c. 2007 Religion News Service
Scholars Say Young Catholics Key to Church’s Future
WASHINGTON (RNS) The authors of a new book say the future of the church depends on young Catholics who share the principal tenets of the faith but are likely to disagree with the church on social issues.
“If the older generation of Catholics assumes a young person’s world is like their own, they are mistaken,” said Jim Davidson, a sociology professor at Purdue University and co-author of “American Catholics Today.”
If the church does not begin to engage young people in a conversation, he added, it could lose members of that generation.
Davidson and Dean Hoge, another co-author and sociology professor at Catholic University, spoke at a Georgetown University forum sponsored by the school’s Woodstock Theological Center on Tuesday (Feb. 6).
For their study, the authors identified four generations of Catholics: pre-Vatican II _ those born before 1940; Vatican II, post-Vatican II, and millennial Catholics, whom they defined as those born between 1979 and 1987.
All four generations had some common ground. Majorities in each group believe in the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, think the laity should be more involved in the church and condemn the recent clergy sexual abuse scandals.
But millennial Catholics were the least likely to agree with the church on issues such as gay marriage, premarital sex, the need for a celibate and male priesthood, and the teaching authority of the church.
These differences diminish millennials’ sense of Catholic identity, Hoge said.
He attributed many of these differences to the world in which young Catholics have grown up, noting that they have achieved a higher level of education than any previous generation, tend to live in the suburbs rather than in “Catholic enclaves” and are marrying non-Catholics at a rate of 45 percent to 50 percent.
Young adult Catholics consider the church’s sacraments, charity to the poor, devotion to Mary and the beliefs stated in the Nicene Creed to be the most central elements of Catholicism.
However, a majority do not accept that the church’s stances on the death penalty, abortion, personal confession or the celibacy of male priests are central to the faith.
The Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at Woodstock and the former editor of America Magazine, said young women’s disengagement with the church could be devastating.
“You hear about grandma, not grandpa, leading the rosary,” he said. “If women are turned off, it’s over. We close the doors.”
To help the church survive, Davidson suggested it should not “draw a line in the sand on peripheral issues.”
“Don’t define the Catholic identity with birth control,” he said. “The Catholic identity is the relationship with Christ.”
_ Katherine Boyle
Muslims Concerned Over Excavation Near Jerusalem Mosque
JERUSALEM (RNS) More than 100 Muslims held a peaceful protest Thursday (Feb. 8) in Jerusalem to demand a halt to Israeli plans to construct a pedestrian bridge leading to the Temple Mount out of fears that the construction will desecrate the site, which is holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians.
The bridge will replace the Mugrabi walkway, which engineers deemed structurally unsafe for the hundreds of thousands of people who visit the Mount, which Muslims call Haram al-Sharif and is home to the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Due to its holiness and its political significance to both Jews and Arabs, the Temple Mount has been the site of numerous violent confrontations. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem, where the Temple Mount, Western Wall, Church of the Holy Sepulchre and countless other holy sites are located, to be the capital of their future state.
The construction of the bridge, coupled with excavations by archeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority hoping to “rescue” antiquities buried at the construction site, has sparked Muslim anger throughout the Middle East.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called for Israel’s destruction, accused Israel of inciting conflict.
“The nature of the Zionist regime is to ruin and cause conflict,” ISNA, the Iranian student news agency, quoted the president as saying.
Both Fatah and Hamas, Palestinian factions that have been battling each other in recent weeks, called on Muslims to unite against the construction and excavations and to launch another uprising.
Israeli politicians are divided on the issue. On Wednesday, Defense Minister Amir Peretz urged Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to prevent the bridge’s construction on the grounds that it could torpedo planned negotiations with the Palestinians.
The Prime Minister’s Office responded that the restoration of the walkway “was done in complete cooperation with all the parties, including foreign countries, relevant Muslim officials and international bodies,” the Ha’aretz newspaper reported.
_ Michele Chabin
Black Clergy Gather to Pray, Weep for New Orleans Recovery
NEW ORLEANS (RNS) More than 150 African-American clergy from around the country gathered in the city’s Lower 9th Ward on Wednesday (Feb. 7), and in the emerging light of dawn, prayed and wept for New Orleans.
During a sunrise devotional service of more than an hour, the clergy, who are among nearly 1,000 church leaders in town for the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, heard testimony of loss and exile from New Orleans pastors. They criticized the White House for budgeting $245 billion for conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, while New Orleans and the Gulf Coast remain in a shambles 18 months after Hurricane Katrina.
“We can rebuild New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast if we could stop the money flowing to war that is leading to death and destruction,” said the Rev. Tim McDonald of Atlanta.
As the sun rose, the group prayed together and sang “Wade in the Water,” the old spiritual that took on a fresh and painful meaning at the hurricane memorial. Some wept.
The visit is not the first formal trip to New Orleans by the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, an alliance of predominantly black Protestant churches formed in 2003 to seek social justice in the African-American community.
Asked later whether members have reached a consensus on New Orleans, the organization’s general secretary, Iva Carruthers, said: “This is incredible and unbelievable. They cannot believe the government of this country can be so ill-informed and callous to appropriate dollars in Iraq and not the appropriate dollars to restore the lives of families and children.”
She said conference members, some of whom have close ties to their own congressional representatives, will take their dismay home and lobby for New Orleans.
“What we have seen is missed opportunities and misplaced priorities,” said the Rev. Otis Moss II of the 8,000-member Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, which has sent at least three teams of volunteers to work in New Orleans.
_ Bruce Nolan
Regional Group of Bishops Affirms `Process’ of Considering Bush Library
(RNS) A regional group of United Methodist bishops have affirmed the process surrounding the possible placement of President George W. Bush’s library and policy center on the grounds of Southern Methodist University.
The bishops, who represent United Methodists in the south central United States, adopted a resolution Monday (Feb. 5) at a two-day quarterly meeting with SMU President Gerald Turner. The resolution praised the president’s “careful stewardship and advocacy of the historic relationship between the university and the church.”
The controversy over whether Bush’s library should be located on the school’s Dallas campus has been fueled by critics who say the privately funded policy institute could associate the Methodist name with a partisan public relations enterprise.
Opponents of the library have posted an online petition with more than 10,000 signatures and voiced concerns that Bush’s management of the “war on terror” clashes with the denomination’s ethical principles.
“We understand the controversy involved in this proposal,” the bishops said in their resolution. “Our action today is focused on the process SMU has been engaged. SMU has been forthcoming and transparent in its dealings and communication with us.”
The resolution that was approved by the 10 active bishops present at the meeting affirmed their belief that the university’s trustees and administration were “acting responsibly and in good faith.”
At the same time, the conservative Washington-based Institute on Religion and Democracy has launched its own petition in support of the library. “Unlike the strident opponents of the Bush library, we believe that our church is built on the Christian faith, not a political ideology,” said the IRD’s Mark Tooley, a frequent critic of the liberal wings of mainline Protestant churches.
Tooley noted that there has been little criticism launched against Emory University, a Methodist-affiliated school in Atlanta, for its ties to former President Jimmy Carter’s library there.
_ Melissa Stee
Quote of the Day: Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis.
“I recognize we are meeting here today to consider a bill to protect chickens. But isn’t protecting our nation’s young women … equally, if not more, important, than our dinner entree?”
_ Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., about his ultimately unsuccessful attempt to add an amendment outlawing taking minors across state lines for an abortion to a bill increasing penalties for transporting animals across state lines for the purposes of fighting.
KRE/LF END RNS
