Dear Reader,
California colleges are battlefields for student minds.
Students’ hearts yearn for the truth, but where will they find it?
Our reporter, Mary Rose, will chronicle this battle. She will visit a California college each week and ask students about God, good, and evil.
Below is the first installment of California Catholic Daily’s new feature, “Inquiring Minds.”
- Gerardo, sociology major
- UC Santa Barbara in front of UCSB Library
- December 3
Do you consider yourself religious?
Gerardo: No.
Were you ever religious?
Gerardo: Yes. I was raised Catholic.
What changed?
Gerardo: I began to question my religion.
What did you question?
Gerardo: A lot of things. And the more questions I had, the less answers I was getting, so it made me question it even more. It led me to do my own research and ask even more questions.
Where did you look for answers?
Gerardo: I started at the church because I figured that that would be the best route, but being a kid, I was turned away, saying, “You can’t ask those questions.” I went to family members who were involved in the church, and then eventually going up. I never got – I did get to the priest. I was confessing and I did bring up some questions and was told, “Those are questions you don’t ask.” That made it really hard to follow something blindly, where it was, “What do you mean, we can’t ask questions?” I always ask questions. I’ve always been very curious about just everything in general. I was, in a way, being shunned away without them really acknowledging it. So then I began to not only just question my religion, but religion in general. Although, now as an adult I see the positive impact that religion has, I shy away from religion because of the negative connotation that comes with religion. I do get that there’s a lot of positive things that come from it, but it just feels hypocritical to follow something that also has so much negativity that comes with it – and hypocrisy that comes with the religion – that it didn’t feel right for me, so I distanced myself from religion in general.
You mentioned hypocrisy – what hypocrisy are you referring to?
Gerardo: You can start with the Catholic religion and their hiding of all of the – I mean everything that we hear in the media, which is probably a bad thing to say, but – of all of the sexual harassment claims that are being, in a way, just thrown under a rug. And the fact that the Catholic religion hasn’t been able to embrace this as an actual issue, because it’s an issue that has been happening for far too long. That part was what began to make me question the validity of religion. Just the fact that they couldn’t even embrace this mistake that has been happening.
It wasn’t specifically [the sex abuse scandals], like I said, it was a lot of things, that’s just the first thing that came to mind right now, because it’s one of the biggest things that most people know, or most people have started to discuss. But I wouldn’t be able to say that it was just one specific thing. It was definitely a list of different things that I’m not going to go into because I don’t remember. [Women having no role in the hierarchy] also played a very important role in [my leaving the church].
Our readers will find this fascinating.
Gerardo: Because they want to retain people.
Yes, because many of their family members have left the Church and they want to know why – because they believe their family members will be happier in the Church.
Gerardo: That’s kind of the approach that I had when discussing this with my parents because my parents still practice Catholicism, so it was a weird round of: I know this is something that I don’t feel comfortable doing, but I know that by me not doing this, I’m hurting them, because your child is now in a way going to go to hell, right, because he’s not – right? So that was difficult, having to confront that with my parents, like, “Look, I get it that you feel that this is the way to a happier life, but I felt that there were other ways that didn’t necessarily have to -” like, we can all practice good moral character without being assigned to a specific religion. Like, there’s so many religions and most religions are just like, “We are THE religion,” and I didn’t like that, because I feel we can’t say that there is one religion. I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying that there is one religion. In essence, religion has a lot of good traits about it, like they teach good moral lessons – I don’t know, I’m not very well versed in this, but, I felt like I was making my own personal decision by trying to distance myself, by trying to just follow what I felt was being a good person, without having to relate with anyone, just focusing on myself. I can be as good of a person I can, I don’t have to worry about what everyone else is doing.
Do you believe in any sort of higher power?
Gerardo: I’ve struggled a lot with that question. I’ve gone back and forth. I think at this point I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying whether yes or no. It’s something that I wouldn’t know how to answer.
Do you think you’ll continue to investigate and struggle with the possibility of a higher power?
Gerardo: It’s not something that I’m postponing because I’m busy, it’s just something that I haven’t felt the need to go do. I feel like as long as I’m practicing being a good person myself, I haven’t had a need to go out and search for answers in terms of there being a higher being or not. But I’m not going to say that I’m just going to just shy away from religion forever. I feel like we’re constantly learning and if, one day, I feel like I affiliate with a religion then so be it. At the moment, I haven’t found one that I’ve felt fits me very personally, so the door is open, but I don’t know.
- Diana, Chicano Studies major
- UC Santa Barbara outside Campbell Arts & Lectures Hall
- December 3
Do you consider yourself religious?
Diana: No.
Did you ever consider yourself religious?
Diana: Yes, when I was younger.
