the way of the church

I’ve been struggling since the election. Not because my candidate of choice did not win (although, this particular year, the future president is causing an immoderate level of stress in my life), but because the Church I love appeared to overtly endorse him.

This year I saw the leaders of the Catholic Church go beyond providing guidance on policies, using not so coded language from the pulpit to overtly endorse a certain candidate. Maybe they didn’t break any US tax laws but they did threaten the fires of hell if a voter selected the Democrat in the race.

In the not-so-distant past, the Catholic Church focused on policy only, acknowledging that both parties offered solutions to societal problems that fit within Catholic moral teaching. This year, though, many priests doubled down, choosing one policy as the pre-eminent policy while ignoring a plethora of red flags the candidate that endorsed that policy proudly flew.

I miss the Church that sought to balance the shepherding of God’s people with acknowledging that those same people had the freedom to use their well-formed consciences to make moral decisions. Of late, the priests in my diocese have been leaning towards heavy-handed shepherding, assuring us that father knows best. The excuse those in leadership give for their actions is that the consciences of Catholics today are not well-formed.

I disagree.

As a lover of children and a studier of theology, I find that excuse…well, what it is, an excuse. I’ve watched the youngest of children exhibit an understanding of right versus wrong without the benefit of a priest to guide their way. God gifted us with consciences that lean towards good. God also gifted us with the Church to help us when we run into dilemmas. Lately, though, it feels as if the Church has forgotten it is here to help us grow, instead believe it needs to do our thinking for us.

Just once, I would like priests to stop talking about the sin of skipping Mass and instead focus on how corporate greed harms the middle class or how vilifying those who are different from us harms the people most in need of our support.

Or maybe they could warn of the dangers of longing for a past that was only kind to the powerful.

Watching the American Catholic Church parrot the Conservative Evangelical Christian talking points of thirty years ago is a special kind of hell. I thought we had moved past the idea of complementarianism. Men are not only bread-winners. Women are not only mothers. To reduce the genders to something so basic discounts the beautiful expansiveness of God’s creation.

And yet, this is exactly the brand of Catholicism I see projected on the Catholic social media accounts of today.

I am worried.

Do you know what happened in those Conservative Evangelical Christian Communities? The women with gifts to share decided to leave. It made no sense to stay in a Church that taught that men should hold all of the power. The only Christians that preach this patriarchal view are Christians afraid of losing the power they already have.

What they do not understand is that when you diversify power, you develop well-formed communities, which is exactly our goal as Catholics.

It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything for this blog, but now seems a good time to gather in hope. If you’d like to join me, be sure to subscribe to the blog so that these little essays pop into your mailbox. But more importantly, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

I guess what I hope most of all is that if you, like me, are struggling right now, that we may find comfort and strength in struggling together.

Photo by Joe Yates on Unsplash