The reason so much of our youth reject Church teaching

[EasterJoy]

Well you are talking about a being that you proclaim to have created the human race out of love.

Said race is made in his image and likeness.

So sue me, the simple words of ask and ye shall receive have made more sense in my life than the self-loathing tenets of sacrifice and humility.

Besides, did I say I want to run the universe? I think all I said was that I wanted to run my life. You know? The one I personally experience day to day? That’s the only universe I care about ruling because, it’s been mine to begin with.

Well, but you said one difficulty you had with God was the idea that perhaps God answers one man’s prayers and denies another. The implication from that is you believe yourself to have standing to decide that your case before God was better than another’s, that you have some right to be jealous of things that others have and you do not have, that you have standing to sit in judgment of God. That does not sound as if the only life that concerns you is your own, no matter what you claim.

And how do you get this idea that your life is your own? Did you give yourself life? Can you stay alive by your own decision? Does your body run because of the way you designed it, by food that you created yourself and provide yourself? Are you happy to have no company, save your own? Do you want to live without any esteem, save self-esteem and no help, save self-help? If you want to let each one’s life be his own or her own, on what grounds did you make demands on God? On others? If your life is your own, friend, how are you going to survive? Even the most secular creature in the world has to see that your position is ludicrous. An ant can live a solitary life as well as you can!

And all the time the joke is that the word “Mine” in its fully possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything. In he long run either Our Father or the Enemy will say “Mine” of each thing that exists, and specially of each man. They will find out in the end, never fear, to whom their time, their souls, and their bodies really belong - certainly not to them, whatever happens. At present the Enemy says “Mine” of everything on the pedantic, legalistic ground that He made it: Our Father hopes in the end to say “Mine” of all things on the more realistic and dynamic ground of conquest…

 

[JimG]

Playing DA here, but I think our Protestant brothers and sisters would say that the Catholic Church abdicated its role as Christ’s institution when it started “revealing” truth rather than sticking to The Bible. I think they would argue that The Church has overstepped her bounds and has been “making stuff up” for centuries. They would make the case that they ARE obedient to Christ, just not an institution. My Protestant best friend believes that the very early Church looked more like a modern non-denominational church than a Catholic one.

Yes, they would need to say that. Otherwise, there is no reason not to be Catholic. So they must conclude that the early Church was really Protestant. Yet a study of the ante-Nicene Fathers will not really support such a conclusion, showing it to be more Catholic than Protestant. The Church was from the outset authoritative, hierarchical, and liturgical.

Not only that, but they must base every doctrine on the Bible alone—yet the Bible was produced by the Church, so they must rely on the Church for the bible. The bible does not validate itself, and did not exist for the earliest period of the Church’s existence. But that is more of a discussion for the apologetics forum.

 

[JimG]

I think when it comes to young people, reasons for rejecting Church teaching are not necessarily intellectual. There is a great emotional component to religion that can work for or against belief. And in some cases our manner of teaching children in the old days tended to inspire more fear than piety. That’s almost a natural tendency of the young, I think, but one ought not to make it worse than it needs to be.

Fears are sometimes irrational but they are real. My brother told me that he used to lie in bed at night as a child, stiff as a board because he knew that there was a monster under the bed. But he also knew that it was a law that if you did not look, it could not hurt you. That was the rule. So he never looked; and eventually he would fall asleep. Everything looks better in the morning.

I had a priest tell us once in school about the account of a possessed boy, just briefly—no gory details. (It was the true story on which the novel ‘The Exorcist’ and subsequent movie was based.) Yet that brief mention caused me to worry about the possibility of being possessed for a long time, inspiring a lot of fear.

One reads the sermons of Jonathan Edwards about God holding the sinner above the fires of hell, ready to release him in an instant. My friend, raised in a Protestant church, recalls the fire and brimstone sermons every Sunday threatening him with hellfire.

