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Welcome to God's Mosh Pit!
Dear Friends,
Today's headline is borrowed from Linda Morris's excellent feature artilce in the Sydney Morning Herald today taking an in-depth look at the state of Catholicism in this country in the lead-up to World Youth Day. It is a "balanced" article — neither public relations "fairy floss" on behalf of the World Youth Day organisers, nor excessively critical and looking only at the perspectives of those of us who are sceptical about the direction in which insitutional Catholicism is headed.
As an introduction here's a less "balanced" extract from her article in that I have only lifted the comments of two of our friends and occasional commentators here at Catholica, Paul Collins and Fr Dan Donovan, from her article. That will serve as an introduction though, particularly for the vast bulk of our readers who are not in the normal circulation area for the Sydney Morning Herald. I'll provide links at the end of this excerpt to the full article — which I strongly recommend — and also to two other supporting articles, one of them by Linda and Desmond O'Grady looking at the prospects of the Cardinal receiving a "promotion" to Rome at the end of World Youth Day. (Hands up all those in favour of such a "promotion"! Ah, yes, I thought so!!! I doubt the Cardinal will have any difficulties whatsoever finding people willing to write references, from all sides, for that prospect.)
The more skeptical perspectives on World Youth Day
In a nation founded by Protestants, Catholics comprise more than one-quarter of Australia's population of just over 20 million. Most of Australia's 5.1 million Catholics never attend Mass, let alone Confession. The younger generation considers religion important, but doesn't equate faith with going to church.
The latest national church data has yet to be released, but is likely to confirm the number of active Catholics attending Mass is in steady decline and now represents fewer than 14 per cent of all Catholics.
 [Cardinal] Pell describes the expression of faith in Australia as vital in places like Sydney but sees many areas of Australian life as hostile or indifferent to Christ's claims.
"Australia's religiosity is like the curate's egg: good in parts," he says.
World Youth Day then, for Pell, is about stamping on Australia's secular character the face of faith in as spectacular, passionate and theatrical fashion as possible.
He is looking for a bounce in the number of seminarians studying for the priesthood, currently 47, and a renewal in women's religious orders; he wants to arrest the decline in regular churchgoing and increase the number of census Catholics [in Sydney] from 29 to 30 per cent.
 For Australian church reformers, such as Paul Collins and Father Daniel Donovan, World Youth Day is an expensive sideshow that blinds the Vatican to an urgent agenda of critical assessment and church reform. While Collins sees benefits in enhancing the church identity of the young, both see World Youth Day as an attempt to revive the importance of the universal church and person of the Pope, an attempt to go back to the future.
"There is an assumption that commitment to the person of the Pope will get the church back to the halcyon days of 1950s when the seminaries and religious congregations were full," says Donovan, an academic at the Australian Catholic University.
"However, it is not possible to turn back the clock when there has been cultural and generational changes which were not envisaged in the 1950s. The bishops have very much the idea that they are still talking to generation Y's parents, or even members of generation X, but the truth of the matter is that the audience has changed.
"Spirituality, rather than religious affiliation, seems to be the defining characteristic for these young people who possess a 'more individualised picture' of the ultimate reality as benign and caring but reject the God of institutional religion.
"The research would suggest that after July 31, 2008, there will not be a resurgence of vocations to the priesthood and religious life, nor will the Sunday Masses be full. Ultimately, the Sunday congregations will be the greying baby boomers, as now. Vocations will be largely filled by widows and widowers, divorcees and refugees from the boardrooms in their second journey."
In his latest treatise on Australian Catholicism, Believers: Does Australian Catholicism Have A Future?, Collins, a former priest, is equally sceptical: "Perhaps for a tiny minority it will be a life-changing event but most will revert to their previous patterns of existence … with a lingering positive memory of living Catholicism.
"World Youth Day will do little to confront the real issues facing the Australian church, nor will it bring about the kinds of change needed to push local Catholicism in the direction of renewal. Fundamental change doesn't occur through spectacular events but only through deep reflection, careful planning and a willingness to tackle deep-seated problems."
Collins and Donovan say there is passive resistance to World Youth Day among parishioners and clergy and suspicions of the "bells and whistles" approach to this papal visit. Collins says most lay Catholics he speaks to describe it as an expensive folly.
 Donovan says priests have been expected to provide funds and accommodation and to rally support among their people while largely being frozen out of the planning process.
"World Youth Day has deepened the divide between Sydney Catholics and their Archbishop. Catholics are beginning to withhold their money from parishes and the Charitable Works Fund," he says.
"There is a growing trend to send their money to groups like the Salvation Army because they do not want their money to be wasted. Older Catholics are asking about the relevance of the World Youth Day's lasting impact on the wider Catholic community and have been mortified by the public interchange between the church and the trainers at Randwick. The faithful have preferred to blame the incompetence of the organisers rather than to believe that there were untruths involved."
Donovan finds support from the German sociologist Weibert Gebhardt. His studies of young people who went to World Youth Day in Cologne did not suggest it was giving lasting new momentum to the German church. The gathering, impressive as it was, remained a one-off event that did not propel people to become more deeply involved in parish life.
"I would be very cautious with any theory of revitalisation," he said a year after Cologne.
But an Australian Catholic academic, Richard Rymarz, says we should not underestimate World Youth Day's value just because it is big and flashy and populist.
Here are the links to the three articles published in the SMH today:
<Welcome to God's mosh pit: feature length by Linda Morris>
<Vatican beckons for 'bruiser' Pell: support story by Linda Morris & Desmond O'Grady>
<State told of youth day cost rise five years ago: news story by Linda Morris>
And don't forget to drop by the Catholica Forum today for further discussion: <The Catholica Forum>
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