The reason so much of our youth reject Church teaching

[pwlj_christ87]

I like the original poster am also sort of unhappy with the amount of young people my age that reject the church…

i have dated numerous women whom i gave a chance and i needed to end the relationship because of the difference in our beliefs…

i think that satan has a hold on the world more so than ever before… its never been so relative, so naive, so ignorant and critical of the church

we must pray for these people…

and i cant lose my head over it all… i must ignore it and grow personally then my prayers and actions can help the rest

 

[Teelynn]

I was born in 1970. I attended only Catholic schools. This sounds like my education. I left the faith at 16 years old. Returned in my 40’s. It was then that I read what the Catholic faith truly was. I fell in love with the Church and it’s teachings. It was then that I understood why it taught what it taught. I remember saying to myself…why didn’t I learn this when I was growing up?

This is all too common, and to me, this is a tragedy of catastrophic proportions. This is a HUGE part of the reason the Church is in the shape it is today. My granddaughter made her First Communion this morning, and though it was a beautiful Mass and Fr. gave a great homily to the kids, there was such a “Cavalier” attitude among families (and some of my own) that it was heart wrenching. Mine in fact are going to celebrate tomorrow (just dinner with the immediate family) because they had another Birthday Party to go to this afternoon. I remember when I made mine, there was a huge celebration with lots of family because most of the family practiced the faith. Today, very sadly, none of my family members practice the faith. In fact some of them don’t practice ANY faith. First Communion doesn’t mean anything to them. In Fr.'s homily to the kids, he emphasized numerous times how important it was for mom and dad to bring them to Church EVERY Sunday to receive Our Lord in Communion. Coming to Mass every Sunday was also one of the prayers of the faithful. I actually was so overwhelmingly sad that it has come to this that I came home, sat down and cried my eyes out.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

You know what I have noticed. That usually when someone starts out a conversation with “I went to 12 years of Catholic school” They almost always follow it up with something contrary to the faith, or something misinformed about the faith.

Honestly I don’t know why people say this and think it boosts their credibility. To me, it lessens it.

‘If you want your kids to defend their Faith send them to a public school, if you want them to lose their Faith send them to a Catholic School.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen

 

[Teelynn]

I like the original poster am also sort of unhappy with the amount of young people my age that reject the church…

i have dated numerous women whom i gave a chance and i needed to end the relationship because of the difference in our beliefs…

i think that satan has a hold on the world more so than ever before… its never been so relative, so naive, so ignorant and critical of the church

we must pray for these people…

and i cant lose my head over it all… i must ignore it and grow personally then my prayers and actions can help the rest

I know…me too. Sometimes I am just heartbroken and grief stricken over the total lack of faith, but God always gives me the grace to get back up fight the good fight. Hard to watch all the paganism around you, but then you see all the kids that are on fire for the faith and it gives you HOPE. Satan is having a great time now, but we know who it is that will win in the end…and it AIN’T HIM.

 

[LongingSoul]

So if someone says “despite all my prayer and studying and attempts to reconcile this, the teaching does not ring true to me” it’s just that they lack humility? I don’t know how many people can just go along with something they, even after much study and prayer, feel is wrong. The Church will always have the trump card of “you just don’t understand, and if you did you would agree with us.” Many people find that very offensive. The idea that one should “just go along” despite deep internal disagreement is questionable.

Just by reading your post it stands out that you have a fundamental misconception of what the Catholic Church is. “The Church will always have a trump card…” I think also you wrote in another thread that you felt God didn’t mind you using contraception but that you were scared that the Church would condem you to “burn in hell”?

To be Catholic is not to be part of a secular club with a supernatural talent of condemning people to hell. To be Catholic is to believe as per the Apostles Creed “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church…” If you don’t believe firstly in the authority of the Holy Catholic Church… no prayer or study is likely to change you. Most of the great conversion stories came about with a bone shaking, earth shattering humbling experience in life or directly from God like St Pauls traumatic conversion.

Pope Benedict said…"Intellectual humility is the most important rule for whoever seeks to penetrate supernatural reality starting with sacred writings… Delving into scripture solely to “satisfy one’s own desires for knowledge means to give in to the temptation of pride and to expose oneself to the risk of slipping into heresy,”

If you begin prayer or study with the attitude of putting God to the test against the Church instead of saying “Lord I believe, help my unbelief” you are simply joining the tradition of the ongoing persecution of the Church that has existed for 2000 years.

 

[BettyBoop416]

To be honest, most of the issue is not presenting the material and having an intellectual understanding, but rather in the fact that most of us lack humility and suffer from excessive pride. I know I certainly had that issue when I was younger and still have to check my pride at the door more often than I’d like.