Father Tom Santa, who has run several retreat houses and a ministry for the scrupulous, talks about how often people obsess about particular real or imagined faults never trusting in the mercy of God. Fear is a powerful motivator, often in the wrong direction. My friend quit going to that little church as soon as he could, not wishing to be threatened constantly with the fires of hell.

I’m not talking theology here, just the fact that emotions can be so overpowering as to cause someone to want to escape—as my friend did from his fire and brimstone pastor. He never went back to any church again, although he’s changed from atheist to quasi-agnostic-Christian. And my brother no longer cares what’s hiding under the bed.

 

[shelby_sun]

I think when it comes to young people, reasons for rejecting Church teaching are not necessarily intellectual. There is a great emotional component to religion that can work for or against belief. And in some cases our manner of teaching children in the old days tended to inspire more fear than piety. That’s almost a natural tendency of the young, I think, but one ought not to make it worse than it needs to be.

Fears are sometimes irrational but they are real. My brother told me that he used to lie in bed at night as a child, stiff as a board because he knew that there was a monster under the bed. But he also knew that it was a law that if you did not look, it could not hurt you. That was the rule. So he never looked; and eventually he would fall asleep. Everything looks better in the morning.

I had a priest tell us once in school about the account of a possessed boy, just briefly—no gory details. (It was the true story on which the novel ‘The Exorcist’ and subsequent movie was based.) Yet that brief mention caused me to worry about the possibility of being possessed for a long time, inspiring a lot of fear.

One reads the sermons of Jonathan Edwards about God holding the sinner above the fires of hell, ready to release him in an instant. My friend, raised in a Protestant church, recalls the fire and brimstone sermons every Sunday threatening him with hellfire.

Father Tom Santa, who has run several retreat houses and a ministry for the scrupulous, talks about how often people obsess about particular real or imagined faults never trusting in the mercy of God. Fear is a powerful motivator, often in the wrong direction. My friend quit going to that little church as soon as he could, not wishing to be threatened constantly with the fires of hell.

I’m not talking theology here, just the fact that emotions can be so overpowering as to cause someone to want to escape—as my friend did from his fire and brimstone pastor. He never went back to any church again, although he’s changed from atheist to quasi-agnostic-Christian. And my brother no longer cares what’s hiding under the bed.

Well where I come from it is very much about intellectual decisions. Like I said most people I know in my very large Catholic city have been through at least 12 years of Catholic teaching, most taught by Jesuit priests who are known to be educators. We discussed all sorts of thing in our theology class, we did just memorize the teaching. For year we examined why this or why that and in the end some people followed all the teachings of the church, but not many.

The issues of divorce, annulments, BC which are being discussed on another thread are simply not being followed by many who are still going to Mass every week. I am not condoning that, I am just saying their decisions are being based on very clear teaching that they just choose to ignore. They are teaching their children the same thing.

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

Did the Lord praise Peter for thinking for himself? No. “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.” Matt. 16:15-19

We had all gone astray like sheep, all following our own way; But the LORD laid upon him the guilt of us all. Is. 53:6 If each one thinking for himself is such a great social model, where are the great results? Where are the saints of being a light for yourself?

If you can’t accept that you’re a sheep, not constitutionally suited to finding your own way, you’ll never accept a shepherd. Likewise, the existence of bad shepherds does not logically prove that sheep don’t need one. Conversely, you need to find the self-guiding sheep who are better at eluding wolves than those who are obedient to the Good Shepherd to prove your point.

Biblical Models of Obedience: Abraham and Mary
Biblical Models of Thinking for Yourself:

Let me know who you come up with, and we’ll repeat the exercise with the lives of the saints and quotes from the epistles.

I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me. John 17:20-23

I’m experiencing that awkward feeling you get after you try to carry on a conversation with a person who believes that they are incapable of independent thought.

 

[ohsnapitslennon]

After reading this thread, I feel, for a 14 year old, freshman, roman catholic, am I weird for carrying a Code of Canon Law book around in my bag and using it to write about the SSPX? And that I know what the theotokos (spelling?) is, while my scripture teacher does not? Or the fact that I know the Greek words, petras and petros, were used in the verse where Jesus gave Peter the keys?

