Religious Consumerism

[manygift1spirit]

Considering that according to polls the vast majority of people identifying as Catholic are not in communion with the Church I would think that the Church needs to tread lightly on such matters to maintain its membership.

Do I have it right that such dissenters should not participate in the Eucharist until they recognize the authority of the Church on such matters?

One could argue, and many do, quite the opposite. For hundreds of years the Church has almost never had to evangelize to its own flock on issues like those you raise. There was simply no need. One could even easier think that once such misguided ideas started to become more than just fringe, if the Church pointed out the errors in no uncertain terms, that there would not be the large scale falling out of communion. That is part of the Church’s mission, to spread the Good News (and its implications).

Think about it. I would even go further. When ideas like that come to our attention, and we turn to the Church for guidance, and none is forthcoming, two things happen. An implicit condoning of the ideas occurs. And confusion of the faithful. “Is this OK or not?” A wishy washy Church is not one which is attractive – its inauthenticity is noticable. One sees that now in the turning around of numbers of seminarians and some religious. Seminaries (in the USA) were jump-started over the last 10 years or so to deal with some related problems, and both quantity and quality have improved. And right now some women religious are undergoing the same jump-starting. We hope (and expect) the results will be just as fruitful.

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One should not participate in the Eucharist if one is in a state of mortal sin. That is all. That is not the same as dissent. But of course there will be overlap.

Reverence for the Eucharist has not been one of our catechetical success stories.

 

[Betterave]

I don’t understand what you are criticizing me for. You said that you think the notion of consumerism applied to religion is belittling to religion. I am also trying to criticize the the notion of religious consumerism as something to complain about.

Uhh…right. Here’s how I see it: the notion of ‘religious consumerism’ is not something to complain about in my view, people who have a consumeristic attitude towards religion (cafeteria Catholics) are something to complain about: they don’t understand what religion is about. And you are saying something compatible with that? The meaning of your claim above is obscured by its grammatical ambiguity, but I think you have been trying to criticize people who use the term to diagnose a problem they see. That is not compatible with my position.

I never said that we ought to stop all criticism of anything. But I do think that the term Religious Consumerism doesn’t help in distinguishing what ought to be criticized from any other sort of way of being religious unless it is made more clear what this practice is and whether anyone actually does it.

Maybe so; it’s not a term I use. ‘Cafeteria Catholic’ is clear enough in my mind though. I’m prepared to clarify that term if you need that done.

Truth is one of your personal desires, isn’t it? I don’t see how we can distinguish between those who act on personal desires and those who do not in the name of Religious Consumerism.

You need to make an extremely important distinction here: I personally desire truth, but truth itself is not a personal desire. This is precisely the problem with the cafeteria Catholic: she reduces truth, at least in the area of religion, to a personal desire, instead of personally desiring the truth.

If subordinating one’s self is not a matter of will, then I guess I don’t understand what this term means. Can you explain it to me? I suppose maybe you would view it as recognizing the fact of the authority of a particular church? If so, then I suppose you are right that subordination also doesn’t shed any light on what Religious Consumerism is supposed to mean.

You are right to think that subordinating oneself involves the will, but it is a movement of the will that is motivated by the belief that subordinating oneself is reasonable, responsible, and required by a robust reflection on reality. (Don’t you love alliteration?)

I have no idea how prevalent it is. All I know is that it seems to be a big concern among certain Catholics here. I can’t make out how a person who participates in this supposedly bad practice behaves, is different from anyone else, or even whether anyone or everyone does this.

Fair enough. Hopefully my comments will be helpful.

 

[Betterave]

I wonder how much the Church actually tries to combat such ignorance. I suspect that it would lose many members if priests frequently explained at mass that dissenters on such issues aspersonal birth control use, legal abortion rights, forbidding condom use in AIDS stricken countries and discouraging birth control in impoversished countries, women in the priesthood, papal infallibility, or some other doctrines that I’m not aware of are not in Communion with the Catholic Church. Considering that according to polls the vast majority of people identifying as Catholic are not in communion with the Church I would think that the Church needs to tread lightly on such matters to maintain its membership.