Why is that important? By setting ourselves up as an authority (or the authority) we limit the ability for faith and belief to grow and prosper. We harden our hearts and minds where everything must pass our intellectual litmus test before we consider it to be true. It takes a bit of maturity (and not a few pride smack downs) before we can get to a point where we can say “I might not understand it, but perhaps someone might know more than I do.” Our academic culture makes that very difficult because not having the answers is seen as a failure. The constant push to always be right is often damaging to faith.

Anytime me or my kids start to question why I tried to remember/remind them of Luke 22:42 - “… but yet not my will, but thine be done.”

Speaking for myself, the “you are just too prideful to believe” argument is just as unsatisfying as the “if you really understood you would believe” argument. I admit that there are a couple of Church teachings that, while understanding them perfectly well and knowing the reasoning behind them, just don’t ring true to me. And it has nothing to do with pride. And to say that disbelief is a sign of lacking maturity? That’s actually kind of offensive. Besides, an atheist could turn that around and use it on a Christian: “You’re just too immature to let go of your myths and fairy tales to deal with the real world.”

So if someone says “despite all my prayer and studying and attempts to reconcile this, the teaching does not ring true to me” it’s just that they lack humility? I don’t know how many people can just go along with something they, even after much study and prayer, feel is wrong. The Church will always have the trump card of “you just don’t understand, and if you did you would agree with us.” Many people find that very offensive. The idea that one should “just go along” despite deep internal disagreement is questionable.

Agreed. The idea that someone should “make themselves believe” something or purposely “form your conscious” to conform to something you don’t really believe just doesn’t make sense to me.

 

[LongingSoul]

The idea that someone should “make themselves believe” something or purposely “form your conscious” to conform to something you don’t really believe just doesn’t make sense to me.

And yet that is the whole basis of ‘faith’. When you think about the holy and highly learned Saints, even the saints of our time like St John Paul and Bl. Mother Teresa… the question arises inside you… if these people who are hundreds of times more prayerful and devoted to study, fasting and lifelong sacrifice… believe… why would my lesser efforts at prayer and sacrifice give me a different answer.

And there are many questions like that that arise out of humility. The old penny Catechism used to be a wonderful prompt to the basic questions that arise in a person out of their humble disposition…

Who made you?

God made me.

Why did God make you?

God made me to know him, love him and serve him in this world, and to be happy with him for ever in the next.

etc etc

The first steps of faith are accepting the reality of who we are and being able to look outside of ourselves for meaning and truth.

 

[Teelynn]

The world is big, kids are exposed to more than their own families and communities. My grandparents and even parents only knew what they were taught. No internet, travel was less common, and no 24-hour news. Their worlds were smaller. Now, people have so much access. It’s hard to say “this is the one right way to think and live” when you have the ability to see that so many thers in the world feel just as strongly about their own belief systems, and that things tend not to be so black-and-white. I think it’s hard for younger people to believe that so much of the world is “doing it wrong” and that just one religion has the corner on truth.

As far as Christianity goes, yes there are denominations that have “partial” truth. They are our Protestant brothers and sisters. But they don’t have the FULL truth. We do. I like the saying I picked up quite a long time ago from a Priest…“We have the WHOLE ENCHALADA”.

We have Jesus Christ Himself in the Eucharist…no one else does. I like to think about St. Peter when these discussions arise…“Lord, you have the words of eternal life, where else would we go?”

 

[Rau]

Agreed. The idea that someone should “make themselves believe” something or purposely “form your conscious” to conform to something you don’t really believe just doesn’t make sense to me.

I understand. However, the story of a God who dwelt among us is so fantastic, so beyond human “sense”, one wonders how any of it cam be believed, without believing it all!

 

[phil_at_dayboro]

People in a wealthy society , have a disconnect with anything religious,
Because there is nothing to bind there lives to a faith, any faith,
I have 3. Sons , step son and step daughter, all went through the catholic school system,
All went to church on Sundays, now their all adults and non have any faith …
Why,? we as parents did what we believed to be the correct thing…
I think it is because in a modern wealthy lifestyle , that there is no relevance .
But in a poorer society , people are more inclined to have faith because they look for something that brings people together, a much more meaningful sense of family and community ,something that money can not buy,

 

[LongingSoul]

People in a wealthy society , have a disconnect with anything religious,
Because there is nothing to bind there lives to a faith, any faith,
I have 3. Sons , step son and step daughter, all went through the catholic school system,
All went to church on Sundays, now their all adults and non have any faith …
Why,? we as parents did what we believed to be the correct thing…
I think it is because in a modern wealthy lifestyle , that there is no relevance .
But in a poorer society , people are more inclined to have faith because they look for something that brings people together, a much more meaningful sense of family and community ,something that money can not buy,

I think that is true, phil. When people existed in tribes, they had a naturally strong sense of how the tribe supported and nourished them. So much so that being exiled from their tribe meant death. Instead of a sense of entitlement to what they had, there was a greater sense of gratitude and gratitudes expression in worship. That profound sense that what we have… our health, security, opportunities… are due to the efforts of those around us and those who’ve gone before us and ultimately due to the grace of God… that’s when we naturally fall to our knees in gratitude and feel that added obligation to give back generously of our effort and knowledge for the generations that will be affected by ours.

