Young Catholics accept the church as is

What kept me in the Catholic Church since I was 24 was its infallibility. Come hell or high water, infallibility remains. Infallibility remained when Judas Iscariot hanged himself. Infallibility remained after Jesus Christ was crucified. Infallibility remains after members of the Catholic Church fall by the wayside.

You mean you interviewed young Catholics in Jersey City without including a single Hispanic, immigrant or person of color? Or anyone who is not middle class or above in their socio-economic position? Do you think you can understand young Catholics in the U.S. without talking to people who DIDN'T (or can't) go to college? You're a bright man, Mr. Fox, but once again you don't get it.

"Young Catholics accept the church as is" - The article is not a ringing endorsement for the "as is". It seems that these few interviewed have little time or concern for the affairs of the hierarchy nor are they sticklers for the detailed orthodoxy, the "Catholic identity" which the papacy, hierarchy and conservative traditionalists define narrowly and focus on as a priority.

These are good men and women, they seem to have identified primarily with the basic mission of Jesus and the institution as a vehicle towards it along with a constant reminder of the "Who". What will happen when they experience the challenge to strict orthodoxy?

Even though the interviewees have all "...chosen to become active in a particular Catholic community..", I wonder whether they would qualify as "practicing"? Granted the author acknowledges that the sampling was not scientific but I would suggest that a future article might include a tinge of scientific sampling of youth who were brought up as Catholic, and who completed their high school within a catholic environment.

My point is that if these young people are the future of the church, does the church recognize them as such or simply tolerate them. Additionally, are thy much different from the seemingly majority of fine young men and womenn who have either walked away from, denied, or simply consider their catholicity irrelevant?

I hope that you will visit a parish in the emerging Tradionalist movement, for instance the Oratory of the Institute of Christ the King in St. Louis.

I am trying to recapture the Catholic spirit. I got lost spiritually after a divorce and I was told I was in a terrible sin after the divorce by a monsignor. I would like to sign up for regular updates and be a member of NCR. I am 50 now. When I was a teen, my church was very active in helping the teens and now it seems the Catholic church doesn't do much. It may be the parish I presently attend.

The Church is of course, all about helping the community of the world and acting as one universal family, but it is also about worshiping God. Don't get so focused on what those around us in the pews or even our priests do, since we are all sinners. Our sins are different, but they are just as deadly. Bickering and discontent causes devilish distractions, or rather, worrying about the details and forgetting the real purpose of being a Catholic in the first place, which is to love God and others. We are also to come together to worship God first and foremost with our whole being one on one, and to change the Church for the better by changing ourselves for the better one person at a time. This happens when we let God work in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. We get this strength and peace in the most powerful and lasting way through the sacraments, and through frequent attendance at Mass. St. Philip Neri encouraged his flock to do just this, since this is the way to heaven; don't worry about others or the state of the Church, but just be good yourself and the Church will change, and it did, for the better.

It may be a matter of semantics, but calling Lutherans and other mainline Protestants who convert to Rome,members of "other faiths" is inaccurate. We are all Christians whose baptisms are recognized by the Vatican, and it is baptism which makes RC and mainline Protestants similar in that respect. I think you should have said "other denominations". A Mormon or a Jew converting is from "another faith".

When I was a young adult I accepted the Church without question too.

For those who find it difficult to stay active in traditional Roman Catholic parishes run by tyrannical dictator pastors, I encourage you to consider the prospect of an “Intentional Eucharistic Community (IEC).” IEC are Catholic parishes formed and governed on a consensus basis by the laity. The laity holds the checkbook, hires priests to serve as presiders at Sunday Masses, runs their own religious education programs, and makes decisions on a consensus basis (consensus among the entire community including the presiders). This is not a new phenomenon; I know of several IEC’s that have recently celebrated their community’s 40th anniversary. An Internet search may lead you to an IEC within driving distance of your home. If not, IEC members may be able to offer you advice on how to start an IEC of your own. There are ways to continue being Catholic that you may not have previously considered . . . .

