Franciscan at Home

Is there such a thing as Catholic culture in America anymore? And if there is, is it capable of producing religiously committed Catholics across generations? Or would we have to consider it simply a fading vestige of ethnic or familial identity? From John Paul II to Benedict XVI to Francis, the renewal of Catholic culture in Western societies has been considered an intrinsic dimension of the New Evangelization. With regard to a so-called “Catholic culture,” however, the movement from ideal to real—from exhortations to concrete renewal—is sobering and presents many practical questions. Are there any social mechanisms by which new generations of Catholics can acquire a strong sense of Catholic identity, an entire worldview animated by Christian intuitions regarding humanity and society, and the will to remain committed to these principles over the long term? Can such reinvigoration occur anywhere at an appreciable scale?

If Dr. Christian Smith, a prominent sociologist of religion at Notre Dame, is correct, any reply to these questions must take special account of one institution: the household, with its deep interpersonal bonds, its wealth of practices, and its highly compelling power to impart identity. In his landmark National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR), Smith studied the specific religiosity and spirituality of millennials, observing the widespread drift of these young people from any substantial notion of religious identity or practice. However, he also realized that the religious outcomes of these young people were not at all a generational anomaly. Rather, the single greatest predictor of emerging adults’ eventual level of religious commitment was the religiosity of their parents.

Consider that, of the most religious quartile of NSYR young adults ages 24-29 (individuals whose religious attitudes Smith had been tracking since high school) an impressive 82% had parents who reported each of the following: that their family regularly talked about religious topics in the home, that faith was “very important” to them, and that they themselves regularly were involved in religious activities. By comparison, only 1% of the least religious quartile of Smith’s young adults had parents who reported this combination of religious attitudes and practices. Thus, according to the NSYR, the single most decisive difference between Millennials who remained religiously committed into adulthood and those who didn’t was the degree of religiousness exhibited by their parents.

Riding along quietly, perhaps daydreaming in the warm Umbrian sunshine, Francis suddenly reined his horse to a standstill. He was in shock. There, right in his path, stood a leper. In his novel on the life of St. Francis of Assisi, Felix Timmermans describes what happens next: Francis felt his hair standing on end from horror. Fear of infection gripped his throat. He quickly gave his horse the spurs and galloped away. He did not dare to look back. His hat fell off, but he paid no attention. Yet as he rode on, he remembered the message of Christ’s gospel: despise all that you formerly desired, and cherish all that you formerly despised.

There is a powerful verse in Isaiah that is particularly appropriate for all of us who are catechists: “The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught” (Is 50:4a). We need a tongue to speak, and we want the tongue to reflect what we ourselves have been taught. It sounds obvious. How could we teach in any other way than through being taught ourselves? Perhaps it is nonetheless a striking saying because it reminds us of the things that can go wrong in this simple process of receiving and giving.

For Others And For Ourselves

On the one hand, we can think that the formation we receive is for ourselves alone, rather than for transmission to others. We can forget that what we receive in terms of our formation is always both for ourselves and for others. We hear the echo in order to re-echo. A catechist is always for the other, and so in our Christian lives we receive not only for the building up of our own knowledge and understanding, in order to deepen our own relationship with Christ, but also to better discern the ways in which our formation may be of service to others.

On the other hand, we can think that what we receive is for others alone, forgetting ourselves. To use the well-known image of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, we think of ourselves primarily as channels, through which all that we have received flows, rather than as reservoirs that must fill up so as to spill over. St. Bernard counsels:

…do not try to be more generous than God. The reservoir resembles the fountain that runs to form a stream or spreads to form a pool only when its own waters are brimming over. The reservoir is not ashamed to be no more lavish than the spring that fills it.[i]

It was a warm, sunny day at the end of spring. Instead of spending the beautiful Saturday according to their own wishes, our students were reluctantly settling into their seats in a classroom. I saw looks of boredom on the faces of the youth and noted the variety of ages among those present. I glanced over at the two other members of our team: a young, enthusiastic priest and a very energetic woman who taught children much younger than those gathered before us. We had been recruited to deliver a day-long Confirmation retreat for a Native American community. On our three-hour drive to reach the reservation, Father had emphasized the fact that the culture from which these participants would be coming might present different challenges from those to which we were accustomed. Looking around the room, I began to understand what he had been describing. The ages of the confirmandi ranged from 5th to 11th graders; and some parents or family members also requested to attend the retreat. The sisters who ran the catechetical side of the mission church located on the reservation had already informed us that many of these students failed to attend any kind of courses regularly, and thus their level of catechesis was inconsistent.

