The Church is bereft of disciples!
That conclusion, recently communicated to me by a dear friend by way of a series of emails, is perhaps the most astute observation regarding contemporary Catholicism that I have heard in quite some time.
A faithful Catholic all of his life whose daily spiritual exercises include Mass and the recitation of the Rosary, he told me how few Catholics he knows who concern themselves with what the Pope or the Bishops have to say or even about the latest scurrilous stories about sexual abuse or cover up by the hierarchy. They simply attend Mass and don’t want to know or hear anything else about the Church.
I believe my friend succinctly summarizes what I have suspected but have been unable to successfully articulate.
The overwhelming majority of those attending Mass with any frequency fall into two groups.
Those with elementary-school aged children (not necessarily in parochial school) and seniors.
This makes sense to me. There is a logic to it.
Younger Catholic families whose parents want to at least try to pass on an affective, if not intellectual, appreciation for their religious heritage and older folks for whom the passing of life from this world is beginning to take on perceptible features against which they seek reassurance and hope.
As Catholic families mature and children pass from grade school to high school and higher levels of education, their presence in Church wanes if not disappears completely.
Teenagers are invisible as are the so-called “Millenials”.
A goodly number of Catholics in their 40s and 50s are divorced or civilly remarried. They feel that they have betrayed their Catholic upbringing and justify their abandonment of the Church because they have been made to feel unworthy of Mass and the Sacraments.
Then there are those Catholics who constantly lament that the Church has never allowed the promises of Vatican Council II to be realized.
These are the “70s Catholics” who never grew up, who still revel in the “me” generation, free love, and self-absolution from any personal responsibility or accountability for their choices.
For all their fervor for renewal within the Church, they seldom practice their faith nor do they encourage others to do so.
Theirs was and remains a resistance movement to the rightful mandate of the Church to discern what is good and urge its observance and to judge what is an evil to be avoided. They abhor any semblance, word or suggestion that sin is real, needs confessing and penance. God is love so everything’s forgiven, whether that forgiveness is sought or ignored.
Young parents, old people, the disgruntled and the invisible don’t make for effective disciples. One group is overwhelmed, another is infirm, and the remaining two are completely self-absorbed.
Does this speak of all Catholics? Of course not, my friend insists, that would be patently absurd.
And what about the Clergy?
I am happy to say that my friend is caring enough not to hold back what he perceives to be the truth.
The Clergy, he observes, are the ones who perhaps have failed most miserably to create disciples.
We, Bishops and Priests, became complacent, eager to be accepted and self-indulgent. Spiritual exercises were abandoned. A continual study of the Scriptures, Church history as well as fundamental and moral theology were largely ignored.
Our preaching was lackluster, offering little in the way of Scriptural truths or the encouragement of virtue.
We failed to create disciples because we forgot what discipleship entails: self-sacrifice and courage.
So when Catholics began to adapt to and adopt secular attitudes regarding divorce, remarriage, cohabitation, abortion, homosexuality, end-of-life issues, we Clergy remained silent waiting for the Vatican or the local Chancery Office to speak out against these assaults on Christian virtues, while we delighted parishioners at Mass with jokes and personal anecdotes, with magic tricks and puppets!
And while the secularists we busy sowing weeds in the garden of the Church, we Clergy were oblivious to the damage being done and, in some cases, perpetrated serious and scandalous harm to those entrusted to our pastoral care.
Do these failings speak to all Clergy? Again, my friend remarks that such a judgement would be ridiculous!
Still, my friend paints a fairly accurate picture of where the Church finds herself these days, I think.
In her zeal to be “in the world”, the Church has become “of the world”.
We are a Church which has forgotten its fundamental and Divinely-instituted mission: “...to go forth and make disciples of all nations.”
I thank my friend for his insights and ask him and all of us to join daily in prayer to the Holy Spirit for a true renewal of the Church, the Clergy and the faithful that we may be fit and worthy disciples of Our Lord Jesus and the salvation He offers to those who confess Him as Lord and Savior.
Come, Holy Spirit, renew the face of the earth and kindle within us the fire of Your Love!
No comments:
Post a Comment