Why John Stewart is Wrong About Catholics

This picture is making the rounds of the social networks this week, showing a recent remark made by John Stewart of the Daily Show.  While Stewart may think he is being funny,equating the recent dissatisfaction of the Catholic bishops about the HHS mandate with a child's temper tantrum, his quotation is being posted by various atheists and Catholic haters as evidence that the Church is wrong.

What this ignorant remark misses is that for Catholics, our mission, given to us by Jesus Christ and carried out through the apostolic mandate of the Church for the past 2000 years, is to change the world to make it reflect Christ's teachings, not simply to accept injustice or things that are morally unacceptable and walk away. We are, in fact, sent into the world from every Mass to bring the truth of the Gospel into that world.

If the "society" Stewart speaks of is wrong or unjust, we Catholics have a missionary mandate to work to change injustice in that society.  In this case, the injustice is in the government attempting to force Catholic and other religious  institutions to provide access to birth control (including abortifacient drugs) as part of insurance plans, which in the case of Catholics, is simply directly against the teachings of the Church. The core of the teachings about birth control and abortion is that we are always in favor of God's action through human reproduction to create new life. We simply believe that the prevention of, or the ending of that new life for our own personal convenience is against God's will - because life is always the will of God.

Far from being about "getting everything we want", this is actually more about getting what God wants. Genesis 1:28 says "be fruitful and multiply."  The fifth commandment says "You shall not kill."  Put the two together and you have the reason why Catholics reject both birth control and abortion (including any drug that causes abortion). Regardless of the personal belief of individual members, many of whom, influenced by the norms of American society and desire for their own personal convenience, dissent from these teachings, the Church continues to teach that all sexual relations between a husband and wife must be open to the creation of new life. New life, once conceived (defined as an egg fertilized by a sperm, even before implantation) must never be ended by human intervention.

Agree, disagree, it does not matter. It is simply what the Church teaches. The constitutional right to religious freedom in the United States demands that this teaching be honored. While the Church can wish that all Americans would abide by this,  that is not even the point. Catholic institutions have the right to follow the Church's teaching, and by the principle of religious freedom, no government can ask them to do otherwise. Why the Obama administration believes that this matter is even negotiable for the bishops is simply beyond my ability to understand.  I will not mention here all the various arguments about the particulars or the wider moral implications of that mandate or of the so-called "modification", as the USCCB and numerous other Catholic bloggers have certainly done that.

However, I want to make the point that those who are spreading this quotation in apparent agreement don't have any idea who we are as Catholics, why for the majority of faithful, practicing Catholics this government mandate is a challenge to our very identity, or why we simply will never back down. It is not that we are childishly objecting to not having our own way. It is quite simply that any government attempt to force Catholics to do something against the teachings of the Church is never going to be acceptable.  Ever.  Doesn't even matter if individual Catholics personally support that teaching. Most Catholics do, however, support the right for our Church to have that teaching, for the right for that teaching to apply to us as American citizens, and for the right of our institutions to make decisions about health care that are consonant with that teaching.  John Stewart is simply dead wrong to imply we are having a temper tantrum.

So, Where is the Wow When YOU Talk About Faith?

Just watched an interesting video, from the marketing perspective by Tom Peters, a noted writer on business and management practices, best-known for In Search of Excellence (co-authored with Robert h. Waterman, Jr.) In this video, Peters basically says that the language we use matters when we are trying to put out a message.  "If you want an energetic place, use energetic language," he says.
What does that have to say for the way we speak in church and about our Catholic faith? Do we express the "Wow"?  Or, do we express that we are the tired, the overworked, and the somewhat discouraged?  Do we have an affect that invites, or one that puts off? Do we tell our faces we have the joy of the Lord?

Father James Martin, famously in his latest book , Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life  and his presentations on it, urges Catholics to drop the sad-sack attitude and realize that our faith is filled with joy. He reminds us that Jesus was all about joy.

So, if Jesus was about joy, why DON'T we show it more often in parish ministry? Are we too bound up in worrying about whether people learn to follow the rules? Are we feeling vaguely discouraged in our ministry because of overwork, lack of sufficient staff, low salary and lack of affirmation? Most likely many of us are the latter these days. Still, there is no substitute for helping people find the joy of a relationship with Jesus Christ. It is the main part of our job description. We were not hired merely to see that the trains run on time, but to be part of the mission of the Church. "The Church," as we are told in Evangelii nuntiandi 14: "exists to evangelize."

