Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Religion & Law Blogs -> Mirror of Justice

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

Religion & Law

: Mirror of Justice

Generational Splits, A Reader Responds

ADVERTISEMENTS

John Wittig, a recent graduate of St. Thomas Law School, writes in:

While I usually attend Mass every week, I am one of those young (just

turned 30) Catholics who feels a "level of disagreement with, dismay

towards, or merely disregard for the Church's teachings on issues like

contraception and homosexuality." You noted that many Catholics born

after Vatican II simply don't attend Mass, and I think that is because

the Church tends to foster an environment where one is either all in

or all out. I've tried to straddle the middle by being invested in my

parish community while largely ignoring the wider Church. I don't want

it to be this way, but it feels like the only things I can do outside

my parish as a layperson is to stop giving money, to stop showing up,

or to wait for the Pope to die and see if things magically change.

None of these are attractive options, nor do they seem fruitful.

Just as I do not desire the current state of affairs, I don't think it

has to be this way either. I think the Church could take a lesson from

the Obama campaign. One of the ways the Obama campaign got people to

be so involved and invested was to make them stakeholders. The

campaign did an excellend job of helping people feel like (then)

Senator Obama and his staff listened to and cared about what they had

to say. This doesn't mean he acted on their ideas, and he sometimes

even went against them, as he did when he voted for telecom-immunity

in the FISA bill. But it did mean there was a genuine dialog going on.

I am not asking the Church to change it's positions on these, and

other, issues. Rather, I am just asking for the Church to provide some

mechanism for there to be dialogue, to give all of us an opportunity

to be agents of Grace, to let us be a part of helping the Church move

closer to Truth.

I do my best to live the Gospels. I want to make the world a better

place, and that includes the Church. But if the Church is going to

insist on only giving me those three options I mentioned earlier, I am

going to continue to ignore it. If I've learned nothing else in my

short time on Earth, it's that if we can't talk, we can't do anything

together.

Full post as published by Mirror of Justice on January 27, 2009 (boomark / email).