“The Church Does Not Have the Authority” – The Vatican’s Favorite Excuse

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“Why can’t women be priests?” I remember asking my mother and her religious friends at dinner one day when they were over. “If girls can do anything boys can – why not this job?”

I was given the official church answer. You’ll find it on a variety of Catholic apologetics websites: because Jesus’s 12 apostles (the first priests) were all men, and Jesus never established women priests, so the church has no authority to ordain women. They claim it’s not their call to make.

This didn’t sit well with me then as a Catholic, and it sits even less well with me now. All of the apostles were circumcised Jewish-men-turned-followers of Christ. At one point in the New Testament, the early Christians discuss whether or not men need to be circumcised to follow Christ, and the church determines that no, they don’t (Acts 15). Why is it OK for the church to make a decision regarding circumcision, and to not require priests to be Jewish, but it is OK for them to require priests to be men? When the Bible talks about women leading and preaching, it’s clear the early church was pretty sexist. (See 1 Timothy 2:11-12). But Catholicism doesn’t always read scripture literally or take all their teachings from it. If they did, women wouldn’t be allowed to braid their hair or wear jewelry (see a few versus before the one about women teaching. 1 Timothy 2:9). They’re supposed to rely on apostolic tradition and interpretation. I’m convinced, based on the outcome of the circumcision discussion, that they could have changed this if they wanted to. They pick and choose what matters to them and what doesn’t.

I’m unhappy but not at all surprised to see the church take the same lame excuse they’ve been using against women to state their current position against gay marriage. While some in my community were hopeful for change, since the current pope has been less focused on anti-gay, anti-divorce comments than previous ones, and has even made occasionally forward-seeming remarks, I’m unsurprised by anti-gay statements made by the Vatican. As reported here by NPR,

The message, approved by Pope Francis, came in response to questions about whether the church should reflect the increasing social and legal acceptance of same-sex unions.

“Does the Church have the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex?” the question asked. “Negative,” replied the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is responsible for defending Catholic doctrine.

This is just the church making an excuse. Continuing with the priest example, the priests who said mass when I was growing up were not ex-Jews turned Catholics from the Middle East. They came from a variety of backgrounds. I don’t see the Catholic church arguing that the Irish pastor I grew up with should not have been ordained under the church’s authority because he doesn’t look like any of the apostles.

The reality is, social change challenges the church’s authority. When the basis of your faith is, we have the correct interpretation of apostolic tradition passed down through the priesthood, admitting that the church has been wrong on any number of issues from heliocentricity to women’s rights to gay marriage requires the church to admit that they can be wrong about other things too. Faith is belief without reason to do so. How does one remain faithfully unquestioning when these questions are a reality of everyday life?

So the church digs in its heels, and when it does, many parishoners find themselves in a position of cherry picking their faith in order to keep it. When these believers are forced to evaluate church teachings for themselves as their friends and children and siblings come out of the closet, they are gifted a new lens with which to evaluate the church, one which is willing to take the good and throw away the bad. A huge erosion of the church’s authority cannot be avoided in the face of this challenge. The Vatican is afraid to look it in the face. Think of the pope not as a kind old man or preacher, but as a politician teetering on the precipice of change.

Churches are closing and consolidating at rates I’ve never seen before in my lifetime. Though the church claims there is no longer a shortage of vocations to the priesthood, that won’t matter much if there is a shortage of parishioners.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the church closures as it relates to these issues.

Happy thinking!

Nancy

I’m Bi

I made a post on this blog years ago, placing myself on the Kinsey scale. At the time, I remember thinking to myself, “Is it OK for me to write this as a straight person? I think this technically says I’m bisexual.”

Haha, about that…

Shortly before my 28th birthday, I was watching this video from Shaaba, talking about her experiences as a bisexual woman. And I couldn’t get it out of my head. Because so many things she said sounded exactly like my experiences. Minus the self-assuredness of knowing my sexuality.

I remember taking a shower a few days after watching that video and just calling myself bisexual internally for the first time. Just in my head. And it was such a strange feeling. At first I was like, that’s not my word. I’m not allowed to use that word for me. And then I was like wait, what definition do other people use for that word? Attraction to more than one gender? Their own gender and other genders? Because I’m that definition. Which means that is my word. That’s me!

