Josey’s “Own Relationship with God”

      Ten percent of the present American population is identified as fallen-away Catholics, reports a news article based on the latest “Pew-Report” study of religion in America.  Still though, with what seems like a deadly hemorrhaging, the Catholic Church has a higher retention rate than almost any other religious group, as well as overall growth, mainly through conversions and Hispanic immigration.  But what is one to make of this glaring 10 percent?

      The news article gives us the example of Josey, who is portrayed as a kind of representative of those who now rarely if ever practice the faith in which they were raised.  The report tells us that Josey’s mother took him to Mass every Sunday in Columbia, IL, that he was in Catholic school from kindergarten all the way through high school, and that he had a steady diet of religious education.  The article continues: 

But as he grew into adulthood, the church became less important to his faith. "A lot of people say, 'You're not Catholic because you don't abide by the pope's every rule,'" said [Josey], who is now 27. "But I don't feel like just because I don't go to church I'm going to hell. I can have my own relationship with God without going to church every week." 

      As always with such reports, questions arise… if one really thinks about what is being said or reported above.  Immediately, it seems to me, one should notice that “Josey’s mother took him to Mass every Sunday….”  Where is the father?  Dead?  Divorced?  At home asleep in the bed on Sunday morning?  Whatever the situation, we know from other oft-repeated studies and surveys that the role of the father in the practice of the Faith results in a much higher percentage of children doing the same.  And even the pouting remark – “You’re not Catholic because you don’t abide by the pope’s every rule” – gives one the impression of a rather fatherless child, the kind of American boy who stays stuck in adolescence until he’s about 40.

       In Josey’s potential defense, one should also ask about what he was actually taught all those years in Catholic schools.  If his is anything like my experience – as a chaplain in a Catholic high school – then no wonder he speaks as he does about church-going and possible damnation:  “But I don’t feel…” – all things religious, that is, are to be gauged “true” or “false” “for me” by the emotions, how I feel about them.  This was a frequent complaint made to me by many of the better catechized students:  that religion was often presented as a matter of the emotions, and it’s “truth” depended on its emotional effect on the one considering it.

      Time passed, and Josey “grew up”; he’s now 27.  “But as he grew into adulthood, the church became less important to his faith,” the article interviewer explains.  That’s sort of like saying, “But as he grew into adulthood, his mother became less important to his having existence.”  What, really, is Josey’s “faith” apart from that which he received from the Church?  The very entity established by Christ – what He called His Church – to receive and preserve this faith, now for two thousand years, is no longer that important to Josey, especially now that he’s 27 and has grown into adulthood.  Does one, though, “grow out” of the Church?  Is active membership in the Church for children, the immature?  When Josey “grew into adulthood,” did he mature beyond obedience to the “state’s every rule” that require him to drive on the right side of the road, pay his taxes, insure his vehicle, serve on a jury? 

      Then there’s that bold claim that “[a] lot of people say....”  Do they really?  I’ve never heard such a proposition in the whole of my Catholic life.  The Church certainly would not say such a thing.  Who told this to Josey?  Has he really heard what he claims “[s]o many people say, ‘You’re not Catholic because you don’t abide by the pope’s every rule’”?  One is a Catholic, he should understand, by baptism; and it’s in confirmation – which one presumes Josey received – that a young person pledges himself to adhere to and practice, not papal “rules,” but the faith and morals of the Church.  That, I imagine, is exactly what this young man has decided he doesn’t want to do, and to carricature it all as “the pope’s every rule,” salves the conscience:  such “rules,” after all, are for children, and Josey has “grown” into adulthood.

      “I can have my own relationship with God without going to church every week,” our young adult continues.  I imagine, based on a lot of personal experience with the Joseys of the world, that not “going to church every week” isn’t the only aspect of the Catholic life that Josey neglects; but it is one of the disciplines of the Church that is most easily made to look like a mere “rule.”  However, it would be, most likely, frustrating to this young man to be reminded that since God is God, and Josey is merely God’s creature, perhaps God is the One who lays down the terms of relationship with the Most High.  And God, of course, has done just that.  “I can have my own relationship with God” means, essentially, “I can have a relationship with God on my own terms.”  This reminds me of the young waiter in Asheville who introduced himself as a Catholic to a priest friend and me at our restaurant table.  “Where do you go to Mass?”  I asked.  “I worship God in my own way,” he responded with his well-rehearsed line.  “Why don’t you,” my friend gently suggested, “worship God in His way?” 

      I don’t think that Josey is fully representative of the 10 percent group of Americans who are fallen-away Catholics.  Some have left off practicing the Faith because they’ve been hurt or scandalized or because they have chosen to live a lifestyle at odds with Catholic teaching, but at least they are honest about it.  The Joseys out there just need to be challenged:  that they are not merely shucking off “rules” for the immature, but they have chosen not to live up to what they promised – to follow Christ in His Church.