What changed?
Diana: My dad and I talked a lot about religion and like how religion impacted different communities, and for us it wasn’t very helpful… so I’m kind of like eh. [shrug]
Did you practice a religion with your family?
Diana: Yes.
Was it difficult for your family when you stopped practicing their religion?
Diana: No, because my family isn’t as religious. My grandparents are, but we’re not. We kind of lost contact with the religion so we don’t – I feel like we value family more than anything. My mom and dad still practice it a little bit. We don’t go to church. We didn’t really go to church before and we still don’t, so, it was kind of weird. But we did have religious, like cultural ceremonies and stuff. Like we had some compensadas. For nine days we celebrated, we did a rosary and we talked about the birth of Christ and stuff like that, but we don’t do that anymore.
Do you now see Christ as just a historical figure?
Diana: I feel like he’s – I believe in God, I just don’t believe in him in the way the Bible or the Church tells you to believe in Him. I have my own relationship with God. I just think He’s there, He doesn’t really – I feel that He’s merciful and He won’t send you to hell for like small little things like not getting baptized or not getting married or something like that, not doing final rites. I feel like as long as you’re a good person, He’ll – He’s kind of a support system, not really like [judgmental] – yeah.
How do you measure “being a good person”?
Diana: For me, it’s helping those around you, being an ethical person, having morals, having values. For me, family is the most important thing in the world. I don’t know if I’m a good person, but I like to think I am.
Don’t you think the teachings of the Catholic Church sustain families?
Diana: Yes, but in other ways they exploited different communities and things like that and I feel like they did help some communities, like with the civil war in [Central America] they had like refugees and stuff, they brought refugees into America and I think that was really good, but before that, they used to side with like the people in power and the wealthier people. The shift was important but I just, it does sustain family, but I feel like it’s kind of [destructive] at the same time.
But do you think some of those moral rules are important to God?
Diana: Yes.
Not getting married was one of your examples. Don’t you think that a child born to parents who aren’t married will have a rougher time with their family, or that an unmarried pregnant woman is more likely to feel like she’s in a situation where she has to abort her baby?
Diana: But I feel like that also doesn’t depend on religion. That’s the personal values. That depends on the person, really, because my parents aren’t married and my dad isn’t religious, but he basically left his whole family and left – he had an education – he left all that to come here to support me and my siblings. So I have a different perspective.
What do you think is important for religious students to know about non-religious students?
Diana: Sometimes some people who are very religious look down on people who aren’t. I feel like maybe be a little more conscious of that. Some people don’t have the same values and that doesn’t make them any less of a person. My personal experience is that I’ve had a lot of people like, “Oh, you don’t believe in God, let me civilize you,” or something like that. That kind of situation. So it’s weird.
Would you ever consider studying different religions to see if they have anything to add to your relationship with God?
Diana: Yeah, I would be willing to learn about it. It’s not like I’m against it entirely. I like to learn about different things and look at different perspectives. I’ll learn about it.
“Inquiring Minds” is a California Catholic Daily exclusive by Mary Rose.
A sample of two at a campus of, what?, probably at least 20,000 students.
It would have been helpful to know which questions Gerardo was asking that got rebuffed. Regardless, that he was treated so ineptly by parish catechists and priests shows the dismal state of parish life, catechist training, youth ministry and priestly formation. That’s the result of youth ministers and catechists relying on skits and videos and canned powerpoint presentations to do their work for them. When catechists don’t or can’t think, they won’t impart a thinking faith to the people they teach. And thinking people will leave. Which is what we’re seeing in our day.
I agree!
“That’s the result of youth ministers and catechists relying on skits and videos and canned powerpoint presentations to do their work for them. When catechists don’t or can’t think, they won’t impart a thinking faith to the people they teach. And thinking people will leave. Which is what we’re seeing in our day.”
It’s not something new — my brother left the Church 55+ years ago for exactly the same reason. He was a smart teenager with a lot of questions. My parents sent him to the parish priest who told him to stop asking questions, stop trying to understand anything, just accept it as true. The priest didn’t have answers, and rather than admit his failings, he blamed my brother for asking questions. It didn’t work then and it…
I’ve taught at a high school near USCB, Bishop Garcia Diego High School in Santa Barbara. Students were ENCOURAGED to ask questions! That’s part of the learning process. Perhaps this student ran into some cultural problems with family members and even a Priest who didn’t want to answer. But if that student had opened a book, looked at a real Catechism (not one of the fluff things that came out in the 1970s and 80s) and asked people with intellect he would have received a lot of answers.
so what Catechism would you recommend? I grew up with the 2 you dislike.