I started to go back and forth on it again within a few days. But I kept landing on the word over and over again. I started watching more content about it. Realized, the definition I was applying to others was way more broad than the one I was applying to myself. Bisexuality isn’t inherently a 50/50 men and women thing. If someone told me they were a 90/10 or 10/90 bisexual, I’d believe them. I was pretty sure I was more like 80/20 or 70/30, and I was calling myself straight.

Then I learned about the bi cycle.

If you take nothing else away from this post, remember that not everyone is monosexual. Now, if you’re questioning even a little bit, extend that understanding to you. I’m not saying you’re bi, or pan, or omni, but like. You could be. After straight, it’s the 2nd most common sexuality.

I’m happily married and monogamous, so this realization has no impact on my dating life, but it’s a relief to finally admit this to myself. It’s given me permission mentally to love and accept this feature of who I am.

Why did it take so long for me to figure it out?

My parents and conservative homeschooling community growing up didn’t talk much about LGBTQIA+ people, except to say bad things. My mom refused to tell me what “gay” meant for a long time, then eventually showed me an outdated copy of the DSM that classified it as a mental illness. My mom also disregarded certain scenes in The Diary of Anne Frank as just being “young” and “exploring/experiencing wonder at women’s bodies” so when I had sexual thoughts about women I went “It’s that.”

I became an expert at explaining away what I was thinking and feeling. “I just want to look like her. She’s pretty.” Or, “I just really want to be her best friend.” Yep. Gal pals. It’s incredible to me how, because I like men, I could have sexual fantasies involving women and pretend that didn’t mean anything. Dreams about sex with women and they didn’t mean anything. Because I like men.

There are so many things that factor into a person taking a while to figure this out, so I’m working hard to forgive myself for taking this long. Did you know romantic attraction and sexual attraction are different? (Thank you to the asexual and aromantic community for giving language to this). I feel that the romantic attraction dials are turned to different intensities for men and women for me. And that’s OK!

Happy thinking!

Nancy

The Post-Christian Church and the Accelerating Failure of American Christianity

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There’s an excellent YouTube video by Beau of the Fifth Column (and I highly recommend his channel although religion is definitely not his typical topic) about the idea of a “post-Christian church.” In it, Beau discusses the fact that many churches today are in direct conflict with the teachings of Christ. Beau asks viewers to consider their church parishioners’ likely response to any government efforts to feed the hungry (think, food stamps), house the homeless, heal the sick (universal healthcare anyone?) –basically those core good deeds Christ promoted to his followers in the Bible. Would most Christians in churches today support these proposals? Even though they are literally part of the teachings of Christ? One would hope so.

But I remember my fellow Catholics doing presentations about why Obamacare was going to be terrible, and we needed to fight against it (pretty much the opposite of “heal the sick when Obamacare itself was nowhere near enough to resolve the US healthcare system’s massive problems, though certainly a small step in the right direction). I recall them raving against social safety nets and “welfare queens” whenever someone tried to pass a bill to help the poor. Sure, they did charity work. They volunteered at a food pantry or soup kitchen. I don’t think those charities are a waste of time, but they’re Band-Aid solutions to systemic problems. My fellow Catholics voted repeatedly against systemic change and bragged about it to each other.

There are a lot of posts here about why I left Catholicism, but politics played a huge role in the deconstruction of my faith. I was expected to be “pro-life,” anti LGBTQIA+, and generally right wing. Then I met my high school best friend, who is queer. And it introduced a massive internal conflict.

I stumbled upon this article in the Atlantic by Peter Wehner, talking about how Evangelical Christianity is falling apart post-Trump and post-pandemic. A lot of people never returned to the pews after Covid, and those who remained feel more strongly about masks and vaccines, and anti-woke beliefs than they do about Jesus. They’re choosing their church based on the political beliefs it espouses. Wehner’s description of the post-Trump Evangelical church felt simultaneously worse than I remembered in Catholicism, but also unsurprising and familiar. I’ve seen both in the news and from Catholic family members: a lot of people didn’t come back to Catholic churches either after Covid. Multiple parishes in my state closed, or were combined with another parish. I suspect this may be impacting Christianity broadly across the United States, not just Evangelical churches.

Wehner identifies Trump and the Pandemic as having wreaked havoc on the culture within American Christianity. I don’t disagree, but I suspect too much emphasis has been placed on these elements as the source of the trouble. Trump and the pandemic caused a lot of problems to surface in our society in a way they hadn’t in a long time, but they were already there. George Floyd’s death wasn’t the start of racist police brutality and the cultural dialogue in response. His death merely magnified it.

