Good Morning PC,
That is understandable, given your history. So, if you met someone who felt hatred toward the Institution, and especially toward those who hold an ideology of rigid dogmatism and traditionalism, how would you approach him? Would you let him hate, or because of your own insights, would you be able to gently explain to him how to understand people of rigid ideology? Since those rigid individuals are definitely in his outgroup, would you be able to communicate that we all share such the capacity to be protective of ideologies?
In my own experience, I addressed my own hate through awareness. There is some “shadow work” involved. For example, I hated Osama bin Laden. Understandable, right? So, I read up on him and came to understand his position and why he was blind to the humanity of certain groups. We cannot know everything about someone, but the specifics are not really important. What is important are questions like, “why would I do what he did?”; these questions go straight for what I condemn in myself, in my own past. Then, I work to understand why I committed my own sins. Awareness leads to understanding, which leads to mature forgiveness.
Hate is a triggered reaction. No one decides “I think I am going to hate that person today.”. (Okay, there may be some rare exceptions to address). I cannot stop the trigger in myself. The best I can do is at some point it dawns on me, “Oh I hate that person”! Then I know it is time to take the steps to understand and forgive. We cannot stop hate from happening any more than we can stop anger or disgust from happening. What we can do is encourage understanding and forgiveness.
I must have had the same drink! Your view expresses
theosis. (It is a great word, I have recently been introduced to it). Your view sounds so much like Saint Francis, Pope Francis too.
Wow, you really got me thinking on that now. As young people we hunger to belong to a group, and I know from studies that in order to have a feeling of meaningful membership, there has to be some sense of exclusivity. I remember a youth director telling me this; as counter-intuitive as it seems, to make a group meaningful, it has to have an exclusive feel about it. It is no wonder that there are bar-mitzvahs and rites of passage, they serve a secondary function: “now you are IN”. Street gangs work the same way. I can definitely relate, the Catholic Church did not provide that exclusivity, so I was drawn to fundamentalist Christianity (okay, by a girl friend). Whew, was I then exclusive! I cannot say that I took the wrong path, though, it was a part of my journey I had to live.
Indeed, I was a “victim” of Vatican II. Just when I
needed a rigid institution, the institution itself was transforming. Ultimately, it was I who needed to transform, to grow.
So maybe it is not so much an ambiguous self-identity (which we all have as youngsters, think of all the personas people wear), but lack of meaningful group membership? Because here are some other items: for group membership to be meaningful, it has to be exclusive, it has to such that your absence is noticed and you have an important function, and people in the group have to
care about the group. Yes, it is perhaps apathy of fellow Catholics that contributes to this meaninglessness, and leads to some people finding exclusive membership in rigid ideology or something else.
So, confusion? I’m sure it plays a role, but I’m thinking it is not the driving factor.
It is so great talking about this topic with you. You have a very analytical mind.