Thank you to the comments shared by the young ones of the church. In this Year for Priests, we as Catholics can also pray that many young people will be open to God's call to the priesthood and religious life. We need good and holy priests. I am a mother of three young ones and I am realising how different they are in their approach to their faith. I cannot impose my ways on them and even if I find them difficult to understand, I pray that God will give me the trust that He will give them the grace to be faithful to Him. There are very very few role models for young people in the present world but if encouraged to read the lives of saints, they will find testimonies that would help them. THe Catholic Church has always stood tall in spite of all the scandal etc because Jesus Himself has guaranteed its protection. To me as a Catholic the Sacraments, especially Holy Eucharist and Reconciliation is what sustains me and helps me in my faith journey. Without the Eucharist, where would I be? Without this spiritual nourishment of the very Body and Blood of Christ, how could I become like Him? I pray earnestly for young people to come to love Him in the Eucharist, receiving Him with love and reverence and a hunger that only He can satisfy.
God bless
Yours in Christ
Marianne

After reading Mr. Fox's article, I see the views of eight or nine young adults. Not a scientific survey, as Mr. Fox said, nor even a fair sampling, as indicated by the lack of middle-class, people-of-color comment. So what I see is the opinions of a few. Hardly, "the" emerging church; more like a sprout.
However, let me add this: at 59, I'm finding more and more depth in spirituality in the Catholic Church. Granted, some of it is from traditonal sources, such as St. Benedict, St. Francis of Assisi. Some of it from those who have stuck it out, such as the fine book Why Go to Church? by Timothy Radcliff, OP. And some of it by simply spending more time in prayer.
The "emerging" church is sprouting up, is permeating the environment, and is reshaping the ecology of life. Most of us now won't be here to see it in bloom; and perhaps it will never fully blossom as we can imagine. However, make no mistake there are forces mitigating those sprouts, mitigating that ecology, and always darkening the hope. We can trust in Jesus' passion that that is in store for us too. So set your sights directly in front of you with the person or task before you and continue to winnow through the soil above you. On your way, take a piece of bread and sip of wine for nourishment.

Is it any wonder that the more conservative congregations receive more applicants than the more progressive ones?

Even adults are seeking "refuge" in both male and female communities in order to survive in these economically disastrous times. They are usually turned away because they are less malleable or easily manipulated.
The younger ones are kept, especially if they are "appealing" and often preyed on, still.

The world is made up of predators and their preys. They feed on each other. Why do you think there are so many religious cults or sects? And that the Catholic church has become the largest one among them?

RDS in Virginia wrote: "IEC (Intentional Eucharistic Community) are Catholic parishes formed and governed on a consensus basis by the laity. The laity holds the checkbook, hires priests to serve as presiders at Sunday Masses, runs their own religious education programs, and makes decisions on a consensus basis (consensus among the entire community including the presiders)..."

Why is it that so many dissenters think that they can behave and teach and believe however they want and still retain the identity of "Catholic"? What RDS describes here is NOT Catholic. Just because you like to call yourself "Catholic" does not make you one. You cannot be a Catholic and reject the teaching authority of the Magisterium. It's just that simple. Don't like all the icky rules? Don't like the fact that the Catechism isn't a roll-your-own guidebook for those who are "spiritual but not religious"? Don't like the fact that Dogma MUST be believed by faithful Catholics? Then go be a Protestant or a Unitarian or a New Ager, or go call yourself a "modernist catholic-like ecumenical community". But, regardless of what you want to call yourself, you're not "Catholic."

Um, the Intentional Eucharist Community is not Catholic.

You can find any group of people who choose to imitate the U.S. Congress or even call themselves "The U.S. Congress," but that doesn't make them the U.S. Congress in actual reality. Only impostors---in this case, protestants.

Dictator pastors? What?

"Dictator pastors? What?"

Dictator pastors inspired by the autocratic views and practices of JPII.

As the late sociologist of religion Dean Hoge and colleagues noted more than a year ago, the JPII clergy (and bishops) continue to move in one direction while the laity, young and old alike, move in the opposite one.

Maybe we need to promote the death of the Church of Rome in order to promote the birth of a new Catholic Communion of local churches whose bishops do not behave like lackeys of their Roman colleague and his curial retinue.

God knows, his Son is counting on us progressives to put the church back on the path of renewal called for by Vatican II. Some of us work within the institutional church, others outside it. All of us are committed to renewal. It is out of death that new life springs forth!

