Stop Your Moaning, Karen
Posted by: tony on 11/18/2008 05:43 PM
Updated by: tony on 11/18/2008 05:43 PM
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Expires: 12/19/2008 12:00 AM
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I enjoy reading Karen Hall's writing. As someone who writes for a living her prose is easy to read, clear and concise. However, I am becoming a little put off by her complaining about supposed Catholic support for Barack Obama. She writes:
I could keep my house warm for a year on the "bold statements" the bishops have put out recently. In light of the 54% of Catholics who voted for Obama, please show me how they have worked.
And I say "supposed", because I would imagine that a goodly chunk of those "54% of Catholics" are not actually Catholic.
Jill Stanek quoted an interesting article that segues nicely into this one:
Barna has analyzed the vote breakdown for president and determined a whopping 88% of evangelicals voted for McCain and only 11% for Obama.
Barna determined evangelicals not by whether they said they were evangelical but by how they responded to 9 questions.
Have you ever wondered exactly what an evangelical is? Here were the criteria to qualify as an evangelical, according to Barna:
Born again Christians" are defined as people who said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and who also indicated they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents are not asked to describe themselves as "born again."
"Evangelicals" meet the born again criteria (described above) plus 7 other conditions....
Those include saying their faith is very important in their life today; believing they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; believing that Satan exists; believing that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works; believing that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; asserting that the Bible is accurate in all that it teaches; and describing God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today. Being classified as an evangelical is not dependent upon church attendance or the denominational affiliation of the church attended. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as "evangelical." [ed.- Emphesis, mine]
This is how you take a poll. Don't let people self-identify as evangelical, decide from their answers whether they are evangelical or not. They should do the same for Catholics. Have a list of questions, such as "do you believe that Jesus Christ is substantially real and present in the Eucharist?" and identify the "real" Catholics based on their answers.
I agree that there has been a breakdown (oh, heck, an almost elimination) of catechesis since Vatican II. There has been a lowered respect for the priesthood (inclusing the Bishops, Cardinals and the Pope).
Karen seems to concur:
Which is why it would have been nice, over the last 30+ years, if our bishops and priests had been talking to us about the sanctity of marriage, the enormous importance of keeping our families strong, and our duty to God's law and the Church's teachings and, oh by the way, here's what they are.
Yes, it would have been nice. But the fact is, they didn't. Bad catechesis almost destroyed my 8 year old faith, but it didn't. It was instrumental in allowing me to become the Catholic I am today.
But no. Instead we have heard about the feelings of gays and their families, and the importance of inclusiveness ("Jesus hung out with sinners") and we've sang "Gather Us In" eleventy billion times and learned all about our carbon footprints.
The Church is a hospital for sinners, not a country club for saints. I am one of the worst sinners. I don't share in the sin of those who commit homosexual acts, but that doesn't mean that theirs are greater than mine.
We need to be inclusive. We need to accept everyone who needs us. We need to be kind to gays and their families while teaching them (and everyone else) unambiguously the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church with regard to sexual chastity.
I didn't learn the authentic Church teaching in the pews of my local church. My pastor has about 7 minutes on Sunday to teach (that comes out to about 10 hours total a year), and it's not possible to portray all of the important nuances of every Catholic teaching in that amount of time. Karen needs to be proactive in her learning. And if Karen thinks it's important, Karen needs to volunteer to teach a seminar on Humanae Vitae, or possibly volunteer to present at Pre-Cana to engaged couples, the infamous "sexual intimacy talk". The old timers will love you for it.
The laity needs to step up to the plate and teach their community the truths of the Church founded by Jesus. Oh sure, it would be nice if the pastor would, but there is no limitation on the laity preaching outside of the homily.
So stop crying, Karen, and get to work.
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