Wehner also briefly brings up the social media and broader media diet problem within our country, wherein people are reinforcing their political beliefs on a daily basis. Wehner bemoans that Christianity cannot compete with the feeding frenzy that is the political media beast, yearning for people to turn to the Church and the Bible more strongly. What I don’t think Werner quite grasps is that the Church, by being a community of people, is reinforcing these beliefs even without preaching them from the pulpit, when it gathers groups together for Bible study or men/women’s retreats, or any other organized event, even just when congregants talk with each other in the hall after service or mass, the gathering in and of itself provides opportunities for people to link their political identities with their religion. People implicitly trust the other members of their church communities. Their words hold more weight than an outsider’s thoughts. When a parishioner mentions a political view, the community’s de facto response is “Amen.” And then another statement reinforcing or building upon that view.

Another YouTube channel I’ve been following lately is Fundie Fridays, which goes over a lot of Christian fundamentalist people and organizations. While listening to their video on James Dobson and Focus on the Family, I realized how much my Catholic upbringing was influenced by our local Christian radio station, which heavily featured right-wing Christian radio powerhouses like Focus on the Family. Sure, my parents watched EWTN (a Catholic media network) but Dobson’s Evangelical beliefs spread through Focus on the Family influenced us too. If Christian radio recommended another piece of Christian media, it had a lot of the same value as a recommendation from a fellow church member. This cultural change was happening through Christian media throughout my childhood and beforehand.

Yes, Focus on the Family is an anti-LGBTQIA+ and otherwise right-wing organization based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. (Yes, the one with the recent shooting.) Focus on the Family doesn’t just say political things on their radio station, they have also done anti LGBTQIA+ lobbying. They were founded in 1977. EWTN’s first broadcast was in 1981. Christian media mixing politics with faith is not that new. EWTN heavily promotes pro-life (anti-abortion) views on their television channel.

The incendiary, polarizing voices affecting American Christianity today didn’t start with Trump. They didn’t even start with social media polarization. There’s an axiom in journalism, “If it bleeds, it leads.” The most intense, frightening and attention-grabbing headlines were the front page on the newspaper or “breaking news” on TV long before social media started capitalizing on people’s fears and biases for views at the accelerated rate we see today. Christian media organizations are not immune to the need to grab and hold an audience’s attention. That need is present in all forms of media.

Make no mistake, Trump and a pandemic dumped gasoline on this fire. But it was started long ago. Thanks to Christian media, church is inextricably linked to right-wing ideology, even when it isn’t preached at the pulpit (and in my experience, it often is.) This doesn’t mean there aren’t congregations that aren’t like this, or that there aren’t individuals within a church who don’t adhere to these ideas. But church is increasingly about consolidating political power and applying it in a call to action. Think, church-organized transportation to the march for life, an annual anti-choice protest which is heavily promoted in Catholic media. Think, signing a petition against legalizing various forms of LGBTQ+ rights. Think, donating to organizations that lobby for the right on those issues and others.

I’m glad to see Wehner and others are pushing back on the linkage between religion and politics. That linkage is pushing people out of their churches, communities, and even their families, from lay people to pastors, and it’s consolidating political power on the right in a way that I believe had a hand in the overturning of Roe v Wade.

Where Wehner promotes Biblical thinking as a solution, I’d like to suggest critical thinking, and better general education regarding things like how to evaluate the quality of information and sources. Churches are going to continue to fall apart at an alarming rate if this political behavior continues, but they will take more basic human rights with them while they still hold considerable power.

What are your experiences with churches promoting or otherwise reinforcing political ideologies and action? I’d love to hear from you.

Happy thinking!

Nancy

What I Learned About the US Healthcare System While Watching Call the Midwife

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My Netflix addiction is getting worse, but in other news, I’ve been enjoying the BBC series Call the Midwife. I don’t think the message I’m getting from it was intended, but here it is: in the 1950s, this poor neighborhood in London had better access to medical care than many people in the United States have today. With COVID-19 in the mix, we’re well past the time to admit that healthcare is a human right, and anything but guaranteeing universal access creates additional hurdles to overcome in a disaster like the one we’re experiencing today.

The UK established the NHS, their healthcare system, in 1948. They still have it to this day. I’m sure there have been changes over time, but the gist is the same: in the UK, when someone is sick or injured, their first concern is to get to a doctor, not to scrape together funds.

