I did a day of observations for my teaching program at a Catholic high-school in the city on Wednesday, and saw several things I think are good indications.
First, at the beginning of a US History class, the teacher brought up the recent news about Don't Ask, Don't Tell being (imminently) repealed. And while from all the other indicators these were "conservative" Catholics, the boys (it's a boys school) all seemed to support the idea of letting homosexuals serve openly in the military, even while making clear their personal moral disapproval of homosexual activity. But they all seemed to agree that if someone feels the need to hide something, that is going to hurt "unit cohesion" much more than being open about it. One boy said something to the effect of, "I may not accept his lifestyle, but the guys need to be able to trust each other with their darkest secrets like that and accept each other unconditionally" which the policy obviously doesn't help, and which I thought was an extremely mature understanding from someone that age.
Then in a PoliSci class the teacher brought up the recent story about Civil Unions in Illinois. And, again, while briefly expressing their personal moral beliefs against homosexual acts and "gay marriage"...they were all pretty much in support of civil unions (for anyone) and basically seemed to be of the opinion that the government ought to get out of the "marriage" business completely, rather than creating discriminating categories (which one boy pointed out seemed to be a sort of "separate but equal" notion).
Finally, in a religion class, again by all accounts orthodox...they were nevertheless discussing (and passionately disapproving) of discrimination against Muslims, thought the Ground Zero mosque was fine (against the fear-mongering of certain neocon Catholics), etc, were very much for tolerance of people even if not positive approval or affirmation of their beliefs or actions. Which is, of course, exactly where I think we should stand.
From my perspective, it was very heartening to see these boys apparently adhering to orthodoxy confidently, almost casually or taken for granted (ie, not self-consciously), while also vehemently rejecting the politicization of it so common these days among the ideologues and fundamentalists of the culture wars (which, I think, is probably the self-consciousness of their beliefs expressing itself).
It gives me great hope that regular Catholic laity who aren't necessarily the "die-hards" or all that intellectually invested...can still be orthodox (but in a non-self-conscious manner) even while being tolerant and just and rejecting the sort of fundamentalism emerging among the self-appointed "lay clergy" in some quarters. It's only thinking about it too hard and self-awaredly that makes people crazy. But if these boys are any indication, not thinking about it too hard does not have to mean ignorance or heterodoxy or non-thoughtfulness or lack of intellectual robustness either.
The key seemed to be that these boys did have a shared horizon or assumption of Catholicism created by the school, by having all their friends and peers shaped together in this setting that took Catholic orthodoxy as a given. But it wasn't a ghetto either (though the neighborhood may have been in the more modern sense, lol). This was an urban school, these weren't crazy home-school isolationists. Students talked about having Muslim friends outside school, or knowing gay people, etc, in these conversations. It was clear that they didn't segregate themselves from mainstream society or shelter themselves from pop culture or the media in order to maintain their Catholicism.
And yet they didn't have to be self-conscious about it either. Because they clearly felt a meaningful sense of belonging to an orthodox Catholic community even in the world. They didn't need to withdraw from the world. The people who affect kids most after a certain age, it has been shown, (who affect all of us most perhaps), are our peers. And the network of peers and friends shared by these boys (through the school) was Catholic, in the school it was (to risk sounding corny) "cool to be Catholic," and so that is where they placed their values just naturally while otherwise remaining normal teenage boys of all the various social types and personalities you'd expect in any high school. It wasn't the palsied self-conscious identity-craft as "counter-cultural" that so many of us malcontents originally embraced (and in the end, it's really not hip to be square); it was simply the culture of their peer network.
So the solution for those of us who feel our Catholicism is too self-conscious may then be, ironically, to get more involved with Catholic community in the world, rather than to withdraw either into paranoid cliquishness or else a dangerous individualism (which are both just even more self-conscious). It's not orthodoxy nor even the amateur philosophizing that sours it all; orthodoxy is good (at least as long as orthodoxy doesn't become "an orthodoxy"), thoughtfulness is good, and the philosophizing can be fun for us nerds! Rather, it's the self-awareness of it, the self-absorption. Trapped in ones own head (or our collective head), the need to think really hard about it and repeat reassuring mantras to maintain the facade of having no doubts...just leads to more doubt and likely a sort of rigid dogmatism.
