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I’m a convert to Catholicism. I found life and joy and love in the theology I encountered at (a rather conservative) college. For a long time, I assumed the exodus of young people from the church was primarily due to the sex scandal.
I still think this is *a* primary factor, but not *the* primary factor. After teaching Catholic students for 6+ years, I’ve come to the realization it’s a more cultural thing. Young people feel their values aren’t present in the church.
I thought this was just ignorant catechesis for a while. Then I taught lay ministers. A bunch of students in the Central Valley showed me what “middle America” Catholicism was like, and it wasn’t “Catholic-means-universal.”
These were people who believed abortion is the *only* real moral issue facing Catholics in the political sphere. And they shared with me untrue media stories and slanted magazine articles reducing pro-life to only anti-abortion.
I thought these people were fringe Catholics, but the more time I spend on Twitter shows me they are more common than I thought. Here are people who think Catholic is “the few, the proud,” instead of “here comes everyone.” And they think they’re the gatekeepers of orthodoxy.
Of course, they always have bad theologies. They reduce morality to slogans and catchphrases. They wield the Apparition at Fatima as a cudgel. They martyr themselves while hiding behind pseudonyms. And they always emphasize hell more than redemption.
If this is the Catholicism my students grew up with, it’s no wonder young people are leaving the church. How can you find salvation in a church that offers none? If the doors are being closed to sinners, who can enter?
My students are concerned about abortion, but some have encountered it in their own lives, not just in picket signs. They’re also concerned about other issues: poverty, climate change, immigration, racism, and LGBTQ folks . But their priests and bishops don’t talk about these.
As a church, I think we need to start doing better. Catholic means universal, not some highly specific Americanist 1950s vision of whiteness. We don’t need to excuse all sins, but we need to open our doors instead of shutting them. God created us all out of love for love.
