Liberals and Vocations

Last year, I went to a training function through the Archdiocese, and found myself seated at the same table of a very nice woman who happened to be a DRE responsible for the formation of young souls. 

The topic of Vocations arose, as at the same table was a man from a parish which had been left by a friend of mine who had gone from DRE to cloistered nun.  

Naturally, the connection caused us to discuss Vocations in the Church, and the DRE, the nice lady from the early baby-boomer era asked, "Do women actually DO that these days?"

She was completely flummoxed.  Her only experience with Vocations were the declining statistics and dying communities that happened to share the same hair color.  Boys weren't becoming Priests, girls were too "empowered" to bother entering religious communities. 

She'd never heard of the Nashville Dominicans, the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, or the LA Carmelites. She didn't know about the Sisters of Life or the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles. The idea that women were not only entering into religious life in DROVES, but were doing so in favor of faithfulness to the Magisterium, in favor of the Holy Habit, and, in fact..in favor of the cloister in some cases was a moment of complete amazement.  

She didn't know it was happening. Her entire perception of the Church was that it was dying.  In her experience, there WAS no life.  

I guess that's not too surprising.  

Recently I had a conversation with a "Liberal Catholic" regarding the topic of Vocations.  This person is faithful to the teachings of the Church, but as the other "Liberals" I described in the previous post, she maintains a foot in the secular/political world, and views the Church through this perspective. 

She was familiar with the current process of discernment, in that women (and men) who enter religious life or seminary are not making a permanent decision from the beginning. She knew it took years to take permanent vows. 

Her position is the one that flummoxed ME, for I couldn't really fathom it. 

She said that the Church should change with the culture that doesn't understand permanency, and instead, should make Vocations according to contract.  Five years, maybe. 

She said that she'd be willing to be a nun for 5 years and give that time to the Church, just as she'd be willing to give that time to the Peace Corps.  

I admit, I was so amazed the rest of my conversation was nearly incoherent.  Not in anger, but confusion.  I mean...WHAT?!

She continued in this tack. 

When I had time to settle down and think about it and how to respond, I realized that at her core, she didn't understand what the Church is and remains. She didn't understand the meaning of Vocation.  Which makes sense;  for, as a person who defines herself as a "Liberal Catholic", she would be looking at Vocation through the same cloudy goggles through which she views the rest of the Church, and the rest of the world. 

She has a default position of sympathy for those who don't understand (or even desire) permanency.

And this is so troubling, for our very nature, our very souls, draw us into permanency with our Creator.  Everything we do on earth is ordered towards this end, but we have to cooperate with it.  To do or believe otherwise is disordered.  We are ordered to perfection;  not dischord.  

A lack of permanency is by definition dischord.  

The fact is that the process within a religious community is ordered towards permanency; if it was not, there would be NO Vocations.  We'd see in religious life what we see in marriage. 

As courtship is ordered towards marriage, so is the postulancy and novitiate ordered towards permanent vows. 

Oh, wait. That's the problem.  (Please note that what follows is NOT the position of the person with whom I was speaking.  It is my own musing.)

Look at this through political eyes;  Marriage is no longer seen as a permanent sacramental union. It is seen as a governmental contract for the mutual benefit of better taxes. Oh, and if the couple chooses to stop using dangerous chemicals and environmentally-unfriendly plastic rubbers to prevent them, then it might be beneficial for the raising of children. Who can, actually, be born of a Dish named Petrie and dessimanated and disposed of for embryonic research purposes and re-named "Dolly".  The Matrix come to life.  

I guess I can understand the attitude, given that perspective.  

For if your view of the world is one of hedonism and impermanence, then why WOULDN'T you look at religious life in the same way you view marriage?  

I think most couples these days sign prenuptual agreements, for they tend to assume from the beginning that their marriage won't last. They live together before marriage, for why buy the cow when the milk can be sampled for free?  Why not sample the milk of a TON of cows?  Why does it need to involve love, or sacrifice?  Who needs children? 

Speaking as a woman who has been treated as a cow...why bother to pay for a ring and take a risk on someone who might not be "sexually compatible"?   Give her chemicals!  Try out her paces!  Who cares if the chemicals might kill her, or the paces aren't to HIS liking?  It's all in discernment, isn't it?  

And if you don't like the cow, kill the calf so that there will be none like her...or you.  

So much for permanence. 

Why can't religious life be the same? 

Why?

Because, like marriage  is supposed to be, it is ordered towards permanence.  A religious vocation isn't about building bridges over the River Kwai. 

It isn't about heading down to Guatemala for a few years to give Avian Flu shots to orphans. 

