fruitful Elie’s proposal might be: that our resignation can also take the form of attachment. Paul and I are fortunate to attend the same wonderful parish, Oratory of Saint Boniface, and it is a place that makes my little Catholic heart swell with joy and consolation at the beauty of the service, the nourishment of the homilies, and the realization of an honest-to-goodness faith community the kind of which I never had growing up. Truth be told, the state of my childhood parish life was so depressing, with homilies consisting purely of jokes and personal anecdotes that were in no way connected to a life of faith and only meant to make the congregation feel entertained but not enriched or connected to one another or God, that I know I would not have remained a practicing Catholic if I had not gone to Boston College as undergraduate. Which is why I know that so many Catholics really are resigned about the state of their church: despite the fact that as a doctoral candidate in theology at a Jesuit university and my commitment to a lay community puts me in circles where I know so many Catholics who could not be further from being resigned, I am well aware that there are many Catholics who have given up on a church that meets them where they are because, differences on church teachings aside, not all parishes are created equal and some show their dissatisfaction by voting with their feet. The exodus from the church sometimes comes after much frustrated soul-searching but also at other times because parishioners can simply no longer identify with it or do not feel heard, needed or wanted, as is the case with so much of today’s youth, particularly young women. So, thank you, Paul Elie, for inviting Catholics who may or may not have been considering to skip Mass and worship elsewhere to do so. Maybe in this Lent and in this interregnum period between popes, it will be a well-needed push for some to seek the holy spirit and become pilgrims again, knowing that the journey ahead needs attention to ourselves and our own personal relationships to God and to our church as much as being in communion as the pilgrim church on earth. It reminds us that we get to be, and do not merely have to be, Catholic. Disclaimer: I am personally (albeit barely) acquainted with Paul Elie through shared membership in parish life and as members of the Community of Sant’Egidio. Elie has no prior knowledge of or input in this post.