Waterloo Of Boomer Catholics

The American Conservative ^ | 08-12-2019 | Rod Dreher

[NRx]

This is pretty amazing. A couple of Portland readers have sent me this story about what happened when the Catholic archbishop of Portland sent a priest in to reform a wackadoodle progressive parish that had gone native. The Oregonian’s report on it is hysterically biased, making the priest look like a monster; the reporter never once appears to have considered that Catholicism is a religion that has clear norms, and this parish’s previous leadership had seriously violated them, for a long time. Anyway, from the story about St. Francis parish, identified by the newspaper as having “long been known as a bastion of progressive Catholic faith.”

The Roman Catholic Church is rooted in tradition and hierarchy. Jerry Harp, chair of St. Francis’ pastoral council, is struggling to understand how he relates to this structure of authority. It was this hierarchy that was roiling his parish.

Harp considers himself a devout Catholic. He starts every morning with mediation and prayer and prays the Hail Mary at least once a day. He tries to attend Mass every Sunday. When he was in his 20s, he said he wanted to follow every rule he could. Now he questions how those rules bring him closer to God.

“Some would say ‘Well you have to relate to the authority structure by following them to the letter,'” Harp said. “Well how do you know that? It’s perfectly legitimate for other people to have other answers.”

Long-time parishioners knew the answer. They didn’t like being told how to worship.

This was their church.

At least one Hail Mary each day! My gosh, this crypto-Protestant (“it’s perfectly legitimate for other people to have other answers”) is a lay Curé of Ars for our own time!

More:

[Dr. Sivana]

prays the Hail Mary at least once a day. He tries to attend Mass every Sunday.

At that rate, he could almost say seven rosaries a year, and he usually doesn't fall into mortal sin.

[cdcdawg]

“Waterloo Of Boomer Catholics”

I just visualized a host of overweight old people driving across the Belgian countryside on Harley 3 Wheelers (doing 10 mph under the speed limit). Terrifying!