Does the Catholic Church Stand a Chance with Millenials

Even as Pope Francis makes comments that hint at coming change in the Roman Catholic Church reactionary bishops around the world make statements and take actions that show that in truth, NOTHING has changed - e.g., the bishop of Richmond , Virginia, will not allow divorced and remarried Catholics to teach in Catholic schools, and a bishop in Europe just "apologized" for advocating the death penalty for gays after the sharp public outcry his statement ignited.  s a result, many Catholics find themselves questioning how much longer they can tolerate the hate and hypocrisy.  This is especially true of Millennials, 34% of whom have already walked away from institutional religion.  A piece in Religion Dispatches looks at the Church's growing problem with Millennials.  Here are excerpts:

[W]ill a hashtag or two be enough to engage my generation?   Like many Latinos in the U.S., I grew up Catholic. Unlike many Latinos, this was my choice rather than my parents’. They wanted me to decide how I expressed my spirituality, so after taking religious studies (I actually did!), I came to the conclusion that I would be Catholic because Jesus was a progressive political figure who helped others in need. . . . . So I have made a deliberate attempt to accept the Catholic Church for what it can be—a compassionate and welcoming sanctuary,  especially for the marginalized.

But as a Latina millennial who supports sexual and reproductive rights, I find that the Church’s restrictive attitudes make it very difficult for me to remain a committed Catholic.

My generation cherishes autonomy and individualism and rejects rigid identities and roles. Not surprisingly, a recent study from Pew Research confirmed that millennials are less likely to attend church than those in other generations.  More than a third of millennials  say they are unaffiliated with any church.  . . . . Only 16% of millennials consider themselves Catholic, compared to nearly a quarter of other generations.
A second study  . . . concluded that young women are the demographic segment driving this shift. The drop among 12th-grade girls who never attend church surged by 125% in the past thirty years, in contrast to the 83% increase among their male peers.

I believe that the Catholic hierarchy’s narrow view on gender and sexuality is a big factor in my generation’s difficulty with the Church. Whereas the Church has taken steps to address other important issues like economic justice and climate change, it still falls short of acknowledging that a broader, more inclusive view of gender roles, sexual and reproductive health, and sexual expression is crucial to the millennial generation.

What Pope Francis and his Church fail to understand is that reproductive health and rights are very much an issue of justice for the poor and women of color.  . . . access to reproductive care is as much of an issue of social justice as economic disparity or climate change.

Millennials are delaying marriage and finding alternative ways to form families. With a church that establishes rigid limits on how one should create a family, its impositions collide against a major cultural shift that has no signs of slowing down.

More False Hopes For Change in the Catholic Church?

I recently noted that columnist/blogger Andrew Sullivan seemed to be reaching a point of realizing that the Roman Catholic Church is not only incapable of change, but seems headed on an anti-gay jihad as gay church employees are fired and married gays are denied the sacraments and told that they must divorce their legally wed spouses if they wish ti return to the fold.  Yet there remain those who continue to cling to the misbegotten hope that Pope Francis will usher in change and halt the Church's slide into irrelevance with more and more American Catholics even though officially NOTHING has changed to date doctrinally and Francis has yet to fire some of the reactionaries in the Church hierarchy.  A case in point is a column in the Washington Post which wants to believe that the appointment of Bishop Blase Cupich as the new archbishop of Chicago is the harbinger of needed change.  Sadly, I think the column is little more than a lot of wishful thinking.  Here are excerpts:

Leaders can make decisions that signal big changes in the political, religious and ethical landscape. In naming Bishop Blase Cupich the new archbishop of Chicago, Pope Francis did just that.

Cupich, now the bishop of Spokane, Wash., has been described in media accounts as a “moderate” within the Catholic Church. Temperamentally, this is exactly what he is, an advocate of dialogue and civility. He’s also wise about rejecting labels.

He has been a courageous voice inside the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops against a culture-war approach to evangelization and politics that pushes so many away from the Gospel.

He has also been as tough as any prelate in his candor about the church’s profound failures during the sex abuse crisis. “Catholics have been hurt by the moral failings of some priests,” Cupich wrote in 2010, “but they have been hurt and angered even more by bishops who failed to put children first.” He knows the church will never get beyond this scandal until it’s obvious to the faithful that the hierarchy understands how deeply Catholicism was marred by institutional sin, not only by individual crimes.

His appointment will have an impact beyond the Catholic Church because it tells us a great deal about the role Pope Francis wants the church to play in American life. Cupich played this down, too. “I think he sent a pastor, not a message,” he told reporters.

But in his case, the pastor is the message. Because of appointments made by Pope John Paul II and, to a lesser degree, Pope Benedict XVI, the bishops’ conference has moved to the right over the past quarter-century. Many conservative bishops have expressed uneasiness or even skepticism about Francis’s leadership — notably his rejection of the idea that issues such as abortion and homosexuality take precedence over economic justice and care for the marginalized. Francis has also caused discomfort by insisting on a church that accompanies people on their journeys rather than expending most of its energy condemning and judging them.

