An Article…

on Orthodoxy and Catholicism worth reading including:

The yearning for authenticity and communion is a search for the transcendent and structured worship speaks directly to it. This is one reason why converts to the liturgical churches (Orthodox and Catholic alike) are often conservative in their approach to worship. In a culture where the divine dimension is lost and worship no longer exists, sexuality becomes a substitute. Malcolm Muggeridge said years ago that “sex is the sacrament of the materialist.” Ideologically this is true but as a priest I also take a more functional approach. The rampant sexuality we see in our culture is often an attempt to self-integrate and find communion — a reach for the unifying clarity that touching the transcendent promises — although greater disintegration is the inevitable result. 

On Empathy in the Digital Age…

How could this happen?  I believe American teens are in the grips of a psychological epidemic that has eroded much of their capacity to connect with genuine emotion and is, therefore, crushing their empathy.  

Having watched tens of thousands of YouTube videos with bizarre scenarios unfolding, having Tweeted thousands of senseless missives of no real importance, having watched contrived “Reality TV” programs in which people are posers in false dramas about love or lust or revenge, having texted millions of times, rather than truly connecting and having lost their real faces to the fake life stories of Facebook, they look upon the actual events of their lives with no more actual investment and actual concern and actual courage than they would look upon a fictional character in a movie.  

They are absent from their own lives and those of others.  They are floating free in a virtual world where nothing really matters other than being cool observers of their own detached existence, occasionally alighting on one another’s bodies, in sexual embraces that remind them—for an orgasmic moment—that they are actually alive and actually human.  

On the Media and Faith…

The role religion plays in America and the world has been a well-kept secret in most of the nation’s newsrooms. While reporters chase the latest stories in politics, sports, business, education and other subjects, the billions of dollars and hours Americans invest in religious activities receive minimal attention. Religion news is usually pushed into a tiny Saturday ghetto labeled “church news.”

When news events escape the church page they are often covered by reporters with little interest in religion and little education in the style and language of religious leaders and organizations. Religion has almost been ignored by radio and television. …

The major reason few American newspapers and radio and television stations cover religion is simple. Few of the people who decide what news is care about religion.

 

Read more here.

There is Much…

trouble and difficulty in these times and yet it seems that at these times the Church must avoid the temptation to hunker down and try to ride out the storm. Troubled times are times of opportunity because people, stripped of the normal props that focus their lives on the perpetual here and now, are, by necessity, looking beyond themselves for something true, real, and good. If we are not out “there” engaging real people with real truth we will cease to be a part of the dialogue. Someone very wise once said that hidden lamps are useless.