Concerns spring from deep
within. They grasp for words to say what they mean, to describe their discomfiture.
Perhaps Yeats’ words fit the times: "The best lack all conviction, and the
worst are full of passionate intensity."
The story gets told in these
terms:
Catholics
are confused and torn - the ones hanging on. Half have quit. The faithful don't
know who or what to believe anymore. They hear a prominent archbishop say the
Holy Father is out of touch. They hear mixed messages about sin and morality,
if they hear about sin at all. Respected theologians speak about moral conduct
in situational and relativistic terms. Catholics have bought into worldly
standards for marriage, sexuality, lifestyle. Never mind that rock music holds traditional
values up to ridicule. the kids need “their" music. Love has become puppy
love, more concerned with selfish pleasure than with sacrifice, patience and
dying to self.
Homes
for runaway young people are finding a new caliber of clientele. Sacred absolutes
are falling on rebellious, indifferent ears, despite the utter hopelessness of
circumstances. Failures to reach some of these young people are increasing. Some
are going back to the streets from probably their last-chance safe havens.
People in places of help use words like “diabolical" to describe what they
see happening.
Even
priests are sniping at priests. A holy brotherhood is becoming infiltrated with
an undercurrent of defensiveness or suspicion or polarity. Condescension
replaces dialogue. Smugness replaces tolerance. Hauteur replaces humility.
Everybody
agrees that values have lapsed or gone dormant, but nobody thinks it's anybody's
fault. It's not the teachers’ fault; it's not the young people's fault; it's
not the parents’ fault; it‘s not the priests’ fault; it's not the bishops’ fault.
So the story gets told…
A priest has a faraway look of
reflection. His tone is quiet. People don’t come to the sacraments, he said. They
don’t come to Mass. They're bitter, angry. They don’t want to hear anything I
have in say. They could care less about God or religion or the Catholic Church.
They’ve turned it off any they’re not about to turn it back on. Many are full
of hate. Many more are simply indifferent toward the Church
Catholics are having abortions,
living together before marriage and they are very vocal about their rights in
this regard. Their rights… they’re not interested in what the Church has to say
about women in priesthood. They don’t care. They want what they want, so that’s
their value. They say the Church is repugnant, but they want to be a priest in
it.
Something is terribly wrong and
putting a Band-Aid on it won’t fix it. One more program putting people on one
more spiritual high, feeling good about themselves one more time – it's all
useless. Do it. I don’t care. It won't matter, he said. What matters is what's
underneath all this: the malaise, the emptiness. Only one thing is going to work
and that's for people to change their lives and get right with God. The communion
lines are long, but the confessionals are vacant.
Another priest shook his head.
It's not business as usual anymore, he said. We‘ve been asleep too long. Satan
is in the world and in the Church, too. You can laugh if you want to, he said,
shrug, it off if you want to. The intellectually arrogant will go on with their
mush, but the word of God still stands, yesterday, today, tomorrow – if there
is a tomorrow. God’s not going to stand for 20 million abortions, rampant
idolatry, moral decadence so depraved it’s unspeakable. God’s not going to
stand for teaching elementary school children that choosing to act out homosexually
is like choosing a new hat, and then teaching them so-called safe ways to
indulge in repulsive practices.
The solution is simple really.
We have to repent. We have to get on our knees. – T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on January 31st, 1988
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