CrossCurrents: A Catholic Reflects on Faith in Our Times
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by Bernard F. McSwain, Ph.D.
Issue #284 - Cause or Coincidence?
During a recent visit to my home parish, I had a flashback to the Lent of my youth: lacing up my “combat boots” in the early morning dark to attend daily 6:45 Mass with my parents. Those days, the church was nearly full. Few parishes today have such turnouts, daily OR weekend. What happened?
Issue #283 - Noisy Catholicism?
George Weigel has done it again--just in time for Lent! He has turned a perfectly sensible appeal for silent reflection and prayer during Lent into a rant aimed at a variety of Catholics whose behavior he deplores.
Issue #281 - Losing Faith
Listening to Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, I was especially struck by this passage: Unfortunately, too many of our citizens have lost faith...
Issue #280 - Renewal Without Revolution?
When radical feminist theologian Mary Daly died recently, the Boston Globe described her times this way: When she joined the faculty at Boston College in 1966, the liberalizing Vatican II conference had recently concluded...
"As later developments showed, not every moment of upheaval becomes a revolution. Contrary to the hopes of Daly and others, it wasn’t foreordained that tectonic movements in American society would also transform Catholic doctrine...Changes in the church itself were, in the end, less forthcoming."
Many Catholics today might say the Globe has understated the reality. Some would say the euphoria of post- Vatican II 1960s Catholicism has deteriorated into the despair of post-scandal 21st century Catholicism. They might not be right -- but they can make a strong case....
Issue #278 - Leading Us Astray
Perhaps you saw the same AP headline I did: “Nevada couple stranded three days after GPS leads them astray.” It seems they asked for the shortest route from Portland to Reno, and they got it – but their machine, while full of instant data, was mindless enough to recommend an unsafe, snow-bound road. Methinks a parable lurks therein! And as we look back on the decade...
Issue #277 - Obama's Catholic Case for Peace
I am baffled: no one else seemed to notice the very thing that struck me most about Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. While some wrongly compared Obama’s discourse on war and peace to George Bush, and others rightly pointed out Obama’s debt to Franklin Roosevelt and the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, no one I have read noticed this: Catholic Church teaching on war and peace is now shaping American policy at the presidential level for the first time...
Issue #276 - The Long and Winding Road
One reason Advent is my favorite liturgical season: the readings, especially the words of John the Baptist quoting Isaiah:
A voice of one crying out in the desert: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
These words now mean more to me, in 2009, than ever before; their depiction of life’s spiritual journey now stirs new echoes me...
Issue #274 - Like the Air We Breathe
I got a shock last week when I found myself delivering a series of talks on the theme “Parish.” Suddenly I realized that I had never spoken on this topic before – in 35 years devoted to parish work!
Issue #273 - A Second Reformation?
The Vatican made front-page news this week, triggering angry denunciations – and grateful praises – by inviting Anglicans to Church-swap. Even Jon Stewart’s Daily Show got in on the act, sarcastically commenting that the Vatican was offering people the chance to “change your service, but keep your old number”! I wonder: is the Vatican prepared for the consequences?
Issue #272 - Travel Lessons: Cultural and Spiritual
The woman raised her hand to confess she was struggling. I had begun my talk on Catholic social teaching by urging my audience to let go of the mental baggage that Americans typically bring to social issues. I warned that our Church’s complex social doctrine could not be grasped by boxing it into the two-dimensional categories of liberal/conservative, left/right, Democratic/Republican.
As the Q & A session began, this woman announced that those categories kept intruding on her listening, and she wondered how to achieve more open-mindedness.
I suggested that the challenge was more cultural than spiritual...
Issue #271 - Spirituality and/or Religion?
More than one reader has asked me to write about "spirituality" and "religion." I'm not ready to offer systematic reflections on what is a pretty vast topic, but I would like to share some early thoughts and invite comments and questions.
My first thought is that both terms come with baggage in tow. For me, "religion" generally means organized religion, and "spirituality" generally suggests spiritual journey. Right away we see the distinction: religion is something you belong to, while spirituality is something you live through. Religion is a visible entity outside you; spirituality is a personal reality within.
My second thought: this topic is the very hinge of a widening generation gap-- the largest since the 1960s...
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