Of the four most politically potent posts in the American hierarchy — the archbishops of Boston, New York, Chicago and Washington — Chicago was the first to come open since Francis’s election. In naming Cupich, the pope sent the strongest possible hint that he wants the American church to move in his direction.

There is more to the column and I truly would like to believe that the author is correct, but I will not be holding my breath.  The only thing that will bring real change to Catholicism is the massive exit of Catholics who are fed up with the Church's hypocrisy and the sexual obsession of neurotic old men in dresses.

Can The Catholic Church Survive In America?

The caption to this post is a question asked by Andrew Sullivan who, unlike myself, has clung to the fantasy - at least in my view - that somehow the Roman Catholic Church will evolve on issues of sex and sexual orientation and slow or stop its death spiral in Europe and America.  Like many, Andrew has grasped at various statements of Pope Francis in an effort to convince himself that much needed change is coming.  However, despite some of the positive things Francis has said, the reality is that absolutely NOTHING has changed to date in terms of the Church's official dogma in terms of relegating women to second class status, the never ending obsession with controlling women's wombs and keeping gays as forever disordered. Personally, I see the Church as being incapable of changing unless there is a wholesale sacking of bishops and cardinals and even many reactionary priests.  Should Francis try to engage such an approach, I truly hope he has a food taster and some trusted body guards so that the Curia doesn't have him conveniently die.  What seems to have finally slapped Andrew up on the side of the head is the vicious actions being unleashed against an elderly gay couple in Montana.   Andrew reviews the ugliness of the Church's actions which are increasingly driving Catholics to simply walk away from the Church.  Here are highlights from Andrew's post which represents an epiphany for him:

I used to believe – and a part of me still does – that the question of homosexuality was not that big an issue for Catholicism. Gays are only a tiny minority of the population at large; the power and beauty of the church’s core understanding of heterosexuality sustains most people’s interest and commitment; and the central teachings of Jesus – of forgiveness of sins, redemption, charity, mercy – are so much more important than issues relating to human sexuality and romantic love.

When I was asked – with mind-numbing regularity – how I could remain happily gay and a Catholic, I answered honestly that, for those very reasons, I could live with institutional dissonance, as any thinking member of a hierarchical church has to, from time to time. But I think now that I misread a couple of things – and that the whole question may be a much bigger deal than I once believed and hoped. Here’s a story that underlines the problem:

A Catholic church in Montana has told two gay men that they can no longer receive communion simply because of their gay marriage and, in order to do so again, they must file for divorce. The two men, Paul Huff, 66, and Tom Wojtowick, 73, have been together for over 30 years and were married in Seattle in 2013.

The controversy has now led to the bishop intervening and holding a meeting with 300 parishioners to air views. The bishop claims there is polarization in the congregation over this and is now mulling the decision to bar the couple from the sacraments and from participation in their church – unless they get a civil divorce and sign a statement supporting civil marriage as exclusively heterosexual. Yes, the church is now in favor of divorce as a condition for being a Catholic! If that sounds perverse, you’re not wrong.

Here’s the problem: maintaining doctrinal orthodoxy requires penalizing two men, aged 66 and 73, who have been committed to each other for thirty years and are pillars of the local community.
If the church upholds this kind of decision, it is endorsing cruelty, discrimination and exclusion. Pope Francis’ view is that this is exactly the kind of thing that requires the church to exercise mercy not rigidity. But allowing a married gay couple to sing in the choir as an act of “mercy” would merely further expose the fragility of the church’s thirteenth century views of human sexuality. 

None of this is compatible with the core moral teachings of the church – about fairness, truth, compassion, forgiveness, mercy and inclusion. And this is clear to large numbers of Catholics – especially the younger generation who will rightly view this kind of decision as barbaric and inhuman. There is only so much inhumanity that a church can be seen to represent before its own members lose faith in it.

What was once a blemish can become a defining wound. It has split one small parish. It may slowly wreck the whole church.

As noted in posts in connection with The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies, the Church suffers from an extreme neurosis when it comes to homosexuality.  Thankfully, more and more Americans are coming to recognize the sickness/mental illness that this neurosis constitutes.

"Call to Disobedience" - An Effort to Change Catholicism

I often make the case that the only way to bring change to the Roman Catholic Church is to have large numbers of Catholics walk away and, most importantly, cease funding the Church hierarchy (a portion of every dollar given at the parish level goes to the local bishop and another portion goes to Rome under the Church's feudal power structure).  Throughout the Church's history, the loss of membership and money has been the only guaranteed means to fore change.  Nonetheless, there are some valiant individuals who are seeking to change the Church from within.  One such individual is Fr. Helmut Schüller who has just finished an American tour titled "Catholic Tipping Point."  One has to how soon before the Vatican tries to silence him.  Here are highlights from the National Catholic Reporter:

Fr. Helmut Schüller's "Catholic Tipping Point" tour of the United States ended where it began: in New York. He gave an address Wednesday evening in Manhasset and on Thursday, he visited St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan, where he delivered thousands of red ribbons and signatures he collected in 15 cities across the nation.