I love the Church and know a lot of its teachings. I go to confession weekly.

Fun fact: my dad isn’t a very practicing catholic and my mom is a Buddhist. Where I came from I have no idea. I guess I’m just a product of catholic school. To give credit where credit is due, the Dominican sisters of Mary, mother of the eucharist were my inspiration. I had them in grade school, and even though there are barely any jesuit religious at my school, I still feel that the Church is doing pretty good evangelizing.

Maybe I’m one in a million, maybe I’m one in two, but I’m a teen who loves the Church like his best friend #FriendzonedTheChurch #NotGonnaMarryIt #Priesthood #TeensWillGetTheFriendzoningJoke

I don’t know why teens reject my BFF’s teaching…but I’d say that its because they hear only one side of the story. Some teachers are too afraid to talk about abortion, gay marriage, ecumenism, etc. (I know there is more than that, but those are main teachings that are rejected) I know that’s why I rejected the teachings up until around 7th grade.

 

[EasterJoy]

I’m experiencing that awkward feeling you get after you try to carry on a conversation with a person who believes that they are incapable of independent thought.

It is very unclear to me how you got the idea that I believe myself incapable of independent thought. Must an independent thinker necessarily be incapable of submission to authority? That sounds like a very one-dimensional notion to me. I don’t know how you can find either a logical or an empirical defense for it.

Do you also think C.S. Lewis was incapable of independent thought? Did St. Thomas Aquinas labor under the same handicap? St. Teresa of Ávila? St. Gregory the Great? The other Doctors of the Church? What about Bl. Teresa of Calcutta? All of these extolled the virtue of obedience and the necessity of submitting to the truths of the faith handed down by the Apostles.

Do you think Jesus of Nazareth, that great preacher and lover of the virtue of obedience, was incapable of independent thought? Is that why he accepted crucifixion, because he was incapable of thinking for himself?

 

[JimG]

After reading this thread, I feel, for a 14 year old, freshman, roman catholic, **am I weird for carrying a Code of Canon Law book around in my bag **and using it to write about the SSPX? And that I know what the theotokos (spelling?) is, while my scripture teacher does not? Or the fact that I know the Greek words, petras and petros, were used in the verse where Jesus gave Peter the keys?

I love the Church and know a lot of its teachings. I go to confession weekly.

Fun fact: my dad isn’t a very practicing catholic and my mom is a Buddhist. Where I came from I have no idea. I guess I’m just a product of catholic school. To give credit where credit is due, the Dominican sisters of Mary, mother of the eucharist were my inspiration. I had them in grade school, and even though there are barely any jesuit religious at my school, I still feel that the Church is doing pretty good evangelizing.

Maybe I’m one in a million, maybe I’m one in two, but I’m a teen who loves the Church like his best friend #FriendzonedTheChurch #NotGonnaMarryIt #Priesthood #TeensWillGetTheFriendzoningJoke

I don’t know why teens reject my BFF’s teaching…but I’d say that its because they hear only one side of the story. Some teachers are too afraid to talk about abortion, gay marriage, ecumenism, etc. (I know there is more than that, but those are main teachings that are rejected) I know that’s why I rejected the teachings up until around 7th grade.

Well yes, but in a good way! It’s nice to be able to pull out the Code of Canon Law whenever you need it.

(One of the things that always surprised me about Canon Law is that it can be carried around in one book. The Code of Federal Regulations-CFR’s, on the other hand, take a whole library.)

 

[EasterJoy]

Well where I come from it is very much about intellectual decisions. Like I said most people I know in my very large Catholic city have been through at least 12 years of Catholic teaching, most taught by Jesuit priests who are known to be educators. We discussed all sorts of thing in our theology class, we did just memorize the teaching. For year we examined why this or why that and in the end some people followed all the teachings of the church, but not many.

The issues of divorce, annulments, BC which are being discussed on another thread are simply not being followed by many who are still going to Mass every week. I am not condoning that, I am just saying their decisions are being based on very clear teaching that they just choose to ignore. They are teaching their children the same thing.

