Dear Friends,
I’ve been waiting for this to happen and a few weeks ago, it
did.
Self-identifying Catholics in the USA have slipped from
second to third most numerous religious group in our country, with Evangelical
Christians first. In second place now are the “Nones”. It’s not that the Nones have come exclusively
or predominantly from the Catholic Church, but a good number have.
I was with some of them over the last few weeks, during hospital
visits and anniversary celebrations. These good young people were the children
of practicing- I would go so far as to say ardent Catholics – men and women who
are not Catholic because they were raised that way, but Catholics because they found
the person and message of Christ compelling for them. They have found
companionship in ministry and friendship in the faith community. Theirs is a
commitment to Christ through the community of believers that we call the
Catholic Church. Their faith and practice has affected their lives deeply. But
their children have made other choices, among them to be “None.”
These are not the only Nones I have met over the years, nor
are all the Nones young people.
Some became Nones because they simply drifted away and found
no cause to come back. Others had a demeaning , ugly, inappropriate experience
once in the person of a church worker. That experience, coupled with
unprocessed doubt, was enough to take them away. Some Nones arrive at that
position because they went searching and found that no religion was satisfying
in the way that being spiritual but uncommitted did. Beyond these reasons are a
plethora more.
Do practicing Catholics just let Nones with Catholic roots be,
in the hope that the doors between them and us stay open? Do we lecture or
proselytize? Do we express disappointment or anger? What?
How about staying the course in faithfulness and love of God
and them, and wait for God to provide an opening? How about encouraging them to
take a deeper look into their Catholic heritage before throwing it away definitively , since so much
of what we internalized as children and youth doesn’t fit our adult minds,
hearts and spirits. What if God never provides the opening we seek? With all
due respect, that’s up to God and the None. We might not be needed, strange as
that might seem.
And for those who are on the brink of becoming Nones, here
is an excerpt from an article Hans Kung wrote in America (March 20, 1971 )at a time when this priest scholar was a
center of controversy. Eventually he would be stripped of the title “Roman
Catholic Theologian”. He has remained active in ecumenism and interfaith
dialogue and has continued to be an important unofficial voice in the Church.
“Why am
I staying Catholic?” Kung writes.” Because in critical loyalty, there is so
much in this community and its history that I can affirm, so much in this
community from which I can draw life. I am staying in the Church because, along
with the other members of this community of faith, we are the Church…I am
staying in the Church because, with all the strong objections against it, here
I am at home.”
~Sister Joan Sobala