So, how do we do that well. Father Robert Barron, in a video just posted this week, points out that too often Catholics present our faith as being all about morality and sexual ethics... and we fail to remind people often enough that first it is about Jesus. In doing so, we hamper our efforts to evangelize.

So, knowing all this, how do we put the "Wow" back in our message? I would say it must be a conscious choice.  It all goes back to the FISH Philosophy  which originated from watching the fish-throwing folks in the shop in Seattle:

So, today, can you make a pact with yourself and the Lord to choose YOUR attitude?  To find ways to express the "Wow" that is the Good News of Jesus Christ?

Father James Mallon Presentation

The full podcast of Father James Mallon's presentation in the Diocese of Joliet on December 8 can now be found here:

 "Rooted in Christ, Trusting in the Spirit: Building for Parish Renewal in 2012 and Beyond..."

These are about an hour long each.  Be sure to look at the PDF of his proposal to his diocese, posted on the bottom of the page.

(See my previous post on the topic of renewing our methods for engaging non-involved families who seek sacraments in our parishes, HERE. )

Sacramentalizing the "Casual Catholic" Family - or Evangelizing Them?

Most parish directors of religious education are actually pretty creative people. They are continually devising new strategies to try to get barely-connected families to be serious about their involvement in their children's faith formation. (Often against their will.) Many in our diocese make use of annual pre-sacrament  parent meetings to urge parents to get involved by bringing their children to Mass on a regular basis, praying and reading Scripture at home and talking about their faith with their children. They give inspiring talks, show videos, facilitate group process, and send home family projects. Some use various formats of intergenerational gatherings to involve the entire family on site at the parish.  They spend a huge amount of time and energy trying to get parents to step up to their responsibility for their children's faith formation.

While these are certainly good practices, and certainly they have some effect, how difficult it is to reach these folks meaningfully with the good news of Jesus Christ becomes painfully apparent when most of them disappear from the parish after the last child receives that all-important Confirmation certificate. They pretty much have what they came for. Now they can move on. They will come back to church for weddings, baptisms, and funerals, and perhaps on Christmas and Easter... or not. Some even blithely tell parish leaders that they promised their teen that after Confirmation they no longer have to come to Mass.  These are the "casual Catholic" families. They really only want to know how much the sacrament will "cost" them in terms of money and time. They will mostly give as little of both as possible.  A few may have enough good will to volunteer for ministries while their children are in formation, but even many of these do not remain after the Oil of Chrism is dry on their child's forehead.

What's missing and why don't these strategies work very well.? Simple. Many parents quite often don't have much faith themselves to share with their children. They may have a conventional sense that faith is important, but they really don't have a strong relationship with Jesus Christ.  While intergenerational programs offer more opportunity for engagement, they are missing something very important: opportunities for the parents to experience real and meaningful  conversion of their own. 

Enter Father James Mallon. Father Mallon, the Canadian priest behind Catholicism 201 (the follow up to Alpha for Catholics) and Dogmatic Theology. He is a man with a plan. When he spoke in our diocese on December 8, he described his method... and proposed some models.  (The full presentation can be heard HERE .)

What Father James proposes is that we stop spending the bulk of our energy on those who are not serious about their faith. Not that we abandon those barely-connected families, but that we no longer tolerate the status quo by enabling them to get those sacraments they want from us for a minimal temporary commitment.  He is convinced that people make lots of promises in the course of sacrament preparation they never intend to keep. He spoke of it as "ritualized lying".  We set people up for this when we allow them to celebrate sacraments and make promises within that celebration, knowing full well they are not really ready and have no sense of commitment to those promises.

Father Mallon explained, as an example, how when a couple comes to him seeking a church marriage, before he sets up the preparation and the wedding date, he first asks them to start coming to Mass on a regular basis to get to know him and the community, and to go through the Alpha Course for Catholics, a small-group evangelization process.  Some will balk at this, a few will go away, but many decide to go through this.  So do many parents who bring children for baptism, or children for other sacraments. Those who do engage in this process, apparently, stay and become a part of  St. Benedict in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a very growing and lively parish, which has been described as the "Willow Creek" of Canada.  Everyone in the parish is considered to be on an active faith journey... they are truly a parish that has become a "learning community." Everyone in the parish is asked in some way to participate in the stewardship of time and talent -  and time is not just time spent in service, it is also time spent in prayer and developing one's spiritual life.

