Have We Lost Our Identity?

[Philws]

There are about 75 million of us, Catholics, in the United States alone. In the world, this number is more than 1 billion. Nevertheless, we know that the number of real observant Catholics is way lower than all these zeroes.

I live in a Catholic majority place. You can’t walk some miles without noticing the influence of a Catholic civilization. Immigrants helped bring Catholicism in their hearts as well.

But where are all those faithful servants today?

Even at church, when talking to people, I notice a worrying lack of confidence, trust, love and affinity with our Church. I see many people who are Catholics “because I was born so” and “I don’t really agree with the Church, but…”. Our family and people don’t know the Church. They don’t know our history, our principles and even worse: many Catholics don’t know our prayers, criticize the Pope using an awful disrespecting language, text in churches, take pictures and selfies at the Mass, don’t bow before the Cross, don’t pray at home, don’t raise their children in the Church nor they are instructed in the faith, they don’t understand the Sign of the Cross, the theology, the traditions, Holy Days of Observance became consumerist secular holidays just as any other world’s celebration (especially Christmas and Easter), nobody wants to learn a word in Latin and not to mention the “Pentecostal fever”, where some Catholic churches, especially in Latin America, changed the beautiful typically Catholic liturgy for a secular music concert (I’ve been to many). People go to church mostly for baptisms, wedding and funerals, but they forget their whole life must be Catholic. The majority of Catholics I know is like this. Those who are observant Catholics end up being alone and without a strong family like community support.

I insist, my friends, that I’m no fanatical, but one thing I admire in the Jews, for instance, is that their culture and identity are preserved in their everyday lives.

Why don’t we, Catholics, live our religion everyday as a community, as a family, as Christians? Do you think we are too secular? Do you think this is normal and acceptable or you think we are losing our identity? How could we change it?

Please, give me your opinions, so I can understand our faith and our people in a better way.

Thank you!

 

[fred_conty]

That is an important point you bring up.

Tho I believe what you are seeing is going on in just about every Christian faith and not just Catholic.

Admittedly it seems like maybe the light has gone out, but it is still there for each to discover. God is still holding out his arms to everyone to come to him.

I believe the remedy for this is for each person aware of the situation should be driven to prayer to beg God, not so much to improve the world situation, but that each person may discover him. For no condition of this world can take the love of God from us. We just need to ask him to touch others with his love to give them another chance. Then this world with change.

If we pray and have the proper intentions that others discover him, then it will all turn out as great success. It is the domino effect.

May the God of hope fill you with every joy.

 

[theoda]

There are about 75 million of us, Catholics, in the United States alone. In the world, this number is more than 1 billion. Nevertheless, we know that the number of real observant Catholics is way lower than all these zeroes.

I live in a Catholic majority place. You can’t walk some miles without noticing the influence of a Catholic civilization. Immigrants helped bring Catholicism in their hearts as well.

But where are all those faithful servants today?

Even at church, when talking to people, I notice a worrying lack of confidence, trust, love and affinity with our Church. I see many people who are Catholics “because I was born so” and “I don’t really agree with the Church, but…”. Our family and people don’t know the Church. They don’t know our history, our principles and even worse: many Catholics don’t know our prayers, criticize the Pope using an awful disrespecting language, text in churches, take pictures and selfies at the Mass, don’t bow before the Cross, don’t pray at home, don’t raise their children in the Church nor they are instructed in the faith, they don’t understand the Sign of the Cross, the theology, the traditions, Holy Days of Observance became consumerist secular holidays just as any other world’s celebration (especially Christmas and Easter), nobody wants to learn a word in Latin and not to mention the “Pentecostal fever”, where some Catholic churches, especially in Latin America, changed the beautiful typically Catholic liturgy for a secular music concert (I’ve been to many). People go to church mostly for baptisms, wedding and funerals, but they forget their whole life must be Catholic. The majority of Catholics I know is like this. Those who are observant Catholics end up being alone and without a strong family like community support.

I insist, my friends, that I’m no fanatical, but one thing I admire in the Jews, for instance, is that their culture and identity are preserved in their everyday lives.

Why don’t we, Catholics, live our religion everyday as a community, as a family, as Christians? Do you think we are too secular? Do you think this is normal and acceptable or you think we are losing our identity? How could we change it?

Please, give me your opinions, so I can understand our faith and our people in a better way.

Thank you!

Yes, the biggest problem to the Church is secularization. The amount of Catholics who disagree with the Church’s teaching is actually a majority. It is frightening. Sometimes, I wonder if we are nearing the end times, since there will be a Great Apostasy.

