I have been thinking today about the email I've received in response to the question posed below
"If not policies, what?" What do we want from our Church's leadership right now?
I've been letting it sink in, meditating on it, and considering what I've perceived in the wealth of commentary on the subject.
And this, in essence, is what I'm hearing, I believe:Give us Christ. Let me explain.
It's not that those voicing their deep concern, fears and hopes are spiritually adrift. No, it's really the opposite. The wealth of American Catholics are spiritually engaged people who know where God is to be found: In Word and Sacrament, in the intimacy of private prayer, in the warp and woof of daily life, in culture, and in the passionate, loving entanglement of family life.
But another true fact is this: Maintaining and nourishing our spiritual lives is no easy task, especially in this culture, and for two reasons.
First, of course, is secularism. The temptation of a pleasure-oriented life is strong, especially when pleasure is cheap and consequences are so easily avoided or hidden.
The second challenge to maintaining an authentic Christian spiritual life is religious relativism, even among the religious. We're continually hearing ....it really doesn't matter you know. God is whoever....truth is so big, there's not just one way to find it. Why waste your time fretting over particular religious doctrines or committing yourself to particular religious practices? Why put yourself through the effort? Aren't we all going to heaven anyway?
So we struggle to maintain, to stay focused on truth, to cling more dearly to Jesus who is not just anybody but only Jesus.
And all we want is a little help. But for the past forty years, we've gotten precious little of it from too many of our church leaders, and this crisis is the climax of it all, one that no one expected, but is clearly, if you look at it, the end-game of the misapplication of Vatican II.
"We want the Gospel preached" We want our leaders to focus on the mission of the Church" "We want Jesus preached loud and clear." This is what I'm hearing, over and over again. Why?
Because for four decades, Catholic leaders - ordained and lay both - have done anything but. Preach the simple truth. This is what they've done instead.
They've turned liturgy from something that was about God - uh, that's called worship - to something that is about us. The purpose of liturgy is now to build community. We needn't pay so much attention to Eucharist any longer, since the presence of Christ in us all the time is just as importantThe hymns in Catholic liturgies are, for the most part, about us. (Gather Us In....Here I Am...We Are the Light of the World....Aren't We Fabulous? No. Not the last one. I don't think so, at least...)
Religious Education has been transformed from an activity focused on Truth to one that's focused on ...you guessed it...the student. Buying into the pedagogy of the last eighty years (yes, that's not a typo. Student-centered educational fads began in the 1920's), Catholic religious educators have centered their efforts of making sure that students know that they're loved rather than making sure their students can give even a single reasonable explanation of Who it is that loves them.
Spiritual practices that centered on...God...were discouraged, while those that put the pray-er in the center flourished. If you don't get that, consider for a minute the difference between the repetition of the prayers of the rosary and the repetition of the question, "Who am I?" Or ponder the difference between Perpetual Adoration and Perpetual Self-Obsession. When I think of the spirituality programs that have taken up the energy of parish and diocesan personnel over the past two decades, all I can think of are evenings of exploring one's inner child or figuring out one's personality type as an aid to prayer and so on. Not that anyone goes to the stupid things, but they persist in having them nonetheless.
So this is what we've been hearing - endlessly - for decades now. That the purpose of the spiritual life is to explore who we are so we can understand how good we are.
That's not the purpose of the spiritual life in any classical religious tradition. Is it?
But we've waited patiently, haven't we? We've listened to all of the lay and ordained spiritual and catechetical leaders tell us that this is what had to happen - to clear away the misunderstandings of the past that engendered so much pain and negativity in people's souls, that infantilized them and kept them from mature relationships with God. We've listened to them tell us that the purpose of all of this is to reveal the Kingdom more fully in human life, to let the Spirit work more freely, to open our hearts so that....
What? What?
Well, you look at the situation. You tell me what happened.
So slowly it dawns on us. Maybe we've been had. Maybe all of this interesting stuff that went on wasn't really for our sake. It's so strange and convoluted, but maybe so - all of this talk and all of these programs that they said were so important to build us up were really about them - their careers, their own anger at their own religious pasts, their own egos, their own sense of superiority over 2,000 years of tradition.
Because, you see, what we're finding, if not for ourselves, but perhaps for our children and for a lot of people we know, it just hasn't helped much. None of it has helped strengthen our spiritual lives because it's left so many important questions neglected and ignored - the questions raised at the beginning of this entry, the questions we need answered if we're going to see a reason for following Christ in times that tell us it's either idiotic or useless to do so.
And then this. And then it all comes clear. Our intuitions, our suspicions were correct. None of it has been for our sake, not really. Our souls and the souls of our innocent children are not so important, not important at all. What's important is protecting the ability of certain members of the clergy (and religious, mark my word, as well as a fair share of lay ministers as well) to live pleasure-centered, self-absorbed lives while hiding behind the walls of their rectories, chancery offices and positions. What's been important is expending untold amounts of time and money to protect these people and protect the "institution." In a weird way, it all comes to a head: A Church that has, for decades, been preaching a Gospel of self-absorption on the local level, (completely ignoring the wisdom coming from the top in a steady brilliant, compelling stream) is exposed, at i\so many levels as a supremely self-absorbed institution. We've been told that there's no need to sacrifice or walk a narrow path - that's old fashioned and detrimental to our mental health, and now we see why. As Catherine of Siena said of the religious leaders of her own time, if religious leaders are living in moral squalor, they're not going to preach moral probity. If religious leaders are distanced from Christ, they're not going to preach Christ.
And it all makes sense.
And we've had enough.
And we want the Gospel preached. We need it, and we know we need it, and this is what we're saying to our religious leaders: get yourselves and your own agendas out of the way. Turn yourselves towards Christ, and humbly lead us in the same direction.