Rod Dreher

The Fat Anglosphere

Riot Act, Read Upside Your Head

By Rod Dreher • June 21, 2012, 5:34 PM

Holy jamoley, Father Richard Simon has had it! Excerpts from his letter to his parish on religious education:

Catholic schools, by and large, have become failures themselves. There are some splendid Catholic schools, but in my experience of 40 years in ministry, increasingly, especially in large urban areas, Catholic schools have become inexpensive private schools for middle class people who have little or no interest in the Catholic faith,maintained at great expense by Catholic parishes. Catholic schools are, for the most part, over.

We may have a few parish schools still plugging along, but are they Catholic? It seems that all we have left to us is the threadbare cousin. All our resources and energies go to maintaining the private school in the building next to the church. While the world is starving for Christ, we are giving them bingo and bratwurst, raffles and dinner dances, all to keep the school going.

“But,” I can hear you say, “this is our major form of evangelism!” Aren’t you paying attention? The few kids from our schools who go to church don’t go because the school has converted them. They go because they have parents dedicated enough to bring them every Sunday, even in summer.

Father Simon is just getting started. More:

I intend to drop the classroom model and go to a discipleship model that is called Youthchurch. It will involve Bibles, catechisms and water balloons. And maybe doughnuts. I will know the program is a success when I find that the kids are mad at their parents for missing Mass on Sunday.

I no longer intend to prepare children for First Communion and Confirmation. There will no longer be First Communion and Confirmation classes. How and when will the children receive Communion and Confirmation? They will receive when they are ready. When are they ready? They are ready when they want the Sacrament. How do we know they want the Sacrament? When they understand it, can tell the pastor what it is and why they want it. If they are not in ongoing religious education and they are not coming to Mass on regular basis, they don’t want the Sacrament.

You really, really want to read the whole thing. Thanks, Erin Manning, for sending it.

Posted in Religion. Tagged Catholic, Richard Simon, sacraments.

24 Responses to Riot Act, Read Upside Your Head

Disgusted in DC says:

June 21, 2012 at 5:56 pm

I sympathize with the priest’s impatience with secularized Catholic schools, but denying communion to children until “they understand it, can tell the pastor what it is and why they want it” is objectively contrary to Catholic policy since St. Pius X and is contrary to the Eastern practice which he says he admires. Moreover, his “discipleship” model before sacraments are bestowed represents borderline Jansenism/Baptist ecclesiological assumptions. You don’t have to understand what It is, in order to receive It. His program has no place in a Catholic parish, and I hope his bishop intervenes. There are other more constructive, authentically Catholic ways to deal with the problems. Solutions like this are where self-avowed “orthodox” Catholics run completely off the rails.
Pete S says:

June 21, 2012 at 6:01 pm

What a great post you have linked to here. It has always struck me as sad that First Communions in our parish take 5 weeks, with 100′s of folding chairs brought out for those 5 weeks, because so many children are receiving the sacrement. After 5 weeks of this the chairs go away and there are few children at the Mass (granted we do not attend the Mass with Children’s liturgy, but still there is no way our church could hold 1/4 of the families who come to First Communion on a regular basis) What exactly are the children getting out of this? I support the Catholic schools because at least the kids will get some religious education and an occasional mass there, but we as parents can really do better.
Turmarion says:

June 21, 2012 at 6:25 pm

Having taught for a year in a Catholic school, I’d have to say the characterization here is exactly accurate.

As to First Communion and Confirmation, I’d actually go with the model of the Orthodox–administer them with Baptism. This hews to the ancient practice and obviates all the painful poofery and hoops to jump through for 2nd and 8th graders. Get them all the Sacraments, and then raise them so they’ll take them seriously. If they–or their parents–aren’t taking it seriously, then one year of First Communion classes and one of Confirmation classes won’t make it happen. I say this after having taught Confirmation classes for four years, but don’t get me started on that.
Mont D. Law says:

June 21, 2012 at 7:06 pm

I expect he’s kidding.

