Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Keating!
KARL KEATING'S E-LETTER
June 14, 2005
TOPIC:
THOUGHTS ON WORLD YOUTH DAY
Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:
Our booklet "Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth" was published originally for
use at the 1993 World Youth Day, which was held in Denver. There we
reached hundreds of thousands of young Catholics with our overview and
defense of the Catholic faith.
Why did we show up? Because we expected that anti-Catholic proselytizers
would be in town, trying to woo the young Catholics away from the faith of
their upbringing. We were right. The anti-Catholics were everywhere.
I vividly remember Fundamentalists who stood on the median at a major
intersection. They passed out literature right and left. Some of their
tracts were cleverly composed.
The cover of one showed an image of the Virgin Mary. Looking at it, you
would think the tract promoted Marian doctrines and devotion. Quite the
opposite. The text inside argued that Catholic beliefs and practices
concerning Mary were all wrong.
Then there was a subset of the Seventh-Day Adventists. Its representatives
staked out a good location and handed out their book "National Sunday
Law." Its argument is that the early Christians went wrong when they
changed corporate worship from Saturday to Sunday. The villain in the
story was the Catholic Church. The hero (heroine, actually) was Ellen
Gould White, founder of the Seventh-Day Adventist denomination.
Until she came along, everyone had been worshiping on the wrong day of the
week, and all those faiths that promoted Sunday worship--with the Catholic
Church chief among them--were displeasing to God. If you wanted to be a
real Christian, you had to say good-bye to the Church headed by that
fellow from Poland.
Originally World Youth Day was to be held yearly, one year with an
international gathering, such as at Denver, and the next with diocesan
gatherings, always including one in Rome itself. The schedule has not
alternated cleanly, as you can see by looking at the listing of World
Youth Days at http://www.vatican.va/gmg/documents/
Catholic Answers staff members have attended each of the international
World Youth Days since 1993. This year's event will be held in Cologne.
The last international meeting was in 2002 in Toronto, and in the jubilee
year of 2000 the event was in Rome.
Each time we have reached hundreds of thousands of young people with
"Pillar" and with other materials, teaching them the rudiments of the
faith while instilling in them a sense of gratitude for being Catholic and
a sense of wariness concerning the anti-Catholic literature they were
bound to be handed.
NOT YOUR STANDARD PILGRIMAGE
Measuring the long-term effect of World Youth Day is not easy. In many
ways it is more an affective than an intellective event. There is plenty
of catechesis going on--you can check the daily schedule at the Vatican
web site to see what I mean--but also much by way of cultural and social
activities.
World Youth Day should not be faulted for not being what it never was
intended to be. It is not a pilgrimage in the sense of Catholics walking
from one spot to another, praying the rosary along the way. There is
something of that to it, but chiefly there are lectures and study sessions
and, as I said, cultural and social activities, not to mention the
appearance of the Pope.
Everything takes place within a circumscribed area. You might have to go a
few blocks or even a few miles to reach the next venue, such as the papal
Mass, but it is not as though you were hiking across Spain on your way to
Compostela.
Traditional pilgrimages attract, almost exclusively, the already-devout.
World Youth Day attracts the devout but also the potentially-devout.
Over the years we have received countless notes from attendees telling us
how much they profited spiritually from World Youth Day and how much
"Pillar" and our other materials helped them. Many young Catholics said
they actually liked seeing anti-Catholics on the streets because they got
a chance to brush up on their debating skills!
PLUSES AND MINUSES
But let's be frank: If you walk the crowds at World Youth Day, you will
find mixed motives. The large majority of the young Catholics--most of
them are teenagers; few of them are over 25--go because they love their
faith, want to learn more, or want to see the Pope.
Those are all fine motives, some better than others. But you can't help
suspecting that not a few young people go because they just want to be
with others their age in a gigantic crowd. Religious concerns are
secondary to them.
That is something that happens when you have a mass event that is open to
anyone, Catholic and non-Catholic, fervent and lukewarm, spiritual and
worldly.
If you want to find something to complain about at World Youth Day, you
can. If you want to find something disedifying, you can. If you want to
see young Catholics who can't tell you the difference between a dogma and
a dog, you can.
In theory I do not object to people complaining about World Youth Day. I
have my own doubts about the long-term utility of such a large-scale
gathering.
Do the man-hours put into arranging the event pay a sufficient dividend?
Would it be better to host a much smaller but more spiritually intense
gathering? Does World Youth Day put too much emphasis on rah-rahing and
not enough on forming the mind?
Those are legitimate concerns, and it would not be out of bounds for a
Catholic to argue that, on the whole, World Youth Day has not been worth
the trouble. There is nothing improper in doing a cost-benefit analysis
and concluding that the costs outweigh the benefits.