One way we could change it is by getting more strict on things like excommunicating politicians who publicly disagree with the Church’s infallible teachings.

 

[WordHeavy]

Yeah it honestly worries me sometimes, though I know the church is protected. I try to teach as many as I can of the truth of the church and the what and why but secularism I must agree is a huge problem

 

[angell1]

I wouldn’t say secuarlism is the worse problem. the church has been through harder times

but it does seem like that at a certain point and time, a couple generations ago, people just stopped caring about God and passing it on just wasn’t important anymore. throw in the sexual revolution and a “i’ll do what I want, regardless of consequences” mentality, and well, this is what we get.

but think about it this way. those who are serious, actually want to be. at least, from my experience, if people go to church nowadays, it’s because they want to be there. and are not forced, or think it’s socially acceptable

obviously this is not the case for everyone. just my personal observation

 

[Nelka]

I think many have mixed their Faith with the modern world and the lines are partially blurred.

 

[Faxero]

:sad_yes: We can compare ourselves to the Old Testament Jews. No matter how hard God tries, he can’t save everyone, and he even has to punish them himself.

No matter how godly and faithful one is, he may fall back into sin at any time, for our fallen natures are more dangerous than we may realize. Just like the Jews during the Old Testament, we may become lax, failing to properly educate our children.

Deuteronomy 6:20-25
“Later on, when your children inquire of the ordinances which you follow, answer them this: We were once slaves, but then we were made free, and were shown favor by God, who granted us various gifts, promising us prosperity should we abide in his name.”

Jeremiah 7:16-20
“The children gather wood, theirs father light the fires, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven.”

(This verse does not refer to Mary, the mother of God, who didn’t exist at that time.)

:sad_yes:

 

[Tous_Logous]

There are about 75 million of us, Catholics, in the United States alone. In the world, this number is more than 1 billion. Nevertheless, we know that the number of real observant Catholics is way lower than all these zeroes.

I live in a Catholic majority place. You can’t walk some miles without noticing the influence of a Catholic civilization. Immigrants helped bring Catholicism in their hearts as well.

But where are all those faithful servants today?

Even at church, when talking to people, I notice a worrying lack of confidence, trust, love and affinity with our Church. I see many people who are Catholics “because I was born so” and “I don’t really agree with the Church, but…”. Our family and people don’t know the Church. They don’t know our history, our principles and even worse: many Catholics don’t know our prayers, criticize the Pope using an awful disrespecting language, text in churches, take pictures and selfies at the Mass, don’t bow before the Cross, don’t pray at home, don’t raise their children in the Church nor they are instructed in the faith, they don’t understand the Sign of the Cross, the theology, the traditions, Holy Days of Observance became consumerist secular holidays just as any other world’s celebration (especially Christmas and Easter), nobody wants to learn a word in Latin and not to mention the “Pentecostal fever”, where some Catholic churches, especially in Latin America, changed the beautiful typically Catholic liturgy for a secular music concert (I’ve been to many). People go to church mostly for baptisms, wedding and funerals, but they forget their whole life must be Catholic. The majority of Catholics I know is like this. Those who are observant Catholics end up being alone and without a strong family like community support.

I insist, my friends, that I’m no fanatical, but one thing I admire in the Jews, for instance, is that their culture and identity are preserved in their everyday lives.

Why don’t we, Catholics, live our religion everyday as a community, as a family, as Christians? Do you think we are too secular? Do you think this is normal and acceptable or you think we are losing our identity? How could we change it?

Please, give me your opinions, so I can understand our faith and our people in a better way.

Thank you!

It means something when a Protestant (Reformed) co-worker of mine can state what a “Sacrament” is, but a lapsed Catholic co-worker doesn’t even know what the story of Exodus is and doesn’t even know what the “Eucharist” is or entails.

I think that ultimately, the cafeteria Catholicism is due to secularization of the Church, the obsession with narcissism, the breakup of the family, and failure to evangelize. I really think the breakup of the family is the reason why so many Catholics do not understand the faith or just don’t care. If the faith isn’t being practiced at home how will our children practice or believe? The answer is, they won’t and they’ll let the modern world tell them what they should do and believe. In an era when we worship ourselves as gods, very few will listen.

I also think that just catechizing our youth and older adult parishioners is a mistake in the sense that we think this alone is all that is needed. We need to evangelize at the same time that we are catechizing. You can catechize, but that doesn’t mean the individual learning has faith.

I am the black sheep of my family. My family members absolutely hate God and the Catholic Church, are very worldly, don’t read the Bible, etc. There isn’t much I can do other than pray for them.