One thing the Catholic church will never tolerate is the huge reduction in the number of Catholics this plan would entail. Cradle and cafeteria Catholics are the bulk of the population of the Church. Restrict Church numbers to people who actually believe and practice Catholic teaching and it’s political power disappears.
Nate says:

June 21, 2012 at 7:42 pm

I was originally confirmed into my confessional Lutheran church that at 14. We had to memorize the whole of Luther’s Small Catechism. At three intervals throughout the church year (usually corresponding to some feast day), we were quizzed on a portion of the catechism in front of the whole congregation.

IN my class of 10, every kid went to the parish school as well, and also went to church every week, so we were all prepared. But in my older brother’s class, there was a kid who didn’t go to the parish school and only showed up once in a while to the confirmation class. She didn’t know her stuff. I still remember our parish pastor saying those dreaded words during one of the quizzes. “If you don’t answer this next question correctly, you won’t pass.”

She didn’t answer the question.
She wasn’t confirmed that spring.

Fifteen years later, I converted to Catholicism. I haven’t seen anything close to that level of intensity this side of the Tiber. For better or for worse.

I say for worse, because as a Lutheran confirmad, I knew more about Catholicism at 14 than 95% of cradle Catholics know about their own faith as an adult.

Sad.

Me thinks for worse.
SusanKG says:

June 21, 2012 at 8:01 pm

Nate–I was also confirmed Lutheran, although the liberal kind (ALC which was merged into the ELCA.) I had to memorize Luther’s Small Catechism, too, but in small chunks. I was never quizzed in front of the congregation, but my father’s generation was. (Notoriously, some kids would faint if it was a hot summer day because of the stress.)

I, too, know much more about Catholicism than my husband, with his 16 years of Catholic education. It is surprising to me that so little can be taught about Catholicism in so many years of Catholic school.
lex vivendi says:

June 21, 2012 at 8:04 pm

While it’s true that the normative practice in the West has been to confer the Sacraments of Initiation at set intervals in a child’s life, there has still been a great deal of latitude given to pastors and bishops in their respective bailiwicks. I, for one, was communicated early, which was an option given at my parents’ parish at the time. By the same token, I know of many people who may not be confirmed until high school (rather than 8th grade, which is when my Catholic school did the preparation).

While I applaud Fr. Simon, I agree that the important issue should not be the “understanding;” rather, it should be the desire, as expressed by participation, and a recognition of the reality that is being expressed. To me, that is in keeping with the theology of Church and Sacraments.

Having attended a Theology on Tap where a deacon at my parish said, essentially, that the meaning/purpose of Confirmation was “debatable and uncertain,” I think moving away from the idea of Sacraments merely as rites of passage or graduation ceremonies might lead to a greater understanding of their significance among the clergy as well…
Bruce Ross says:

June 21, 2012 at 8:44 pm

For what it’s worth, my county used to have a thriving network of Catholic schools all the way up to high school. They saw their enrollment drop substantially over the past decade and one by one have nearly all shut down.

What changed? A robust local charter school movement opened some very academically focused new schools, and those tough academic environments — without the Catholicism and without the cost — took the students.

So, yeah, type-A parents who aren’t all that religiously minded were a big part of the customer base.
MEH 0910 says:

June 21, 2012 at 8:52 pm

Why would kids be mad at their parents for missing Mass on Sunday? Jesus, it’s boring!
David J. White says:

June 21, 2012 at 9:31 pm

One thing the Catholic church will never tolerate is the huge reduction in the number of Catholics this plan would entail. Cradle and cafeteria Catholics are the bulk of the population of the Church. Restrict Church numbers to people who actually believe and practice Catholic teaching and it’s political power disappears.

I’m not sure sure. Jews and, to an extent, Episcopalians have influence, if not power, far in excess of their numbers in the population. Sure, that’s for historical reasons, but still. In addition, as loathe as I am to agree with Bill Donohue, he may be right when he suggests that cultural/nominal Catholics and dissenters contribute proportionally little to the Church financially, so the Church can afford to cut them loose (or, more charitably put, acquiesce in their leaving).

