peter steinfels writes for the new york times, my weekend paper of choice. his column this past saturday was really fascinating because of his juxtaposition of the recollection of john paul II as reaching young people, especially through the world youth day, and christian smith's new study of the religious lives of american teens. turns out that the roman catholic youth smith and his colleagues interviewed were markedly less shaped by their faith tradition that non-Catholic peers in the Christian church. and most interesting of all, to me, is steinfels pointing beyond rules to the power of local faith lived out in community, learned through practices and by exposure to those who live the faith fully and deeply. another voice speaking up for faith as a way of life. here is what mr. steinfels said:
"Those findings have recently been published in "Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers" (Oxford University Press, 2005), by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton. With a mixture of good news and bad news that punctures many stereotypes about adolescent religious beliefs and behavior, this extensive study deserves attention for what it reveals across the full range of American religious groups.
But what leapt out during this papal transition was that the researchers had felt compelled to devote a separate chapter to their discovery that Catholic teenagers "stand out among the U.S. Christian teenagers as consistently scoring lower on most measures of religiosity."
On various questions about beliefs, practices, experiences and commitments, the researchers found Catholic youths "scoring 5 to 25 percentage points lower than their conservative, mainline and black Protestant peers." In-depth interviews showed many of these Catholic adolescents "living far outside of official church norms."
Catholic teenagers were far less apt to affirm belief in a personal God, to report having ever undergone a very moving, powerful worship experience, or to say their faith was extremely important in shaping their daily lives or major life decisions.
There has been a lot of impressionistic talk, often verging on boosterism, about a new "John Paul II generation" of deeply committed, conservative young Catholics. So what should be said about this quite different-looking crop of John Paul II teenagers? How did this happen on the watch of the very pope who undeniably exhibited such magnetism among youth?
The obvious answer is that one individual, no matter how charismatic a communicator of his convictions, cannot do it alone. Even the millions touched by World Youth Days are only a small - and often unrepresentative - fraction of young Catholics, who as a whole can be reached only at the grass roots, through parish worship, religious education, youth ministry and, of course, their parents' example.
If this whole infrastructure of religious socialization is creaky, undermanned, short on skills and resources, fearful of ideas and innovation or unresponsive to important demographic, socioeconomic and cultural forces, then even the most dynamic pontiff can enliven only a minority of young Catholics.
Benedict XVI, by all accounts, lacks his predecessor's personal dynamism, but may very well pay more attention to the condition of that Catholic infrastructure. Unfortunately, when speculation began about the consequences of his election for American Catholics, the news media could only trot out the usual checklist of issues: contraception, abortion, homosexuality, sexual abuse crisis, ordination of women and so on.
The assumption always seems to be that adhering to a religious faith is primarily a matter of obeying rules and that in the case of Catholicism, these are made - and might be remade - by the man at the top. What gets lost is the idea that religious faith entails a more fundamental stance toward reality, one embedded in a community, expressed in its prayers and practices (not just its rules) and learned by exposure, both in person and in story, to exemplary individuals.
full article here
anon, and +peace
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