Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 8 — The Georgia Bulletin, February 8, 1990
By Father David K. O’Rourke, OP
Catholic News Service
Before Christmas I drove from New
York, where I had worked for two years,
back home to California. To avoid
possible snowstorms I chose a scenic
southerly route. It took me through long-
established little towns in rural America.
Commenting on his community, a
motel operator said, “There’s just this
one motel, just like there’s only one
school, one church, one grocery.”
He smiled and said, “And we’ve had
the same mayor for 13 years.”
Then he added, “There are not many
places with our kind of sameness left in
this country anymore.”
He was right, of course. We don’t
even have to go out into the world to
find diversity. Pluralism has come into
our own living rooms.
The presence of many
cultures and different lifestyles
brings an incredible richness to
society. But this great diversity
also can confront us with
bewildering choices.
I recently spent a holiday with old
friends, a family that considers itself
close. Yet even here there is con
siderable diversity — in religion,
economic achievement and attitudes
toward politics and social policies.
In a family with Catholic roots, it no
longer is uncommon to find marriages
that cross religious lines, or to find no
religion, or to find a basic tabling of
religious matters for the time being. As
my friend commented at dinner, “I used
to ask what Mass people were going to.
Now I ask whether anyone wants to go
to church.”
Does such expanding diversity repre
sent a decline or a withering away of
religious values?
I think that in families that cross
religious lines, that include many
religions and no religion, and which for
the sake of peace leave religious discus
sions at the door you can find not so
much an example of religious decline as
of the triumph of religious individualism.
In America, religious individualism is
at least as old as the nation itself and
probably reflects basic attitudes toward
pluralism in general. It is summed up in
a few statements many of us probably
have heard at one point or other: “Reli
gion is personal.” “People should keep
their religion out of other people’s
affairs.”
Recent polls emphasize that most
Americans consider themselves
religious. But they prefer to come up
with their own definitions of what
“being religious” means.
The individualism we are so familiar
with, and that includes religious indi
vidualism, has a down side. Sociologists
tell us that America’s frontier individu
alism never could provide the basis for
the social reforms that have given the
country its moral character.
From the abolitionists who prepared
the way for overturning slavery in the
19th century to the U.S. bishops’ recent
call for a just distribution of goods, the
nation’s moral reforms have come largely
from church groups with a solid commu
nity sense and a strong social conscience.
Private and personalized religion, on
the other hand, tends to separate social
matters from individual faith. What a
person believes and what he or she does
or does not do in response to the needs
of the surrounding world can be kept
quite separate.
In the pluralist world where people
keep the peace and avoid conflict
through an individualist attitude, a per
son’s religious faith and actions at work
or in the family need not connect.
But that individualist view runs
counter to the Catholic vision of church,
especially the vision of Vatican Council
II. The church is a community held
together by more than mutual consent
Or forbearance. It is held together by
God’s own life.
To use the image that Jesus used in
the Gospel, the church community
draws its life from God the way that the
branches draw their strength and life
from a living tree. In this image of the
church as the body of Christ, the
individual cut off from the tree withers
and dies.
Pluralism can and does bring an
incredible richness. We Americans value
that richness. We know how important
it is to be able to choose, and having a
variety of choices means a lot to us.
We also have seen how the U.S.
church has been enriched by the native
and Hispanic cultures which predated
the republic, by the diversity brought
by immigrant Catholics in the past and
by the richness of today’s new
immigrants.
But if we almost automatically call an
individualistic instinct into play,
responding to the great diversity
around us by holing up in our own
worlds, we are turning our backs on our
Catholic tradition.
As my friend told me on Christmas,
“Sometimes I’m tempted just to go off
to Mass by myself and figure that what
they do or don’t do is their business, it
doesn’t affect me. But I don’t believe
that. We do affect each other.”
I believe she is right. It is risky to con
fuse respect for pluralism with an
individual-ism which ultimately can lead
us to abandon involvement with others
and concern for the community.
(Father O'Rourke is on St. Dominic
Parish's staff, Benicia, Calif.}
FAITH IN THE MARKETPLACE
How are you directly affected, for better or worse, by the variety of value systems in your society?
My own value system is
strengthened and tempered by
contact with individuals in our
society who possess rather dif
ferent value systems. They give
me perspective that I might other
wise never achieve.”
— Dan Jager, Tyler, Texas.
■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■I
Value systems today are so
clouded and leave so much space
for interpretation it causes con
fusion among people just trying to
discover what they truly believe.”
— Jim Gasparini, Tyler, Texas.
I am a Catholic feminist with
an adopted Korean child and I feel
pluralism permeates my life! For
the most part I think the world
benefits by pluralism — sharing
cultures and values, because the
planet is ‘getting smaller.’ The
fears I have include groups such
as the KKK and any others who
perpetrate violence.”
— Mary Schindler, St. Cloud, Minn.
I don’t choose to do some of
the things (other students) do....
I can respect myself for some of
the things I choose not to do. It
helps me to be a little bit more
understanding of others.”
— Tim Aisthorpe, a senior at Auburn Univer
sity in Alabama.
An upcoming edition asks: On Easter 1990, what are some signs for you that the kingdom of God is still growing?
If you would like to respond for possible publication, write: Faith Alive! 3211 Fourth St. N.E., Washington, D.C. 20017-1100.