Still, I’m reminded of the parable of the wheat and the tares: the Church is, always has been, and always will be a Church of saints and sinners alike. If people choose not to follow the teachings of the Church, the Church isn’t about to start kicking them out for non-compliance (though causing public scandal is arguably a different matter). But the dissaffected need to quit expecting that the Church will change its teachings just to make them feel better about themselves and their choices in life. The Cross is a sign of contradiction, not way to make you feel good about yourself.

That said, I’m always amused by the fact that so many people who have left the Catholic Church continue, often very publicly, to define their identity in terms of it. I can’t say I’ve met many people who self-identify as “recovering Methodists” or “lapsed Presbyterians”. Maybe it’s true that Catholicism is the Hotal California of religions: you can check out, but you never really leave.

It is also true that catechesis is abominable. In the bad old rote-learning days we had the Baltimore Catechism, with its long series of questions and answers. Sure, a set of stock memorized answers is not a substitute for a mature understanding of the Faith; but it isn’t nothing, and can provide a foundation on which to build later, just as memorizing dates when young can provide a foundation for developing an understanding of history when older.
Nate says:

June 21, 2012 at 9:36 pm

Susan,
Exactly.
What’s funny is that my church wasn’t as intense as some of the churches in my synod. Some of the older folks in my synod complained that we had gone soft. For instance, at my friends church (same synod), not only did they have to memorize the Catechism, they also had to recite large chunks of the Augsburg Confession from memory, along with the Athanasian Creed. For our quiz, we only had to know the significance of the two and what they were about. Softies, us, indeed.

But you’re right: like you, my Lutheran friends and I knew a million times more than the kids at the Catholic school down the road knew about their own faith.

I applaud Father Simon. Something needs to be done.
Mr. Patrick says:

June 21, 2012 at 10:49 pm

So uh, Father Simon is a pseudo-Anabaptist now?
The Mighty Favog says:

June 21, 2012 at 10:49 pm

Father.

Simon.

Is.

My.

Hero.

And he’ll probably achieve heaven via martyrdom . . . at the hands of fellow Catholics singing “They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love” as they plunge their shivs “Deep Within.”

And, for what it’s worth, Father is denying the poor little darlings nothing. Not. One. Damn. Thing.

If they want the sacraments, they will tell him, they will receive instruction, and then they will receive them. It’s a system so simple that only an American Catholic could be confused by it.

I have co-taught CCD, and my wife and I were youth-group volunteers for 14 years, and I am here to tell you that every word Father Simon wrote is the God’s honest truth. I can tell you stories.

Among my favorites is the youth-group girl — and her number was legion — who looked at me with all the coherence of Karen Ann Quinlan when I asked the kids to turn to the book of Matthew. That was the day I began postscripting “Matthew” with “the first part of the last third of the Bible.”

The man ought to be pope.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

June 21, 2012 at 11:24 pm

Likely true, and undoubtedly irrelevant. There is nothing so sadly funny as an angry evangelist. Susan and Nate seem to establish that in order to be a good Roman Catholic, one should first be raised Protestant, preferably Lutheran, or something equally strict.

MontDLaw presciently observes that the Roman church can be a small sect of observant true believers, or it can wield the cudgel of a vast and purportedly obedient constituency, but not both. This priest would indeed make a good Calvinist.
baconboy says:

June 21, 2012 at 11:57 pm

There are some things here that don’t make sense to me. He complains about a Jewish teenager and a bunch of Goth kids taking communion at a funeral, but I’m unclear as to whether or not they had actually attended his schools or his religious education program (I’m assuming not the latter). If they hadn’t, why would they know?

I do agree with him that something needs to be done about the catechesis that the students receive. The Catholic students I teach in my college level theology classes are generally clueless about their faith. But I don’t blame this on them, or even on the cultural competition that Fr. Simon points to. It turns out that most of them are really interested in their faith and want to make it their own, but most of them have been taught not to ask questions, so they have no answers to the questions that naturally arise. Most of them think that there are no good arguments for their faith, and that faith is anti-intellectual, so they reject it. I spend a large part of the beginning of each semester telling them that it is okay to ask questions. And when they start doing that, and finding out that there are smart people like Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas who have had the same questions and found answers for them, they find their way back to their faith. They want to understand it in a deep way, which makes sense theologically, since we are made to know and love God.

