The bishops aren’t supposed to sit still and shut up.
While I think we have a difference of opinion on the best way to influence people’s hearts and minds, I am definitely not suggesting that the bishops “sit still and shut up.” I just think that the Church desperately, desperately needs a paradigm change. Many people are not good Catholics like you are. They have a pre-established disinclination to believe the Church or even to listen to it. I mean, I am on your side, and I wish people saw the Church our way, but they simply don’t. They view it as “rules and regulations,” “anti-freedom,” etc. And I’m not saying we should change what the Church teaches, just
how it teaches it. And perhaps insisting that the imitation of Christ can bring us
peace would help – I very, very rarely hear that, and I scrutinize Catholic media all the time.
I’ve never experienced more inward peace than after examining myself, admitting my sins, and begging for forgiveness, which I know the Lord gives.
You see, for most people in this society, the phrase “begging for forgiveness” says it all. Most people regard that kind of self-abasement as incompatible with real peace. I’m not saying that it
is – I’m just saying that that’s people’s perception, like it or not, and that’s why many Catholics are disgruntled and not as peaceful as Buddhists, whose religion is (it seems to me – but that’s why I opened this thread, so that I could find out) a lot easier to take.
Perhaps this passage from Slavoj Zizek (not a Catholic, but a fascinating intellectual) is appropriate:
This is how (although the modern topic of human rights is ultimately grounded in the Jewish notion of the love for one’s neighbor) we tend to establish today a negative link between the Decalogue (the traumatically imposed divine Commandments) and human rights. That is to say, within our post-political, liberal-permissive society, human rights have, ultimately, become the rights to disobey the Ten Commandments. “The right to privacy”—the right to adultery, done in secrecy, where no one has the right to probe. “The right to pursue happiness and private property”—the right to steal and exploit others. “Freedom of expression and freedom of the press”—the right to lie. “The right of free citizens to bear weapons”—the right to kill. And ultimately, “freedom of religious belief”—the right to worship false gods.
The greatness of John Paul II was that he personified the disavowal of the liberal, easy way out. Even those who respected the Pope’s moral stance usually accompanied their praise with the caveat that he nonetheless remained hopelessly old-fashioned, medieval even, by sticking to dogmas out of touch with the demands of modernity. How could someone today ignore contraception, divorce or abortion? How could the Pope deny the right to abortion even to a nun who got pregnant through rape (as he effectively did in the case of the raped nuns in Bosnia)? Isn’t it clear that, even when one is in principle against abortion, one should consent to a compromise in such an extreme case?
One can see why the Dalai Lama is a much more appropriate leader for our postmodern, permissive times. He presents us with a feel-good spiritualism without any specific obligations. Anyone, even the most decadent Hollywood star, can follow him while continuing their money-grabbing, promiscuous lifestyle. In stark contrast, the Pope reminded us that there is a price to pay for a proper ethical attitude. It was his very stubborn clinging to “old values,” his ignoring the “realistic” demands of our time, even when the arguments against him seemed “obvious” (as in the case of the raped nun), that made him an authentic ethical figure.
But can we agree that people feel more at peace with “feel-good spiritualism” than with a rigorous ethics? And that sure, Christianity should offer us both, but that’s a difficult thing to reach for and one that the Church needs to help people to rediscover?
The Church just needs better public relations…that’s all I’m saying.
What other methods of attaining inner peace do you think the bishops should advise us to do that the Buddhists do without even Christ at the center of their meditations?
I participate in an ecumenical community called Taize from time to time, in central France. Thousands of young people, ages 15-25 or so, go there every week to share in the life of the brothers…including prayer three times a week. The young people go
running to Church when the time has come. They are
excited, they get there
early. And I’ve been trying to figure out why. The prayer consists of people sitting cross-legged and singing lovely refrains – not Gregorian chants, but believe me, not St Louis Jesuit stuff either! – that repeat lines from the Psalms or Gospels over and over. It doesn’t replace Mass, but I think it’s a wonderful, communitarian, aesthetic celebration. Some parishes have Taize prayers on a monthly basis (and people on these forums seem to regard them with wild distrust!). Maybe something like that – a meditative prayer offering – is a step in the right direction.
I think also of the service of repentance that a bishop – I think in Pennsylvania – did recently. Where he invited everyone who’s been hurt or abused by the Church or by him (the bishop) personally to come and receive his request for forgiveness. I think that these kinds of Masses are far more likely to radiate Christian love to those who have strayed from the Church than, for instance, that kind of oddly conceived “Mass of Reparation” in Florida to apologize to God for Notre Dame’s Barack Obama invitation.
Peace,
+AMDG+
