In reading today's article by Mr George Rutler*, I encountered again the old accusation used against my generation (the twenty-somethings, and perhaps also the thirty-somethings): that we are ignorant.
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George Rutler wrote:
The dawning of the Age of Aquarius is now in its sunset repose and the bright young things who seem to be cropping up now all over the place with new information from Fortescue and Ratzinger, may either be the professional mourners for a lost civilization, or the sparks of a looming golden age....a young battalion is rising, with no animus against the atrophied adolescence of their parents, and only eager to engage a real spiritual combat in a culture of death. They usually are ignorant, but bright, for ignorance is not stupidity.
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I am reminded of a slightly less kind wording of this in the whole Fr Breen saga. Said priest remarked simply that today's seminarians are of inferior intellectual quality to his generation's. This is mostly because his generation is being repudiated for their failed experiments on the Church. These range from liturgy to catechesis--indeed, a part of catechesis is to best understand the liturgy, and a part of the liturgy should be as an aide to catechesis.
As to being ignorant, I will say that it may be true. We may be an ignorant generation--though not a stupid one, as Mr Rutler notes. Much as this ignorance is a hindrance to my generation, we are slowly overcoming it, thanks to men such as our last two popes, or more locally to the great number of intellectual converts to Catholicism. But the ignorance charge is one which cuts both ways. It is not for a lack of intellectual ability that ours is a generation adrift, nor really for a lack of curiosity and a willingness to learn.
If we are "ignorant," it is largely the fault of the generation which refused to teach us**. Worse than not eaching us, they insisted on a catechesis which abandoned the Catechism in favor of pop psychology, which forsook the Bible in for the theories of the day, and which rejected Church history to make room for "sharing our stories." This undermined the sincere efforts of those few--such as my parents--who genuinely wanted to fulfill their duties in teaching their children the Faith, though they often knew not how.
Our Lord gave St Peter final instructions to "Feed my sheep...feed my lambs...feed my sheep" (John 21:15-17). This care is entrusted through Peter's primacy to all the apostles and their successors, the bihsops, and through them to their collaborators the priests. Though the crop of bishops and priests is improving, let's face it: the last generation--Fr Breen's generation--by and large failed in their duty. In watering down theology and replacing catechesis with catharsis, they were derelict in their first duty, as the teachers of the Church. For as Christ Himself noted, "Man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word of God" (Luke 4:4; see also Deuteronomy 8:3 and Matthew 4:4). If mine is an ignorant generation, then it is because those who should have been our teachers neglected to teach us. In their attempts to be "nice" they spared the rod, but spoiled the child (see Proverbs 13:24); in their attempts to be merciful, they overlooked that instructing the ignorant is numbered first among the spiritual works of mercy.
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Note: this post was originally written for my Equus Nom Veritas blog, and can be read in its original format with the accompanying links on that site.
Tags: Catechesis Musings Culture Philosophy Tirade