TOGETHER AT CAMP O-ONGO
But if complaints are to be levied, they should be reasonable. There are
not many reasonable complaints in a long anti-World Youth Day article in
the current issue of "Catholic Family News," a Traditionalist monthly.
I do not have the time or the interest to counter each weakness in Marian
T. Horvat's article. Let me look at just one, selected because it is
representative of her approach.
She dislikes boys and girls consorting with one another at World Youth
Day. She says, "It was always against Catholic morals for youth of mixed
sexes to travel together like one big family for camping trips or
overnight retreats." Is that so?
When I was in the sixth grade our class spent a few days at a mountain
campground run by the school district. We rode up together in the buses,
boys and girls. At Camp O-Ongo we stayed in separate cabins, but the daily
activities were undertaken in common. We even roasted hot dogs at the same
campfires. There was a problem with this?
You may recall that several times I have led readers of this E-Letter on
summertime hikes in the Sierra. Each time we have had backpackers ranging
from retirement age down to barely-out-of-high-school age. Many were
unmarried, and at wilderness campsites we pitched tents a few yards apart.
There was a problem with this?
If there was nothing amiss with my hiking companions sleeping within
snoring distance of one another, why must some people jump to the
conclusion that there was something amiss with young Catholics being
housed in a tent city?
OVERACTIVE IMAGNATION
Horvat writes, "What happened in some of those tents can be left to the
imagination of the reader." I suppose it depends on whose imagination. The
tent cities are crowded, and it is hardly possible to do something without
everyone around you knowing about it. If your stomach rumbles, the kids in
the neighboring tents will hear it.
Could it be that, as Horvat fears, you-know-what occurred in some of those
tents? With sometimes half a million teenagers and young adults present,
the likelihood is that it did, somewhere--but how common would it have
been, and would its occurrence be enough to damn the whole of World Youth
Day?
I am asking for a sense of proportion here. Horvat lists many complaints
against World Youth Day, but her argument concerning the proximity of
males and females is phrased in such a way that she seems to think it
sufficient, on its own, to demonstrate that the event should be scrapped.
I disagree.
Maybe she never saw Frank Capra's 1934 movie "It Happened One Night,"
starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. This "screwball comedy" at one
point had the two unmarried protagonists sharing, out of necessity, a
dumpy motel room, with privacy afforded by a divider that Gable fashioned
from a rope and blanket.
In an era of strict moral regulations, the movie was not given a
thumbs-down by the Catholic-run Legion of Decency. Perhaps Horvat can
learn from this.
Until next time,
Karl
June 14, 2005
TOPIC:
THOUGHTS ON WORLD YOUTH DAY
Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:
Our booklet "Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth" was published originally for
use at the 1993 World Youth Day, which was held in Denver. There we
reached hundreds of thousands of young Catholics with our overview and
defense of the Catholic faith.
Why did we show up? Because we expected that anti-Catholic proselytizers
would be in town, trying to woo the young Catholics away from the faith of
their upbringing. We were right. The anti-Catholics were everywhere.
I vividly remember Fundamentalists who stood on the median at a major
intersection. They passed out literature right and left. Some of their
tracts were cleverly composed.
The cover of one showed an image of the Virgin Mary. Looking at it, you
would think the tract promoted Marian doctrines and devotion. Quite the
opposite. The text inside argued that Catholic beliefs and practices
concerning Mary were all wrong.
Then there was a subset of the Seventh-Day Adventists. Its representatives
staked out a good location and handed out their book "National Sunday
Law." Its argument is that the early Christians went wrong when they
changed corporate worship from Saturday to Sunday. The villain in the
story was the Catholic Church. The hero (heroine, actually) was Ellen
Gould White, founder of the Seventh-Day Adventist denomination.
Until she came along, everyone had been worshiping on the wrong day of the
week, and all those faiths that promoted Sunday worship--with the Catholic
Church chief among them--were displeasing to God. If you wanted to be a
real Christian, you had to say good-bye to the Church headed by that
fellow from Poland.
Originally World Youth Day was to be held yearly, one year with an
international gathering, such as at Denver, and the next with diocesan
gatherings, always including one in Rome itself. The schedule has not
alternated cleanly, as you can see by looking at the listing of World
Youth Days at http://www.vatican.va/gmg/documents/
Catholic Answers staff members have attended each of the international
World Youth Days since 1993. This year's event will be held in Cologne.
The last international meeting was in 2002 in Toronto, and in the jubilee
year of 2000 the event was in Rome.
Each time we have reached hundreds of thousands of young people with
"Pillar" and with other materials, teaching them the rudiments of the
faith while instilling in them a sense of gratitude for being Catholic and
a sense of wariness concerning the anti-Catholic literature they were
bound to be handed.
NOT YOUR STANDARD PILGRIMAGE
Measuring the long-term effect of World Youth Day is not easy. In many
ways it is more an affective than an intellective event. There is plenty
of catechesis going on--you can check the daily schedule at the Vatican
web site to see what I mean--but also much by way of cultural and social
activities.
