my prior post,<\/a>\u00a0reacting to Cupich announcing more anti-violence and anti-poverty efforts by the archdiocese, I was visualizing Cupich defenders saying that he was going after the lost sheep, the prodigal son, as Jesus did, and that I had the Bad Attitude of the older son, whining that he wasn\u2019t getting enough attention.<\/p>\nBut sometimes it feels like the reverse is true.<\/p>\n
I read somewhere that the Archdiocese of Chicago is 44% Hispanic.<\/p>\n
And you\u2019ve likely read, as I have, descriptions of the Hispanic community as faithfully Catholic. \u00a0It seems like every report of illegal immigrants fearful of being deported depicts them as model community members, volunteers and regular attendees at their parish.<\/p>\n
They may be poor, many of them may \u201cnot have their papers in order,\u201d as the euphemism goes, they may have trouble keeping their children out of trouble, they may live in neighborhoods with high crime rates, and they may be short on money to put in the collection plate, but they are, we\u2019re told, devout and faithful Catholics.<\/p>\n
Which means that they aren\u2019t the lost sheep.<\/p>\n
Who are the lost sheep?<\/p>\n
Yes, of course, the perpetrators of that crime, the gangbangers.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s a very narrow understanding of lost sheep-ness.<\/p>\n
And, really, there\u2019s a lot of materialism implicit in the notion that only among the poor are there lost sheep \u2013 it implies that material prosperity is all that anyone really needs, so we just have to boost the prosperity of the poor, and all will be well.<\/p>\n
But from the perspective of a bishop, all can hardly be \u201cwell\u201d if, among those with material prosperity, there is spiritual poverty \u2014 assuming that said bishop cares about the Gospel.<\/p>\n
If a social services organization shuts down because none\u00a0of the people in its service area need any social services any longer, that\u2019s great. \u00a0But a church is not a social services organization.<\/p>\n
And remember that Jesus ministered to the poor and the rich as well, including Matthew the tax collector.<\/p>\n
The suburbs have plenty of lost sheep. \u00a0We have people who have abandoned church either because of the recent scandals, or using that as an excuse, or for all the other reasons people stop attending church. \u00a0We have lots of people who never grew up with any kind of faith tradition at all. \u00a0We have people who are nominally Catholic, but prioritize their kids\u2019 travel sports activities when mass is \u201cinconvenient\u201d or have become indifferent to attending mass without even seeking out excuses, or who may continue to attend mass at least every now and again but abandon the involvement in church activities that prior generations would have had, because they say, \u201cour lives are too busy,\u201d and who don\u2019t enroll their children in religious education.<\/p>\n
And, once again last night, at our monthly CFM group meeting, we talked about this, but without any idea what to do. \u00a0The parish leadership tries, but they haven\u2019t figured out a magic bullet either.<\/p>\n
So, yes, I\u2019m in bad mood, and yes, I know that it\u2019s more complex than that, and that statistics show that it\u2019s the poor who are more often \u201closing their religion,\u201d but it still p******\u00a0me off when Cupich seems to focus his time on politics, and, yes, poverty-alleviation issues, and shrugs off the spiritual needs of his flock with the assumption that that\u2019ll take care of itself, or that it\u2019s somehow other people\u2019s job.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Image:\u00a0https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3ALost_sheep_on_farm_track._-_geograph.org.uk_-_368111.jpg; Johnny Durnan [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Because, you know, Jesus compared himself to a shepherd, leaving the 99 to search for the lost sheep. After my prior post,\u00a0reacting to Cupich announcing more anti-violence and anti-poverty efforts by the archdiocese, I was visualizing Cupich defenders saying that he was going after the lost sheep, the prodigal son, as Jesus did, and that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":6389,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/p>\n