Yes. As one priest also put it, there are a lot of “new insights” out there that are actually old heresies, proposed by people who haven’t seen the heresies exposed before and therefore imagine the thinking to be new.

 

[Avocadomom]

Most people will call themselves Catholic until Catholic teaching puts them in what is perceived as a terrible situation. The couple who have generously welcomed 5 kids, but now have a severe health concern and can’t use sterilization to prevent pregnancy. The woman who left a brutal husband, but can never remarry. The converts who are “not really married” because the husband had a 3-month-marriage 25 years ago and can’t get it annulled. The married couple, desperate for a baby, who can’t use in vitro to achieve pregnancy. The gay man who will never be able to marry and have a family of his own. The woman with an ectopic pregnancy who has to have a surgery to handle the problem rather than the medication her doctor strongly recommends and is safer. The list could go on.

Part of it is that no one wants anyone to tell them they can’t have what they want using the “because God said so” reasoning. Even further, they don’t want anyone telling them they can’t have what they want because “Men of the Church decided it was so.” Life is hard enough, and sad enough - why add to it with “arbitrary” rules?

I’m not saying they are right. I’m just saying that’s how they think. They aren’t going to let these enormous life decisions be made by a group of what they PERCEIVE as clueless grumpy old celibate men.

 

[LongingSoul]

Most people will call themselves Catholic until Catholic teaching puts them in what is perceived as a terrible situation. The couple who have generously welcomed 5 kids, but now have a severe health concern and can’t use sterilization to prevent pregnancy. The woman who left a brutal husband, but can never remarry. The converts who are “not really married” because the husband had a 3-month-marriage 25 years ago and can’t get it annulled. The married couple, desperate for a baby, who can’t use in vitro to achieve pregnancy. The gay man who will never be able to marry and have a family of his own. The woman with an ectopic pregnancy who has to have a surgery to handle the problem rather than the medication her doctor strongly recommends and is safer. The list could go on.

Part of it is that no one wants anyone to tell them they can’t have what they want using the “because God said so” reasoning. Even further, they don’t want anyone telling them they can’t have what they want because “Men of the Church decided it was so.” Life is hard enough, and sad enough - why add to it with “arbitrary” rules?

I’m not saying they are right. I’m just saying that’s how they think. They aren’t going to let these enormous life decisions be made by a group of what they PERCEIVE as clueless grumpy old celibate men.

But on the other hand there are many that are faced with the same challenges and out of love for the God who made them and the Son He sent to save us, listen to the Church and allow themselves to be guided by the ‘old men’ who’ve given their entire lives to the service of souls, sacrifice and prayer.

You can never make faith out of pride just like you can never make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

 

[JimG]

Well where I come from it is very much about intellectual decisions. Like I said most people I know in my very large Catholic city have been through at least 12 years of Catholic teaching, most taught by Jesuit priests who are known to be educators. We discussed all sorts of thing in our theology class, we did just memorize the teaching. For year we examined why this or why that and in the end some people followed all the teachings of the church, but not many.

The issues of divorce, annulments, BC which are being discussed on another thread are simply not being followed by many who are still going to Mass every week. I am not condoning that, I am just saying their decisions are being based on very clear teaching that they just choose to ignore. They are teaching their children the same thing.

Well yes, but in a way that’s just the point. The issues of divorce, annulments, and birth control are most often those in which many people have a personal and emotional stake. They were an issue even before the explosion in the number of annulments. But at least when I was young, for example, when Catholic got married, it was taken for granted that they could not divorce, and that an unwanted divorce could leave them permanently single. That was the common understanding, but one didn’t worry unduly about it because most marriages stayed intact.

What made those issued come to the forefront is that marriage itself suffered a serious blow, resulting precisely from a rejection of permanence and from the acceptance of birth control, along with the sexual revolution. (Here once again I recommend the book ‘Adam and Eve After the Pill.) When marriage began to be deconstructed, individual marriages suffered, divorces followed, and many were astonished to realize that the Church did not recognize divorce—because Jesus prohibited it.

