Church Militant and scylla,
I appreciate both of your reflections on my post above.
scylla, I could have presented the case that you
have presented…I
did, for over 40 years. At age
12, in 1958, I presented a talk for the Catholic Evidence
Guild that was so impressive, my sister remembers
and refers to it, even today.
fact.] It also
constitued a problem.
One of the nuns, who I have always thought the world of,
encouraged me to read The Seven Storey Mountain at age 13 !
I didn’t, but that ought to give you a clue to where
my teachers thought I was at, at age 13.
At age 18, another nun gave me Fr. Adrian van Kaam’s
book on religion and psychology to read. [Van Kaam
was/is? a psychiatrist, I believe.] At 18 !
So, having studied philosophy and theology in
college, one could hardly make the case that
I don’t *understand *the Catholic faith. And in those
days, the faith was presented in a rigorous
fashion: no felt banners; Jesus loves me posters,
or “It’s all a bright and happy world” catechesis.
If you’ll bear with me:
I took a break from the forum, after I posted the
above, and watched a few Scooby Doo cartoons.
I recalled a conversation that I had had with
a person a year younger than I.
We both agreed that those under age 54 haven’t
got a* clue* as to what we’re talking about, and
that we have more in common with people 20
years our senior, than 5 years our junior.
**That’s how fast the world changed,
boys and girls**.
If you’re younger than age 55, you were catechized
differently - but you have no way to *know *that,
because you were not treated to the catechesis
that my contempories were. {And you are not
my “contemporary” if you are under age 55, {I’m 59}
not in any true sense of the word. Our worlds were
not “contemporaneous.” There is a vast abysss,
separating us. [Converts to the faith, my age and
older, also cannot identify with 1950’s “catechesis.”]
That catechesis did me great damage, spiritually
and psychologically. Period. It has haunted me
for 47 years.
It haunts me no more. I’ve been able to express
my great anger and achieve peace.
That’s why I can say: Keep the faith.
You have not been injured as I was injured.
I am positively
phobic toward the whole enterprise.
I’m not going todefend the evangelical position.
I can’t. I’m too well trained in Catholic thought.
But it is a matter of the heart, with me, not the
mind. And that heart was injured, almost irreparably,
in matters religious, at a time when I could not
mount a protest, because I had neither the psychological
defenses or the theology that would come later in time.
I was so ill, psychologically, to begin with, even
as a 10 year old. [a lot of it is genetic.] The
&%%*) catechesis nearly finished me off.
[constant talk of hell; stressing sin, constantly-
fleeting reference to ‘mercy,’ little reference to
scripture [except this swell little book, with
black and white etchings, of the Old Testament.]
It left me a quivering
wreck of a human being.
And the sermons! After one of them, my face
was as white as a sheet, my body as stiff as
a board.
And I was 8 years old .
Has that been your experiece? I doubt it.
I may be suspended.
But, I’ve had my say, and conveyed why I hold
the postion I hold.
reen12
As a matter of fact, I think I’ll suspend myself,
and make this my last post.
