Church Shopping (3)

                            Church shopping (3)

 Christ told His Apostles to go and teach all nations, so sharing the gospel is essential to the Church’s role. Church schools, preaching and Sunday school all obey this command. But I feel that we are failing in the area of ongoing faith formation for adults, particularly doctrinal education. After Vatican II there were efforts to provide such programs , but as time passed , the initial fervor waned and religious formation reverted to a formal and legalistic presentation of traditional apologetics.

The bishops have  initiated a program to call Catholics who have drifted away from the Church to come home and many parishes are making an effort to welcome home the prodigal sons and daughters. I was recently irked by a national program, ostensibly of renewal, which would have delighted Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre or Fr. Leonard Feeney. Its focus was what to do as a Catholic rather than why one should be a Catholic.  It was an exercise in ecclesiastical narcissism rather than evangelism. My initial misgivings arose when a presentation on the program never mentioned Vatican Council II.  These sessions were supposed to explain our faith and renew the spiritual life of our parish, but it became clear that it was merely a make-over of a generation-old program which I believe was very successful in its time. However, times have changed.  As an inducement to come home it elicited a big yawn: "Why?'

The program concentrated on “How to” rather than “Why.” The content was similar to what I got in my third grade catechism seventy years ago.  Reading it one would never know that Vatican II occurred. There was no mention of ecumenism, of the empowerment of the laity, of liturgical changes, of freedom of conscience. It was a repeat of the old caricature that the role of laity in the Church was to “pay, pray and obey.” There was no recognition that since Vatican II Catholics have learned to think for themselves, to make their own decisions and to be responsible before God for their own actions. They are no longer a nineteenth century Church of illiterate immigrants looking to their priests to tell them what to do. They are successful, intelligent, well-educated men and women who do not need the hierarchy to micromanage their personal lives or their relationship with God.

 Richard McBrien in The Church expresses it well:”Educated Catholics still look to the Church for moral guidance but they are searching for principles not rules.” Incidentally the booklets used for the six sessions of the program cost $10.00 each ($60.00 total) while copies of McBrien’s The Church could probably have been purchased in bulk for less than half that cost and would have presented a far more complete exposition on the Church.

I have reviewed  other materials from Catholic and non-Catholic sources which are solidly Christian in content and present a far more inviting image of the Church than the rigid, comdemning institution  which many deserted years ago. We need to love the Church, not fear it and that is the message which we need to share. Above all those who come need to hear that we welcome them, we  accept them, we listen to them and we love them.

 (To be concluded)