That led to a greater willingness by the Church to examine the status of marriages from the beginning. Did the parties intend permanence of not? The more I think about it, the more it seems that marriage had to be destroyed first before divorce and annulments exploded. And that destruction began with the sexual revolution enabled by contraception.

So even while there are doctrinal disagreement, it is often doctrinal disagreement brought on by personal issues and personal crises. Up till 1930 Protestants and Catholics had the exact same teaching on contraception and pretty similar teaching on the permanence of marriage.

 

[EasterJoy]

I’m experiencing that awkward feeling you get after you try to carry on a conversation with a person who believes that they are incapable of independent thought.

Speaking of independent thought, do cite your saints that didn’t believe that anyone was better suited to guide them than they were at guiding themselves. A secular saint will do, if you like, but a thesis with no supporting example is not much of a thesis.

Anyone can come up with a thesis that cannot be defended, after all. Such a thesis will get you no credit for independent thought from any scholar or philosopher I can name. You don’t have to agree with me, but do play by the rules that philosophers play by.

 

[EasterJoy]

Speaking of independent thought, do cite your saints that didn’t believe that anyone was better suited to guide them than they were at guiding themselves. A secular saint will do, if you like, but a thesis with no supporting example is not much of a thesis.

Anyone can come up with a thesis that cannot be defended, after all. Such a thesis will get you no credit for independent thought from any scholar or philosopher I can name. You don’t have to agree with me, but do play by the rules that philosophers play by.

My apologies to VeritasLuxMea…I won’t be around to chat for awhile.

 

[HB11]

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!

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Well, but you said one difficulty you had with God was the idea that perhaps God answers one man’s prayers and denies another.

Your understanding of my words is incomplete. Why did you leave out the Church? You and the Church are the ones proclaiming all these things about God yet when so-called ‘God’ acts inconsistently, the institution persists in its demand for obedience.

Sorry, not buying it.

And how do you get this idea that your life is your own? Did you give yourself life? Can you stay alive by your own decision? Does your body run because of the way you designed it, by food that you created yourself and provide yourself? Are you happy to have no company, save your own? Do you want to live without any esteem, save self-esteem and no help, save self-help? If you want to let each one’s life be his own or her own, on what grounds did you make demands on God? On others? If your life is your own, friend, how are you going to survive? Even the most secular creature in the world has to see that your position is ludicrous. An ant can live a solitary life as well as you can!

Congrats, you just demonstrated the very problem that was inflicted upon me by modern Christianity. And by problem, I don’t mean some philosophical ambivalence. I’m talking a real, personal issue which can boast nothing in my life save being a major cause of drama.

You presume that man is but a tiny ant in the cosmos. That he’s nothing more than a little speck who should only bow down and eat the soup of his circumstances like a good boy. Never mind the possibility that maybe, there are those who actually get more help if they learn to help themselves. That they win the friendship and respect of others because they befriended and respected themselves first. Not the other way around, as you and the Faith are so fond of suggesting.

I noticed you never answered that little question of mine by the way. You might be comfortable with the idea that we get the good and bad in life thrown at us without a choice. I don’t. Not anymore. Perhaps if you were to know me personally, you’d have reason to fear for this change in perspective.

I’m afraid you’d just be very much alone though. For a person who has ceased caring for anyone besides himself, my friends and family like me better now.

And all the time the joke is that the word “Mine” in its fully possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything. In he long run either Our Father or the Enemy will say “Mine” of each thing that exists, and specially of each man. They will find out in the end, never fear, to whom their time, their souls, and their bodies really belong - certainly not to them, whatever happens. At present the Enemy says “Mine” of everything on the pedantic, legalistic ground that He made it: Our Father hopes in the end to say “Mine” of all things on the more realistic and dynamic ground of conquest…

So in essence, you really have no qualms with believing that you are but some piece for the divine and the demonic to squabble over.

And here I thought Greek paganism had nothing in common with Christianity.