 

[Praedicare]

Please excuse the traditionalist in me, but it’s a sort of “I told you so” situation for those who kept tradition in liturgy, faith, devotions, and sacramentals when the whole Church seemed to be going crazy a few decades ago. There have been Catholics who have sat mostly in the sidelines, appalled by this degeneration of faith & morals, while keeping to their quiet old ways. Perhaps they’ve been a little too quiet.

What began with the abuses and sacrileges against the Holy Mass in the mid-60s has ended with a full crop of very rotten fruit: spiritual death and no identity. Although it sounds a little strange at first, I think restoration of Latin, more reverence in the sanctuary, more actual chanted singing at Mass, genuflections, bows, etc., will draw Catholics in by mystery and make them ask: “Why?” again. This would bring them to request catechism… and who knows what else?

Most of all I think the reason for a loss of identity - especially among North American Catholics - is the ease of our culture. Faith always stagnates in riches. We don’t really have to fight at all, except for mere concepts and ideas. Poverty and simplicity always bring us back to Christ. Our massive culture of consumption is empty. We must defy it with self-giving service and sacrifice for the family of Christ.

 

[Philws]

Please excuse the traditionalist in me, but it’s a sort of “I told you so” situation for those who kept tradition in liturgy, faith, devotions, and sacramentals when the whole Church seemed to be going crazy a few decades ago. There have been Catholics who have sat mostly in the sidelines, appalled by this degeneration of faith & morals, while keeping to their quiet old ways. Perhaps they’ve been a little too quiet.

What began with the abuses and sacrileges against the Holy Mass in the mid-60s has ended with a full crop of very rotten fruit: spiritual death and no identity. Although it sounds a little strange at first, I think restoration of Latin, more reverence in the sanctuary, more actual chanted singing at Mass, genuflections, bows, etc., will draw Catholics in by mystery and make them ask: “Why?” again. This would bring them to request catechism… and who knows what else?

Most of all I think the reason for a loss of identity - especially among North American Catholics - is the ease of our culture. Faith always stagnates in riches. We don’t really have to fight at all, except for mere concepts and ideas. Poverty and simplicity always bring us back to Christ. Our massive culture of consumption is empty. We must defy it with self-giving service and sacrifice for the family of Christ.

Oh, dear! The Lord be with you!
You wrote everything that was stuck in my gut and I couldn’t find a way to utter it. This come-as-you-want, wear-what-you-want, speak-how-you-want, shout-at-church culture is destroying us. People are bringing secularism of all sorts to the sanctuary! Couldn’t people just wear humbly, not as if they were in a fashion week or a night club? Couldn’t they leave their phones at home? Couldn’t they show the great respect the Man at the Cross deserves? Couldn’t they give some more value to our Catholic culture? Couldn’t they be religiously observant at home?

I really don’t know what is happening around us.

Some people say I’m “weird” for being “young and so religious”. And I have heard this from Catholics!

How hurt do I feel when someone of my own “family” says something like this?

 

[Viki63]

I think restoration of Latin, more reverence in the sanctuary, more actual chanted singing at Mass, genuflections, bows, etc., will draw Catholics in by mystery and make them ask: “Why?” again. .

I agree with most of your post, but as a convert, I don’t understand why having the mass in Latin would help improve reverence. Most people don’t understand any Latin; I think it would be off-putting.
I doubt that Latin will come back especially in churches in the US, but I don’t regard that as a negative.

 

[BobCatholic]

CINOism (Catholics in name only) is the largest “Catholic” denomination out there.

They think they’re Catholic but they act anything but.

And then when there are those who actually try to live the Catholic life see them, and seeing CINOs being APPROVED…no wonder there is an identity crisis.

Nancy Pelosi just as “Catholic” as Fr. Benedict Groeschel? No.

 

[Philws]

I agree with most of your post, but as a convert, I don’t understand why having the mass in Latin would help improve reverence. Most people don’t understand any Latin; I think it would be off-putting.
I doubt that Latin will come back especially in churches in the US, but I don’t regard that as a negative.

I also am a convert. I was raised in a divided family: Episcopal (evangelical) from a side and Roman Catholic from another. When I decided to join the Catholic church, I didn’t speak a word in Latin. The priest who taught me everything gave me guidance to learn how to pray in both English and Latin. I wrote my own “prayer book” in which on a page I’d set the prayer in Latin and on the other in English. Of course, I also took Latin language classes and this all as a form of devotion.

