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For Christ's sake, will the Church please wake up!
I am not being blasphemous. I am making a prayerful plea and at the same time venting my frustration at what I have suddenly realised is perhaps the real reason seven of my eight grandchildren remain beautiful little pagans. No offence to all the other beautiful pagans out there – God made us all.
But what do you do when you have tried to pass on your faith to your children and they chose to not do the same to their children/your grandchildren?
I have stopped asking my children why they won't have theirs christened and why they won't send them to a Catholic/Christian school; it's time I butted out.
The trouble is, their children are my grandchildren and I care deeply that they are not being given the chance to decide for themselves whether they will follow the Christian faith.
My children are decent, beautiful, caring, honest, loving human beings. Most of them rarely go to Mass any more; that's their choice. But what I don't understand, what they don't understand, is that by not regularly exposing their children to the faith they, the children, won't have the same choice.
But my real frustration, my real anger, is directed at the Church and hence my opening prayer: For the sake of Christ, wake up.
Cardinals and bishops, please listen: Many of you are largely responsible for what is happening here. You are among the main reasons so many adults have stopped going to Mass and hence deciding that their children need not go to a Catholic/Christian school. You are in large part responsible for these little children remaining unbaptised and having only a secular education.
I know that you face extraordinary obstacles; I know that the you have not brought about the rampant materialism that so distracts people of all and of no faith from God and morality. But many of you seem unwilling or unable to deal with these challenges.
And to the minority of courageous bishops and cardinals who are trying to come to grips with these challenges and who know that the Church has to become more relevant to people's everyday lives, I say God bless you and thank you. And likewise to the many priests, nuns and brothers who walk the same path.
It's long past time to accept that God made women and men equal. It's time to ask ourselves: if Jesus was standing physically among us right now, would he say women cannot be priests? Would he say priests can never marry? Would he come out of Sunday Mass feeling refreshed and stimulated by a homily that inspired and challenged him? Would he have an open mind to this suggestion: Allow single young men and women to become priests for a fixed period, say five to ten years, after which they could decide to stay on or leave to follow a different vocation.
Well, would he?
A vignette. A couple of years ago my non-Catholic son-in-law went to Christmas Mass with his family. The church was packed with Easter and Christmas Catholics, as well as the regular congregation. You would think – OK, I would think – that the priest would see a golden opportunity here to win some hearts and minds. What did he do? He berated those casual Catholics for not coming to Mass every Sunday.
Hardly the way to sow a seed in the fertile mind of a non-Catholic or a non-practising Catholic, is it?
No doubt, that priest thought he was doing the right thing. He wasn't. And it's long past time his bishop opened his own eyes and ears and those of his naïve priest.
We owe much to the men who have given themselves to God and to us as priests, but the truth is many homilies are repetitive, boring and irrelevant. People, especially young people, are hungry for information. Other Christian churches have proven that if you make spiritual information relevant to people's lives in the twenty-first century the people will come. And if the adults come, the little children will come.
And then, one day, when they are older, they will make a decision for themselves whether to keep coming.
I will keep praying that my grandchildren are given the chance my parents gave me and that my wife and I gave our children. I will pray also for the cardinals and bishops who stand between us.
And lest you think I am ignoring the primary reason for Mass, please know that without the grace the Eucharist provides me and without the subsequent inspiration of the Holy Spirit I would not be sitting here venting my frustrations. But, as an old showman once said, you have to get the bottoms on seats first.
Published: June 16, 2010
by Bill Farrelly