Whether it be Captain America and Iron Man fighting over whether or not the Avengers should submit to governmental authority, or the constant slew of stories that portray the bad guy as the good guy, Hollywood loves moral ambiguity. “The Walking Dead” is still popular not only because of the horror of zombies but also because of the constant moral dilemmas the protagonists must face: if a child is bitten by zombies and will become a zombie in a few days, should we kill the child before she becomes a zombie or should we wait until she might kill us? Such questions seem unanswerable.[i]

This continual barrage of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenarios is symptomatic of an ethically relativistic society, and leads young people to the conclusion that there is no “right” answer to moral dilemmas— whatever the person decides is best. Like all heresies, there is a measure of truth in that statement. People of good conscience can still make bad decisions. However, we do teenagers no favors by posing the most difficult of moral situations, when the vast majority of their day to day decisions have far clearer answers to questions as: “Should I cheat on this test or lie to my parents?”

“The truth will set you free” (Jn 8:32). A large, prominently displayed banner with this proclamation greeted my high school students every semester that I taught Morality class. I spent many of the ensuing months unpacking this verse and its implications. What is truth? Or better, who is truth? What does it mean to be free? Crucial to this inquiry was a thorough study of the Church’s teaching regarding conscience. Any catechist would agree that we do not want to train our students to blindly follow a set of rules; instead, we want to be the conduits for them to develop a dynamic freedom to choose the ultimate good. This is the importance of properly teaching about conscience, which is “present at the heart of the person” and “enjoins him at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil.”[i] If we merely memorize a list of laws and then try by our own power to live by them, we will always fail. New, unique moral challenges arise every day. However, if we have a well-formed conscience, then we have the ability to choose the good in every situation.

“To catechize or not to catechize” is definitely not the question. Catechize we must. It is a mandate: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of allnations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20). This missionary mandate requires great skill, will power, and constant docility to the Holy Spirit’s promptings, as well as flexibility with the changing realities we face through human history and the Christian presence therein. This Great Commission must also be characterized and driven by the Great Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God… and your neighbor as yourself” (cf. Lk 10:28; Mt 22:38; Mk 12:30).

How are we to fulfill the Great Commission here at home, when fewer of us go to all nations as missionaries, but all nations seem to be coming to us—even as “missionaries”? How are we to fulfill the Great Commandment towards all when our neighbors include a large and growing number of foreigners? First, we must will it. We must truly desire their good, as Jesus does. When the leper addressed him in his need, Jesus showed his willingness: “I do will it. Be made clean” (cf. Mt 8:1-3). We must will the good of newcomers as much as we will our own.

Who are the New Hispanic-Americans?

I do not intend to approach here—from every possible and necessary angle—the all-important challenge and opportunity posed by the large number of immigrants living in the U.S. However, it behooves us to consider the mission of catechesis and the overall call to an effective new evangelization among Hispanics in the context of this societal challenge, keeping in mind that not all Hispanics are actually immigrants: the roots of millions go back to the 1500s and 1700s.[i]

Latin American immigrants come to the U.S. from twenty-one nations (though some list twenty-seven Spanish-speaking territories on three continents.) Most enter from Central America and Mexico by foot or car; many fly in. They migrate for economic and political, professional and family reasons, usually in search of a better life in a more stable nation. Some enter the country with proper documents, others without; some overstay their visas. Some come and go; others come to stay. Some fear for their lives; many simply cannot in good conscience return “home” and leave behind their American-born children and/or spouse. Most see their work and contributions as meaningful and do not wish to give up a good thing; others know their quality of life would be greatly diminished if they left. Most prove in their new homeland that their hard work and entrepreneurial spirit has a fair chance of flourishing and producing lasting fruit.

