Why I Don’t Care About Women’s Ordination

Last updated on: October 11, 2015 at 5:08 pm By Jennifer Fitz

Way back when I was a confused but zealous Catholic teenager, I considered whether I might have a religious vocation. I read some books from the parish library about being a nun, and maybe a few articles in the diocesan newspaper. Nobody at my parish made any effort whatsoever to talk to high school students about religious vocations or help them explore the possibilities, but in any case I came to my own conclusion: If women could be priests, I would have signed up.

But since I wasn’t Episcopalian, and anyway being Episcopalian wouldn’t have worked for my purposes, I decided that being “merely” a religious sister was not my calling.

My reason was simple: I had always possessed a strong devotion to the Eucharist, a devotion that permeated all my years of barely-Catholic upbringing, and that was the thing that brought me back to the Church with a vengeance later in life. Being a priest was all about the Eucharist, and I’d have happily given my life over to that. To the ability to consecrate. To experience that divine intimacy.

Episcopalians, of course, have female priests, but none of their priests, male or female, consecrate the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ — something even my barely-catechized young self understood perfectly. So it would have been rather pointless to jump ship just for the trappings of the priesthood but none of the substance.

And this — the recognition that there is in fact something sacred and distinct about the Catholic priesthood — is why I think the constant whining and moaning about female ordination is a pile of nonsense.

File:Seguin breton peasant women.jpg

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I firmly believe in women’s rights and the equality of the sexes. I hold that women should receive equal pay for equal work, should not be sexually harassed at work or anywhere else, and should not be discriminated against in this, that, or the other thing. (I think the same goes for men, too.) Having both taken biology class and borne four children, I also fully recognize that women are different than men in some important ways, and so I’m all in favor of just societal norms that take those differences into account — things like separate restrooms and obstetrics as a distinct medical specialty.

With those two principles in mind, the question is whether the priesthood is more like becoming a lawyer or chemist (in which case, yes, let’s eliminate gender discrimination) or more like becoming a mother or father?

The answer, resounding and unequivocal, is that the Catholic priesthood is a type of fatherhood. Maleness is as essential to consecrating the Holy Eucharist as it is to siring offspring.

That’s the reality of Catholic theology, and you can take it or leave it, but you can’t change it. What I find so tragically comic about the women’s ordination people is that they’ve missed the baby and are begging for the bathwater.

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Elizabeth Scalia has written on the historical question of women and power in the Catholic Church. My pity for the women campaigning to be priests is directed to the present: What the heck is it that you’re after?

If you’re opposed to clericalism, well I am too. I don’t like it in clerics, and I like it even less in lay people. Ordaining women won’t necessarily cause that fault to abound all the more, but it won’t decrease it either.

If you’re opposed to stupid, sinful, slacker clergy, well I am too. The question isn’t whether the priest is a man or a women, the question is whether the priest is a person of integrity. Women sin just as much as men do, there’s no monopoly on holiness.

Or maybe you’re just jealous that men can aspire to a lifetime of obedience in a corruption-prone hierarchy where put-up-and-shut-up is too often the norm, and meanwhile the people you’re supposed to be leading and directing ignore you and do whatever they want? Ask around, there are plenty of private-sector jobs that do just as well for that.

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Perhaps the interest lies not in solving problems in the church bureaucracy but in acquiring equality of status? A desire to pursue the type of work that priests do? Let’s explore that one, because it’s a legitimate question.

Is it that you wish to write about theology, or be published on spiritual topics, or get to preach and teach the faith? Because you don’t need boy parts to make that happen and even to make a living at it. Admittedly, the living to be had on the Catholic speaking circuit is often inimical to family life, but then again so is the priesthood. But if you’re any good at that kind of stuff, the offers pretty much pour in, because people want good teaching, not more Masses. If you’re not good at it, maybe you aren’t so suited to the pulpit, either.

Is it that you wish to contribute your gifts of administration to the good of the Church? Because honey if you can make a decent web page, manage records, stay on budget, get the repairs handled, and organize volunteers, you can pretty much pick your parish.

Is it that you want to be a canon lawyer? You don’t have to be ordained for that.

Is it that you want to visit the sick? No, it’s true, you can’t administer Last Rites, but other than those five minutes, all the rest of the work that is so desperately needed is just hour upon hour of selfless, practical love, no special gender-based qualifications necessary.