In the last three weeks, Schüller traveled from the East Coast to the West, spreading a message of "disobedience" and church reform. In each city, Schüller preached the values of the "Call to Disobedience," a 2011 document published by the Austrian Priests' Initiative. His message includes opening the priesthood to women and married people. He also advocates for a stronger relationship between the church and Catholic gay couples.

Even before Schüller stepped foot in the United States, U.S. bishops tried to block him, he said, confirming that Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley and Dolan contacted Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, his bishop in Vienna, to prevent the tour.



The reaction by U.S. bishops is nothing new for the Austrian priest. "I was not surprised. It's familiar. I had heard it in Germany from the bishops there," Schüller said.

Schüller was formally banned from speaking on Catholic property in Boston, Detroit and Chicago, and the archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, said Schüller could not speak on archdiocesan property in the city. But the Sisters of St. Joseph welcomed Schüller to the Catholic venue of Chestnut Hill College, a move Chaput later said was "regrettable."

In his final speaking event Wednesday in Manhasset, Schüller used his experience in the United States to make his case for reform. In the United States, he said, "priests are totally reliant on the bishops for their livelihood. These are the methods of a dictatorship." Making his point, he said in Detroit, priests were forbidden to meet with him in their own homes.

This "top-to-bottom obedience" is evident even in the sacraments, Schüller said. Because "official sinners" are turned away from Communion, he said, "the Eucharist has become a symbol of exclusion." To erase this "symbol," divorced and remarried Catholics should be allowed to receive the Eucharist, he said.

Furthermore, the church's stance on gay relationships presents another challenge for parishes across the world, Schüller said, saying the church should be welcoming on this issue rather than exclusionary. The church should "concentrate on the quality of this partnership: fidelity, respect," he said, rather than focus on whether it is a homosexual or heterosexual relationship.

 Would that there were more voices like Schüller in the Church.

Quote of the Day: Gary Wills on The Hopelessness of Hoping for a Reformer Pope

As a ruling model, the Roman Catholic Church is based on the governing structure of the Roman Empire or a feudal monarchy with the king/emperor at the top, the cardinals and bishops as the equivalents of the feudal lords sworn by fealty to the king/emperor and the laity the equivalent of the serfs. Serf who are to obey their lords and financially support the entire structure that caters to the whims and conceits of the rulers.  And under the last two Popes, the system seems to have become even more disdainful of the laity/serfs.  Gary Wills has a piece in the New York Times that looks at the futility of hoping that somehow a reformer Pope could be elected by the coming conclave of cardinals who earned their positions by obsequiousness and sycophancy.  Here an on point excerpt:

[A] new pope will be elected by cardinals who were elevated to office by the very popes who reaffirmed “eternal truths” like the teaching on contraception. They were appointed for their loyalty, as were the American bishops who stubbornly upheld the contraception nonsense in our elections. 

Will the new conclave vote for a man who goes against the teachings of his predecessors? Even if they do, can the man chosen buck the structure through which he rose without kicking the structure down? These considerations have given the election of new popes the air of watching Charlie Brown keep trying to kick the football, hoping that Lucy will cooperate. 

As this election approaches, some hope that the shortage of priests, and their damaged reputation and morale, can be remedied by adding married priests, or women priests, or gay priests. But that misses the point. Whatever their sexual status, they will still be priests. They will not be chosen by their congregations (as was the practice in the early church). They will be appointed from above, by bishops approved for their loyalty to Rome, which will police their doctrinal views as it has with priests heretofore. The power structure will not be changed by giving it new faces. Monarchies die hard. 

In 1859, John Henry Newman published an article that led to his denunciation in Rome as “the most dangerous man in England.” It was called “On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine” and it showed that in history the laity had been more true to the Gospel than the hierarchy. That was an unacceptable position to Rome. It still is. 

The claim of priests and popes to be the sole conduits of grace is a remnant of the era of papal monarchy. We are watching that era fade. But some refuse to recognize its senescence. Such people will run peppily up, like Charlie Brown, to the coming of a new pope. But Lucy, as usual, still holds the football.  

Like the GOP which it parallels in many ways (e.g., denying scientific realities), the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy will cling to power and refuse all meaningful change until the church structure literally begins to collapse around them.  My prediction is that in the not too distant future the Catholic Church will become a black African denomination.  As it advances economically and socially, Latin America will follow the path of Europe, not Africa wher it will take many more generations to escape the ignorance and simple mindedness that are now prerequisites for the Church to thrive.