World Youth Day should not be faulted for not being what it never was
intended to be. It is not a pilgrimage in the sense of Catholics walking
from one spot to another, praying the rosary along the way. There is
something of that to it, but chiefly there are lectures and study sessions
and, as I said, cultural and social activities, not to mention the
appearance of the Pope.
Everything takes place within a circumscribed area. You might have to go a
few blocks or even a few miles to reach the next venue, such as the papal
Mass, but it is not as though you were hiking across Spain on your way to
Compostela.
Traditional pilgrimages attract, almost exclusively, the already-devout.
World Youth Day attracts the devout but also the potentially-devout.
Over the years we have received countless notes from attendees telling us
how much they profited spiritually from World Youth Day and how much
"Pillar" and our other materials helped them. Many young Catholics said
they actually liked seeing anti-Catholics on the streets because they got
a chance to brush up on their debating skills!
PLUSES AND MINUSES
But let's be frank: If you walk the crowds at World Youth Day, you will
find mixed motives. The large majority of the young Catholics--most of
them are teenagers; few of them are over 25--go because they love their
faith, want to learn more, or want to see the Pope.
Those are all fine motives, some better than others. But you can't help
suspecting that not a few young people go because they just want to be
with others their age in a gigantic crowd. Religious concerns are
secondary to them.
That is something that happens when you have a mass event that is open to
anyone, Catholic and non-Catholic, fervent and lukewarm, spiritual and
worldly.
If you want to find something to complain about at World Youth Day, you
can. If you want to find something disedifying, you can. If you want to
see young Catholics who can't tell you the difference between a dogma and
a dog, you can.
In theory I do not object to people complaining about World Youth Day. I
have my own doubts about the long-term utility of such a large-scale
gathering.
Do the man-hours put into arranging the event pay a sufficient dividend?
Would it be better to host a much smaller but more spiritually intense
gathering? Does World Youth Day put too much emphasis on rah-rahing and
not enough on forming the mind?
Those are legitimate concerns, and it would not be out of bounds for a
Catholic to argue that, on the whole, World Youth Day has not been worth
the trouble. There is nothing improper in doing a cost-benefit analysis
and concluding that the costs outweigh the benefits.
TOGETHER AT CAMP O-ONGO
But if complaints are to be levied, they should be reasonable. There are
not many reasonable complaints in a long anti-World Youth Day article in
the current issue of "Catholic Family News," a Traditionalist monthly.
I do not have the time or the interest to counter each weakness in Marian
T. Horvat's article. Let me look at just one, selected because it is
representative of her approach.
She dislikes boys and girls consorting with one another at World Youth
Day. She says, "It was always against Catholic morals for youth of mixed
sexes to travel together like one big family for camping trips or
overnight retreats." Is that so?
When I was in the sixth grade our class spent a few days at a mountain
campground run by the school district. We rode up together in the buses,
boys and girls. At Camp O-Ongo we stayed in separate cabins, but the daily
activities were undertaken in common. We even roasted hot dogs at the same
campfires. There was a problem with this?
You may recall that several times I have led readers of this E-Letter on
summertime hikes in the Sierra. Each time we have had backpackers ranging
from retirement age down to barely-out-of-high-school age. Many were
unmarried, and at wilderness campsites we pitched tents a few yards apart.
There was a problem with this?
If there was nothing amiss with my hiking companions sleeping within
snoring distance of one another, why must some people jump to the
conclusion that there was something amiss with young Catholics being
housed in a tent city?
OVERACTIVE IMAGNATION
Horvat writes, "What happened in some of those tents can be left to the
imagination of the reader." I suppose it depends on whose imagination. The
tent cities are crowded, and it is hardly possible to do something without
everyone around you knowing about it. If your stomach rumbles, the kids in
the neighboring tents will hear it.
Could it be that, as Horvat fears, you-know-what occurred in some of those
tents? With sometimes half a million teenagers and young adults present,
the likelihood is that it did, somewhere--but how common would it have
been, and would its occurrence be enough to damn the whole of World Youth
Day?
I am asking for a sense of proportion here. Horvat lists many complaints
against World Youth Day, but her argument concerning the proximity of
males and females is phrased in such a way that she seems to think it
sufficient, on its own, to demonstrate that the event should be scrapped.
I disagree.
Maybe she never saw Frank Capra's 1934 movie "It Happened One Night,"
starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. This "screwball comedy" at one
point had the two unmarried protagonists sharing, out of necessity, a
dumpy motel room, with privacy afforded by a divider that Gable fashioned
from a rope and blanket.
In an era of strict moral regulations, the movie was not given a
thumbs-down by the Catholic-run Legion of Decency. Perhaps Horvat can
learn from this.
Until next time,
Karl
