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Professor: Catholics need to embrace change According to Dr. David O'Brien, it's an offense to past generations of Catholics who built the Church in America to mourn the changing Church instead of celebrating it. In an upcoming lecture titled, "On Solid Ground: Our Changing Church in Historical Perspective," he will expand on that theory. His talk, April 9, 7 p.m., at Christian Brothers Academy in Albany, is sponsored by the Holy Cross Club of Eastern New York. For 39 years, he taught at Holy Cross College in Massachusetts as "Loyola professor of Roman Catholic studies." 'Big picture' Having experienced Catholicism both before and after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, which made great changes in the Church, Dr. O'Brien likes to look at the "big picture" of American Church history. Immigrants to the U.S. in the early 20th century, he explained, developed strong ethnic subcultures, while also building the Church in accord with their desire for religious freedom -- a "story of liberation," he noted. Since Vatican II, the Church and the U.S. have both undergone gradual change: Immigrants became "Americanized," and the ethnic subcultures they created, homogenized. There was also a demographic shift among Catholics from cities to suburbs, and the country as a whole lost what Dr. O'Brien terms the "emotional commitment" to strong patriotism. New flavor The professor believes those trends are leading toward a future Church with a more evangelical flavor. "Young adults are certainly open to Jesus and personal faith, but much of the structure of Catholicism is problematic" to them, he noted. Rather than the focus of the past on Church doctrine, structure and clerical authority, Dr. O'Brien sees the Church becoming more "Bible- and Jesus-centered," with an emphasis on lay leadership, pastoral ministries, Catholics' personal relationship with Christ and the kind of small faith communities many parishes have already developed. Planning Pastoral planning is the framework to bring that change about, he explained. The process "is so much healthier when you have a good diocese with some trust and a pastoral staff." In a recent column in the Berkshire Eagle newspaper, Dr. O'Brien stated that "closed parishes are one chapter, a sad chapter, in larger stories of family success, expanding freedom, and widening responsibilities." All the changes in the past, present and future, he concluded, should be about Catholics using their freedom and resources to "lift the human family to the kingdom of God." (Dr. O'Brien's talk is free and open to the public. He is the author of "The Renewal of American Catholicism," "Renewing the Earth: Catholic Documents on Peace, Justice and liberation," and "Public Catholicism.") (04/03/08) |