Do I have it right that such dissenters should not participate in the Eucharist until they recognize the authority of the Church on such matters?

You are right in a sense, but as I mentioned, ignorance may be an excuse. If one has never been informed what a Catholic is required to believe, or has been positively misinformed, the ‘dissenter’ has not formally dissented so as to put herself out of communion with the Church. In this case it may be that she dissents objectively only, provided, that is, that she lacks full knowledge and thus full assent of her will to the fact that she is a dissenter who is rejecting essential teachings of the faith.

The Church indeed treads lightly in combatting ignorance (often too lightly, perhaps) out of pastoral concern for those who do have a minimal good will to follow Christ but would be unable to accept the Church’s teaching in its fullness if it was presented all at once. She hopes that such individuals can be gradually brought to fully assent to the full teaching of the Church. These are matters calling for pastoral sensitivity and I think we shouldn’t underestimate what a difficult task the ‘care of souls’ - that’s how we understand it - can be.

And, sad to say, I think there probably are also some cases where pastors are primarily concerned with filling pews and collection plates, as well as obvious cases where pastors are clearly dissenters themselves. Pastors are human and none of us really enjoys being hated, and that’s what tends to happen when a priest is too counter-cultural. He’ll have his fans too, of course, but being a priest is truly not easy (we believe it is only possible to do well by the grace of God). Georges Bernanos’ book Journal d’un cure de campagne (it has been translated as Diary of a country priest) gives a pretty poignant picture of the struggles of being a priest. I’m reading it right now and I think it has definitely helped me to put myself in the priest’s shoes more. It’s also great literature, tremendously thought-provoking - I recommend it.

 

[awatkins69]

People do not choose the Church. The Church chooses them. They can accept this invitation or not.

Finding Truth is a matter of conforming the intellect to the objective reality. There is, in all circumstances, one objective reality.

 

[Leela]

People do not choose the Church. The Church chooses them. They can accept this invitation or not.

Do people choose whether or not to accept the invitation?

Finding Truth is a matter of conforming the intellect to the objective reality. There is, in all circumstances, one objective reality.

Does this have something to do with religious consumerism?

 

[Leela]

You are right in a sense, but as I mentioned, ignorance may be an excuse. If one has never been informed what a Catholic is required to believe, or has been positively misinformed, the ‘dissenter’ has not formally dissented so as to put herself out of communion with the Church. In this case it may be that she dissents objectively only, provided, that is, that she lacks full knowledge and thus full assent of her will to the fact that she is a dissenter who is rejecting essential teachings of the faith.

The Church indeed treads lightly in combatting ignorance (often too lightly, perhaps) out of pastoral concern for those who do have a minimal good will to follow Christ but would be unable to accept the Church’s teaching in its fullness if it was presented all at once. She hopes that such individuals can be gradually brought to fully assent to the full teaching of the Church. These are matters calling for pastoral sensitivity and I think we shouldn’t underestimate what a difficult task the ‘care of souls’ - that’s how we understand it - can be.

And, sad to say, I think there probably are also some cases where pastors are primarily concerned with filling pews and collection plates, as well as obvious cases where pastors are clearly dissenters themselves. Pastors are human and none of us really enjoys being hated, and that’s what tends to happen when a priest is too counter-cultural. He’ll have his fans too, of course, but being a priest is truly not easy (we believe it is only possible to do well by the grace of God). Georges Bernanos’ book Journal d’un cure de campagne (it has been translated as Diary of a country priest) gives a pretty poignant picture of the struggles of being a priest. I’m reading it right now and I think it has definitely helped me to put myself in the priest’s shoes more. It’s also great literature, tremendously thought-provoking - I recommend it.

This is a very interesting post, and perhaps the first one here that gets at the practical problem Cafeteria Catholicism and beyond name-calling.

As I understand you, different people need different teachings, and few probably need the teaching “you aren’t a REAL Catholic if you don’t believe X.”