Thursday, May 24, 2007

Dear Diary: The besieged Church is agin' everthin'

EDITOR'S NOTE: Revolution 21's Blog for the People continues an occasional series of dispatches recorded some years ago in the trenches of Catholic radio. The names aren't real, nor are the places, but the stories are -- and it's a snapshot picture of what happens when "Their zeal consumes them" meets "Sinners sacrifice for the institution, not vice versa."

In other words, there has to be a better way.


WEDNESDAY, APRIL 03, 2002


Dear Diary,


I didn't get home until about nine tonight . . . we're having our semiannual "Pledge-a-Thon" at Pope FM and I've been working from 6:45 a.m. to 8:30 every night.

BTW, today my boss and the development director, during one segment, got into this incredibly self-righteous sounding feedback loop of Orthodox Catholicism Against the Infidels, cracking on the "secular media" and its distortions about the Church, Catholics who don't know their faith, that "forces" would love to stop us in our mission, yadda yadda yadda.

I was in the control room doing a slow burn. Finally, I started to ratchet up the outro music -- giving them the hint to shut up -- and put on some CDs. Then I called the development guy into the control room, shut the door, told him I was telling him this because then was neither the time nor the place to get into a s***-slinging match with my boss, and then calmly let him have it with both barrels.

BASICALLY, I told him they were demonizing the media (and that the media for the most part had the Church's number down pat in the recent scandals), that they sounded incredibly self-righteous, and that if it didn't stop I was going to walk. I told him I knew I would be in a world of hurt if I did, but that it was a matter of conscience with me.

I added that what we needed to be saying was what we were FOR, not that we were poor Catholics being persecuted by the world.

Furthermore, I told him, what we needed to show people was love and humility because we were in no position to be arrogant.

To his credit, he listened and went to the chapel to pray on the matter. He came back and told me the message he got in prayer was to speak to what we believed in as Catholics and not worry about the rest. I don't know if he had a heart-to-heart with Mary about what I said, but the rest of the day went much better, with the exception of one repeat remark Mary made about the "forces." The development honcho was standing in the control room when she did, and I told him that the remark was overly cryptic, nebulous and that, frankly, (with the exception of Satan, who would like to see all evangelism fail) we weren't on enough people's radar screen for there to be a conspiracy against us.

Really, why does Catholic media have to come to this? And why do orthodox Catholics stand for this kind of counterproductive nonsense?

THERE WAS A TIME when I might have bought a lot of this -- and perhaps did buy a lot of this -- but I've been purged of it during the last year or so. Particularly after Sept. 11, when I got to see first-hand how ugly much of the Church's initial reaction to such a trauma could be.

It was either idiotic or Pharisaical, but not Christlike, I don't think.

I listen to how many contemporary, music-oriented evangelical stations that I listen to relate to the broader culture, and I'm envious . . . comparatively. I truly envy that aspect of the broader evangelical-Protestant spirituality -- the emphasis on hope, forgiveness and love. It's not that they're soft on sin -- it's just the emphasis on there being something BETTER than sin, that there is victory over sin and the death resulting from sin.

Orthodox Catholicism in so many quarters, however, just strikes me as stinking of its own peculiar version of the Nutso College-Campus Street Preacher Syndrome. Just all tied up in apologetics and doctrine.

Am I making any sense here? It's difficult to express what is so much a deep sense within the soul and heart.

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