THE CRISIS OF IDEOLOGIES

Excessive tensions arising from church politics, gender issues, liturgical practices, language, false interpretations of the Second Vatican Council – all of these influence today's candidates for ordained ministry and religious life in the Church. Over the past few years, several generous young people discerning a vocation to the priesthood or religious life have told me that these tensions can lead to a feeling of God’s absence in their lives and in the Church, as well as a clear sign that they don’t have a vocation. This reality must not be dismissed lightly.

Are we not often stuck today in the Church in an endless argument between devotion and liturgy or in a constant dispute between charity and justice? This impasse is revealed when devotion is treated as the enemy of liturgy and charity as the betrayer of justice, or when liturgy is reduced to private devotion and justice not recognized as constitutive to the Gospel.

The grumblings, discontent, cynicism, fatigue, unfair labeling and pigeonholing of others, lack of charity and hope of my generation and older generations rise to fever pitch, and keep us blinded to a new generation of young people who might be much more serious about Church, God and discipleship of Jesus than we are! Many of my generation do not wish to admit this fact.

The great tragedy today is that many people in leadership positions in the Church and in religious life are completely out of touch with the younger generation. With blanket statements often using psychological or sociological jargon, various religious leaders simply dismiss today’s young people as being: “neo-conservative, right-wing, ecclesially dysfunctional, blind, doctrinal, pietistic, theologically illiterate, papal groupies, etc.”

Ideologues have the ability to silence others with blanket statements, especially when it comes to vocational discernment, and loving Christ and the Church. How many times have I heard vocation directors and formation directors express fears and even disdain over the pious and devotional practices of today’s generation of young people. For example many of my generation have responded very negatively to young people’s rediscovery of Eucharistic Adoration and devotion. Such piety and devotion are not to be downplayed or dismissed, especially in vocational and priestly formation work. They can indeed become a creative foundation upon which we can build for the future. Piety and devotion can be springboards to mature faith.

As leaders involved in vocational and priestly formation work in the Church, we should not ignore the crisis, the challenges, the nervousness and the fears that face us here in our own country as we look to the future and the shape of the Church to come. We must avoid the temptation to run to extremes in times of crisis like our own. There is a temptation to become fundamentalist and so rigid in doctrine and life that one becomes enclosed, like a hidden garden, or walled castle, so that nobody hears the word except those within. There is also the temptation to run to the other extreme and become so conformed to the ways and values of the world that sound Church teaching and the truth of the Gospel entrusted to us, will be diluted, distorted and lose its savor.

This world's values are clearly not enough for us -- yet we do not despise them or constantly condemn our culture. Our culture is the context for mission, and the more we try to analyze and understand it, through the eyes of faith, the less of a problem there will be with our transformation of this culture and the evangelization of those who live in it. This is our challenge: to belong to two societies at one and the same time; to be in the world and not of it. How often do we quote the words of John’s Gospel [3:16]: “And God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son.” Now and then we would do well to consider the world that God so loved. This world becomes our workshop for transformation and evangelization.

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