It is only by coming outside ourselves and our self-absorption in real communities, in real relationships, of shared values (thus able to be more just in the background) that we can let go of such self-conscious mental posturing and maintain orthodoxy and orthopraxy without a special psychological effort. The only problem is finding such communities that aren't cliques (a big difference). This high school was the best example I'd ever seen (the Newman Center where I lived during my undergrad was also doing okay in this regard, though it was already somewhat self-conscious in the conservative/"counter-cultural" way).
Either way, building such communities is one of the things I have advocated in terms of reforming parish structure, perhaps using the "small group" model, being favorable towards the idea of Secular Institutes, etc, and I am now more convinced than ever. The answer isn't some Inquisition to enforce orthodoxy. It's building relationships to build Catholic communities where it is taken for granted. And these manifestly don't have to be whole cultures or societies or civilizations. If they did, we should despair right now. And some people seem to have already. But no, they can be formed completely within the larger pluralist World, and not on a monasticized "withdraw from it" model either. These boys showed me that.
First, at the beginning of a US History class, the teacher brought up the recent news about Don't Ask, Don't Tell being (imminently) repealed. And while from all the other indicators these were "conservative" Catholics, the boys (it's a boys school) all seemed to support the idea of letting homosexuals serve openly in the military, even while making clear their personal moral disapproval of homosexual activity. But they all seemed to agree that if someone feels the need to hide something, that is going to hurt "unit cohesion" much more than being open about it. One boy said something to the effect of, "I may not accept his lifestyle, but the guys need to be able to trust each other with their darkest secrets like that and accept each other unconditionally" which the policy obviously doesn't help, and which I thought was an extremely mature understanding from someone that age.
Then in a PoliSci class the teacher brought up the recent story about Civil Unions in Illinois. And, again, while briefly expressing their personal moral beliefs against homosexual acts and "gay marriage"...they were all pretty much in support of civil unions (for anyone) and basically seemed to be of the opinion that the government ought to get out of the "marriage" business completely, rather than creating discriminating categories (which one boy pointed out seemed to be a sort of "separate but equal" notion).
Finally, in a religion class, again by all accounts orthodox...they were nevertheless discussing (and passionately disapproving) of discrimination against Muslims, thought the Ground Zero mosque was fine (against the fear-mongering of certain neocon Catholics), etc, were very much for tolerance of people even if not positive approval or affirmation of their beliefs or actions. Which is, of course, exactly where I think we should stand.
From my perspective, it was very heartening to see these boys apparently adhering to orthodoxy confidently, almost casually or taken for granted (ie, not self-consciously), while also vehemently rejecting the politicization of it so common these days among the ideologues and fundamentalists of the culture wars (which, I think, is probably the self-consciousness of their beliefs expressing itself).
It gives me great hope that regular Catholic laity who aren't necessarily the "die-hards" or all that intellectually invested...can still be orthodox (but in a non-self-conscious manner) even while being tolerant and just and rejecting the sort of fundamentalism emerging among the self-appointed "lay clergy" in some quarters. It's only thinking about it too hard and self-awaredly that makes people crazy. But if these boys are any indication, not thinking about it too hard does not have to mean ignorance or heterodoxy or non-thoughtfulness or lack of intellectual robustness either.
The key seemed to be that these boys did have a shared horizon or assumption of Catholicism created by the school, by having all their friends and peers shaped together in this setting that took Catholic orthodoxy as a given. But it wasn't a ghetto either (though the neighborhood may have been in the more modern sense, lol). This was an urban school, these weren't crazy home-school isolationists. Students talked about having Muslim friends outside school, or knowing gay people, etc, in these conversations. It was clear that they didn't segregate themselves from mainstream society or shelter themselves from pop culture or the media in order to maintain their Catholicism.
And yet they didn't have to be self-conscious about it either. Because they clearly felt a meaningful sense of belonging to an orthodox Catholic community even in the world. They didn't need to withdraw from the world. The people who affect kids most after a certain age, it has been shown, (who affect all of us most perhaps), are our peers. And the network of peers and friends shared by these boys (through the school) was Catholic, in the school it was (to risk sounding corny) "cool to be Catholic," and so that is where they placed their values just naturally while otherwise remaining normal teenage boys of all the various social types and personalities you'd expect in any high school. It wasn't the palsied self-conscious identity-craft as "counter-cultural" that so many of us malcontents originally embraced (and in the end, it's really not hip to be square); it was simply the culture of their peer network.
