Mark Stricherz at CatholicVote attempts to translate the past few decades of changes in the Catholic Church in America into the terms of debate introduced by Charles Murray’s recent book, Coming Apart. It’s an angle that makes a good deal of sense given that the decline of religiosity among working-class citizens is a major theme of Murray’s.
For his part, Stricherz scrutinizes various popular catechisms, and the changes they have undergone. He writes:
I am wary of heaping the Church’s woes after 1965 at the feet of Vatican II. The secularization of non-Catholic America was well underway in the 1950s, and Catholics were all but helpless to stop it. But to the extent that the reforms of Vatican II, and the liberal reaction to them, contributed to the decline in religious devotion, the behavior of a few dissident priests does not strike me as the main or sole reason. In my opinion, the institutional Church’s failure to appeal to ordinary Catholics was the bigger reason.
The eclipse of the old Baltimore Catechism is a good example. From the 1880s to the late 1960s, the Catechism was a staple in Catholic schools. Its chief appeal was simplicity: It explained the Catholic faith in a question-and-answer format. Take question number four: “What must we do to gain the happiness of heaven? To gain the happiness of heaven, we must know, love, and serve God in this world.” As the late Archbishop Philip Hannan wrote in his autobiography, the Baltimore Catechism had great appeal to those without a four-year college degree.
I commend Stricherz’ efforts to nullify the pernicious fantasy that “Vatican II changed everything” or somehow “damaged the deposit of faith,” and he shifts the focus to the catechism as a hermeneutic device for what he sees as one of the major problems of the Church in America today: namely, it’s failing to appeal to the poor, working class, and uneducated. For him, the appeal of the old Baltimore Catechism is not that it’s old but that it is both simple and elegant at the same time, lending itself equally to rote memorization and high-level theological discussion. In other words, it didn’t take much formal learning to understand. These days, he worries, “by accident or design, the American Church has gravitated toward the college educated. It is pulling in great intellectuals and theologians, but losing the non-intellectuals among us.”
As Stricherz notes in a follow-up post, it’s worth remembering that the very adjective “catholic” implies “[appealing] to everyone, including those who are content to learn the basics of the faith and apply them.” The Gospel message calls not for acceptance of a series of intellectual propositions but a conversion of heart. Obviously, this in no way excludes the intellectual life (and, to some degree, even the dichotomy between contemplation and action is a false one). But if the Church needs everyone then she needs blue-collar members, too, and she cannot be fully herself, especially in this country, if her membership begins to resemble the Harvard Club.
March 1st, 2012 | 10:31 am
I wonder if part of the distancing of the working class had something to do with the growth of the welfare state? My parent’s generation had a much more integrated life with their parish that was in part based on getting assistance that is now provided by the state. When your world revolves around a parish, it’s much easier to have the faith communicated to you in lots of informal ways that add up and reinforce each other.
March 1st, 2012 | 11:21 am
This a huge problem of the financially sucessful American Catholic Church. Our priests are produced in an antiseptic system and protected from everyday concerns. They are educated to be theologians and are sent to be parish priests. Our Catholic education system is judged, like all others, by how many they send on for college and advanced degrees. No wonder pedestrian things like sin and confession get lost. Things most crucial to every Christian and perhaps the only religiously important thing to a Christian doing manual labor. And yet Belloc said the Church has always had one talent which had saved it in many perilous times: the ability to get poor quick. Come Holy Spirit.
March 1st, 2012 | 11:40 am
The velocity of American transience combined with mass suburbanization reduced classic urban and rural parish life to a pale echo of their former selves. American consumer capitalism needs to break people from not needing things; it exists to stimulate their sense of need for things.
March 2nd, 2012 | 4:08 am
Pascal puts it very well (as usual)
“Do not wonder to see simple people believe without reasoning. God imparts to them love of Him and hatred of self. He inclines their heart to believe. Men will never believe with a saving and real faith, unless God inclines their heart; and they will believe as soon as He inclines it. And this is what David knew well, when he said: Inclina cor meum, Deus… They feel that a God has made them; they desire only to love God; they desire to hate themselves only. They feel that they have no strength in themselves; that they are incapable of coming to God; and that if God does not come to them, they can have no communion with Him. And they hear our religion say that men must love God only, and hate self only; but that, all being corrupt and unworthy of God, God made Himself man to unite Himself to us. No more is required to persuade men who have this disposition in their heart, and who have this knowledge of their duty and of their inefficiency.”
March 2nd, 2012 | 1:04 pm
As a Catholic who identifies myself as an evangelical I suggest that when the fathers of our church stand before Jesus He will ask, yes but, why didn’t you tell them about Me?
What has been lacking in our Church is the idea that the Protestants grasp so well. This is first about understanding Jesus is a personal Lord, He wants you to be in relationship with Him, one on one. Then, all other things become real and vibrant, the Word, the magisterium, the tradition.
The traditional protestant altar call might be a good place to start.
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