I don’t think that it would improve reverence, rather it would improve the necessity of learning more. Expressing the love we have for the Lord goes beyond language and having a special language for our religious practice is an important factor in our religiously observant life. As a linguistic myself, I understand how powerful languages can be in our lives.

If we observe the Jews: most of them learn Hebrew as a form of praising their history and religious tradition.
It is also true for many Orthodox parishes I have visited, in which Russian or Greek are still used, even though they are in another country.

Learning and using Latin would definitely help us praise our history and culture. And it would lead people to desire more: desire to learn more about the Faith, Theology, History, principles, morality and prayers, which play an important role in a Christian’s life.

Learning how to pray in Latin doesn’t mean we have to be fluent in this language and talk to each other in Latin. That doesn’t make any sense. But showing our appreciation to the Lord by using Latin? How holier can it be?

 

[Praedicare]

I agree with most of your post, but as a convert, I don’t understand why having the mass in Latin would help improve reverence. Most people don’t understand any Latin; I think it would be off-putting.
I doubt that Latin will come back especially in churches in the US, but I don’t regard that as a negative.

My first 20 years of life were spent as an atheist, so I am also a convert. That has nothing to do with my logic in this case.

In my opinion, Latin exists as a catalyst in terms of Catholic identity. We in the Western Church worshiped God using Latin universally from about AD 200 until AD 1964. As for a discussion of Catholic Identity, that is surely an important thing!

Subjectively speaking, I personally prefer a vernacular-language Mass; objectively, however, the associations people make are what create a sense of Identity. In the case of Catholicism, at least for the last 500 years much of our identity came from “not being Protestant”. One of the expressions of that difference was that protestants used vernacular liturgies, and we used Latin. Abolishing that distinction without proper catechesis suddenly left us without one of the most important, distinctive associations we had of the word “Catholic”.

Vatican II itself says that Latin is part of our identity, and should be used at least a little in Mass. Catholic schools were encouraged by St. John XXIII to teach basic Latin. If we actually listened to the Church, people would grasp what they were praying. Even if they did not, this didn’t stop many people from becoming saints. That’s the whole point of it anyway, isn’t it? Our identity as Catholics should be “Saint-Makers”. We’re in a Saint-Factory, as it were. Anything that does not conform to that identity is inauthentic.

Perhaps Latin is needed again only for a brief period, because it is associated with reverent and prayerful liturgy, whereas the vernacular seems to be associated more with casual and off-the-cuff liturgy. If we could do what the previous Pope wanted (combine the mindsets of the Old Latin and the New Vernacular) we wouldn’t necessarily need Latin anymore. Anyway, this is becoming a “Liturgy & Sacraments” forum post, so I’ll stop.

I was just putting forward my rabidly-liturgical opinion about the thing that most defines our sense of identity. It isn’t fact that we could feed a whole family for a month with the amount of coffee & sweets that we have after Mass, or the fact that we have the rosary, or anything else. Many things go together, but the Holy Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith. If we believe Jesus Christ is there and treat it accordingly, we are dwelling in our own true identity. If we believe it’s just some bread that can be trampled underfoot after Mass and wine that can be poured down the sink, then we dwell in The World.

 

[the_phoenix]

I am the black sheep of my family. My family members absolutely hate God and the Catholic Church, are very worldly, don’t read the Bible, etc. There isn’t much I can do other than pray for them.

I’m also the black sheep of my family, for similar reasons apparently. I wouldn’t go so far as to say my family members “hate” God and the Church, but let’s just say there’s a reason why I spent my Thanksgiving in the home of Protestants instead of with my Catholic family. And no, it’s not because I’m turning Protestant … it’s because as a Catholic, I feel more at home with Protestants who welcome me more than my own family. Pretty sad. And yes, I’d love to have Catholic friends … apparently, the Lord is providing me with Protestants and others instead.

I do pray for my family every day too,
and meanwhile feel like
Joseph with the coat of many colors
in exile in Egypt.

…

 

[theoda]

I agree with most of your post, but as a convert, I don’t understand why having the mass in Latin would help improve reverence. Most people don’t understand any Latin; I think it would be off-putting.
I doubt that Latin will come back especially in churches in the US, but I don’t regard that as a negative.

Jesus prayed in a vernacular language and all the saints throughout history have prayed in Latin. Latin is our universal language, because we are a universal Church. It brings us unity after the Tower of Babel.

 

[Tesseract]

But where are all those faithful servants today?

Those other Catholics that you mention are asking the same question. The solution to the problem has always remained the same: be a Saint. If they will not be inspired by witnessing your example, then where will they find inspiration?

If our identity is anything other than our holiness, what good is it?