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Guest
Prevoius to the 1950s, most Jews were not allowed to drive on the Sabbath, as it was seen to be a violation of halakha (Torah law). In response to the travel behavior types for Jewish people who moved to suburban communities after WW2, the Conservative Movement allowed Jews to drive an automobile to attend a synagogue during the Sabbath (Friday night to Saturday night). When I heard this change, it opened my eyes in a way that cut through both religious issues, land use changes, and transportation policy.
Last year, I attended several masses organized by the “Detroit Mass Mob” movement. These masses took place at Catholic Churches in Detroit, where prior to WW2, many people from the surrounding neighborhoods went to church. After WW2, due to many people moving out to the suburbs, the attendance of masses at these churches tracked the population drop for the neighborhood. This change occurred throughout the Detroit metropolitan area, with the formerly-urban population of Polish, Italian, Slovak, and other ethnically-oriented Catholics moving to the suburbs.
As more highways were built through the Detroit area, more and more people who were able to move out did so. As more people lived in the suburbs, these cities got more power to build even more highways – adding more lanes to allow more homes to be built, increasing the public income for those municipalities though property and other taxes. In response to this demographic shift, the Archdiocese bought land throughout the Detroit suburbs, and over time built more and more parishes throughout the newly-populated lands.
Previous to hearing about the change that the Conservative Jews made, I had never thought about how people moving to suburbs would affect religious behavior. However, after hearing the change in the Conservative Jews’ new definition of what was legal for coming to a synagogue service, it made me consider that Catholics have also probably been changed.
At the “Detroit Mass Mob” events, I was struck by the need of more 1,000-2,000 Catholics to walk from where they parked in the neighborhood surrounding each parish to the church building itself. The sidewalks were packed with people who were conversing about the state of the sidewalks, the homes nearby, and where they had attended church as children. Going to mass during those events were awesome for me, and the parishes themselves were able to raise much more money in their offertories than they had been able to for the last 2-3 decades.
Comparing my experience at the “Detroit Mass Mob” with the decisions of Conservative Jews, I’ve started to think than our auto-oriented culture has done more than just change where people go to church, but instead means something inherent to the cultural problems in the U.S.
When Catholic immigrants moved into the neighborhoods in U.S. cities, it tended to be in response to economic opportunity. According to the Pew Research Center, Irish immigration was biggest in the 1840-1889 period, Italian and Polish in the 1890-1919 period, and Mexican in the 1965 and later period. These tended to follow economic trends in the nation.
One of my Eastern European ancestors immigrated to come work in one of Andrew Carnegie’s steel mills in the early 1900s, and moved into a neighborhood where Slovenian, Polish, Slovak, Russian, Ukranian, and Hungarian immigrants all gathered together. His children ended up speaking their language and attending mass at ethnically-centered parishes. At the same time, the neighbors on his street all shared part of food preparation. Everyone had a garden, but one father on their block was a butcher who would butcher everyone’s meat, another family had a smokehouse that everyone could use, still another family would make sausage, and in this way, the neighborhood shared much more than just language and workplace.
After WW2, the children of that generation moved to inner-ring suburbs, where the Baby Boom generation was born. When the Boomers grew up, they were the generation whose coming of age was accompanied by the popularization of rock-n-roll, the death of Jim Crow, the Vietnam War, the Peace Movement, the introduction of The Pill, race riots, the environmental movement, Roe v. Wade, and the invention of the personal computer.
It occurs to me that moving to the suburbs and living in a car-dependent way is in some sense “the dictatorshp of relativism” built in concrete. Living in whichever neighborhood we like, traveling to whatever parish we like, shopping at whatever store we like – it’s the same type of “lifestyle preference” that leads people to decide that Catholic moral teaching is not for them. With the ability of move to one’s neighborhood of choice, watch TV news and internet sites that confirm our own biases, and avoiding neighborhoods with high crime and urban blight, the U.S. metropolis is physically set up to enable relativism.
If Conservative Jews said that driving in a car was OK to come to a synagogue on Sabbath, what would Catholics say about driving to a parish? If being a Catholic is not just about going to Church on Sunday, what does the dominance of driving everywhere mean?
Actual sin depends on personal choice. However, in the past, there were more barriers to particular sins. Adultery, premarital sex, and lack of regard for neighbor would seem to be more difficult in a neighborhood where everyone was Catholic, within walking distance from a parish church. It would seem that the culture of community-based Catholicism has disappeared, and with its loss creating an emphasis on the choices of individuals (or isolated families).