I actually think that a large part of the problem is that for all their good intentions, most laypeople (including many of the teachers) aren’t sufficiently trained to provide the deeper understanding that young people thirst for. I sat in on a few high school theology classes last year and was disturbed by both the level of knowledge and the pedagogical approach of the instructors. It was too didactic and even I found it boring.

It’s easy to blame the culture and even the parents who don’t bring their kids to church, but in my experience the problems are more pedagogical than anything else.

And don’t get me started on Catholic adult education…
TWylite says:

June 22, 2012 at 12:25 am

This brings back vague memories of my very mainline Lutheran confirmation process during my middle school years. I think we had to read some Bible excerpts and/or pamphlets and take little tests on them. Nothing particularly hard. We were at first left to our own pace, but that didn’t prove satisfactory to the pastor, so he took over in a more structured class setting. All four of us were confirmed in 8th grade, and I think everyone dropped out of church attendance within a few years. Within two years of my confirmation, I had decided that all religions of the world, including Christianity, were man-made systems of mythology mixed with morality. Those years of Sunday and Wednesday school left me with a decent Biblical literacy (which is very helpful to be firm in my atheism), and an appreciation for Christianity’s influence on Western Civilization. The faith part of it didn’t hold up so long.
Dave Dutcher says:

June 22, 2012 at 12:29 am

I find myself agreeing yet again with Mont and Siarlys. Mont is right in that the church will not like this because of the loss of prestige and power. The plan to me is eerily like homeschooling: dumping the public mode of education for a private one whose success will rely on extensive parental involvement. It’s a lot harder to motivate a kid to care about the Sacrament than you think in that sense, and this will make parental pressure more vital.

I agree with Siarlys in that it seems the whole High church thing is driven by its converts rather than any organic evangelization. It’s getting to be a bit of a problem when the Mormons and the JW tend to witness more than even many low churches. Catholics in particular are odd: they will fight you tooth and nail over abortion, using many learned arguments, but you can not get them to evangelize you one bit.

Seriously, the reason I’m not one was because of that. I remember as an impressionable teen one day I was in great agony of spirit and actually went into a Catholic church to ask them about the problem of Mary, and I got a “I just do the sports” thing from the man that was there. if I went into a Mormon Tabernacle asking about say celestial marriage I’d bet even odds I’d come out a Mormon or close to one.

That’s their real problem. This? Wont really do much accept save them money and close a school.
Mary Russell says:

June 22, 2012 at 8:09 am

Good for this priest.
I never went to Catholic schools (my own catechesis was at the hands of my secular university’s religion department, where I took a number of classes on Christian and Reformation history). Of those friends who attended Catholic school and have remained Catholic, all tell me their faith remains despite, rather than because of, their formal Catholic education. It seems that a little lukewarm formal “faith formation” will innoculate against Catholic faith.
I would not touch Catholic schools for my own kids with a 10 foot pole. They will go to public schools as I did, and we will manage at home for their catechesis.
Nate says:

June 22, 2012 at 9:20 am

HI Siarlys,
“There is nothing so sadly funny as an angry evangelist.”

I would agree that Fr. Simon comes off a little pissed. But one might reasonably conclude that his ire is justified. That vast swaths of Catholics 1) have no knowledge of their faith and 2) no desire to learn about it, well, one might conclude that these are two facts worth getting upset about, if it is worth getting upset about anything.

“Susan and Nate seem to establish that in order to be a good Roman Catholic, one should first be raised Protestant, preferably Lutheran, or something equally strict.”

I certainly agree about the strictness part, and I obviously disagree about the part that you didn’t mean anyway. I confess, though, that I’m not sure what you were trying to say, once we read behind the jest.

One wonders if the word ‘strict’, when used pejoratively, is merely a placeholder for things you don’t like. I certainly cannot decipher what you meant by that word, however, so perhaps my suggestion is unfair.
At any rate, I’m happy myself to use that word to describe a desirable cradle Catholic upbringing.

