Ordinary People

There is no doubt that our Pope, Benedict XVI, has a deep spiritual sense that can provide insights into our faith that would be hard for the average Catholic in the pew to discern. Our time spent with his book, Jesus of Nazareth has been well spent.Yet, we average Catholics are faced daily with the culture we live in and are continually facing the challenge of reconciling our faith with the culture we live in. This is not an easy task. Below Eamon Duffy considers only one of the issues we confront daily.

 

 

The shrinking of Catholic institutions is clearly part and parcel of a much broader unsettlement within Western society. It is not merely Catholic marriages, for example, which are in decline, but, it would seem, the institution of marriage itself. The moral pattern imposed by the church (slowly and with enormous difficulty) on European sexual behavior and family structure from the early Middle Ages onwards seems now to be collapsing. Later than most of the rest of the churches of the West, the Catholic Church is increasingly confronted with the need to evolve a modus vivendi with these apparently inexorable social trends, which can be lived by ordinary people with integrity. Marriage is above everything else a social institution, and if the church is not to decline into being a sect for the saintly, ordinary Catholic couples cannot realistically be expected to live lives untouched by the social and sexual expectations and mores of the culture as a whole. The tragically large and growing number of Catholics in irregular unions is both an indicator of the way in which the values of society shape the lives and perceptions of Christians and also, in pastoral terms, a ticking time bomb, which by one means or another is going to have to be defused if it is not to decimate the Catholic community and, more importantly, deprive thousands of people of the sacramental support and light they need.

-Eamon Duffy, Unfinished, journey: The Church 40 Years after Vatican II, Essays for John Wilkins

 

 

In her anthology of essays Being Catholic Now, Kerry Kennedy provides us with insights into the way some prominent people view the Catholic faith. There are some who have rejected Catholicism, some who have embraced it and some who love it but have their criticisms. In some cases they provide their solution the the query: What is the modus vivendi with which we Catholics can deal with these relentless social trends? We average Catholics do not have the intellectual where with all of Pope Benedict, but we are called to meet this challenge.

 

 

In May and June our group will look at some of these essays by prominent people. We can critcize or concur with them. There is no excuse though for ignoring the issues. Look to the bulletin board in the narthex for what we will be reading. and email me for a copy of the readings at robandmar5@sbcglobal.net .