So the solution for those of us who feel our Catholicism is too self-conscious may then be, ironically, to get more involved with Catholic community in the world, rather than to withdraw either into paranoid cliquishness or else a dangerous individualism (which are both just even more self-conscious). It's not orthodoxy nor even the amateur philosophizing that sours it all; orthodoxy is good (at least as long as orthodoxy doesn't become "an orthodoxy"), thoughtfulness is good, and the philosophizing can be fun for us nerds! Rather, it's the self-awareness of it, the self-absorption. Trapped in ones own head (or our collective head), the need to think really hard about it and repeat reassuring mantras to maintain the facade of having no doubts...just leads to more doubt and likely a sort of rigid dogmatism.
It is only by coming outside ourselves and our self-absorption in real communities, in real relationships, of shared values (thus able to be more just in the background) that we can let go of such self-conscious mental posturing and maintain orthodoxy and orthopraxy without a special psychological effort. The only problem is finding such communities that aren't cliques (a big difference). This high school was the best example I'd ever seen (the Newman Center where I lived during my undergrad was also doing okay in this regard, though it was already somewhat self-conscious in the conservative/"counter-cultural" way).
Either way, building such communities is one of the things I have advocated in terms of reforming parish structure, perhaps using the "small group" model, being favorable towards the idea of Secular Institutes, etc, and I am now more convinced than ever. The answer isn't some Inquisition to enforce orthodoxy. It's building relationships to build Catholic communities where it is taken for granted. And these manifestly don't have to be whole cultures or societies or civilizations. If they did, we should despair right now. And some people seem to have already. But no, they can be formed completely within the larger pluralist World, and not on a monasticized "withdraw from it" model either. These boys showed me that.
7 comments:
This is beautiful, the kind of thing that might actually bring the disgruntled back into the fold if such a thing becomes a trend.
The other thing I wonder about, too, is how much of it might just be generational. In the current generational constellation, Gen-Silent is dying off, and Baby Boomers tend to be a politicizing/moralizing/preachy/self-important kind of bunch (not necessarily as annoying as converts, but they do have that kind of potential). A lot of X'ers walked away from the Church in droves, and the first-wave of Millennials/Y'ers are just now shaking off the baggage that accompanied what their late-Boomer/early-X'er parents taught them.
What would be in high-school now would be a late-wave Millennial group, which would be the children of us X'ers. As a group, X'ers tend to be cynical of "culture warriors" and prefer a more realist and open-minded worldview. Whcih makes me wonder if that's what these kids are getting at home, which could have shaped how they interact with their Catholicism vis-a-vis the "culture warrior," the "convert apologist," and the "lay clergy" types that just mess up the waters with ideological baggage.
Only a speculation, and way over-simplified, but it does make me wonder. . .
^^^
Culture plays a HUGE role in that and doesn't necessarily have to do with "Generation this or that". My mom would be considered part of the baby boomer era, but she DEFINITELY would not come off as what most people define as a "Generation Xer". I already graduated from college (I'm currently 24 years of age.)and I pretty much found the rabid tendencies of SOME Roman Traditionalists BIZARRE. Especially those who are in my own age group and just a bit younger than me. Like I said SOME Roman Ritual Traditionalists are quite RABID, but that's not so much a matter of their generation, but more a matter of the culture observed in the home.
For instance, I identify as a High Petrinist as this is more or less the view I observed at home. Most Trads would be mortified that I don't identify as an Absolutist, but the fact of the matter is, The High Petrine view is perfectly sound and in line with The Primacy of Peter.
Definitely on board with what Agostino said.
RT: This isn't just encouraging, it's also not new. Your experiences today were mine fifteen years ago in a (albeit wealthy) Catholic boys' school. In fact, we were more "liberal" than these students in private opinion. Most students knew who the gay students were and were either genuinely apathetic or actively supported the gay students! One student (who is straight) actually challenged a brother who made a homophobic comment in class. He said, out loud, "I don't think there's anything wrong with being gay." That took balls. He wasn't disciplined, either. Students thanked him for speaking up!
It gives me great hope that regular Catholic laity who aren't necessarily the "die-hards" or all that intellectually invested...can still be orthodox (but in a non-self-conscious manner) even while being tolerant and just and rejecting the sort of fundamentalism emerging among the self-appointed "lay clergy" in some quarters.
Given my experiences as a kid, I can confidently say that most students at Catholic schools are there for the education. Most are nominal or non-observant Catholics and come from secular homes. The bold student I mentioned earlier hadn't been to church on his own volition in years.
