George Weigel has some insights into religious change in Latin Ameirca.
…in trying to preach the Gospel today, what Benedict called the “mainstream Christian denominations” themselves face a new situation. For the “geography of Christianity” had “changed dramatically in recent times, and is in the process of changing further still.” There is a “new form of Christianity, which is spreading with overpowering missionary dynamism, sometimes in frightening ways … a form of Christianity with little institutional depth, little rationality and even less dogmatic content, and with little stability.”
By which, I think we can assume, the Pope meant the explosion of evangelical (in the American sense of the term), Pentecostalist, and fundamentalist Christianity throughout the Third World. “What is this new form of Christianity saying to us, for better and for worse?”, the Pope asked his mainline German Protestant audience. Perhaps I might venture an answer to that question.
The first thing that is being said is that preaching Jesus Christ crucified and the transforming power of personal friendship with the Risen Lord is going to win out, every time, over enticing men and women into a religious trade union or cultural club. Surely Benedict XVI, whose pontificate has been characterized by the theme of intimate friendship with the Lord, knows that. One hopes he is saying it, firmly, to the “bishops from all over the world” who are “constantly” complaining to him about evangelical inroads into their flocks.Take, for example, Latin America. The Catholic Church has been active in Latin America for over half a millennium. If it has poorly catechized that vast expanse of territory, such that the Church cannot retain the loyalty of traditionally Catholic peoples, it should look first to its own incapacities and failures, rather than blaming well-funded American evangelical and Pentecostalist missions for its problems. As scholars like David Martin and Amy Sherman have demonstrated, it is the power of these missions to change self-destructive patterns of behavior through radical conversion to Christ that has given them their purchase in areas where five hundred years of Catholicism have failed to build a culture of responsibility—especially male responsibility. More recognition of that, and less complaining to the Pope, would seem the appropriate Christian response from Catholic bishops in the world’s most densely Christian continent.
I am have been doing further research into male alienation from Christianity.
The Catholic clergy alienated many men in Latin America by trying to control or eliminate what men considered to be their own expression of Catholicism. Priests disliked the fiestas and the male exuberance that the fiestas occasioned. The priests sound like sourpusses when they object to fireworks, but they also objected to the fiestas’ costs that kept families in poverty and to the drinking and mayhem that fiestas brought about.
Charismatics in Latin America seem to have more success in getting men to behave themselves and devote their resources to their families. I am not sure why this has not provoked male rebellion. Perhaps the pastors are a lot closer to the people. They need little theological education, unlike Catholic priests, and are married. Perhaps charismatic worship allows for male exuberance that found expression in dancing, drinking, and fighting. Or perhaps something else.But the charismatic churches are feminized too and have not been able to reach the young men who are increasingly drawn into the world of narcoterrorism.
I suspect that the charismatics have less trouble getting men to behave because those men have actually repented and turned their life over to Christ.
My impression (formed over many years from both observing Catholics and as one of them) is that many Catholics have never had such a conversion, and that rules and regulations are just that.
It’s easier to take Christ’s yoke when you love him than when he’s just the lawgiver who stands behind the irritating little man in black.
What i remember as a little boy, the ‘new’ priest that were followers of the “Teologia de la liberacion” did not like procesiones, novenas, romerias, etc everything that was CATHOLIC.
In my birth country of el Salvador, in the parochial school we had to pray every day before class and went to mass once a week, when the new priest from Colombia came to my town he stop all that.
No more praying, no more procesiones in may in honor of the virgen Mary.
Cofessions? forget it! He never used his sotana, the church became a hot place for those who were on the left.
A lot of people left to the new sects from el norte. Oh boy they divided our families and the town. The priest did NOTHING about it, every thing was about politics.
Bravo Crowhill, well said!
What a refreshingly honest statement by Weigel. He has always struck me as someone who wouldn’t say “you know what” if his mouth was full of it with respect to the Church.
Catholicism in Latin America has sacramentalized its Catholic population but doesn’t seem to have evangelized it.
I just read a book on the life of Heidi Baker, an evangelist with her husband (both PhDs) and family in Mozambique. Their outreach and resulting charisms in commmunities they found are astonishing: the dead are raised, food multiplied, etc. If you look at their website, there are alot of male faces…
Also another new book that I hope to read is The Pastor Has No Clothes…the author makes the case that mainline protestant pastoral identity is in bad repair.
I wonder if the pastoral identities of priests and mainline Protestant pastors don’t evoke simple rebellion. Adult males don’t need or want authority figures – alter christi or alter pauli…
One of the fundamental problems within Catholicism is the narcissistic sense of importance that results in institutional arrogance, a pervasive sense of entitlement and a governing structure that views the laity as peasants and discourages accountability. That’s why the Latin American Church supported right-wing dictatorships for so long; the two systems had a lot in common. That support led to Liberation Theology (arrogant in its own way) and virulent anti-clericalism (such as in Mexico).
The other problem is that Catholicism has become too much of an “‘-ism” to be spiritually effective. It has buried the Gospel under tons of arcane theology that does not deal with where people actually live. Consequently, it has lost touch with hurting people who need to sense God’s compassion for them.
Evangelical and Pentecostal churches don’t have such problems (they have others, of course). They’re not only more able but more *willing* to deal with the legitimate needs of hurting people. Catholicism has become too big and self-important for that.
Crowhill, I can’t add to your remarks. They are more spot on than you realize.
Father Michael, I agree with you about Weigel. I’ve always thought he should operate a PR firm in Vatican City because that’s essentially what he has been doing for most of his life (as did Fr. Neuhaus).
Leon, sorry for posting something off topic here, but you really have to take a look at this article.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/10/many_religions_require_their_men_to_grow_beards_why_does_god_lik.html
What I found particularly amusing was the series of quotes about how beards are manly, followed by this.
“The beard soon fell out of favor among clerics.”
Gee. I wonder why.
That was only in the west. The priests of the Eastern Church always went for beards. In the west, for a time, beards went out of style for all men, even the iconically masculine knights in armour.
Protestant sheep stealers??? I, for one, am grateful to have the freedom to learn, weigh options in religious matters and attend the churches of my choice. No denomination is entitled to its membership here in this country and, I think that this is a benefit of a democracy.
If one religious polity is failing in the Great Commission to go and evangelize, then why not try another? If any church helps a person live a life in accordance with God’s Holy Laws, then who cares what denomination it is?
The Good Shepherd tends his flock no matter which pasture they feed in. He said “If ye truly seek me ye shall find me.” When the sheep realize that the grass isn’t there anymore, they move on.
I suspect that the decline of Catholicism among Latin Americans is one reason why many Hispanic immigrants are, well, unorderly, to put it delicately.
Fr. Koening is correct – the beard has gone in and out of style over the centuries without, as far as I can tell, much connection to whether society was maculine or not.
I believe, by the way, that Western priests were forbidden to grow beards as a measure against vanity in personal appearance – also the reason why they used to have to shave part of their hair in the tonsure. The Capuchins, arising in a different era, mandated beards for the exact same reason that other orders forbade them.