It isn't about going to Africa to fight AIDS.  Or to China to fight illiteracy.  

Those are all very important things, but they can be done with a limited committment. They are acts of mercy that belong to this world, and remain in this world, all of which honor the dignity of the human person both body and soul, for all are children of God. 

But it's not a Vocation to give 5 years of one's life to a charitable act, or even to prayer.  To trivialize a vocation as such is to ignore the import of the sacrifice of one's life. Such an idea is a trivialization of Christ. 

Are we not to be like Christ in all that we do?  And did He NOT experience a complete immolation on the altar of the Cross?  Are we not to do the same?  

The process of discernment alone should rule out those who are looking for temporary gratification.  If that's what you desire...then find a program that gratifies that desire.  It's a worthy cause, and a needed sacrifice especially in a world such as ours that doesn't tend to care for one's neighbor. 

But don't call it a Vocation, and don't try to make a Vocation match a temporary volunteer experience. 

It's not the same thing.  

For those not familiar with the process of Vocational discernment to a religious community:

Step 1:  Aspirancy  - 3 months living with the given community (this may not be a step of all commuinities)

Step 2:  Postulancy:   6 months to a year.  Some wear a veil during this time, some don't.  

Step 3:   Novitiate:   6 months to a year, or more.  This is where they take the habit, white veil but don't take vows.  

Step 4.  Canonical Novitiate - from observation, some cont. to wear a white veil, some change to black.  2nd year novitiate

Step 5.  Temporary vows - 1-3 years

Step 6:  after very careful discernment, permanent vows. 

Please note... the timing changes according to community, but it's NEVER permanent from the beginning. Thus someone can enter with reservations and leave, or enter with reservations...and realize it's home.  The systems is designed for EVERYONE who MIGHT be experiencing a call to that community. 

Ridiculous

I find it completely astonishing that someone who is familiar with this process would suggest that it be changed, and allow for people to enter under a contract; for five years, for example.  

As it is, that's already happening.  That's what the aspirancy, postulancy, and novitiate are for. Never mind temporary vows.  

Further, the way it happens isn't ordered to the WORLD as would be a contract, but to GOD, which is a permanent committment.   

Maybe I'm Old Fashioned. Maybe I'm one of the few who believes in purity and permanency. It wouldn't be the last time I've been ridiculed for such a romantic idea. 

When I dated my last boyfriend, I held out that I was  hoping for marriage.  A longtime friend of his, another woman, also single, said, "It's nice that you can believe in those things, but it's unrealistic."

She laughed at me.  To be looking for a husband...permanently.  (As an aside...she's the same person who told me my "intended" didn't want to break up with me because he thought I'd have a hard time finding someone else.  No wonder she didn't belive in permanence. And why I gave up on it and him. And haven't dated since.)  

And even now, the world laughs, when we as Catholics look for permanency in Vocation, whether through Marriage, the Priesthood or Religious Life. No matter what we've suffered.  

There are those who think the Sacrament of Marriage should be a temporary contract. 

To follow that logic, maybe there would be more married couples if we let them marry only for a contract of five years. At least that way, we'd have fewer divorces.  

Maybe we'd have more priests if we could just ask for a committment of five years; and then, if they sucked at it, at least his people would only have to suffer temporarily. 

Maybe if we have Religious enter for only 5 years, we can get rid of discernment and more people would do it.  

Maybe if the Church was more like political organizations of the world an operated according to democracy and changed according to the philosophy of John Locke, we'd be in a better place. 

Right.  

OR!  

...Maybe if we actually followed the eternal teachings of the Church we'd reap more souls and have more workers for the harvest.   Maybe if parishes stayed faithful to the GIRM and read the SCRIPTURES instead of 60's era poetry there would be more who would find a faith wiling to die for. 

Maybe if ecclesiastical communities that claim to be Catholic would avoid the heretical works of idiotic authors who write easily refuted works such as "Misqoting Jesus" would choose the wisdom of the Church Fathers instead...there would be more Vocations. 

I'm not willing to die for a faith that requires only 5 years from me.  I might give that to a government, but to God...I'd rather give my life.  After all, He gave me His.  

It's not that I don't understand. I'm from a divorced, alcoholic family, and the other parent is bipolar.  Believe me...I know about committment avoidance.  I can understand anyone who wants to reserve something, because psychologically, they (we) need a safety net.  We're damaged in that way. 

But that's not what God wants. He knows our past. He knows everything. And He asks for it all. That's what Vocation  is all about.  All of us...damaged, and hopeful and reserved...all of it.   