 

[Cojuanco]

The primary question to ponder is whether you believe God - Jesus - established the Church. And did he give authority to Peter and the Apostles to “bind” and to “loose”? If this much you believe, it becomes untenable that the Church can lead you astray.

Pretty much. I don’t claim to understand everything the Church teaches. But I trust that people who know more than I do about such things are generally getting it right.

Teelynn, the Orthodox have valid Eucharist, they believe as we do in the Real Presence in the same way we do.

 

[Teelynn]

Pretty much. I don’t claim to understand everything the Church teaches. But I trust that people who know more than I do about such things are generally getting it right.

Teelynn, the Orthodox have valid Eucharist, they believe as we do in the Real Presence in the same way we do.

Yes, I realize that. I was referring to the other denominations that don’t. And there are many of those. If I am correct they believe that “Communion” is only a remembrance, a meal so to speak.

 

[Rence]

And yet that is the whole basis of ‘faith’. When you think about the holy and highly learned Saints, even the saints of our time like St John Paul and Bl. Mother Teresa… the question arises inside you… if these people who are hundreds of times more prayerful and devoted to study, fasting and lifelong sacrifice… believe… why would my lesser efforts at prayer and sacrifice give me a different answer.
.

“Because it’s been done that way/taught that way/believed to be that way” for “so and so many years” is not an indication of being correct. In fact, many things change because they have been incorrect for a long time. That’s not the point. And telling someone who doesn’t have confidence in a given truth that other people ‘greater than’ they are doesn’t really convince them either. Faith is having confidence or trust in that which you’re supposed to have blind trust in. That’s not something that can be forced or even reasoned. The fact that faith is blind trust is why it can’t be rationalized. People just have to work through that themselves and come to terms with it themselves. Everyone is on a lifelong journey and everyone we meet is at a different stage of that journey. Faith isn’t something that can be demanded of someone. Or given to someone. It has to be worked on by them in their own way.

 

[pwlj_christ87]

i think that faith is more than just a form of a social bond to the above poster (forgot your name)… sure it IS about that with being apart of the body of christ and the message of the gospel but i find that faith is a very personal thing… everyone takes up his or her own cross… the reality is that wealth and the world blind people to seeing whats most important, its an inferior good

 

[Teelynn]

Yes, everyone must either accept or not accept the faith of Christ and His Gospel and preferably in His Church…eventually. I think the point of this post is why so many of our YOUTH reject the Church and her teaching. The job of parents and in my case grandparents, is to pass on the faith to the best of our ability so that our children are at least grounded and have some knowledge of the faith and the teachings of Christ in His Gospel and in His Church. My case is involved and I won’t go into it now, that subject is for another thread, but let’s just say that for now grandpa and I are the sole implementers at this point for our three grandchildren. During the last 40 or 50 odd years the Church has failed miserably in imparting the true faith. Catechesis has been either terribly watered down or has been in some cases non existent. MY children (and including we in the pews) were taught for instance that artificial contraception was perfectly acceptable, sex before marriage not exactly condoned but expected and not really a huge sin as long as the couple intended marriage, to miss Mass on Sunday WAS NOT a mortal sin etc. This was in my neck of the woods, and from what I eventually started to understand, was that this was a HUGE error, and this error was in MANY diocese throughout the country. “I’m OK…Your OK” attitude. There was a period of time as well that personal confession was non existent. There was a GENERAL confession twice a year in Advent and in Lent, no priest to hear a personal confession unless you requested it in advance. In my church there actually WERE NO confessionals. (about 10 yrs ago we had for a short time a GREAT Pastor that built a confessional in the Church) There WAS NO TIME scheduled for confession. I remember different reasons given: " Not enough Priests to hear confession, and besides that they had no time for it", and the best one was: “Confession was becoming passé”. I remember several times going down to my parish to confront the religious ed coordinator on outlandish claims that my daughter came home with when she was little, and could never get to see “Fr.” as he was SOO BUSY.

