Catholic America Today

This post sets out to make a point, which may be so self evident to many, folks may wonder why I bother, but here goes.

In the United States, many Catholics have expressed some concern about the church being too political. "Let the church stick to the sacred and stay out of politics they say."

Well, I am sure it can be annoying for people of faith to hear from their fellow church members espousing political ideas, especially when those ideas may not agree with their own politics, but let's take a look at things very briefly, very clearly.

Frankly, I am pretty well grounded in my own beliefs and convictions at my age. What goes on around me in the media and in society doesn't sway me so much--at least not without me checking sources. My views are based on my life, my faith and a good amount of solid Irish Catholic upbringing -- great parents and excellent teachers--mostly nuns. But my kids, well that's a different story.

In my opinion, many Catholics (including myself) are not very good at passing the faith onto their children. I hate to say it, but frankly, my generation of boomers were spoiled because we had so many wonderful nuns who spent several hours a day indoctrinating us in the faith. As we became parents ourselves, we had our parents example, and that may have been a great example of living, but perhaps not so great at teaching. While my father was devout, he spent little time at home because he worked several jobs. He believed we were in good hands with the Sisters. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the generations of Catholics who were educated by the Sisters were the best educated Catholics of all time--what we did with it is another matter. But when the Sisters numbers were decimated and Catholic schools declined--people moved to the suburbs etc., the burden of educating the faith quietly passed on to parents who just were not prepared for it if in fact they even recognize the responsibility. In reality, the burden of educating faithful Christians is always a parental responsibility, but let's just say when someone gives you a hand, you get used to not having to lift so much weight.

At the same time, often the hours that parents must put into their jobs is just as long as their parents did if not longer--and both parents are working. So just like latchkey kids have had the TV to keep them company in their parents absence, kids learn about morality, philosophy and God from the TV, movies, and other media. Our Public Schools often do a good job of teaching about diversity, prejudice and the like, but they certainly aren't going to touch on God much.

Everyday, TV and movies have a strong impact on our kids development. I don't think it takes a genius to understand that a moral or amoral message sent, in say a vampire movie, that might be watched by a kid a dozen times, may have a stronger influence on a kid than say an hour and half religious ed session twice a month. I think it's all about "touches' as they say in marketing circles. If our kids get more messages that sell them on selfish non-Christian behavior than they get Christian messages, they will be influenced accordingly.

In this way, I don't think we can have much confidence that somehow kids are not going to be swayed by negative false messages when they get so many of them compared to positive ones. As adults, many of us like to think that something like the Da Vinci Code should not be taken seriously because it is after all, a fictional movie. But unfortunately, for the uninitiated, it might have been the one most powerful message they have ever seen on Catholicism. How many more messages do kids get today about being sexy than say being chaste, about being rich than being kind, being fulfilled than being of service. In this way, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that we really do need to change society because society has a strong influence on our children if not ourselves. It's unrealistic to think that somehow we can teach our children one way all the while they are immersed in a society that is saying something completely different. Certainly, some have been very successful at it, but I don't think most of us are doing that well.

So I take the view that our general ethical principles based on our faith need to be promoted in society. We do not need to legislate the Christian religion, but there is a whole litany of things that need addressing. We need to vote our conscience and try to clean up the world in which we and our children live. We've let things go to far.