Why is the
Church so obsessed with abortion? Why does the Church talk incessantly about
homosexuality? What is this creepy Catholic obsession with sex, sex, sex all
the time? Why can’t the Church be concerned about real issues—poverty, for
example—instead of always being all about the pelvic issues? Why, huh, why?
This is more
and more the typical attitude of many towards the Church, or towards organized
religion in general. And we are solemnly informed that it is for this reason
primarily that the millennials are being alienated from organized religion and
from Catholicism in particular. It is the fault of the Church and its
laser-focussed obsession with sexual purity.
Except…
that’s not true. Not remotely. Not at all. This
article over at National Review does a great job showing this definitively.
The Church, including all the various Christian denominations, gives billions
of dollars every year to the alleviation of poverty throughout the world; the
budgets for groups combatting the various ‘culture war’ issues is miniscule in
comparison.
Meanwhile, I
would echo the author of the article’s experience. I have been a Catholic my
entire life, and I honestly think I could count on one hand the homilies I’ve
heard that have even mentioned abortion, homosexuality, or any other point of
sexual morality. I would add that the single source where we can see exactly
what ‘the Vatican’ is saying is the newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, which reports pretty much every speech, every
document, every word that comes out of Rome. While I haven’t done a scientific
study of the matter, I would have to say that issues of sexual morality
wouldn’t crack the top ten, or even the top twenty subjects the Church talks
about all the time. My impression is that world peace and world economic
justice are actually the two most urgent social issues Rome talks about, and
has talked about for decades now.
All of this,
while interesting in itself highlights something I have been aware of for some
time. And that is the danger ‘the narrative’ poses to ‘the truth’. ‘Everyone
knows’ that such and such is the case. But it turns out that it’s not the case.
And yet even upon that being pointed out, everyone goes on knowing it, somehow.
The Narrative trumps the facts, every time somehow.
We see this
all over the place—the question of the Church’s obsession with sex is just one
example which happens to matter quite a bit to me. (I do find it fairly odd
and—what’s the word—oh yeah, ironic, that a culture saturated in erotic imagery
and awash in x-rated material has the effrontery to accuse anyone else of being
obsessed with sex).
But the
question of narratives is an important one, one which we all need to be
vigilant about. For Christians, we have to resist the narrative that the
secular culture and those who are of that culture are utterly depraved and
vile—the tendency to demonize the ‘other’.
The Sondheim
musical Into the Woods, recently made
into a so-so movie, has a lyric that goes “Careful the tale you tell; that is
the spell.” Stories have a capacity to shape reality for us, a magical ability
to both reveal and conceal. Stories, in fact, yield prejudice, and prejudice
has a great power to render us blind and deaf to whatever contradicts it.
‘Liberals and stupid and evil… conservatives are stupid and evil… Muslims are
all terrorists… Christians are all judgmental hypocrites… atheists are all
arrogant jerks… black people are such and such, Mexicans are this and that,
Jews are all xyz, Asians are all blah blah blah, white people are all that way’
and so on and so forth. Careful the tale you tell—all of reality shapes itself
around that tale.
Meanwhile,
life and the world and humanity are so much richer, so much more varied and
complex, at once better and worse than the narratives allow for. Simplistic
stories with heroes and villains, victims and perpetrators are all well and
good for Hollywood or beach fiction, but serve us poorly in actually navigating
the world as it is.
Personally,
I try to limit the tale I tell to the One Story that I believe is absolutely
true, because it is told by God and not men. And that of course is the Gospel
of Jesus Christ. The Paschal Mystery in which everything God is embraces
everything man is, in which God so utterly enters the human reality that He
dies and goes to Hell, and in which the human reality is so penetrated by
Divine life and love that the man Jesus rises from the dead and raises up all
men and women who are joined to Him in faith. God becomes everything we are so
that we can become, in Him, everything He is.
That’s my
story and I’m sticking to it. Everything else is just fairy tales told by an
idiot, to be taken with large grains of salt at all times. The saying today is ‘check
your privilege’, but I would like to start a new saying: ‘check your narrative’,
and be vigilant always, welcome continually the facts that contradict the
stories you tell yourself and others. Stories are for children (in light of the
Gospel this is no problem, as we are all God’s children). We are adults and
should live our life as adults, narrative-free if at all possible.
Bravo Denis! Well said.
ReplyDeleteTim
I think the table had to be set, or using another terminology we had to lay the solid foundation on the truth. And taking a stand on abortion and homosexuality had to be clarified. But now that is established we need to move on from there and quit hitting everybody over the head with these truths. Let's move on and focus on the Jesus who came to save ALL humankind and his message of love and forgiveness. That is where the church currently struggles but rest assured the Holy Spirit will guide us in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteCliff
I don't mean to be offensive, but did you read my post past the first paragraph?
DeleteBecause the whole point of my post is precisely that the Church is not in fact hitting people over the head with these truths, and that this is a 'narrative' being perpetuated by people who probably haven't darkened the door of a church in decades. The churches I have gone to and been part of constantly talk about love, forgiveneness, and salvation, and I don't think my experience is untypical. But I guess the narrative is stronger than any amount of experience.
Not sure if your comment was directed to me but I was not disagreeing with you, but was referencing the larger church including mainline protestants, who have come out with some strong language.
DeleteIf I offended you I apologize.
Cliff