Healthcare doesn’t function like other industries. If I can’t afford to shop for jewelry, I don’t buy jewelry. If I can’t afford a new TV, I don’t buy a TV. If I need surgery to live but can’t afford it, I can’t afford not to get surgery – my choice is find the money or die. In the US, many call an Uber instead of an ambulance to go to the hospital because of the bill.

There’s such a thing in my country as “medical bankruptcy.”

1948 was over 70 years ago. We still do not have healthcare guaranteed in the USA. There are people dying from curable illnesses and injuries in a supposedly wealthy, developed nation, because they do not have health insurance, and because we allow healthcare and pharmaceutical companies to artificially hike prices to unattainable levels that literally no. other. country. pays. Here’s a Huffpost article from 2017 about the average cost to give birth. And other countries have the same drugs and treatments available, without paying these insane costs.

If you’re from the US, I encourage you to imagine a time and place with no need to stress about whether the closest doctor will accept your insurance, whether you’ve met your deductible or can afford your co-pay. That describes 1950s London, and basically the entire developed world today, minus the USA. The right-wing in my country keep claiming that to suggest a Medicare for All system is to aspire to Venezuela’s struggles, instead of recognizing that most developed countries figured this out sometime in the last century. We should be embarrassed that we’re the hold out, not proud of a system that fails a significant portion of our people.

If you have healthcare experiences in the US or elsewhere, feel free to share in the comments. Have you experienced healthcare that was free or low-cost at the point of care without huge monthly insurance premiums? What was that like? I can only imagine.

Happy thinking!

Nancy

Catholic Funeral Disrespects Deceased Teen

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The other day, I stumbled upon this article from the Washington Post about the inappropriate behavior of a priest during a funeral mass for a young man who had committed suicide. The priest met with the family, as is typical before a funeral mass, in order to prepare a homily that would honor the deceased. The parents expressed that they wanted to celebrate their son’s life, but the priest had other ideas.

The priest spent much of his homily speculating that the deceased might not make it into heaven because he had committed suicide, using that word upwards of 6 times. (For full details, see the article linked above.)

The Catholic church has not been historically kind when it comes to suicide. From my own memories of growing up Catholic, I can recall the pastor of my former parish giving a homily about sin, in which he advised that all sin except for one is forgivable, and that one sin is despair. As I grew up, I came to understand he was referring to suicide. The Washington Post article corroborates my memory:

For centuries, the Catholic Church has struggled with the religious implications, and societal stigma, of suicide. It wasn’t until the 1960s that the church began taking a more benign approach to suicide, allowing parishioners who had taken their own lives to receive a Catholic funeral and be buried on sacred ground in Catholic cemeteries. In the 1990s, Pope John Paul II approved the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which acknowledged — for the first time — that many people who die by suicide also suffer from mental illness.

I suspect the Catholic Church of doing this to other families. We’re only hearing this particular story because it was so egregious that the family complained publicly. There may well be other cases -not so cut and dry, but still on the cusp of inappropriate, and they may be more common than the church might like to admit.

On a tangiential note, in my last post I mentioned the weakness of church leadership when it comes to questioning old traditions and practices. The Washington Post article brings an example of this: the church’s teaching on suicide changed for the better as of the 1990s, yet priests are still preaching that suicide leads to hell.

The article quotes a priest from the Archdiocese of Chicago and explains:

Though it has been decades since the church adopted a more compassionate view of suicide, there remains a disconnect between some outlier priests and their parishes. The Rev. Charles T. Rubey said he has seen it within the Archdiocese of Chicago and during his 40 years as director and founder of the LOSS program, Loving Outreach to Survivors of Suicide.
“There are still some priests who view suicide as a mortal sin,” Rubey said. “That has been categorically denied by church leadership.”

If the Pope-approved catechism statement on suicide isn’t enough to make this needed change, especially with the present-day understanding of mental health, it really calls the church’s credibility into question. This kind of thing can really push people away.

My thoughts are with the family of the deceased – this is incredibly difficult, made more difficult by the way it was handled at the funeral, and I hope the church is more punitive toward the offending priest than the article says they will be. The church needs to set a clear example that this will not be tolerated. Otherwise, I guarantee it will continue in another parish in another town, and other priests may be emboldened because he got away with it. This is their pattern of behavior.

