Young Voices

It may be the only issue on which conservative, moderate, and liberal young Catholics unite: few of us seem to want to make a life-long commitment to celibacy.

Though it has been documented that more traditional religious communities are maintaining higher numbers of recruits, even those who initially join these orders aren't guaranteed to stay committed. Half of the men and women who have entered religious life since 1990 left before taking final vows, according to a recent study conducted for the National Religious Vocation Conference.

This month, the Knights of Columbus released the results of a survey done with Marist Poll on the attitudes of young Catholics in the U.S., ages 18 to 29. From the press release and executive summary, one would think that most, if not all, US Catholic Millennials toe the Knights' party line.

The most recent statement to shame and blame young Catholics for the crisis in vocations comes courtesy of Cardinal Franc Rodé, the man overseeing the much-publicized investigation of U.S. women religious. According to the Catholic News Service's account of the speech, "Rodé said it was undoubtedly more difficult today for all religious orders to find young people who are willing to break away from the superficial contemporary culture and show a capacity for commitment and sacrifice."

As a young woman studying religion in college, my friend and I traveled to hear Mary Daly speak in the late 1990s. After the lecture, I took a picture of my friend leaping high and holding a bumper sticker touting Mary’s memorable phrase: “Sin Big.” I don’t recall much of the specific words that I heard that evening beyond those, but I remember the idea: women mattered.

In a culture where ideas often encourage women’s soul-shrinking, Mary Daly called women to live large. Her famous phrase “sin big” came from her study of the word “sin” whose etymology has roots in the word “to be.” As such, Mary’s theology called women to be big; to sin against or break through patriarchal ideological and material barriers that do not support women’s -- or men’s -- lives.

The beauty of a brilliant idea is that it does not remain one. It is transformed into flesh and bone and breath. People try on an idea and, if it does them justice, will wear it forever. It becomes part of them and their living.