 

[Rau]

Your understanding of my words is incomplete. Why did you leave out the Church? You and the Church are the ones proclaiming all these things about God yet when so-called ‘God’ acts inconsistently, the institution persists in its demand for obedience.

You are clearly unhappy about aspects of your life, and hold considerable resentment towards the Church.

Could you explain what the Church has done or said that has caused you grief ? What should it have done or said instead?

 

[WildCatholic]

I have pondered this question a lot as a late twentysomething convert. It seems to me that we often ask similar questions about failing schools in this country. The children in impoverished high schools use the same text books. Yet, they fall far behind middle class children using the same material. If you ask most teachers, they will tell you its the home life. Growing up, you look to your parents for guidance on just about everything. Talk to a random Priest, 9 times out of 10: his family 1) went to confession together 2) prayed the rosary every night 3) never missed Sunday Mass, parents went to daily Mass, etc. I think the biggest problem facing my generation of Catholics is they just weren’t taught the faith at home. It seems historically, you could say that Catholics above all else had a wonderful devotional life. That the home was really the domestic Church.

My generation’s parents grew up right after Vatican II. I used to think that traditionalist sort of played this post-Vatican II period up a little, but the more I read the more it seems that growing up Catholic in the 1960s-1970s was just a time of great confusion. Thanks to St. John Paul II, I can pull my copy of the Catechism off the shelf and instantly find out what the Church teaches on something. It seems in the period following the Council, there was mass confusion about what the Council said, such as rumors that the Council made confession optional and that anything traditional was to be discarded. I think my generation’s parents were just confused more than anything else about the Catholic Church. My future mother-in-law and I were talking about my conversion and she said, “Protestants believe Jesus rose from the dead.” And her mother and father are daily Mass goers…Many of my parent’s generation say, “If you get divorced, you have to get married outside the Church.” Not thinking this is wrong, but more like this is just the second marriage requirement!

Many Catholics I met that are my age were not brought up going to Mass every Sunday and were really just sacramentalized without being taught anything about the faith, went to Church enough to get Confirmed, never went again, etc. I’ve met so many who have only been to confession twice, once for First Communion and once for Confirmation. Another thing I’ve run into frequently in Catholics my age is a complete lack of knowledge that there is a requirement that Catholics must marry in the Church. Nobody ever told them, literally! They don’t know anything about the Church because they were never taught. They were never taught because their parents were confused.

It can be very frustrating but I feel like the Priest I’ve met who are my age have a great understanding of what the Church is facing and many ideas to help.

JMR

I could have told you that it starts with the parents! In even in my own great Catholic school in my great diocese you had issues with poor catechization or sadly people defying it in spite of being taught the right way. A lot of the kids I knew who ended up not going to mass anymore came from families who either didn’t go or what typically happens in my area (a more conservative rural area) they go because they feel they have to and because dad and grandpa and great grandpa went but they don’t practice it at home. It’s kinda sad when at a K of C meeting you hear guys talking about getting drunk after the meeting and how much fun it was going to strip clubs and things like that but of course they think they are okay because they are nominally pro life and go to mass every week. The sad thing is these guys would get mad at their kids for not going to mass but what do you expect when you don’t really practice and mass is more of a social club.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

You are clearly unhappy about aspects of your life, and hold considerable resentment towards the Church.

And you know this… how? Are you there when I wake? Do you sit across me at work?

Then again, I know myself better than any forum poster who pretends to so I’m quite sure when I say I’m actually quite happy.

Could you explain what the Church has done or said that has caused you grief ? What should it have done or said instead?

The Church didn’t cause me grief as much as my willing adherence to its tenets of humility and self-sacrifice.

Frankly, I did more of the work of taking it less seriously than the institution. You want it to play a part? You can start by getting off the case of those who just don’t care to be sheep anymore.

 

[Rau]

…
The Church didn’t cause me grief as much as my willing adherence to its tenets of humility and self-sacrifice.

How did humility and self-sacrifice cause you grief?