Happy thinking,

Nancy

Netflix’ Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Critiques Catholicism

It’s been a while since I really sank my teeth into a fantasy series. I used to love them growing up – Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Harry Potter (that last one took serious begging to be allowed to read when I was a kid) were some of my favorites. But lately, I’ve found fantasy a bit too tropey for me, preferring science fiction, especially dystopian fiction, when I wanted to venture into something speculative. But then Netflix released the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and mostly out of nostalgia for the sitcom from my childhood (another series I had to beg and beg my parents to let me watch), I decided to give it a go.

There are a lot of elements that feel super relevant and timely. Sabrina’s classmates and close friends feature a gender nonconforming character, as well as a movement to empower women and give students access to banned books. It touches on disability and disaster, family dynamics and growing up. I wouldn’t say it’s the most realistic story ever, but I’m able to check my disbelief at the door more often than not. What I find particularly fascinating though is the choice to build a world so unlike that of the sitcom, and more like the imagined witchcraft found in the Salem witch trials. Christian mythology is expanded upon to include magic power bestowed by the devil. Sabrina must choose whether or not to sign her name in the book of the beast, agreeing to do the devil’s bidding if called upon, in exchange for greater magical powers.

Once I realized this series would rely heavily on expanded Christian stories, I tried to see if I could pinpoint what branch of Christianity seemed prevalent in the writing. The answer came within a few episodes (stop reading here if you don’t want spoilers) when it’s revealed that Sabrina has been baptized a Catholic, indicating that perhaps her human mother was Catholic, and priming the audience to think about the ways Catholicism interacts with the series. In a later episode, Sabrina looks to rid a possessed character of a demon, and it’s a significant plot point that this is not something done by witches, only by Catholics priests, so how does she intend to do this when witches don’t seem to view demons as something needing to be removed?

The aspect of the show I found most difficult to suspend disbelief for is the idea that people could follow Satan as a benevolent character, when he’s attributed to some pretty f’d up sh*t within the show itself. Then again, is this where the critique on religion begins? The Abrahamic God is attributed to some downright awful things. The Exodus story (Moses leading his people away) is complicated not ultimately by Pharaoh, but by God himself, who keeps “hardening his heart” (or in 2018 speak, changing Pharaoh’s mind), making the plagues God unleashes on Egypt pretty unjustified. Or what about the flood in Noah’s Arc? That’s a pretty messed up genocide by most standards, isn’t it? The tower of Babel? The walls of Jericho?

Getting back to the point: this TV show makes a pretty strong point about the actual authority of religious leadership, and about how easily religion and tradition get out of hand, creating an unstoppable mob mentality.

There’s an episode about a Satanic, cannibalistic ritual, in which a witch is chosen to be eaten by the other witches. (I’m going to spoil the end, stop reading if you want to watch it first.) The episode centers around Sabrina trying to stop the ritual from being completed, to save the life of the chosen witch. When the Satanic leader presiding over the whole thing is eventually persuaded to say he’s had a revelation that this ritual should be discontinued, he fails to stop the devoted crowd. He saves the life of the chosen witch, but another witch springs forward, kills herself, and is devoured.

I find this scene absolutely brilliant in the context of present-day Catholicism, and discussions around the real or perceived authority of Pope Francis. The pope has said the church should focus more on helping the poor rather than condemning and punishing sinners within its ranks. He’s been far more forgiving (though I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s been truly fair) to divorced people, for example. But whenever the Pope says something mildly less conservative than a previous Pope, Catholics will be quick to declare that in that moment he isn’t speaking with papal authority. Yet I guarantee, if he gives a speech against abortion, his words will be taken at face value.

In a community that insists on obedience to a rigid set of traditions and rules that are supposed to be perfect (coming from a higher power), challenging those traditions creates major cognitive dissonance, which needs to be explained. It’s easier for a devout believer who thinks their religion is perfect to believe a human made an error, than to think their God did.

Does this story of religious authority being dismissed strike a nerve in anyone else? Or is it just me? Are there parallels in other denominations or religions I’m not as familiar with? Feel free to leave a comment. All opinions are welcome, just be respectful and think things through before posting.

Happy thinking!

Nancy

 

 

Funeral for a Cracker

My family had a funeral to attend recently, and it was a Catholic one. My husband, who was not much of a churchgoer growing up, expressed surprise at how much of the funeral mass was–well, mass. The nonstop Jesus talk, the same repetitive prayers, the call and response, the sit-stand-kneel, then a homily and prayers that had more to do with the Catholic teaching on the Eucharist (holy communion) than anything else. The deceased was barely mentioned, except to talk about Catholic teaching on heaven, hell, and salvation. This was not in any way meant to memorialize the person, only to send them off to heaven.

