In the late 1980s and early 90s, I was serving the Church as a Youth Minister and director of Faith Formation. In those offices, I was responsible for preparing my teens to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation. Even in those days, there was a subtle deterioration taking place in the religious education process.
Having had my own experience of a total disconnect between God’s activity on earth and my life, I was greatly determined not to allow what happened to me in my religious education experience to happen to those now going through the process. After encountering Christ in High School, I wanted to help other kids come to find Christ. I set a course to bolster the waning programs with the intention to lead them to encounter Christ.
Unfortunately, the parents of the next generation of teens, were my contemporaries who experienced the same watered down proclamation of the Catholic Faith that I did. Not only was I having to help the teens come out of their own apathy, but I had to contend with the apathy being modeled by the parents. It wasn’t all bleak, there were a few Faith filled and ardent parents who really wanted their kids to come to know and live for Christ on earth. The majority of families were just going through the motions.
While there are a plethora of reasons for the demise of our current religious education programs, there was one that many did not see because we lacked the spiritual capacity and formation to see it. In those days the devil was not preached on nor taught. The concept of demons and demonic strongholds was no where on the horizon. Therefore, we would do our best and wonder why nothing was working. It was easy to become apathetic. If the parents would go so far as to lie for their teens so that they could avoid doing the “requirements” for getting confirmed, then what can we really do?
I remember having a parent come to my office a week before the Confirmation Retreat, which was required by the Bishop for Confirmation. He informed me that his son cannot attend the retreat because his son has a baseball game. I reminded him that this was a requirement to receive his sacrament. He acknowledged and I enthusiastically said “That’s okay, we can confirm him next year.” He was not happy with my response. He declared that he wanted his son to get confirmed this year. I asked how he can reconcile the lack of the retreat? He then requested that I give him a private retreat.
As you can imagine, that didn’t go well. The easy thing to do would have been to do the retreat, but once his friends heard that he was getting one the entire class of 65 students would want one. So I held my ground and after ten mines of screaming and ranting and threatening to go to the Pastor, he left. In one sense I couldn’t be angry with him because he was the fruit of his religious education program.
Fast forward to the year 2021 and the current religious education programs and we will see much of the same for the past 40 years. They may have changed the name, but the content and antiquated methods are still the same. This apathy has not only affected our parish religious education classes, but our Catholic Schools as well.
As I have begun to travel again I have started to see, with a greater clarity, the demonic stronghold of apathy in our parishes and schools. The requirements were used to get people who didn’t want to be there through the programs, but no work was being done to evangelize to them so that they could understand the WHY of our Faith and actually desire to know Christ. Some simply try to force feed more Catechists to the poor souls whose hearts are not encountering the love of Christ.
My eyes have been focusing on the current leaders and how affected they are by the spirit of Apathy. His grip is very strong and in union with the spirit of oppression, they can easily loose hope and simply begin to do a job and cease to do a ministry.
I believe we must go the Holy Spirit and to Mother Mary and ask them to reveal to us the spiritual strongholds in our parish and get trained to renounce, bind and cast them out of our parishes. I can see how many parish staff, pastors included, are being tempted to settle for less. Covid 19 has only increased that temptation because we can blame it on the rules that are coming down from on high. It is time to rise and retake our parishes from the demons who have been assigned to infiltrate our leadership and the flock and render them ineffective for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Let us rise, Church of Jesus Christ, in the power of the Spirit and in the authority of the Son of God.
The word that at has been whispered into my ears and is the foundation that I am called to stand on is ‘Rise Up’. I keep hearing it, He is leading us if we quiet our hearts and listen to His still small voice. The invitation to know Him intimately.
As always, you are playing in his words of truth, and truth leads to life. May we all be open to His love and want only the best we can give to our children. The time is now. Let us rise up!✨
Amen, Linda!
Very timely information- I pray for a revival in our local church. I can see some very beginnings starting to happen. More and more people are coming back to Mass again even though we try to social distance. Our priest, confirmation teachers, and confirmation candidates appear to be taking this sacrament more seriously. We had Confirmation in our parish last Sunday and there was overwhelming support of families and parishioners as the church was packed to capacity -as many as were allowed. Will keep praying that this continues and that Jesus’ presence will be manifested more and more. Thanks for sharing, Deacon Ralph!
That’s so great to hear, and yes keep up the prayers! God Bless.
I have often recognized the religious education system as failing. I thought the education system change eliminating memorization of the Baltimore Catechism removed an essential element in the learning process. The current process does not tie “Who made me” to “Why God made me” and why am I here. Religion is taught as a science, not as a philosophy. We(our family) expensed considerable monies in the parochial education system, only to result in half being not interested to the other half only being dutifully observant. The church hierarchy does not appear to have a grasp on what to do. If the Church hierarchy has addressed this educational system deterioration, as a lay person, I have not heard of the changes or recognized any dramatic results. Just the hierarchy complaining of the diminishing participation and numerous scandals of inappropriate behavior.
I agree with your comments. I believe the Bishops are looking for causes and best practices but there is no unified approach. Evangelization is certainly a missing piece but that is viewed in a wide spectrum.
So we will see how it goes.
All of your points are valid. Church teaching is extremely watered down and what I would call progressive. Pope Francis falls right in line with that. Pope Benedict and Saint JPII, were on opposite ends of the spectrum. Priests don’t want to offend since the coffers may be negatively impacted. “We” are more concerned with not hurting someone’s feelings and not offending them rather than speaking the truth. I once told a student I wouldn’t buy Girl Scout Cookies because the organization promotes abortion and ‘women’s reproductive health’, LGBT,etc. etc. etc. . You should have seen the show there. I’ve been dealing with relativistic ideas/practice for decades-and I’m not even 50 yet!! The truth can be difficult to hear. Our society is crumbling before our very eyes and yet, no one appears to be concerned.
Amen. The truth is that Jesus Cares and is preparing to do something Massive. Let us pray as he leads us through a period of purification, that leads to humility, that will also turn hearts to him and creat a desire for learning more about Him!!!
This email really struck home with me Deacon Ralph! You are 100% right. Our church is in desperate need of true revival. There are parts that are working, and parts that are broken and in need of repair. We should aspire to get back to the basics, teaching our children to love and trust God first, of why it is so important to have a relationship with our Lord and Savior, before expanding into the doctrine and “rules” as it were. You have definitely hit the nail on the head with your assessment! Blessings!
Dcn Ralph,
Satan and his minions certainly are at work. And so is the flesh, (our tendency toward sin) and the world. I think the comfortable life we have in America and our idol worship (ie professional sports, money and leisure) also contribute greatly to the apathy you address here. I believe one of the fruits of the Chinese flu and the violent protests this past summer has been to take a big bite out of the idols as attendance has been shut down and viewership has greatly diminished for the NBA and NFL. Our comfort and leisure have also been somewhat reduced with all the shut downs. Will all of this be enough to turn hearts back to God? In my observation, unfortunately, I don’t think so. I can see where God will need to allow more adversity to wretch the hold of the world, the flesh, and the devil from his people. I believe along side of this there will also be an outpouring of grace to wake hearts up and turn people back to hunger for more of God. This will be due to the prayers of the remnant faithful and God’s mercy-justice. God bless you and keep up the good work!