I was talking to someone working at a parish that has around 30 - 50 confirmation candidates every year. They've been helping out with confirmation there for the past five years. I asked them if the teenage confirmands they see are at all like the very conservative seminarians one typically finds at Saint Francis Seminary (which is closed).
NO! was the emphatic response. There has been varying degrees of interest by the confirmands concerning religion, but they had never seen a confirmand as conservative as most of the new priests being ordained in Milwaukee. It is these outdated teachings in our Church concerning gays, birth control, and women's ordination that is guaranteeing their disappearance after confirmation.
If the Archbishop is truly concerned about Energizing our Vibrancy (and I believe he is), it would be extremely helpful if Dolan would speak out concerning the injustice of these current "official" Church teachings. It would energize a passion and pride in their faith that the confirmands now feel themselves not able to have. I know this dream is up there with pigs flying at the moment, but the idea needs to be repeated until it no longer sounds foreign. Most Catholic teens stay religious as adults, they just do it somewhere else.
10 comments:
It is these outdated teachings in our Church concerning gays, birth control, and women's ordination that is guaranteeing their disappearance after confirmation.
You want to be specific?
Or should we infer that your thoughts are, frankly, not consonant with Church teachings for the last....oh...2,000 years, more or less?
And if these are the issues, why don't we see young people flocking to, say, the Episcopal Church?
If you're collecting anecdotal evidence, my Christian Formation students' biggest complaints are usually about the parish liturgy.
I admit the evidence is anecdotal, but Episcopalian churches are filling up. I was talking to an Episcopalian priest in Waukesha County, and he said the majority of his parishioners are ex-Catholics.
Also, the teachings I mentioned are peripheral, not like the Trinity, resurrection, the Nicene Creed, etc., etc.
If one Member of the Trinity is decidedly male, and priests are "images" of that male Member, ...
If another Member of the Trinity gave the Law, which forbids homosexual relations (and which ordained male/female marriage...)
Then which part of the Trinity's doctrine are you defending?
By the way, ex-Catholics populate the Elmbrook Church and its illicit daughters...Episcopals are a distant 2nd.
I support the person of the Trinity that says we shouldn't eat bacon.
" I was talking to an Episcopalian priest in Waukesha County, and he said the majority of his parishioners are ex-Catholics."
Many an evangelical or pentecostal pastor says that. But last I checked Elmbrook Church had more people attending than the Episcopal Diocese of Wisconsin.
"I support the person of the Trinity that says we shouldn't eat bacon."
That's God The Cardiologist, or Kardia for you Rahnerians.
Well, FC, if you support THAT member of the Trinity, then you also should support His 6th/9th Commandments.
It's a start.
PS: I'll buy the bacon, because I like the Person who showed up on Christmas ~2000 years ago, too.
So if we have an after-Mass blogger breakfast, that's oatmeal for F.C., corned beef hash for me, and bacon and eggs for Dad29 et al..
that's funny
P.S. "Membership in The Episcopal Church declined by 50,804 and average Sunday attendance decreased by 21,945 during 2006, the fourth straight year in which both membership and attendance have decreased, according to figures compiled by the congregational development department at the Episcopal Church Center."
--Church Membership, Attendance Down Fourth Straight Year
10/30/07 Living Church Foundation
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