Is it my fault?

It is true what they say: "everyone is self-centered."  We are all narcissists who think the whole world revolves around us.  Case in point: I checked up on the parish where I served as a youth minister for 3 years and the mission where I served as pastoral associate for 2 years after that.  Neither the parish nor the mission have any high school youth ministry according to their bulletin or their websites.  These are Catholic communities in which there are large numbers of children in both high school and middle school.  My first reaction to seeing this deplorable state of affairs was, "Is it my fault?"

I was not a great youth minister, but I made due.  I came in with no experience and spent most of my time developing the necessary competencies.  I muddled along for a few years with a youth group of about 12-15 high-school kids and a summer program and a confirmation class.  We even went to a Workcamp one year and I was planning another before I resigned my position.  The fact is, however, that once I was promoted to the position of pastoral associate, I decided to let youth ministry flounder. 

I had become cynical about youth ministry, and I still am.  I doubt that it has any real effect on the church or the world.  Teenagers are not where the church should be spending its money or time.  The church, in my opinion, needs to focus more on what John Paul II called "the new evangelization:" really the re-evangelization of Catholic adults who may even go to Mass on Sunday, but otherwise give little thought, time, or effort to their Catholic faith.  Most adults in the pews no less about their faith now than they did when they were in 8th grade.  Youth ministry, does little to effect adult lives of the youth it engages.  Mostly, it is a soul-searing experience in which you pour all your love into young people in a vain effort to teach them that the essence of being human is to give yourself freely in loving service to your fellow-men/women.  80% of them go on with their lives as though they never went to youth group.  You only feel as though you make any difference to one or two kids; usually the ones who experience some kind of tragedy or trauma and you are there for them.  A few of them disappoint you so severely that you never recover.  The parents don't want a youth minister who actually changes the way their children see the world.  They want a youth minister who enforces the world view that their children have been fed their entire lives.  If a youth minister dares to point out how certain attitudes, political positions, and spending habits are not aligned with the gospel of Jesus Christ or the teachings of the Catholic Church, they lose their minds.   Neither parents nor their children give a youth minister any reason to think s/he is furthering the gospel in the world.  Like I said, I am cynical about youth ministry. 

That doesn't mean I think it is worthless!  I loved those kids, but the job wasn't for me.  The purpose of youth ministry, no matter what the latest document from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops says, is to be the loving arms of Christ wrapped around the hurting, vulnerable, misinformed, self-centered, youth in our parishes.  Kids are hurting today, just as they have been hurting for decades.  They are confused, broken, and belittled in myriad ways.  They need a safe place to come and rest from the world, even if they are forced their by a parent.  There is NO YOUTH MINISTRY at the parish where I was supposed to create one!  Did I fail so completely that they can't even get around to hiring another youth minister?  They can't pull together 2-3 dedicated volunteers to make it happen?

I half want to go all the way out there (the parish is a good 70 minute drive in the best conditions) and do whatever I can just to make up for not doing enough before.  Is it my fault?

Yes and no.  I could have been happy with being a youth minister and I could have worked harder at being better at that job if, but I wasn't and I didn't.  I wanted then to be something more than the big kid who worked with the little kids.  I wanted professional advancement, education, and a chance to work with adults.  I did not create a culture of youth ministry in the parish in the 5 years I was there.

But I am not responsible for allowing the parish to continue without a youth ministry for so long.  I am not responsible for the pastor's complacency.  I am not responsible for the parents who have not been able to make it happen.  I am not responsible for a liturgical culture which barely inspires the participants in the Sunday Liturgy to get up and serve the poor, the oppressed, the lost, and the children in their midst.  That is not my fault. 

My narcissistic impulses can be subjected to reasonable judgment.  After having done so, I feel less guilt about the current state of that parish than I did before.  But I still feel bad for the children in that parish.  They used to have the very best Religious Education programs, an impassioned youth minister who cared about them, and a pastor who would go out of his way to provide a place for them to be kids.  What do they have now?  From what I can see, very little. 

Welcome to Calling Down The Reign!

Hello!  My name is Matthew.  I have a Masters Degree in Catholic theology and worked for seven years or so in parish ministry before becoming a full-time dad.  After getting my undergraduate BA in foreign affairs, I spent a year figuring out what I was going to do with myself before landing a job as a youth minister in a small Catholic parish.  My conservative upbringing and underdeveloped understanding of the Catholic faith served me and the like-minded parents of the parish youth well enough for three years.  However, when I became pastoral associate of a small mission community, my pastor (also my boss and my friend) realized I needed a bit more education to serve adults well.  Upon beginning my classes for my master's degree, I quickly realized how inadequately the Catholic faith had been communicated to me throughout my life.  I learned about how often the Catholic hierarchy had been on the wrong side of history, science, and liberty.  I learned that there is no doctrine or dogma that is not open to reinterpretation.  I learned about the constructive role faithful dissent has played and could continue to play in the re-shaping of Roman Catholic Christianity since its inception.  I learned that my conservative politics were on the wrong side of the gospel of Jesus Christ more often than not.  You cannot un-ring a bell.  Once you learn something, you are responsible for what you have learned.  I struggled with questions of how to use what I learned.  How best could I foment for changes in doctrines, structures, and institutions which can no longer be reasonably called just and good given what the human race has discovered by way of the sciences, both "hard" and "soft?" 

I have been blogging now and then for over five years.  My blog took the form of a rather random collection of musings, pictures, links, etc.  Occasionally, I would find my faith upset by one or another pronouncement of the hierarchy or some conservative Catholic association.  I would write about it, often ineffectively, and then return to my opinions about video games, movies, politics, or whatever.  Those who might have agreed with or debated me about Catholicism were turned off by the frivolous nature of the rest of the blog, and those who enjoyed the regular "lighter fare" were often repelled by the over-harsh rhetoric I employed while railing against the latest offenses. 

I have decided therefore to locate my progressive Catholic musings and rants here on this brand-new blog, while continuing to post about my kid, wife, the weather, and so forth at my original blog.  That way, you know what you'll get when you go to either site. 

Thank you for joining me.  I hope that together we can raise up a voice as from the prophets of old!  I hope that as we speak out against those injustices and offenses against God's children and creation which persist to this day in the Roman Catholic Church, we can be a voice to reform and reinvigorate this church that we love.