The vast majority of immigrants want a chance to enjoy a share of human dignity and the “American Dream”: to live and love; to be safe and secure; to put to use their God-given talents in a dignified and constructive manner; to earn a decent living; to bond and build a just society and a better world. They bring various needs, but they do not come empty-handed, looking for hand-outs: they bring a variety of talents and skills. Most are hardworking and decent. Many are skilled and entrepreneurial. Some are highly educated and accomplished. The majority of Latino immigrants are Catholic and many of them have been active in their parishes, lay ecclesial movements, and dioceses coming with a hunger for God and the ability to spiritually feed others. Immigrants bring gifts and are a blessing to the host country.

The pastoral care of Hispanic Catholics is a crucial duty that we cannot ignore, especially given the high numbers related to migration and birth. In over forty U.S. dioceses, they already surpass the number of non-Hispanic Catholics.[ii] As American Catholics—or rather, Catholics who are American—we must give a thoroughly Catholic Christian response to the presence of migrants to the U.S., especially Latinos. A reminder from Matthew 25 and from the Catechism of the Catholic Church might help us bear in mind how serious our responsibility is toward our neighbor: “The catechetical tradition also recalls that there are ‘sins that cry to heaven’: the blood of Abel, the sin of the Sodomites, the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt, the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan, injustice to the wage earner” (par. 1867).

If we wish to assist learners in forming a Catholic conscience, it is important for us to understand how individuals typically grow and change over the lifespan with regard to moral thinking and reasoning. The way we approach moral catechesis and conscience formation will vary somewhat depending upon the developmental level of the individual. One characteristic that is common to all learners, especially during the childhood years, is their need to access the material in multisensory ways. Some individuals are visual learners. Some are most engaged when material is presented verbally. Still others need to move and interact with what they are learning. The following is a brief discussion of conscience formation at various ages, with recommendations for multisensory activities to aid in teaching at each developmental level.

The Church has been entrusted with the fullness of the truth, God’s final self-revelation in Jesus Christ, who is the “image of the invisible Father” and in whose image each human person is created. Because we know Jesus Christ, we can see and understand the truth about man. For this reason, the Catholic Church has the only adequate anthropology, meaning that she possesses a true and complete understanding of the human person.

To an increasingly secular culture this sounds like anti-cultural blasphemy. Why? To answer that question, let’s look at the radically different ideas about reality from which our culture and our Church begin the project of understanding what it is to be human.
A Fundamental Difference

To understand the growing gap between Catholic and secular anthropology we have to recognize that each grows organically from one of two mutually exclusive concepts of the ultimate reality—that reality which explains the existence of everything else.

For Catholics the ultimate reality is the eternal Blessed Trinity, who created the universe and all it contains from nothing, by a free act of infinite power and love. For modern secularists, the ultimate reality is matter, the revealingly named “God Particle” from which all other particles and composites are made.

These two paradigms are utterly incompatible.

The classical Judeo-Christian worldview flows from the fact that we understand creation has a Creator and that the Creator has a purpose and intention for his creation, most especially human beings, whom he made in his image and likeness to share in his own blessed life.

The modern secularist worldview flows from the false idea that only matter exists, tumbling through the void of time and space, combining and recombining according to the immovable laws of physics in an unending, purposeless reshuffling of atoms.

On that view, everything spiritual (God, souls, mind, will, etc.) is simply an illusion created by the exhaust of biomechanical processes. This philosophy is called Materialism. It is not true, but it is dangerous and has deeply influenced our culture.

Let’s examine more closely how all this colors our view of man.

Every January we enter back into ordinary time with the baptism of Jesus at the Jordan by John the Baptist. As John’s father Zachariah prophesied at his birth, John is the “Precursor” who “will go before the Lord to prepare his way” (cf. Lk 1:76).

This transition to ordinary time provides a rich context for a fresh reflection on our Christian mission to “prepare the way of the Lord.” In this article, we’ll look at several philosophical proofs of God’s existence and then see how everyday acts can prepare the mind and heart for faith. In order to enter into this topic, it will help to begin with a few thoughts about human reason.