We found ourselves wondering, is this how we’ll be commemorated when we die? We hope not. The opportunities for true morning and community, for remembering the deceased, were constantly interrupted to instruct on church doctrine regarding death.

The most personal moments that we found the most touching occurred at the wake, where relatives shared photos of the deceased and talked about their memories of his life. This was a somewhat estranged relative in his later years, so we also talked about how that estrangement occurred, and together we came to terms with it.

But my uncle, who did the funerary arrangements, also made sure we had a priest come and do some speaking and ceremonious prayers at the wake, and that cut the personal commemorations short. Suddenly we were being preached to. Preached at, even. I know the salvation talk is comforting to religious people, but to me it was downright jarring. I wanted to hear more about what little we knew about this relative’s childhood and earlier life. This relative fought in World War II. What was that like?

After the prayers, my aunt mentioned she hasn’t been to church in a while but wanted to start going again. Death does that to people, and the church makes sure to be very present during these moments when we’re reminded of our mortality because it claims to offer a way to live forever. I’ve talked about this before: belief in an afterlife is a coping mechanism. I don’t think it’s a healthy way to do it, but it is one way humans deal with their mortality.

The way we morn is also extremely unnatural. We prep the body to make it look better, and to preserve it long enough for relatives to stare at it for a couple of days. My relative had cancer and was very thin in his final days, but the embalmer had done something to make his body look healthier. We spend so much money on viewing a body. So much energy. As human beings, we’re very bad at facing the realities of what death means. We don’t like to imagine our relatives decomposing. This got very morbid but it’s true. I think there’s got to be a better way for us to come to terms with the end of someone’s life.

Do you have experiences with death and mourning in a religious or nonreligious setting? Were there any traditions that you thought helped the families especially?

Feel free to leave a comment. All opinions are welcome, just be respectful and think things through before posting.

Happy thinking!

Nancy

 

 

“Slain in the Spirit”: When You Fall Over, Because Jesus

Religious people often say that prayer makes them feel at peace. It’s not uncommon to hear a person of faith say they just “feel so loved” in God’s presence when they pray or go to church. But sometimes they take it a bit further. Some people act as if God is physically doing something to their bodies, and that’s what this post is about.

The Pentecostal church is perhaps most well known for practicing these things, but some Catholics have become very involved in these bizarre behaviors as well, and I had the privilege of hearing about them growing up.

Speaking in tongues

My mother swore up and down that my brother’s godmother could speak in tongues. Completely unintelligible language would spurt from her mouth in prayer sometimes, and my mother firmly believed her friend been given this gift by the holy spirit. I never witnessed this myself so I’m unable to describe how it sounded exactly, but from what my mother said, it didn’t sound like any language she had ever heard. This surprised me then, because my mom studied voice in college and spent a lot of time on foreign languages, so she’s familiar with a lot more languages than the average joe.

A believer would probably point out here that she probably studied European languages and maybe this one came from somewhere in Asia or Africa. But giving one the ability to speak a random language for no reason is not the holy spirit’s M.O. In religious folklore (the Bible), the holy spirit is supposed to have given this incredible ability to communicate with and understand people who do not speak your language. The story of Pentecost is literally about this happening. It’s not about someone standing and speaking nonsense syllables in front of a group of people who already all speak the same language, as I’ve come to understand seems to be what happened with my mom’s friend. It makes you wonder, what the heck is this woman thinking when she’s doing it? Does she know she’s faking? Or has she convinced herself of the lie she’s been telling her friends?

 

The Charismatic Movement 

This is, I’ve come to understand, not exclusively a Catholic thing.

I kid you not, maybe a year or two before I attended the Steubenville conference  I’ve written about in a previous post (which definitely shares some traits with this movement), my mother told me she was attending what’s known as a charismatic Mass, led by a priest whose masses were often so moving that people would be “slain in the spirit.”

I asked her what that meant. She said it’s when the holy spirit touches someone, and they are moved so deeply that they fall over. (Yes, like fainting.) I asked her if she had ever been slain in the spirit. She said yes, but only once.

