Category: Catholicism

Weekly Young Adult-only Mass?

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A little while ago, one of my friends suggested that there should be a parish where there is a Young Adult Mass held every week for all members of the Diocese. The idea was that it would be really nice to have a place where the younger members of the Diocese could gather knowing that there would be lots of other young adults present. There would be superb music, excellent preaching and lots of young people.

There was a time in my own journey when I would have enthusiastically embraced this idea. In fact, in our Diocese we have a similar event each year, known as “Mega Mass”, where all the young adults come together and it’s very successful. However, I think that a weekly event would be extremely problematic.

No wrinklies allowed!

Aside from the politics of selecting a parish in the Diocese and personal preferences concerning music, establishing a young adult Mass would be difficult because it’s not like you could stop those who did not fall into the young adult age range from attending. As a consequence, if the young adult Mass were mostly made up of those outside the young adult age range, it is unlikely that it would attract many more young adults.

On the other hand, if the Mass did start to attract more and more young adults, I fear that it would end up depopulating other parishes of their young adults which I think would be disastrous. Something of this dynamic often exists naturally, with one or two parishes of the diocese being known as the “young adult parish”, robbing surrounding parishes of their young adults.  Who will be the next generation in these parishes?

My other serious concern with an idea like this is that it plays into a kind of ecclesial consumerism which we’ve seen very clearly in the Protestant world. Obviously, we want music to be good, preaching to be inspiring and for our churches to be filled with the young, but part of me can’t help but think that to enter into such an initiative would be to start training people to think that these are the primary things which should be used to determine what makes going to Mass important. It also sets up a problem further down the line because what happens if the music takes a bit of a downturn? What if the homilies get a little stale? What if the young adult population dips? There will always be some other church somewhere which does it better and if that’s what we’ve trained people to value most, why would they want to stay in the Catholic Church?

What are you thoughts? Would you ever want to see a Young Adult Mass every week in the Diocese?

Top Five Ways to be a Rockstar Godparent

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Over the last few years I’ve had the honour of sponsoring several people for Baptism and Confirmation. Over my time as a godparent, I’ve asked other sponsors what they do to live out this special vocation.

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In today’s post I’ve assembled all the advice I’ve heard from other godparents and sponsors and come up with the top five ways to godparent like a rockstar…
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Quick Apology: The authority to forgive sins…

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ForgivenessOne of my favourite things about having a blog is that, every now and then, I’ll get an email out of the blue from someone I don’t know. I love getting emails from people I’ve never met. There’s something quite wonderful in having an interaction with someone from across the continent or even the world, all because of something you’ve written!

Very often when I get emails they contain questions of an apologetics nature. I’m trying to get better at converting these email exchanges into posts. So, in light of that, I would like to share a response I gave to an email I received a few weeks ago. The gentleman asked the following question:

While discussing Christ’s establishment of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, I brought up John 20:21-23.  My Protestant friends said that this is Jesus’ way of warning everyone not to hold a grudge against someone by retaining their sin. I know what Jesus was doing here, but I lack the bomb-proof Catholic response to this interpretation; can you help?

I’m not sure if my response qualifies as “bomb-proof”, but here was my reply…

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The Baggage of Sola Scriptura

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wpf087e6e3_06Today we have a guest post from Tom Massoth, the father-in-law of my friend John, who will also soon be a guest poster here at Restless Pilgrim.

Tom and his wife of 39 years, Michele, reside in Yorba Linda, CA where they raised their two daughters Lisa and Jennifer. Now blessed with four perfect grandchildren, this retired Boeing engineer dedicates his time to God, family and friends, and various time-gobbling hobbies such as cycling. He is also a a Certified Flight Instructor in both airplanes and gliders. 

Tom has a love of Scripture and is a student of Church history and the early development of Christian doctrines. His particular interest lies in presenting the fullness of the Catholic faith in simple and easy-to-understand terms to Catholics and non-Catholics alike. He prays for a more unified Christian faith in the world and sees open honest dialog as the key to spreading the Good News.

Here is what Tom has to say on the subject of Sola Scriptura…

Following apologetic debates on various internet blogs is usually interesting, sometimes entertaining and often very frustrating. The exchanges start with the initial blog entry that posits a position favored by the author, which invariably includes historical evidence, perhaps quotations from the writings of Church fathers and of course verses from Holy Scripture that are offered as proof of point in question.

The comment boxes then fill in reaction using the same general modus operandi: “Great Point!” leads the pack. “Ridiculous Point!” soon follows. Still another says “Ref. Romans X: Y-Z and you’ll see the real truth and proof of your foolish conclusions!” Another commenter counters with “Hey, this is so easy, just read 1 Cor A: B, which of course refers to Psalm ##, which was foreseen by Jeremiah L: MN-OP.” the beat goes on, and the beat goes on.

The most frustrating scenario, however, is a case when people holding opposing views on a particular topic offer the exact same Bible verse as proof to support their position! We then have two differing viewpoints, both claiming the inspired Word of God as proof of their positions. We know that the Bible cannot contradict itself; so where do we go from here?

Now, I’m not a member of clergy, nor a trained theologian or Bible scholar, but it doesn’t take an expert to see that something is terribly wrong with the way we are attempting to discover and embrace God’s revealed truth. Jumping from proof text to proof text, trying to understand the position, arguments and supporting evidence, it soon becomes apparent that the Bible per se is no longer at the core of the controversies. It was people themselves that had somehow replaced the single truth of God’s Word.

A battle cry of the Protestant Reformation was the idea of Sola Scriptura, i.e. that the Bible and the Bible alone stands as the sole revelation of God’s truth to mankind. I fully accept the Bible as the inspired Word of God, so at a certain level I agree with the spirit of Sola Scripture. That said, for any premise like Sola Scriptura, we must not only understand the basic concept, we must also peel back the layers to see what other conclusions necessarily come along as an implied attachment.

To that end, I would like to discuss a thought experiment that began with a definition of Sola Scriptura, which continued through some intermediate observations and ended with a most unexpected conclusion…

Consequences

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The White Rose

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At “Drinks with Dominicans” the other day I was introduced to “The White Rose”, a group of students in Nazi Germany who spoke out against Hitler. They came from Protestant, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox backgrounds and were tremendously influenced by the writings of Cardinal Newman, especially his arguments from Natural Law concerning the dignity of the human person.

I’ve just finished watching the excellently done film about the group, entitled “Sophie Scholl: The Final Days”:

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