Comments on: Revisiting External Markers of Our Faith

By: Linda Daily

Linda Daily — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 15:59:12 +0000

Yes, young adults need external markers–whether they be habits, mantillas and rosaries or tattoos and piercings. The need to belong, to have a group identity, is a natural part of the maturation process. Better a Catholic identity than others that present themselves to our youth. Be take care not to confuse external markers and Catholic identity with being in relationship with God. It is also part of spiritual maturation to grow beyond the need for external as led by the Spirit (see St. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross). Eventually all who desire a deeper union with God will be ask to let go of externals – this too is very good in it’s proper time. Our Church is big and abundant and should strive to nourish members in all phases of spiritual life, not pit one group against the other. Those who yearn for external have much to learn from those who have loved them but been led to let them go. Those who have let them go should not deprive others of the rich Catholic identity these externals provide at a particular time of life.

By: john

john — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 18:03:10 +0000

you seem to suggest “permissive” attitudes about incidental customs are what is driving people away from the church. yet you ignore the reality that during this same period, the church has aggressively pushed doctrine rigidly to the right, refusing to acknowledge scientific, medical and psychiatric advances that have profoundly changed our understanding of humanity. what you are saying, in essence, is that superficial changes are what matter to people rather than substance. it makes you and other church leaders appear, sadly, blinded to reality. i can’t tell you how many times i’ve tried to defend the church only to hear how the bishops really don’t get it.

i brought a large group of almost 100 enthusiastic kids to WYD. while they were taken with the ceremony and fun, our nightly conversations revealed an enormous gap between their ideas of what it is to be catholic and morally upright and those of the bishops we listened to at catechesis. the longer this gap persists, the less ‘catholic’ the church becomes.

By: Felix

Felix — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:18:23 +0000

I enjoyed your words, they always bring a smile! I pray for you always.

I hope you write a piece on the protesters on wall street and it would be great if you could go over there and speak some words of hope for the Catholics and all people of good will involved, many inspired in Jesus and the social teachings of the Church.
Fraternally
felix

By: AndyP/Doria2

AndyP/Doria2 — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 19:18:53 +0000

Oh, and one more thing. Further proof that your observations are correct are the nuns and sisters who have reinstituted habits. The groups who wear habits are the only groups that are growing by leaps and bounds.

The leisure suit wearing groups are dying a slow painful natural death.

These young beautiful flowers with habits are a sight to see in public. Lilies of the field have nothing on them.

By: AndyP/Doria2

AndyP/Doria2 — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:42:11 +0000

There’s only one thing I disagree with in this excellent article Your Eminence and that is when you wrote:

“I realize it’s a trivial example, a little thing. Maybe I read too much into it.”

Au contrary as they say in Louisiana, methinks you are finally getting it Archbishop.

The youth are indeed speaking LOUD and CLEAR. Too bad some are speaking with their feet. As head of the USCCB you can make an enormous difference in that Tower of Babe.

I pray a daily Rosary that you do.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 01:19:31 +0000

A wonderfully thought-provoking post. I think “Catholic lite” makes it so easy to make one’s Catholicism simply one facet to life among others, rather than a foundation to and guide for life. When you make faith so generic, it seems to demand very little of the person and is all too easy to be put upon a shelf only to be taken down on Sunday morning or during a crisis.

A faith that calls one to put out into the deep, make daily commitments of self-sacrifice, and place personal investment and risk into it will shape the person and the life that person builds because it will mean more and be impossible to be put aside until needed. It will be built into the fabric of one’s self.

Many many Catholics are tired of being poured water when we know we could be given the very best wine. It meets the needs of thirst but it is far from the abundance Christ bequeathed us.

By: Larry

Larry — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 15:23:54 +0000

I think it’s a shame this entry is all about the “external” markers of faith, when in fact the INTERNAL markers have also been lost, i.e., knowing your catechism and practicing your faith. The FIRST thing that needs to be restored is a wholesome and rational fear of hell. That’s right. Too many Catholics either think that hell was abolished by Vatican II or that there is no possibility that you can go there as long as you attend mass, sing loud and smile a lot. PRIORITY NUMBER ONE: Remind everyone of the full implications of the Master’s admonition that “not everyone who says Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of the Father.” Remind them that Christ spoke often of hell, and in his stories the people who wind up going there are always shocked that THEY, of all people, are damned–they thought they were fine, holy people! PRIORITY NUMBER TWO: Tell the congregation “this could very well be about YOU or ME.” Then remind them of the Lord’s admonition “he who breaks any part of the law breaks the entire law.” In other words, “cafeteria Catholicism” is the express lane to hell. PRIORITY NUMBER THREE: Re-educate everyone so that people born after the 1950′s will at long last know what I and my classmates knew from 2nd grade religion class in 1962–you know, why did God make me? and what is Sanctifying Grace? that sort of thing. (In fact, why don’t you drop in on parishes from time to time and ask some of your young altar persons to define “Sanctifying” versus “Actual” Grace? What do you bet that you’ll get a blank stare and a muttered “huh?” in return?) PRIORITY NUMBER FOUR: Hammer it home that Vatican II did NOT abolish the 6th Commandment, which means NO sex outside of marriage, and ALL sex within marriage MUST BE OPEN TO LIFE, i.e., “babies” in case anyone doesn’t quite get it. That’s why you and your brother bishops are having to close all those schools. Because Catholics don’t make babies like they used to–because they contracept as much as non-Catholics, which means they those who do are in mortal sin and are receiving Communion unworthily, and that means first and foremost that the sinner is a heartbeat away from eternity in hell. If we could get Catholic mothers to have more babies again, faithful Catholics will eventually out-populate all the groups who advocate secular morality. Maybe that’s the way to turn society around. PRIORITY NUMBER FIVE: demand frequent confession and warn that those who have stayed away from the sacrament for 10, 15, 20, 30 years are probably also a heartbeat away from hell. In conclusion: while you’re doing all this, you’ll also be bringing back those “external markers,” but always in conjunction with the internal ones, never as ends in themselves.

By: Brad

Brad — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 21:33:14 +0000

As a convert in my early 30s, and as a father, I think that we desperately NEED to do all that we can to combat the culture of religious apathy that has gripped our country and our Church in the US. Catholic distinctives in forms of piety (such as a renewal of the age-old abstinence from meat on EVERY Friday of the year) are, I believe, an important key to success in the long run. This (dropping meatless Fridays) is just one more in a litany of failed experiments which have led to a severe identity crisis for we Catholics in the US. I am worried, first and foremost, about raising my children as Catholics. Everything else is secondary. Please lead the way on this and other issues which will greatly help us to recover our full identity as Catholics and will help us parents to raise our children in a faith that is distinctive and recognizably Catholic in EVERY facet. God bless your efforts, Archbishop Dolan!

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 21:30:46 +0000

We definitely need to bring back the external markers. One obstacle is the number of “Catholic Lite” bishops.

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 20:09:22 +0000

Your Grace, is it possible that you might raise these issues with your brother Bishops at the USCCB? I already abstain from meat every Friday (had some tuna fish today!) but I would rejoice if the Church in the USA took the lead of the Church in England and restored that wonderful practice for all.

God bless you.