If you click the first link under this heading, you’ll see that the Charismatic movement rose to popularity in the 60s and 70s in a variety of Christian denominations. I can’t help but wonder if the culture of the time had more to do with it than anything else. Religion had to compete with sex, drugs, and rock and roll after all. With some showmanship and emotional manipulation, I suspect the Charismatic movement’s appeal comes from the community that forms around it. Much as I experienced at Steubenville, there’s a sense belonging that comes with everyone in the room participating and having these strong emotional reactions to religious stimuli. We tell ourselves, for instance, we’re crying because we’re having this emotional encounter with God, but really we’re crying because other people around us are. It’s a social response manipulated to serve a narrative. The power of a crowd reaction.

Miracle healing also falls under the category of the Charismatic movement, and that’s its own can of worms.

I see the appeal of having not only a god you believe intervenes but one who interacts with you directly and gives you a damn superpower. But it’s simply not real; it’s a pleasant fantasy at best.

Have you had any experiences with Charismatic Christianity? How did that play out? Feel free to leave a comment. All opinions are welcome. Just be respectful and think things through before posting.

Happy thinking!

Nancy

Consumerist Giving: When Your Donations Cause Problems

In light of the major hurricanes that recently did immense damage to Texas, islands in the Caribbean, and Florida, and also the earthquake in Mexico, it’s time to talk about how to help in real tangible ways, and about a huge donation/giving snafu to avoid.

I stumbled upon this article the other day from CBS, and I can confirm that this is a real problem from personal experience. I did a lot of volunteering in college and happened to volunteer in areas of the east coast affected by Hurricane Sandy, so I’ve seen some of this firsthand, though not on the scale that the writer describes. TLDR: Charity can be very good, but not all charitable donations are helpful.

As the article explains,

“Generally after a disaster, people with loving intentions donate things that cannot be used in a disaster response, and in fact may actually be harmful,” said Juanita Rilling, former director of the Center for International Disaster Information in Washington, D.C. “And they have no idea that they’re doing it.”

The article goes on to describe huge piles of clothing donations blocking airport runways during hurricane disaster relief – runways that were needed to land planes full of actual life-saving supplies. It talks about a huge influx of teddy bears-thousands-donated to Sandy Hook after the tragic shooting at the elementary school.

Chris Kelsey, who worked for Newtown at the time, said they had to get a warehouse to hold all the teddy bears….As Kelsey said, “I think a lot of the stuff that came into the warehouse was more for the people that sent it, than it was for the people in Newtown. At least, that’s the way it felt at the end.”

He makes an excellent point. After disaster strikes, there’s a wonderful human urge to help and to feel like you’ve contributed in some real, tangible way. But we also have our own preconceived notions about what is helpful and what isn’t, and they aren’t always accurate.

I volunteered at a food pantry for a while and was one of the people who helped in the back room bagging groceries. We pretty much only dealt with food items, though occasionally we might get a donation of something like diapers. We were not, and never were intended, to be a clothing donation place.

Then the hurricane hit, and everyone wanted to lend a hand, and also a hand-me-down. This food pantry was completely inundated with clothing donations, I’m talking full trash bags piled to the ceiling, and we didn’t have room for them, or the resources to sort, clean, and distribute them properly. We started giving them away as much as possible, shoving them at people who didn’t want them or need them. I remember one week, because we had started giving away clothing donations, people who had come in for food assistance the week before came back with several boxes and bags of clothing donations. Thinking they were helping. That since we were giving away clothing, we must want more donations.

I thought this was a crazy problem to have. A food pantry inundated with the wrong type of donations, and lots of them. Then I read the aforementioned article about other hurricanes, which talks about people literally burning piles of donations because they were not the things people affected by the disaster actually needed, and these unwanted donations had rotted in a pile from not being handled in a timely, proper manner.

I told a co-worker this story and she was shocked. She said, why couldn’t they just pass the clothes on to someone else? Surely some people affected by the disaster must need clothes.

I told her, not necessarily. Because, as I recall from the hurricane, all the other charities in the area were flooded with donations after the disaster too, and again, not necessarily the things that were needed, or that the particular charity was set up to handle.

All you have to do to avoid contributing to this problem is to listen to the charities you are donating to. If they give a list of items they need, stick to the list. If they ask for a monetary donation or otherwise indicate that they will take one, it is almost always far more helpful to make a monetary donation. I know a lot of people prefer controlling exactly what their money buys, while others may prefer the personal touch of picking out an item to donate, but by giving money to a charity you trust, you grant them the ability to make bulk purchases that help a larger number of people than the four cans you bought plus the 2 nearly expired ones you took out of your pantry.