If it’s that you just really enjoy weddings or funerals, there is plenty of work in both those industries, both for-profit and for-pleasure.

In other words, aside from the very bare-bones work of performing the sacraments or siring children, everything else fathers-spiritual or -physical do is the kind of work that women can also do, and no one’s stopping you.

[If I’ve just scandalized you, see below for an editorial note.]

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Which leaves only one other thing. Maybe you’re interested in the title. The fanbase. The power trip.

And in that case, you have very much missed the whole point.

Related: Curiously, my contribution to Sarah Reinhard’s new book Word by Word: Slowing Down with the Hail Mary is the word “woman.” It would have been a completely different book if she’d rolled the dice and given that word to a girl who can successfully wear lipstick. Check it out.

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Editorial Note: Reader William Beckham helpfully observes that I make it sound, above, like I’m dismissing fatherhood as nothing more than a quick biological or sacramental function. Not so, not so at all. Allow me to clarify that emphatically, quoting myself in my response to his concern:

William – that’s a legitimate critique. I think my writing elsewhere (as in the previous post on Don Bosco, or my essay in Sarah’s new book) would show I think otherwise, and agree with you entirely. My point in that paragraph was that the *tasks* fathers do are not things women need to be envious of, simply because men do them under the mantle of “fatherhood.”

I passed over the whole development of why the priesthood is male, and left it in the essay simply as an immutable fact. I think those reasons are very much at the heart of the massive and irreplaceable importance of fatherhood.

. . . (As a general rule I do not argue about my writing but let the criticism stand. I want to keep clarifying, William, because what you say is extremely important.) The flip side would be if there were, say, a movement for men to be nursing sisters, or teaching sisters, or daycare workers, and they wanted to be formally recognized “mothers” and “sisters”. And the argument would be that other than few strictly-female biological functions, a man who wants to take on the kinds of work that “mothers” or “sisters” do can and should be free to do so. But that doesn’t make him a mother, he can’t be a mother, but he also isn’t limited in his ability to do those things he is equipped to do.

And yes, you are right, there is a risk of misunderstanding what my point was there.

So everyone relax. Fathers are extremely important, and priests are far more than sacramental Pez dispensers. Just like motherhood isn’t about just popping out the babies — see Sarah’s new book for more on that!

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Artwork, found by searching “women at Mass,” from top to bottom:

Breton Peasant Women, circa 1890. By Armand Séguin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Buffalo, New York. Women factory workers attending mass at nine a.m. Sunday directly after working the third shift, 1943. Wikimedia notes they are wearing slacks. By Marjory Collins [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Kandahar, Afghanistan (Dec. 23, 2001) — U.S. Navy Chaplain Cmdr. Joseph Scordo of Pleasantville, NY, performs Catholic Mass for U.S. military personnel at a forward operating base in Kandahar, Afghanistan. U.S. Navy photo by Chief Photographer’s Mate Johnny Bivera [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Joy Carries a Crowbar #SCFlood

Last updated on: October 10, 2015 at 4:49 am By Jennifer Fitz

Friday morning we’re back at the parish, and this time the place is lively. A couple dozen teenagers and not a few grown-ups have turned out for the looming clean-up. This is for the elderly couple whose home was flooded Sunday; we’ve been waiting all week to be able to get in there and clean everything out. Debbie gives us a briefing: Expect it to be nasty, do not throw anything away until the owners have given thumbs-up or thumbs-down, and keep those masks and gloves on.

The street is crowded when we get there. The neighborhood has probably never seen so many visitors at once. A U-Haul is parked in the driveway, and it’s the owners’ sixty-something daughter, whose home this is also, who is on site to assist. Somehow I had imagined the residents still living there, because that’s how you think of homes: People live in them. Not this one.

Debbie has the kids form a line, like a bucket brigade but for wet, moldy, muddy salvage. Initially just she and one or two other adults go in, and begin passing things out. It takes us maybe five minutes to get an initial process figured out, we adults on the outside scrambling to get a system in place to receive all this stuff coming our way.

In the next twenty minutes we start to specialize: A lady who saw a thing on the news about how to do it starts salvaging photos at the back of the U-Haul; another lady is carefully stacking the china and porcelain in the one or two bins we’ve got at the outset (more come later); most of us are tasked with the many shades of trash detail.

