The instincts of the silent majority are relatively conservative and traditional. A majority, for example, wish to see restrictions on abortion. A majority believe in marriage only between a man and a woman. A great majority believe in God, and practice their faith in some way.
However, my sense is that many of us are passive politically, meaning we have signed onto the secular program holding that religious life is "private" and so religious beliefs shouldn't be mixed with public policy. Our faith is, we believe, only an opinion. There is no way to tell if it is true, so we don't really believe it to be "true." And since public policy has to apply to everybody, not just those who happen to hold Catholic opinions, we can't "impose our beliefs" on anyone. Laws need to be made without reference to religious understanding. So our Catholic faith life boils down to going to church on Sunday and trying to be "nice" during the rest of the week.
Poor faith formation hasn't helped. We can't articulate a cogent Catholic position against the de-constructors, and can't muster enough intellectual energy to try, our "college degrees" in technical disciplines being useless because they never helped us actually to learn how to think. The other side may not be much better, but they have political correctness on their side, and so they feel more and more justified stridently to reject the "narrow-minded," "inflexible," "homophobic," "irrational," and down-right "evil" views of a "dumb" majority.
Is this how it's always been? Gil Bailie doesn't think so. In a recent interview, he quotes T.S. Eliot who "announced that culture was no longer passing from one generation to the next in the ideal and natural way it had in the past, when one absorbed it with the mother's milk so to speak. From now on, Eliot admonished, if you want a culture, you have to work at it."
That means we have to make choices among differing but attractive lifestyles, which requires some degree of thoughtfulness. And we need to be more pro-active in helping our children learn how to make such choices.
There is no doubt that we have a duty to answer for our faith. Gil Bailie got it right: "At an earlier stage of our present crisis, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, pointing to "the confusion of clerics and theologians," insisted that lay Catholics "have the absolute duty to care for the condition of Catholicity," adding with emphasis, "by protest if need be." Despite signs of episcopal and clerical revitalization, Gil stresses that "the lay Catholic's obligation - in proportion to his or her respective gifts and competence - to 'care for the condition of Catholicity' remains."
While instinctual faith is important, active faith is what makes the difference.
3 comments:
Is this a response to my post "The Great American Majority"?
Yes,partially. You asked: "What are the "sturdy religious instincts that continue to animate the great majority of the American people"? Do they really exist? Who is elucidating their “narrative”? Where is the voice of this great American majority? If we are a majority, why are we unable in a democratic society to effect the changes we desire?"
A lot of questions. It seems there are sturdy religious instincts that a majority of us have, and I tried to refer to a few in my first paragraph.
Where is our voice? I suggest we are "silent" because we timidly accept the politically correct view that religious-based positions are "private opinion" and not a proper base for "public" decision making. And also we have lost our voice because we cannot articulate our faith because of poor faith formation and an inability to think.
These judgments may be too harsh. Gil points out that our dutiy to answer for our faith is allied to our ability ("gifts and competence") and probably the strongest "voice" we have is how we live. But are we measuring up even there? As is probably always the case, it is a mixed bag. I wonder if the ethical failings we read about each day are greater today than before, and I don't know the answer to that question. But at a minimum, it seems we shouldn't take for granted that we are "measuring up."
I am not sure I understand your question "Who is elucidating their 'narrative'?" What is the narrative of faith? I suppose the Pope speaks for us. Any and all who bring to light the meaning of Christianity. I don't know what else to say, so maybe I don't understand what you are driving at.
In the face of their silence one can only guess at what the silent majority believes.
Scripture is replete with prophets admonishing the people of God for their failure to live in the world in accordance with the will of their god. It is been a consistent tendency of God's people to wander away from their covenant with him. This failure to honor their promises to God is evidenced in their failure to live their public lives the same way they live their private lives. They believe their religious beliefs to be true, but not so true that others should believe in them.
I don't think we need to convince our fellow citizens of the truth of Catholic dogma. We must continuously appeal to that sense of unrest that manifests itself whenever we, as human beings, live in ways that offend our human nature. We need only to insist on an honest look at our behavior and the ways in which we rationalize as acceptable their destructive nature. Christianity is counter-cultural and its counter-cultural aspects cannot be hidden and at the same time be effective.
It certainly would be a distinct advantage if each Catholic could articulate their faith in such a way as to be convincing to a nonbeliever. St. Paul, whose life was dedicated to the attempt to convince others of the truth of Christianity, experienced difficulties and at times was unsuccessful. We certainly are not St. Pauls in our understanding of Christ's message. But we can all be St. Pauls in the practice of our faith. The bottom line is that we will all be effective proclaimers of the Gospel more through our actions than through convincing arguments.
So, in the face of our silence, our adversary can only look at our actions to determine what it is that we really believe. If our actions are kept private they cannot affect the public life. Confident actions are a result of conviction. Timidity is a reflection of our lack of conviction. Do we really believe what we say we believe?
I'm sorry if I have to continually end with questions. Unfortunately, that's mostly what I have.
Post a Comment