This all said, it is a huge BLESSING that the tide has indeed been turning in the last 10 years or so but we STILL have a long way to go, and neither the Religious Ed Departments nor the Catholic Schools are completely in line yet. It’s getting better, but we are definitely not there yet. And you are now seeing the FALLOUT from all this. I do believe that with Vat ll there were quite a good number of clergy that misinterpreted “letting the fresh air in” and in trying to reach out to the world, took on too much of the world in the process. I do think they thought that if the Church became more like the world we would draw more people in. Instead what we see are empty pews on Sunday, and young people going “Solo Scriptura”.

The very difficult part in all this is once the milk is spilled, how do you get it back in the bottle? And especially in the culture we live in today? Yep, it starts in the home, but the Church HAS TO back us up or we are spinning our wheels.

 

[LongingSoul]

“Because it’s been done that way/taught that way/believed to be that way” for “so and so many years” is not an indication of being correct. In fact, many things change because they have been incorrect for a long time. That’s not the point. And telling someone who doesn’t have confidence in a given truth that other people ‘greater than’ they are doesn’t really convince them either. Faith is having confidence or trust in that which you’re supposed to have blind trust in. That’s not something that can be forced or even reasoned. The fact that faith is blind trust is why it can’t be rationalized. People just have to work through that themselves and come to terms with it themselves. Everyone is on a lifelong journey and everyone we meet is at a different stage of that journey. Faith isn’t something that can be demanded of someone. Or given to someone. It has to be worked on by them in their own way.

I don’t think it is possible for people to just “work through that themselves and come to terms with it themselves.” One of the essential articles of faith is belief in the Communion of Saints. We are bound in faith to all those who’ve gone before us and all those who will come after us… and in accepting this real unity, we accept the value of tradition and accept the truth and authority of the Catholic Church in having faith and in forming the conscience.

That is an essential thing to accept in having Catholic faith. Even in things like having the same liturgy in every corner of the globe, every day for every Catholic Mass shows that unity over and above culture and time and place.

If a person says I want to be Catholic but I want to believe and live something different to the articles of faith, doctrines and teachings of the Church… they are mistaking the Church for something less than she is. It’s like saying I want to live with this family and be part of it, but I don’t want to conform to the house and family rules. They don’t actually want to be part of the family… they want the comfort of the family home without contributing to the overall unity themselves.

 

[on_the_hill]

That reminded me of something our pastor said a month or 2 ago. He said that somehow children catechisis had become an arts and crafts class. Instead of learning answers from the Baltimore Catechism kids now learn how to make felt banners without understanding what the symbols were for. One kid told him that we refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God because Christ was soft and cuddly.

Love it. My mom summed up my years of CCD with one sentence: “It seemed like all you ever did was draw pictures of Jesus being nice to the children.”

And for the most part, that’s true.

Think about it: a child is in school 5 days a week, and then you’re asking him/her to go and sit in a classroom for more school? Of course the volunteer teachers are going to try to make it entertaining. The kids don’t want to be there, few of the volunteer teachers have any classroom teaching experience whatsoever, the material is difficult to teach: (religion and morality in the face of all that’s going on in the world in 2014), etc. etc. etc.

My wife taught CCD (7th & 8th grade) for about five years and finally gave up. The kids didn’t want to be there, and she had nothing but bored, unruly, distracted young teenagers.

A good friend of mine said when he was young he thought CCD was a detention class for the Catholic kids because they were so bad in school.

 

[on_the_hill]

All that is needed to fix this is rock music at Mass and some sort of pizza at Life Teen while we play games and text on our Iphones.

2 Hour youth groups with 5 minutes of Catechism. Yup! That is what we arm them with!

I’m totally on board with ya, man.

Ironically, a Protestant youth group is where my Catholic brother met his Catholic wife.

 

[Rau]

…Think about it: a child is in school 5 days a week, and then you’re asking him/her to go and sit in a classroom for more school? Of course the volunteer teachers are going to try to make it entertaining. The kids don’t want to be there, few of the volunteer teachers have any classroom teaching experience whatsoever, the material is difficult to teach: (religion and morality in the face of all that’s going on in the world in 2014), etc. etc. etc.

My wife taught CCD (7th & 8th grade) for about five years and finally gave up. The kids didn’t want to be there, and she had nothing but bored, unruly, distracted young teenagers.

A good friend of mine said when he was young he thought CCD was a detention class for the Catholic kids because they were so bad in school.

The State school systems in Australia take a more enlightened approach (…I imagine they were bludgeoned till they agreed…) in that religious representatives are allowed to attend the State schools for one lesson per week to teach. So at least the kids don’t feel they’ve got an additional impost (a la detention!!)