If the Church is a family, how can we build the world to show that? I’d like to hear your ideas.
Last year, I attended several masses organized by the “Detroit Mass Mob” movement. These masses took place at Catholic Churches in Detroit, where prior to WW2, many people from the surrounding neighborhoods went to church. After WW2, due to many people moving out to the suburbs, the attendance of masses at these churches tracked the population drop for the neighborhood. This change occurred throughout the Detroit metropolitan area, with the formerly-urban population of Polish, Italian, Slovak, and other ethnically-oriented Catholics moving to the suburbs.
As more highways were built through the Detroit area, more and more people who were able to move out did so. As more people lived in the suburbs, these cities got more power to build even more highways – adding more lanes to allow more homes to be built, increasing the public income for those municipalities though property and other taxes. In response to this demographic shift, the Archdiocese bought land throughout the Detroit suburbs, and over time built more and more parishes throughout the newly-populated lands.
Previous to hearing about the change that the Conservative Jews made, I had never thought about how people moving to suburbs would affect religious behavior. However, after hearing the change in the Conservative Jews’ new definition of what was legal for coming to a synagogue service, it made me consider that Catholics have also probably been changed.
At the “Detroit Mass Mob” events, I was struck by the need of more 1,000-2,000 Catholics to walk from where they parked in the neighborhood surrounding each parish to the church building itself. The sidewalks were packed with people who were conversing about the state of the sidewalks, the homes nearby, and where they had attended church as children. Going to mass during those events were awesome for me, and the parishes themselves were able to raise much more money in their offertories than they had been able to for the last 2-3 decades.
Comparing my experience at the “Detroit Mass Mob” with the decisions of Conservative Jews, I’ve started to think than our auto-oriented culture has done more than just change where people go to church, but instead means something inherent to the cultural problems in the U.S.
When Catholic immigrants moved into the neighborhoods in U.S. cities, it tended to be in response to economic opportunity. According to the Pew Research Center, Irish immigration was biggest in the 1840-1889 period, Italian and Polish in the 1890-1919 period, and Mexican in the 1965 and later period. These tended to follow economic trends in the nation.
One of my Eastern European ancestors immigrated to come work in one of Andrew Carnegie’s steel mills in the early 1900s, and moved into a neighborhood where Slovenian, Polish, Slovak, Russian, Ukranian, and Hungarian immigrants all gathered together. His children ended up speaking their language and attending mass at ethnically-centered parishes. At the same time, the neighbors on his street all shared part of food preparation. Everyone had a garden, but one father on their block was a butcher who would butcher everyone’s meat, another family had a smokehouse that everyone could use, still another family would make sausage, and in this way, the neighborhood shared much more than just language and workplace.
After WW2, the children of that generation moved to inner-ring suburbs, where the Baby Boom generation was born. When the Boomers grew up, they were the generation whose coming of age was accompanied by the popularization of rock-n-roll, the death of Jim Crow, the Vietnam War, the Peace Movement, the introduction of The Pill, race riots, the environmental movement, Roe v. Wade, and the invention of the personal computer.
It occurs to me that moving to the suburbs and living in a car-dependent way is in some sense “the dictatorshp of relativism” built in concrete. Living in whichever neighborhood we like, traveling to whatever parish we like, shopping at whatever store we like – it’s the same type of “lifestyle preference” that leads people to decide that Catholic moral teaching is not for them. With the ability of move to one’s neighborhood of choice, watch TV news and internet sites that confirm our own biases, and avoiding neighborhoods with high crime and urban blight, the U.S. metropolis is physically set up to enable relativism.
If Conservative Jews said that driving in a car was OK to come to a synagogue on Sabbath, what would Catholics say about driving to a parish? If being a Catholic is not just about going to Church on Sunday, what does the dominance of driving everywhere mean?
Actual sin depends on personal choice. However, in the past, there were more barriers to particular sins. Adultery, premarital sex, and lack of regard for neighbor would seem to be more difficult in a neighborhood where everyone was Catholic, within walking distance from a parish church. It would seem that the culture of community-based Catholicism has disappeared, and with its loss creating an emphasis on the choices of individuals (or isolated families).
If the Church is a family, how can we build the world to show that? I’d like to hear your ideas.
on the other hand, everything you have said, has led to less bias against people who don’t think, act or look like us. we live in more multicultural neighborhoods than in the past, and hopefully, that will keep improving. i see the church family as one that comes together to worship and serve the Lord. it doesn’t matter if we drive, fly or walk.