We should also note that my strict Lutheran upbringing made me equally cognizant of Calvinism, so I must correct you on that charge as well, unless this was also used in jest. But again, if this is so, then I’m not sure what you meant once we read behind it.

Cheers,
Nate
SusanMcN says:

June 22, 2012 at 9:27 am

We recently moved to a new state and new town and have decided to put our kids in Catholic school here while previously we were homeschooling in our old town. Why? Here there are excellent public schools and the Catholic school is nominally better academically. The town is small enough that there isn’t the expensive neighborhood = “good” school conundrum. As a result, the main reason someone would send their kid to Catholic school here is because they want their kid to get a Catholic education not because they are escaping public education. Also tuition is about 1/2 of the cost of Catholic school in our old Texas town. So the Catholic school isn’t a private school with a Catholic veneer.

That said, having been a CCD teacher and VBS leader for several years, I still won’t rely on the Catholic school for religious education and formation. That’s MY job. When an adult wants to enrich their spiritual life, they don’t just take classes at the local college, they pray, go on retreat, they attend mass, they get involved in charitable works, etc. Why would children be any different? The classroom model of imparting the faith is so wrongheaded but, unfortunately, it’s all that many kids get.
CS says:

June 22, 2012 at 9:54 am

@Bruce Ross

Sounds like you must be from Philly!
James Q. says:

June 22, 2012 at 10:24 am

Amen and Alleluia. I think the Church is conscious of the undesirable conditions that the current mode of sacramental instruction presents. I think the recent desire to reclaim the historic ordering of the sacraments by the Roman Catholic Church, as recently witnessed by Bishop Aquila of Fargo, will be helpful in this regard. Pope Benedict affirms it, as the article below suggests. I think anyone can recognize that this push is entirely in keeping with the intents of the second Vatican Council- I’m talking about Gaudium at Spes here- not the reductionist/ revisionist spectre of Vatican II.

Contrary to what some say, I think the Church recognizes the problems inherent in the current model and will continue in this direction. My hope is that this will be something that furthers the cause of Christian Unity, at least between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. I think I just heard a collective scoff from the readership of the “True Believers,” but I, for one, have hope.

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/bishop-aquila-receives-popes-praise-for-reordering-sacraments/
Siarlys Jenkins says:

June 22, 2012 at 9:24 pm

Ah, a riddle, said Siarlys to Nate, now we will have some fun.

The Roman variant of Christianity presents itself as THE ordinary means of salvation for all mankind. I read reference to anyone who is not overtly heretical or disobedient receiving communion etc. in this light. It is not an institution for “The Saints” or “The Elect.” But then, someone is always trying to purify the faith, get rid of Catholycs, demand in-depth understanding and doctrinal adherence… which is more suitable to a fervent City on a Hill, in the spirit of Increase and Cotton Mather.

I am familiar with a WELS Lutheran church (which I cannot join without lying during the required profession of faith), and also how its doctrine differs from Calvinism. This priest wants to tighten up the requirements, in a manner that is distinctly Protestant in nature.

A now retired pastor told me “Lutheran don’t expect to control the state like the Calvinists do.” That has not everywhere been true, but LCMS and WELS descend from religious refugees who left European states with established Lutheran churches. They knew, at least, how the profane hand of the civil magistrate could destroy the sanctity of the church.

You can try to be universal, or limit your membership to true believers. You cannot have both. Even the more open-handed and inclusive approach this priest rejects does not mean, e.g., offering communion to those who don’t even vaguely yearn to be church members… or to overt pagans, etc.

I’m certainly not welcome to take RC communion, nor WELS communion. I know that and respect it. I take communion at churches where I am welcome at the Lord’s Table, where all I have to believe is “This do in remembrance of me.”
stef says:

June 24, 2012 at 1:56 am

I don’t quite understand the priest’s blog post. First he praises the Eastern Orthodox practices of baptizing, confirming, and offering first communion to infants (who presumably don’t have preferences one way or another.) Then he goes on to say that he is going to basically not prepare the parish Catholic kids for the sacraments until they “want them.” No criticism implied; just wondering.