If someone asked me for 5 years of my life, I'd refuse. I don't have 5 years to give. At this point, it's my life...or nothing.  If my life isn't called for, then YOU'RE not worth my time.  I'll look elsewhere. 

I may not have a Vocation. But I'm at the point where I'm ready to committ, right now. I'm tired of looking. Not 2 years, not 5 years.  NOW!  Permanent!  

Because if Our Lord is not worth my life...nothing is.  And if He doesn't want it...who does?  

*

Give me a Vocation or Give Me Death.  I can't survive this limbo anymore.

"Liberal" Catholics

This is one of my "musing out loud" posts, so please bear with me. I'm not really sure where it's going but I've got the itch to write and the itch to muse, so it's better to let this tiger from its cage. 

The more I learn about the Church (via Ecclesiology), the more the political terms "Conservative" and "Liberal" become like spiritual nails on a chalkboard. They're completely inappropriate, for one can only fall into two categories as a Catholic:  Faithful (Orthodox) or Unfaithful (Heterodox).  Period. One is either in line with Church teachings, or one is not.  

That's not to say that one cannot ask questions or have personal reservations arising from a lack of understanding, so long as that person, with integrity, remains obedient to the teachings and truly seeks to understand them.  

What does "Liberal" mean?  

Recently I've spoken with a few people who claim to be "Liberal Catholics", and because of some interactions and definitions I've seen by commenters online or in real life, before I leap onto the "You're a Heretic!" bandwagon that seems to be so popular among certain groups of Catholics, I think it might be important to figure out what the term "Liberal" really means. 

One person was a commenter on another blog, and took the blog author to task on his own ground. The blog's author claims to be a "Liberal" and a "Progressive", while denouncing pretty much EVERYTHING that makes up the Church.  The "Liberal Catholic" commenter took care to define his terms, explaining that he was all the things personally that the blog's author claimed to be, but the commenter said he was faithful to the Church, respected the teaching authority of the Magisterium on faith and morals, the importance of the sacraments, the respective positions of the clergy and laity, etc.  I was amazed.  In what he was saying, he was obviously very...orthodox!  I wanted to meet that man and shake his hand for what he said, which he stated firmly, in charity, and through logical definition of terms.   

I've met other people who claim to be "Liberal" but haven't been so forthcoming on their definition of what that means. Some people define themselves as "Liberal" not in relation to the teachings of the Church, but in relation to the Liturgy.  These people would take the place of a child about to be aborted, they are supportive of their clergy, they live and breathe Catholicism and can pray circles around people who claim to be holy and devoted but are actually just mean and spiteful in their otherwise solid knowledge of the Church.  These "Liturgical Liberals" are "liberal" in only one area, in that they have an allergy to anything remotely Latin, although they'll fall all over themselves to attend and support Masses in every other language under the sun, even Klingon.  

The liturgical liberals  have no problem, for example,  with the Mass at the LA Educational Conference (the videos of which send the rest of us into paroxysms of a thousand brutal deaths), for they don't see a problem with songs that glorify the people while ignoring God. They don't see a problem with liturgical dancers in a culture in which this is not the norm (and is actually not permitted).  They've never actually READ the Vatican II documents, especially the one on the Liturgy, preferring to allow themselves to be deceived by people who gleefully tell them what the documents said. 

Never mind that the Novus Ordo as it is celebrated today doesn't even REMOTELY look like the Mass called for in Sacrosanctum Concilium.  But I digress.  Other documents have come along that have permitted most of what we see, and thus, Rome has spoken. But the, those changes should not be blamed on Vatican II, if we are to be truthful. 

And above all, we need to be truthful.  

Liberal is as liberal does

These examples have revealed to me a certain dichotomy in those to whom the label is often applied.  It seems that many who consider themselves to be "liberal" are actually faithful Catholics with questionable taste.  The last time I checked, bad taste isn't a sin.  And in fact, bad taste can be corrected, albeit in charity.

How does a wine snob help a redneck to appreciate anything other than Almaden White Zinfandel?  Through careful steps, one sweet wine to the next.  Perhaps to a better Rose', then to a Gwertztraminer, a Riesling, to a Chardonnay, to a Pinot Grigiot or Sauvignon Blanc. Then on to the Reds!  Start with light-bodied like a good Pinot Noir, moving through the Merlots to the Zins to the Cabs.      (Speaking through experience on this one..I was the redneck who had never had wine that didn't come from a box.)  

How does a Matador help a PETA  activist appreciate the art of bullfighting?   