Yeah, rad-trad/neo-con Catholic homeschooling is really scary. It's important to remember that this is a very small portion of Catholic education. Yeah, I'm passionately angry that the rad-trad intolerant and hateful mindset still holds the traditional rite hostage. Nevertheless, I'm heartened to know that most Catholics (and their children) are rather level-headed, pragmatic folk.
"Given my experiences as a kid, I can confidently say that most students at Catholic schools are there for the education. Most are nominal or non-observant Catholics and come from secular homes. The bold student I mentioned earlier hadn't been to church on his own volition in years."
But that's just the thing that was different this time. I knew kids in Catholic schools aren't necessarily Catholic or are only in a cultural way or whatever, that's not it.
The thing was, these guys WERE apparently largely observant and believing. Their conversations, in the religion class especially, made it clear that they believed everything and had a good basic grasp of it all. And yet they still believed it in this non-fundamentalist way. Exactly because orthodoxy was just taken for granted there.
This is in opposition to some people who seem to have floated the notion recently (like, say, Arturo) that orthodoxy must-needs-be self-conscious among moderns, or that the laity simply can't be expected to understand or believe in doctrinal "details" without some sort of universal attitude of authoritarianism. That Trent's program of educating the laity necessarily results in an attempt to make them all clergy.
They may not be theologians, but if 15-year-old boys, many of them poor minorities, can understand it all and value it as providing meaning in their lives without becoming hot-heads or High Inquisitors...it gives me hope that other Catholics could be brought to orthodoxy too, without having to become self-consciously so.
When people believe things, it means it is something they presume when they act. And that is almost always more visceral and embraced based on the shared understanding of those around you rather than something adopted consciously for rational reasons. In other words, I don't avoid walking off a cliff because of my understanding of physics. It's much more basic than that.
Here, "pragmatism" didn't have to mean heterodoxy. It meant that, for these boys, their belief very much was practical belief, belief in practice, not merely in theory. But they didn't contradict the theory either. It was orthodox, but practically orthodox, not merely theoretically.
To me this seems the difference between theoretical religion and real religion. The former is a series of abstract propositions "out there" in the aether. The latter actually internalizes them as simply part of reality and the assumptions one lives by. And, I have seen now, the latter is not impossible for people in our world if they belong to a meaningfully Catholic community.
RT: Their conversations, in the religion class especially, made it clear that they believed everything and had a good basic grasp of it all. And yet they still believed it in this non-fundamentalist way. Exactly because orthodoxy was just taken for granted there.
There's nothing unorthodox about saying "there's nothing wrong with being gay" in so far as no one chooses to be gay. Even the Catechism recognizes this with the proviso that homosexuality is a postlapsarian condition. The students you observed have demonstrated that they understand the division between affection and action through their discussion of civil unions. They, unlike many clerics, have a more nuanced (and arguably more orthodox) grasp of the question.
RT: This is in opposition to some people who seem to have floated the notion recently (like, say, Arturo) that orthodoxy must-needs-be self-conscious among moderns, or that the laity simply can't be expected to understand or believe in doctrinal "details" without some sort of universal attitude of authoritarianism.
Again, the notion of the "lay clergy" or self-anointed jurists that you've mentioned quite a few times also applies here. Outside of the ultra-observant clique, most Catholics are uneducated and apathetic about the pelvic issues and pelvic politics. The students you have observed are an admirable exception to the often presumed sharp and artificial dichotomy between the apathetic, nominal Catholic and the neo-con/rad-trad self-anointed moral crusader type (Michael Voris comes to mind). You've witnessed the tertium quid. So long as the hierarchy tries to prove their cred by interjecting themselves into politics, the latter crusader party will squelch a centrist-orthodox pragmatism. We're all the worst so long as the irrational reign.
Yes, the tertium quid. That's my point, we need more of them.
Oh boy, the stories I could tell about the trad-homeschoolers I encountered. In most cases, isolating your kids from the world makes them weird (the bad kind of weird) not holy, illustrated by the disturbing spectacle and unwholesome experience of hearing six and seven year olds complain about liturgical abuses. This article brings up another question I have, which is how we who try to be orthodox should approach the LGBT people who will inevitable pop up in our lives. There seems to be a perpetual "gay panic" on the blogosphere. A couple of weeks ago, there was a posting on another web site about bullying, and most of the postings seemed to say that the victims "probably had it coming" or some other foolishness. And then these same people probably wonder why non-Catholics/Christians have such a poor opinon of them.
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