Interview on February 22, 2022, with Alyssa, who is studying anthropology, beside the Natural Sciences and Mathematics building at CSU Dominguez Hills in Carson, California.
Do you consider yourself religious?
Alyssa: I was baptized and I grew up in the Catholic Church, but as of now, not really, no.
What changed?
Alyssa: I’m not a hundred percent sure. After my First Communion, we just stopped going to church. We still did religious things, but my brother and I just grew apart from the church compared to how our parents are. They still go to church occasionally.
Do you believe in God?
Alyssa: Not necessarily. I believe there’s a higher being, but not just a god.
Why do you believe in a higher power?
Alyssa: That’s a good question. There are certain points where there is a higher being that intercepts with certain things in life that can’t be natural. But at the same time, I believe in evolution. Evolution’s a scientific fact at this point. But there are instances where certain things happen that you can’t say how it happened naturally.
Do you think there’s something good about believing in a higher power? Would you share your beliefs with others?
Alyssa: Definitely, yeah. As long as you’re not forcing your views on other people. That’s the biggest part for me.
Where does your moral code come from and how do you decide what’s good or bad?
Alyssa: Bad for me is like murdering, rapists, those type of people. It really depends on your crime. If it’s against humanity, if it’s against animals, I’m going to be like, no. But if it’s petty crime, stealing something, but you actually need that item, I don’t mind that.
What if the person they stole it from really needed it?
Alyssa: I would definitely say they’re a bad person.
Traditional Christianity would say that abortion is wrong. What do you think about that?
Alyssa: I feel like it’s the woman’s choice. It’s her body. It’s her decision.
What if someone argued that she’s pregnant with a human being so an abortion harms a human being?
Alyssa: There are levels of abortion at certain weeks. So if she’s over the certain weeks that she can get an abortion, I would be like, okay, probably she can’t get an abortion now. She could put the baby up for adoption if she does not want it. But if it’s within those certain weeks where she can get an abortion, it’s still a clump of cells. It’s not fully developed. It’s the size of a pea, the size of the apple.
What if somebody said size shouldn’t determine somebody’s humanity?
Alyssa: It’s still her decision. You can tell her your opinion, but in the end, it’s her decision if she wants to get an abortion or not.
Do you think the law helps dictate what’s right and wrong?
Alyssa: Definitely. I would say yeah.
Slavery was legal. Can the laws be wrong?
Alyssa: The laws can be wrong. Laws can be changed. That’s an important thing. Especially with slavery, that was a different point of time. Yeah, it was til about the twenties and they’re still technically slavery now, but it’s illegal slavery because the government and laws saw what they were doing was wrong. So they changed.
If someone asked you who Jesus is, what would you say?
Alyssa: I would say what I was taught in school. He’s prophet, the son of God, but historically He’s one of the people that created one of the biggest religions in the world. There’s evidence that He existed.
This has been repeated among tens of millions of Catholic young people all over the country and the world for over thirty years. Raised Catholic, lapsed Catholic by their early 20s. Something is terribly wrong, and I’ll tell you what some of the reasons are: generally abysmal catechesis, embarrassingly bad and inappropriate music at Mass, boringly banal homilies, and clerics who do not inspire people to become holy but rather appear to have capitulated to the decline of the culture and society. Why should people take Catholic faith seriously when the “professional” full-time Catholics don’t seem to take the faith seriously enough to do things well in parish Mass and ministry?
Catholics need to form strong communities of faith. They are failing at that. Bishops, are you listening?
I hate to tell you this, but children have been rebelling against parents since time began, especially during the teen years. Think Adam and Eve against God, the best parent of all. The Bible does not say, “Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” for nothing. How many of us rebelled against our parents, whether wrongly or rightly trying to find our own way, sometimes trying to find the Truth. One can only hope and pray that our children and grandchildren do not have to learn the hard way as most all of us did at some time in our lives.
“They still go to church occasionally.” This may have a lot to do with it as well.
“After my First Communion, we just stopped going to church.”
It wasn’t a graduation. Blame the parents, mostly.