Good Lord, "most" are less 'rigid'? Whatever can 'rigid' mean today? My dears, unless you want to end up indistinguishable from Unitarians flee to the traditional Mass and throw water on Ms. Chittiser as you rush from Oz and don't back! :-)

The ages of the respondents here would be interesting to note...
Nonetheless, it seems that most of the folks reading and commenting here have the Second Vatican Council (and their interpretation of its documents) as the seminal religious event of their lives. The photos of the staff of the paper, with one exception, show people apparently over the age of 45, with many/most much older. It seems to me that the divide in the Church is much more related to generational differences than to actual theology/ecclesiology, as the article states. Catholics from my parents' generation (they were born in 1950) seem to have imbibed a lot of the "we'll save the world and the Church" hullabaloo of the 1960s. All that was well and good, but the facts pretty well bear out that not much of it worked, and that the new generation isn't much interested in protest puppets, women's ordination, or what the LCWR is doing marching about in NO praying for the wetlands (good Lord, did I actually READ that? My first inclination is to shout, "Get to work!"). Vatican II is for many in my age group just another council, and then, akin to some of the less glorious convocations in the Church's history...kind of another Lateran V or some such. I've come to realize that most people critical of the Church, here and elsewhere, and who regularly spout off about Vatican II, haven't really read the documents of the Council (particularly that somewhat nebulous pieces they produced on the liturgy and the Church), and rely on interpretations provided by people who often have an agenda far to the left of center on lots of different issues. I laughed when I read recently that a woman religious (a Franciscan, as I recall), when asked if she wanted to be a priest, said she didn't even though she knew she'd "be a better pastor than most priests she knows." That one comment is indicative of the entire group of activists gathered under the artifical umbrella we could call the "progressive Catholic movement for reformulation of the Church." Proud. Thank God, however, that most of these folks are spiritual geldings...more and more angry and desperate, but still standing with one foot in the compost heap of ecclesiastical history and the other on a banana peel.

Oh I missed something that absolutely re-inforces the decisions of our family and so many of our friends - to leave......

The Pope is supposed to be infallible. So explain to all of us why he un-excommunicated a Bishop Williamson, who essentially denies the Holocaust of the Jews. Even Argentina, when they discovered Williamson was living there, just plain threw him out of the country. As the world should throw his kind out of humanity. Or if you believe in loving enemies of humanity like Williamson is, just put him in an asylum, cut off from the outside world. Where he can play Nazi computer games to satisfy the devil within him.

Could it be because the Pope was born in 1928 and grew up in Nazi Germany? And has lost the capacity so many ultra conservative Catholics have lost - to be able to stand in the other persons shoes, and feel their pain.

Could it be because the Pope talks about unity - he wants the 600,000 followers of Williamson. What are the dues/year/ head.

Could it be because he needs a hearing aid and new glasses, to understand what Williamson is about?

This is our Pope? Who claims he and his advisors didn't know what Williamson was about? Give me a break. Is this the blind leading the blind in blind faith?

Or is this the time to Impeach the Pope, and send the man to a nursing home to live out his days contemplating his failures. Shown by documents leaked within the last year from the Vatican, where some members of the Hierarchy call his reign "a catastrophe".

There is one way to change the church - Close all of your pocketbooks. And so soon, you will see change, re-afirmming the old statement "money is the root of all evil".

And the absolute truth of what a nobel prize winner said:

There are always good people who do good things.
there are always evil people who do evil things.
But it takes (corrupt) religion to get good people to do evil things.

Where is the Church - Jesus Bride - heading?

Interesting I should come along this article tonight, after storming out of a meeting I was tricked into attending under the guise of "Confirmation preparation for parents" when it was actually a pro-life agenda directed inforamtion meeting.

I am a 42 year old Catholic, obviously raised in the dawn of Vatican II, who has embraced the peace and justice mission of my Church that was so heavily emphasized when I was a child. Unfortunately, I too have become disillusioned with a Church that is stuck on a broken record of abortion without addressing the issues tha lead to abortion in the first place: poverty, abuse, and social isolation.

I am calling to all my missing brothers and sisters to join me in taking back our Church!!!! No family is perfect, but if all the reasonable members leave, what is left? We all need to be there to hold the parents accountable. I believe that the Church is losing so much money, maybe now is the time they will start to listen and pay attention.