Simple answers to complex questions?

Submitted on May 11, 2001

Send to friend Either/or. Black or white. In our contemporary culture, it is becoming increasingly commonplace to discuss complex issues in simplistic ways, using extreme language. We mostly see it in politics, where those who urge fiscal restraint are portrayed as "cold-hearted" while those who urge social reform are portrayed as "spendthrifts." Oftentimes a more fair, reasoned assessment is required. It is especially unfortunate when complex Church issues are discussed in simplistic ways. Such was the case in a recent news item covered by Catholic News Service. The story in question pertained to the new book, "Young Adult Catholics: Religion in the Culture of Choice," and its survey and analysis of trends pertaining to young adults in the Church. And while it is unclear where the simplicity originated, it should stop here. "A survey of young adult U.S. Catholics reported that they strongly prefer a personalized view of the faith instead of the rules of the institutional Church," the story begins. There are your extremes: the loving, personal faith vs. the big, bad "institutional Church." Like butterflies and rainbows vs. Big Tobacco. The problem with the assertion is its lack of context regarding what our Catholic faith is. We are a personal Church. We are an institutional Church. The two concepts need not be mutually exclusive. At our best, we are a personal Church that is institutional and an institutional Church that is personal. The lead researcher for the survey, Dean R. Hoge of the Life Cycle Institute at The Catholic University of America in Washington noted in the story that young adults are more tentative in their affiliation with the Church because "[w]here many seek a church community, they often encounter one of hierarchy." Read: church community, good; hierarchy, bad. The results of the survey suggest that the institution that is the Church is of little value; indeed, the institution - it is suggested - may indeed turn young adults away from the practice of the faith. These are, of course, the same young adults who in numbers upwards of 64 percent say "you can be a good Catholic without going to Mass." It obviously is not the "authority" of the institutional Church that is turning off our young adults. Could it be that such surveys promote a kind of catechesis-of-personal-opinion which is itself "at war" with the whole notion of inspired and authoritative teaching? Such surveys give compliant young adults few options for expressing a nuanced faith expression. The Church is what it is - a "both/and" mystery in which the human and the divine are gracefully intertwined. Simplistic portrayals of what element of the faith wears the proverbial black hat are not helpful. We should reflect on these complex issues more carefully.