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Use It Or Lose It

A reader who teaches college students writes: The Catholic Church, I’ve found, is just extraordinarily bad at catechizing its young members. I have numerous Catholic students in my classes–that is, students who claim not only to have been raised Catholic, but to be actively practicing Catholics. Their lack of substantive knowledge of the essential (not […]

A reader who teaches college students writes:

The Catholic Church, I’ve found, is just extraordinarily bad at catechizing its young members. I have numerous Catholic students in my classes–that is, students who claim not only to have been raised Catholic, but to be actively practicing Catholics.

Their lack of substantive knowledge of the essential (not to speak of peripheral) elements of their faith is shocking and shameful, and goes far beyond (below?) mere cafeteria Catholicism. It’s one thing to pick and choose which Catholic teachings to “believe,” but these students usually don’t even know what the Catholic teachings are in the first place. Due to the subject matter I typically teach (Western political theory), ideas that involve or that bear upon Catholic themes naturally come up. What is the Catholic teaching on marriage? *blank stares* What’s purgatory? (purga-what?) What’s original sin? (no one has ever had a clue about this one) What is the natural law? (same here)

I’m not a Catholic, but I find myself instructing Catholics in their faith on a routine bases. I grew up in a Protestant church that had no notion of the “church calendar,” and yet even I have a fairly robust understanding of Lent. What’s the deal here? Is the failure on the part of Catholic parents or the priesthood? Either way, it’s not only shameful but tragic. No faith is sustainable if its young members have no idea what it’s about.

This echoes something a Catholic theologian friend told me about many of the students turning up at his Catholic university. They simply didn’t know the rudimentary facts of the faith. As I’ve said here before, the atheist Camille Paglia once told me that her nominally Christian college students in Philly turn up ignorant of basic Christian themes, motifs, and stories. The only ones who are even slightly cognizant are black students and a few working-class white ones.

I recently had a conversation with an Orthodox Christian from the Northeast. He said that the lack of basic knowledge of Orthodox Christianity among congregations in his part of the world is shocking. We’re not talking about theological fine points; we’re talking about Orthodox Christianity 101. I told him the story of an Evangelical friend of mine in Philly who had been raised Greek Orthodox in NYC, and had even gone to the Greek cathedral school for his entire pre-college schooling, and who was surprised to learn from dumb old convert me that Orthodox Christians fast.

This brought to mind a mainline Protestant friend who had been active in her church from childhood, and in a parachurch youth ministry, who didn’t understand until she stumbled across the information as an adult that Jesus had been resurrected in His body.

And it brings to mind this story today from the Canadian Anglicans, whose primate, Fred Hiltz, suggests abandoning a traditional Lenten practice and taking up a traditional North American Indian ritual in its place:

While I appreciate the significance of imposing ashes at the outset of Lent, I have come to wonder if smudging might not be an equally powerful reminder of the true character of these 40 days. I wonder what the impact might be if there was a ceremony of smudging on each Sunday in Lent—at the beginning of the liturgy or at the time of confession and intention “to lead the new life following the commandments of God and walking from henceforth in his holy ways” (Invitation to Confession, Book of Common Prayer, p. 76).

What’s the connecting thread? Tradition, and disregard for it. Tradition has to be a living thing, handed on by one generation to the next. It can be captured in books, but if it only lives in books, it will not live. My Orthodox friend in the Northeast says that so many churches in his part of the country are ethnic mausoleums inhabited by old people who did not pass the faith on to their children (hence the absence of middle-aged people and children in the congregation), but who would rather the congregations die than make themselves welcoming to younger converts who want to learn and live the tradition. Speaking of how displaced he is as a traditional Christian in his city, “It’s a strange thing to realize that your only reliable allies in the public square are Muslims and Mormons.”

Nobody can be certain that their children will receive the tradition, but they can be pretty sure that their children won’t receive it if it is not presented to them. In Baton Rouge the other day, I was speaking to one of this blog’s readers, a former public schoolteacher who is about to start seminary (out yourself here if you’d like, Reader!), and we agreed on how utterly clueless so many Christian parents are today about this topic. Until recently, parents could have been relatively lackadaisical about passing on the faith to their kids, because there was enough ambient Christianity in the culture to give at least a rudimentary catechism in the Christian mindset. “Those days are gone,” he said, in the same tone of voice one would use in talking about ignorant drivers approaching a bridge that had washed out.

Christians who go with the flow will find their children’s faith washed down the river. I’m sure it must be the same with other religions. Modernity is a universal solvent.

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