What about the families who are already engaged and active and lifelong members of the parish?  Father Mallon says you need to stop lumping them in with the inactive people and treating them all the same. That might mean you offer something deeper for those who are ready - a separate track, as it were... small groups, perhaps, but using resources that acknowledge they are further along on their journey of faith.

So, what difference would it make in your parish if everyone were asked to become part of a small-group evangelizing process before they or their children receive sacraments? If they were helped to see why God and faith and the Church really matter (in a program such as Alpha for Catholics) If they were all expected to be and assisted to be on a faith journey? If they were all tapped for time and talent? 

Do you think parents might stop telling their kids that after Confirmation they never have to go to Mass again?  Do you think they would be more engaged and active in the parish?  What would YOU do if you could, to evangelize and engage the disconnected folks who only seek us out when they want sacraments?  Can you start thinking differently about the focus of your efforts with parents - to change from making it about their children's faith to making it about their own faith?

Winter Ordinary Time: Listening and Learning - Together

Winter has been unusually warm here in the area around Chicago, and even though we are finishing up January, the lack of snow and the pleasant days have made it somewhat  unlikely that this February will bring the usual rounds of "cabin fever" for those cooped up indoors.  The unusual weather has made it a little more difficult to capture the normal sensations I associate with winter Ordinary Time.  Here, this period of time normally has a touch of the ambiance of huddling with a group of friends around a warm fire while listening to the sharing of wondrous stories.  We take refuge from the cold and come to Mass to be among friends and to learn together what it means to be disciples.  

The period between the end of the Christmas Season and the beginning of Lent is a time to learn from the words and actions of Jesus. It is when we hear the Apostle Paul chiding us about how we are to live, and then hear the core stories of Jesus - actions, miraculous healings, discussions and more from his ministerial life among his disciples and the people of the places where he traveled.  It is a time to find out who Jesus is and what is essential and expected of us if we follow him.  As is always true, we do this in community, together.

In actuality, the weather doesn't matter - but the friends that we gather with do. The journey of faith that we share during the liturgical year is never simply "me and Jesus," but the shared struggle to learn and grow together - in the liturgy, in our parish activities, in our charity and service, in our catechesis, our sacrament preparation and in all the ways we are Church.  As we navigate these "counted days" of Ordinary Time up until Ash Wednesday, never forget the value of friends along the journey. It is truly a case of  never walking alone.

Martin Luther King, Jr. - Called to Prophesy

This powerful excerpt from a speech given in 1967 to the Southern Christian Leadership Council shows why Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a prophet in his time and a true witness to the message  of the Gospel.

Martin Luther King - Where Do We Go From Here? (Conclusion) from MLK Speeches on Vimeo.

His unfailing sense of the call of Jesus Christ to all people to create a just world, where the hungry are fed and the poor uplifted was extraordinary - and his delivery an authentic call for all to cooperate with God to recreate the world into a living image of the Kingdom is timeless.

Dr. King was a gift to our nation, whose speeches are worth listening to again and again. The blatant racial prejudice he fought against has lessened, to be sure, but the oppression of the poor by the rich and the failure of our nation and world to deliver justice for all still rings true.  One cannot but hear echoes of the current economic situation and political debates in what he said, and wish perhaps, that more had changed.

Hey Kids! If Football Players Can Genuflect, So Can You!

OK, it's not often the culture of sports hands us a genuine liturgical catechetical opportunity.  The furor surrounding Tim Tebow's public gesture of faith of kneeling in prayer on the football field has caused a storm of controversy and a flurry of photos in newspapers and on the internet:

along with numerous parodies, including references to the three Magi kneeling, to Darth Vader and other familiar persons and has spawned a T-shirt meme and a new term: "Tebowing".

So, why not use this as a way to teach kids that it is OK to genuflect?  In my parish, where I volunteer as a catechist to a group of older kids preparing for Confirmation, because most of them have missed prior years of faith formation, genuflecting in church does not come naturally.  I think I will tell them that if a sports hero can do it, so can they. Just saying. Thanks, Tim.