This idea is subtly inserted into our faith over and over again when we say “I will make my first Communion” or “I will make my Confirmation”. I always tell people “You won’t make anything. It’s a gift from God and if you don’t receive it worthily it’s a sin.” Some look at me like I’m crazy. The same goes for Baptisms. I tell people at Baptisms “If you are here today as parents you will be promising to raise your child Catholic; to go to Mass every Sunday unless there is a really good reason that you cannot. You are promising to live your life in faith, hope and love, which includes following Jesus and accepting His Grace in Holy Communion, in reading His Holy Word and living your faith in your daily life. If you don’t plan on doing these things don’t come up and lie to God during your child’s Baptism. I may not know your intentions but God does. Don’t even think about lying to Him!” I always get shocked looks from people when I say that.
Many of us Catholics are Catholic and cannot even explain why we are Catholic or what we believe. The watering down of religious education in after school programs and in Catholic Schools, the effect of the WOKE ideology and “There is nothing really right or wrong, only how I FEEL!” has done much damage to our Catholic Faith and Church.
We can thank Karl Marx and many other extremists for these blasphemous ideologies.
You are right Fr. Higgins. I once knew a Protestant lady who married a Catholic man in a Catholic church. The woman did not want to promise to bring her children up Catholic as was part of the marital agreement. Her future husband told her to lie and tell the priest she would do so even though she had no intentions of doing so. That marriage later ended in divorce with the adult children suffering, all because it was built upon the breakage of the First Commandment on the part of the man and woman. We are not to make gods of another person. It has very serious consequences.
When priests say things like, “You have to burn your Disney pajamas so you can see the demons emerging in the sparks of the flames as testament to their Satanic possession,” no wonder people are leaving the church. Yes, honest to God, a priest said that. It was a TLM parish.
I’ve heard and read priests claim that practicing yoga is demonic. I’ve heard priests claim that Harry Potter books and movies are vehicles for possession.
Crazy.
As if sex abuse by priests wasn’t enough, this sort of psychological abuse in which a priest speaks of things he knows nothing about, is not going to be tolerated by Catholics and they will simply stop coming to Mass.
No. There are many ways for demons to gain entry. Ignorance, and not taking evil seriously. Oijae and fooling around with magic are just a couple ways. I attended a lecture by our diocesan exorcist a few years back.
At the risk of being mistaken for Anne TE (ha ha – funny) a follow up to my earlier response.
The diocesan exorcist indicated that it’s the youth and the unwary that most often fall for crystals, dream catchers and spells. He also indicated that those who live a sacramental life of frequent confession, Mass and worthy reception of our eucharistic Lord. Where there is fear of the Lord, the enemy will not gain the gate.
We have to do our duty to God and practice being Catholic until we get it right. We teach our little ones not by lip service but by leading them all the way to the cross. Baptism is only the beginning of this ministry. I have always taught my adult kids it doesn’t stop after Confirmation that’s a bonus! It is our gift to our kids to teach them about our Father “ God!” He loves us and wants us to know him, what parent wouldn’t want that for their child. One more thing I would like to touch on. Boring music, homilies? Per Father Simon “ we are not there to get something we are there to give to our Lord” all you have to do is look over at the crucifix. I always tell my adult kids there is where Heaven and earth meet, our loved ones are all there! We are at Calvary! I tell my little ones when they bring the gifts up “ ask your guardian angel to present your petitions” they will walk them up in a spiritual communion with the gifts! Pray for our children for a conversion of heart.
Yolanda amen amen amen
I think your comment is the best thing I have ever seen on this website.
This is what happens when nuns kick the habit, stop teaching and ride a bus for some cause. Thanks, Vatican II!
It is totally inappropriate and wrong to blame Vatican II.
Many of the priests who abused kids were trained in seminaries before Vatican II. Do you blame the TLM for that?
To rely only on our intelligence is a mistake to figure out this world we live in. Just look around and spend time with people and you will find all persons are flawed. We are told to trust professors? Journalists? Politicians?
Spare me.
To many of us our lazy and have become hedonistic. Should throw in materialistic as well.
When suffering and hardship come as it will eventually, then we will have that encounter with reality and if we handle it right we will meet God. Until then we just go along without giving serious attention to the invisible realities that do exist