A Church in Need of Conversion
I don't talk about my faith, or about religion, a whole lot publicly as much as I used to. Like most Filipinos, I was born and raised a Catholic. However, in the past few years, I've struggled with my Catholic upbringing and have questioned and grown cynical regarding the Catholic community and the Catholic Church. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately and I realize that as a whole, the Catholic faith, it's Church, and it's people are not bad...it's the mindset and approach towards the Catholic faith that often causes division and dissent.
Growing up, I did the typical Filipino Catholic things any Filipino Catholic kid did. I went to Catholic school for most of my life. I went to Mass every Sunday with my family. My first Holy Communion was a milestone in my young life, and my Confirmation in middle school was treated like a rite of passage. I was active, very active, in my youth group and most of my childhood friends were met through the youth group, or through weekend retreats.
As I got older, and lived overseas, I saw how the Catholic way of life conflicted with a lot of the values I was encountering. I spent my early teens growing up in Bangkok, Thailand and while my faith was strong, I was living in an environment that greatly conflicted with the values I was raised in. When I moved back and entered a non-sectarian secular prep school in my later high school years, I realized how different my lifestyle was then other teens, and I was often questioned and even made fun of for my upbringing. However, I believe my biggest challenge to my Catholic upbringing occurred in college. I witnessed people I grew up who were raised in the faith, people I looked up to, totally deviate from their ways, often experimenting with drugs and alcohol, and usually delving into sexual promiscuity. Most of the childhood friends I had in Catholic school and in youth group were no longer Catholics. Upon reuniting with them, most of them were blaspheming and hating the Church, or at the very least, they were apathetic towards it and no longer practiced the Catholic faith. As people I used to go to Mass with and say the Our Father with, it totally made me re-assess my views on faith. To make matters worse, I witnessed the negative politics within the Catholic community I was raised in, and I even saw how truly un-Christian Catholics around me were treating those around them. I began to think "Is this what I've subscribed to? Judgement? Self-righteousness?" It seemed that the Catholics I was being surrounded by were more concerned with being right than being loving. I also began to read about the history of the Catholic Church and how it conquered the Philippines through the Catholic faith and subjugated the native people to it. None of these things made my faith stronger. In fact, it made it worse.
In light of this, I began to shed my Catholic identity and leaned more towards the evangelical and Protestant approaches to Christianity. Even to this day, I think the Protestant/Evangelical community is doing a far better job in making the Christian faith accessible and relevant to people, especially young people, than the Catholic Church is. However, I also noticed that the evangelical approach, while I admire it, is still very fundamentalist and in many ways even more conservative than what I was raised with in the Catholic Church. A lot of evangelicals have made it their mission to lash out at the Catholic Church as well, which I don't agree with.
Looking upon all this, I realize today that at the core, I am a Catholic. It's what I know, and it's what I grew up in. I have been to many churches, but there's something about a Catholic cathedral that just hits me to the core. However, I am still looking at the Catholic Church with a critical eye. I was at Mass recently and the priest on the altar told us that as of right now, 80 percent of Catholics have left the Catholic Church. My question was: "What was the Church doing when it was at a drop out rate of 50 percent? Why didn't they do anything about it then?" The fact is that I totally understand why people would leave the Church. The Catholic Church tends to encourage people to join them, but they don't often reach out, get their hands dirty, and recruit people into it (with the exception of missionary work, the evangelical side isn't the strongest). The highly institutionalized and regimented nature of the Catholic Church greatly differs from the way Christ presented Himself.
I really believe the Catholic Church is beautiful and has so much to offer, but I think a lot of changes need to be made. While I understand Tradition is so important, we need to realize that we live in the 21st century and there are things the Church needs to adapt to to make itself more relevant and applicable in today's society.