In case you haven’t seen it, the Adam Ruins Everything video on food drives is 100% accurate in my experience. Seriously, over 95% of what we gave out came from bulk purchases, not food drives. I’ve helped sort that stuff. A lot of what we got from said drives was expired, or just a weird item nobody eats. Rule of thumb: if you’re not sure how to cook it, someone else might not be either. Don’t donate that weird can of secret saucy surprise.

If you know of any charities that are doing good work to help the victims of these recent natural disasters, feel free to share in the comments!

Always donate responsibly.

Happy thinking!

Nancy

Catholic Superstitions and Extreme Prayer Claims

Superstitions exist in many cultures, but I don’t think enough has been said about the very superstitious and bizarre things people do in mainstream religions.

A Catholic relative told me recently about something she’s doing to try to sell her house faster, and it reminded me of the many weird things I used to do as a kid, and that I saw my parents doing.

She said, “I haven’t had any offers yet, but my friend told me when she was selling her house, it helped to take a pot of dirt and get a statue of St. Joseph. You put the statue in the pot upside down, and then you put dirt over it, and he helps you sell your house.”

I’m very proud of myself for not laughing at her in that moment. Apparently, this practice is so widespread that there are “kits” for it, sold at various Catholic websites. Here’s one I found at discountcatholicproducts.com

There’s even a whole website dedicated to this St. Joseph statue nonsense: https://st-josephstatue.com

My parents’ house is full of similar Catholic paraphernalia, and you can find many of these things in the homes of other devout Catholics too.

Scapulars – most notably the brown Carmelite scapular – may promise special priveledges to those who wear them and devote themselves to certain prayers and practices. This one, in particular, is said by some Catholics to keep a person out of hell.

Brown scapular

 

Relics – these are some of my personal favorite freaky Catholic artifacts. There are 3 classes of relics. A third class relic is an article that the tomb of a saint has touched. A second class relic is usually an article the saint wore or used. I had a 2nd class one for Blessed Kateri, and it was a minuscule scrap of turquoise fabric, so small it was barely large enough to make out the color, encased in a shiny metal relic-holder. First class relics are usually a tiny bone fragment, supposedly from the saint him or herself.  Apparently, Catholicism does not promote or really allow the buying and selling of relics in most instances, however, it is permitted for a Catholic to buy one to “rescue” it and bring it back to Catholic use. This loophole, when you think about it, creates a market where non-Catholics sell to Catholics. As a result, “relics” may or may not actually come from the saint in question, and need to be vetted. This article on Forbes has more information on the sale of relics. Granted, this is from 2008, but a search online for relics today does list some eBay results, so they are definitely still being bought and sold.

 

Prayer cards and prayer candles are also common Catholic paraphernalia, and people like my parents tend to collect a lot of them over time, as they each pertain to a different saint. In Catholicism, different saints are patrons of different things. For instance, St. Lucy, usually depicted holding eyeballs on a plate, is the patron saint of the blind. So if a family member has vision trouble, prayers to St. Lucy for her intercession (in other words, for Lucy to go talk to God on your behalf) are a very normal behavior. You might bring a relic of St. Lucy to someone getting eye surgery if you should be lucky enough to have one, or you might light a St. Lucy prayer candle for them.

 

St. Lucy

 

When you read into some of the saints’ stories, you kind of have to wonder how people can believe this stuff. Even the Wikipedia page for St. Lucy currently points out that there are several different versions of her story circulating.

 

Novenas are another type of prayer that sometimes come with extreme claims. When a family friend from church was out of work, my parents prayed a special novena (9-day prayer) that was supposed to help her magically find work. This is a common practice you can see recommended on Catholic forums, with people often completely attributing their success to the prayer.

Then there was a special prayer my family always said to St. Anthony while we looked for lost items. (St. Anthony is the patron saint of lost items and lost souls). I can’t write the prayer here because it’s in a lost Italian dialect that’s not a written language, but the only part of it I knew the English translation for was the beginning, where it calls to “St. Anthony, naked.” Not sure why naked is in there, (and who’s supposed to be naked, St. Anthony, or the person praying?) but my family and I would run around the house searching for our cell phone, or missing report card or baseball game tickets, reciting the prayer over and over. When we eventually found it, we’d yell, “Thank you St. Anthony!” As if our searching had nothing to do with it turning up.

Do you have any stories about weird superstitions or religious practices? Feel free to share them.

As always, all opinions are welcome. Just be respectful and think things through before posting.

Happy thinking!

Nancy