The tragedy here is that the very sincere comments from the students exhibit their extreme ignorance of the fundamental principles of the Faith. Had they had an adequate religious education that took the Truth seriously, perhaps they might have avoided the errors they now believe. Furthermore, when the young man made inquiries, he was rebuffed! That is one of the biggest tragedies because those in charge of the parish catechesis should have taken those questions as an opportunity to enter into a relationship with this inquiring child of the parish. Instead they rebuffed him! Unbelievable! This behavior doesn’t jive with my personal knowledge of how parish ministers interact with youth!! This makes these ministers come across as…
rigorous thinking on the part
of tomorrow’s leaders?
an interesting peek inside their noggins
re-think college as an investment in
human capital
This column is an excellent idea. I easily see aspects of myself in these kids back when I was young. It’s with the profoundest gratitude that I thank God that he gave me the grace to not leave.
I think this column can give us invaluable insight.
Steve S:
Your point is well taken.
Helen,
What these interviews detail is that people often leave for hazy reasons that have more to do with perception and emotion than with shear reason. I almost left the Church in the early 80s because Catholicism seemed stale, dark, and dead and Protestantism seemed alive and vibrant. This was a false stereotype on my part. To this day, I still don’t like the parish of my childhood. :)
That’s not a false stereotype. Evangelical Protestantism, compared to Catholicism, is alive and vibrant while Catholicism is emotionally less exciting. But spiritual maturity is not about exciting the emotions. Evargelicals are making church seem like the excitement of the world with pop music and emotional testimonies. Catholicsm is more disciplined and appeals to the deeper parts of human beings not the superficial parts.
Anonymous,
I didn’t use the words “alive and vibrant” as referring to superficial emotionalism.
‘… “You can’t ask those questions.”…. I was confessing and I did bring up some questions and was told, “Those are questions you don’t ask.” Sadly, I find Pope Francis style very much like this– not answering questions urgently sought of him. I read of his autocratic style and also that of bishops in sympathy with him silencing priests and laity who are themselves asking very important questions. It is all very discouraging.
How likely is it really that a priest or any Catholic said “You can’t ask those questions.”
It must have been the devil.
It means the priest didn’t know how to or didn’t want to answer the questions. Again, it would be helpful to know exactly what the questions were.
Faith is a gift. It is also a serious subject, that requires a great deal of proper religious education! Not all priests are devout, and not all are well-trained in their Faith! Today, sadly– many minds are formed by the shallow and emotional hype-driven media! Remember the days when serious college students would stay up all night, discussing ideas from great works by great writers, philosophers and theologians?
And yet, our campus parish at UCSB has had 9 vocations to the religious life and seminary (and two more vocations on the way) in 11 years. We have about 500 college kids coming to mass each weekend and around 1200 off and on visitors each year. While an interesting and novel concept to grab an undergrad for a quick interview between classes, drawing any solid conclusions from two curbside interviews out of 25K total students (.0001%) is just not going to give an accurate picture of the campus scene at a particular institution of higher learning or the general state of religious activity overall. You need a bigger sample.
On a more pastoral note, I would have very much appreciated if the author of this article had followed up and told these students that there is a Catholic parish just a few steps from the edge of campus waiting for them. We have a team of student and FOCUS missionaries ready to bring them back home.
A deacon’s perspective: two samples are not representative of the entire student body; but they do provide examples of bad catechism-especially with Gerardo. I get some of the same humanistic baloney from my teenage daughter. She will be in confirmation classes next year and I pray that they will give her an “informed conscience.” My son has already completed 18 months and is starting to make some of these arguments clear. This is unfortunately the secular world we live in and makes it imperative that informed Catholics need to re-evangelize Western Culture. Deacon Vince
I went through this big time when I was a teen because my mother let me convert to Catholicism when I was under aged, but some family members were unhappy about that. Even though they did not know much about the Christian religion and the Bible themselves, they got a minster, who was also a Thirty- Second Degree Mason (most are not) to give me anti Catholic literature. By the time they got through with me, I did not believe in anything, but God would not leave me there. After studying about many Christian denominations and other religions on my own, I made my way back into the Church. I pray this young person keeps on searching until he finds the Truth. Been there, done that.
Correction to my last post: “studied about other religions” as I never have practiced any non Christian religion.
This is not how you evangelize. This creates atheists. Young people feel like they need to answer questions even when they do not know the answer. They are being labeled and they are accepting the label. How about being smart and asking them questions that lead them back to faith not affirm them in unbelief.
thank you. Very good point.
How would they account for knowing how to live a moral life? With the loss of religion in the public sphere, we see a break down of moral and ethical behavior and a move toward situational ethics. Also, are they studying English in school? They seemed to have a difficult time expressing themselves which makes me wonder just how deeply they would be able to research their questions.