Growing up, I did the typical Filipino Catholic things any Filipino Catholic kid did. I went to Catholic school for most of my life. I went to Mass every Sunday with my family. My first Holy Communion was a milestone in my young life, and my Confirmation in middle school was treated like a rite of passage. I was active, very active, in my youth group and most of my childhood friends were met through the youth group, or through weekend retreats.
As I got older, and lived overseas, I saw how the Catholic way of life conflicted with a lot of the values I was encountering. I spent my early teens growing up in Bangkok, Thailand and while my faith was strong, I was living in an environment that greatly conflicted with the values I was raised in. When I moved back and entered a non-sectarian secular prep school in my later high school years, I realized how different my lifestyle was then other teens, and I was often questioned and even made fun of for my upbringing. However, I believe my biggest challenge to my Catholic upbringing occurred in college. I witnessed people I grew up who were raised in the faith, people I looked up to, totally deviate from their ways, often experimenting with drugs and alcohol, and usually delving into sexual promiscuity. Most of the childhood friends I had in Catholic school and in youth group were no longer Catholics. Upon reuniting with them, most of them were blaspheming and hating the Church, or at the very least, they were apathetic towards it and no longer practiced the Catholic faith. As people I used to go to Mass with and say the Our Father with, it totally made me re-assess my views on faith. To make matters worse, I witnessed the negative politics within the Catholic community I was raised in, and I even saw how truly un-Christian Catholics around me were treating those around them. I began to think "Is this what I've subscribed to? Judgement? Self-righteousness?" It seemed that the Catholics I was being surrounded by were more concerned with being right than being loving. I also began to read about the history of the Catholic Church and how it conquered the Philippines through the Catholic faith and subjugated the native people to it. None of these things made my faith stronger. In fact, it made it worse.
In light of this, I began to shed my Catholic identity and leaned more towards the evangelical and Protestant approaches to Christianity. Even to this day, I think the Protestant/Evangelical community is doing a far better job in making the Christian faith accessible and relevant to people, especially young people, than the Catholic Church is. However, I also noticed that the evangelical approach, while I admire it, is still very fundamentalist and in many ways even more conservative than what I was raised with in the Catholic Church. A lot of evangelicals have made it their mission to lash out at the Catholic Church as well, which I don't agree with.
Looking upon all this, I realize today that at the core, I am a Catholic. It's what I know, and it's what I grew up in. I have been to many churches, but there's something about a Catholic cathedral that just hits me to the core. However, I am still looking at the Catholic Church with a critical eye. I was at Mass recently and the priest on the altar told us that as of right now, 80 percent of Catholics have left the Catholic Church. My question was: "What was the Church doing when it was at a drop out rate of 50 percent? Why didn't they do anything about it then?" The fact is that I totally understand why people would leave the Church. The Catholic Church tends to encourage people to join them, but they don't often reach out, get their hands dirty, and recruit people into it (with the exception of missionary work, the evangelical side isn't the strongest). The highly institutionalized and regimented nature of the Catholic Church greatly differs from the way Christ presented Himself.
I really believe the Catholic Church is beautiful and has so much to offer, but I think a lot of changes need to be made. While I understand Tradition is so important, we need to realize that we live in the 21st century and there are things the Church needs to adapt to to make itself more relevant and applicable in today's society.
posted by Mike Pana at
10:31 AM
2 Comments:
Hi mike. my name is Nor Bayani. I am a malaysian. Its quite amusing to know that my name Bayani means warrior in ur language. Its Philipines right?
Hi, I'm a recent FMA practitioner and found your intriguing blog via Google search.
I agree with many of your sentiments on the current state of the Catholic Church. Though I partially disagree that the "highly institutionalized and regimented [aspect]... differs from ... [Christ's way]" (sorry if I paraphrased for brevity)
Uncountable Catholic schools, hospitals and charities have served communities worldwide for centuries. I admit, sometimes their location and original intent were politically motivated, but should we discount their good deeds, the lives they saved?
We may not all be Santo Papa, but we can still aspire to be banal in our own little ways. I hope you will feel that way again.
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