Um...actually, I haven't figured that one out yet.  Yet the above is a bit more of the image of the infighting in the Church today, isn't it?    

Ahem.... 

A lot of these liturgical liberals aren't aware of the GIRM or the fact that the GIRM is, in fact, Canon Law, and MUST be obeyed.  If they KNEW something objectively defined was wrong, they'd be first in line to come into obedience, even if they disliked the facts.  

There is a downright nasty idea out there that anyone who claims to be a "Liberal Catholic" is willfully disobedient, willfully ignorant, mean, and out to wreck the Church.   That idea is completely unfair, completely uncharitable, and fully out of bounds for anyone claiming to be seeking holiness.  

As I've discovered, and cited above, many who claim to be "Liberal Catholics" are actually fully faithful to what the Church is and what she teaches, and perhaps is actually a bit more open than the rest of us about their favorite sins.  And about their confusion on what the Church is, and what she teaches.  

A Foot in Both Worlds

It is the general faithfulness of many of these "Liberal Catholics" that is a bit of a mystery to me, for on one hand, they profess what I profess and believe what I believe, bowing and kneeling to the same Jesus Christ present in the Blessed Sacrament.  They agree that contraception is wrong, they agree abortion is evil, they agree that the Church has no authority to ordain women, they agree that obedience to the Magisterium is important and more importantly, that Christ gave that authority to the Church. We agree that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, that the Holy Spirit guides and protects us, and that our Bishops are successors to the Apostles.  

Yet invariably, through conversation, their views come into expression and I've found that although they are faithful, they've been secularized, and thus...all of their views, even with regard to Faith, have been warped such that they can ONLY see through the glasses of democratic politics.  

THAT'S how they think they could vote for Obama with a clear conscience. For in their minds, they are rendering unto Caesar while rendering unto God what is God's. To them, it's perfectly logical.   

They stand with a foot in both worlds, leaning more on the secular side. Seeing the Church not through the eyes of the Church and the eyes of objective Truth, but through the eyes of the world.  In short...they are worldly.  

This is recognized in several ways, although I'll only mention a few here:

*  They believe that abortion is the brutal murder of an unborn child and believe that it is an objective evil.  However, because there are people of other beliefs in the world, they do not see that they have the right AND duty to state across the board that it is wrong, for doing so "offends" other beliefs.  They are so ad extra that they see the immoral beliefs of others as being superior to their own.  

*  They do not believe that we have the right and duty to bring our faith into the public square, for there are those who would disagree, and to state the objective Truth which we firmly believe is a scourge to others who do not share that belief and might be "harmed" in their own positions. Thus, preaching Christ to anyone who is not Christian, to them, is not in keeping with the virtue of charity.   They have true love confused with permissiveness. 

* Vocations - this one has me scratching my head a bit, so I'll have to explain this one in more depth in another post.  Suffice to say that just as they don't understand what the Church really IS because they won't take their foot out of the world long enough to find out, so they see ALL of the Sacraments, and Vocations as well.  Their fix for more Vocations is the position they insist on holding:  a foot belonging to Caesar, defining themselves as primarily political, and a foot belonging to the Church, to whom they claim they want to be faithful. 

And in the end, they are torn to pieces because neither position makes sense to either side. 

* 

Now, this is one of those topics that can be inflammatory, and I'm not claiming to be objective about it;  this is my blog and I get to hold my own opinion, my own bias.  If you want biased objectivity, then go to MSM and let them lie to you.  I won't do that; I'm not a journalist and I think journalism as it's practiced today is soulless, cruel, and deceptive. 

That said, I'd be interested in hearing about my readers' observations on this issue, for clearly, the term "Liberal Catholic" even though it's improper, has to be understood from the perspective of the ones claiming the title.  We have to come to understand why they claim to be such, and if possible, if we can understand them, maybe we can help them shed the glasses of the world and see clearly the spikes on the fence they straddle.  

Draft of my commenting policy:  

If you comment, please keep your comments charitable. Humor is fine, no matter what your position, but I reserve the right to decide if someone is crossing a line.  You can even criticize me, for no doubt I've badly phrased something, and fully expect that even in writing this post I'm offending people.  I accept that.  That doesn't mean I'll change my position or wording because the fact is that some people are so thin-skinned a spring breeze is nearly a mortal wound to them. 

MIND YOU!  There are people who profess to be "Liberal Catholics" and are actually outright dissidents for they don't agree with ANYTHING the Church teaches, and in fact, their beliefs are outright heretical. For the purposes of this post, please ignore the Dissidents and in charity, please read what I'm actually stating about those who fit the definitions I am providing. Thank you. 

*