I walk up the road to fetch contractor bags, and when I come back, someone tells me some of the kids have started working inside. “Yours were among the first volunteers,” she says.

I’m impressed. I will remain impressed, because I am old and creaky and already in charge of my life.

***

Just the older two went in, no way someone’s letting the younger ones do anything but salvage-brigade safely outside on the sidewalk (and still with masks and gloves). I don’t know it then, but I’m going to spend the entire rest of the day repeating, and repeating, and repeating, to my eleven- and nine-year-old that no, they may not go inside that house under any circumstances.

***

The family had flood insurance. It’s a creek-side lot, and so you always knew there was a chance for a little bit of water maybe coming up to that deck if it really got raining. No one ever imagined a dam would burst and two elderly retirees would be rescued from their home by the neighbors who heard them screaming for help, trapped in water up to their armpits.

Because they had insurance, the fact that nearly everything they own is now a moldering heap of waste will not be the financial blow that does them in. But because they had insurance, they had to wait for the wreckage to be assessed before they could begin the clearing-out process.

There are still a few dry things. Paintings that were hung up high, a stack of towels from the upper shelf of the linen closet. Most of the furniture had either particle board or upholstery on it, neither of which are doing so well five days after a pond rushed over them. Late in the day the dining room table comes out, a classic work of solid wood. It could be salvaged, if you had the time to clean out the mold growing in the detailing, and then wanted to dry and refinish the thing. Someone places it at the outskirts of the mound of scrapped furniture covering the front yard; maybe an enterprising soul will claim it and give it new life.

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People from churches bring sandwiches, and chips, and drinks, and pizza, and more masks — good ones. I have never been more thankful to reside in the obesity capital of the nation: Generations of church picnic committees have been honing their skills for just such a time as this.

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I meet one of the volunteers for the first time after lunch. She’s young, athletic, just out of the army. She tells us that showing up to volunteer this morning was the first time she’d set foot in a church in ten years. She’d heard about the job and wanted to help. “This reminds me of Haiti,” she says.

“Well,” I tell her, “there are no bodies in there. No cholera, either.”

She’s willing to settle.

***

I recruit volunteers from down the street to help move the fridge, and in the process we meet the friendly neighbor lady who offers us use of her facilities — she’s got electricity and running water both.

There are limits to our communal powers. The refrigerator comes out, but valiant efforts to keep the thing shut are thwarted in the end. The kids don’t seem to mind the stench, but I find I have to work in parts of the yard upwind.

***

It would be facile to contrast the legendary self-absorption of teenagers with the selflessness I am seeing today, and all this week. It would also be false.

Because I live here, I am unsurprised that South Carolina can be having a massive natural disaster and manage it with such skill and grace that the national news mostly ceases to bother with it after a few days. Nothing to see here, let’s move on to something violent and angst-ridden. Goodness doesn’t sell.

But I hadn’t understood this other thing.

We talk about evangelizing through beauty: People are naturally drawn to the true, beautiful, and good.

But then we turn around and dismiss young people because they are so wrapped up in the culture of clothes and fame and sports and selfie-sticks.

What we have missed is that they aren’t on a quest for shallowness.

It’s that young people don’t just want to spectate. They don’t want to look at beautiful things we point out for them to admire.

They want to be it. Not just be “beautiful.” They want to be beauty. Be it. Be it.

They want to be the thing they were made to be.

***

Some of the older high school boys come up the hill to the top of the driveway to get drinks, and I realize they are still there. They’ve been working in the house for hours, passing sopping scraps of domestic life out through the windows, and then turning around to mine for more. Something I will never forget is looking in through the front bedroom window as a group of teenage boys with crowbars are allowed — allowed — to demolish a dresser right there in the room.

That is pure joy: The moment when a talent your parents have been frustrating for years suddenly becomes the one thing needed most.

Artwork: Émile Vernon, The Three Graces, [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Update: How to Help with SC Flood Relief #scflood

Last updated on: October 26, 2016 at 12:30 pm By Jennifer Fitz

The South Carolina Emergency Management Division has updated their information on donating and volunteering. There is a long list of options for monetary donations, as well as opportunities for donations of goods and services.

If you’re looking for the Catholic option, direct your funds to Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Charleston. This is an organization of the diocese itself, and is a go-to source around the state, particularly well known for legal aid and for preventing homelessness. If you strike up a conversation with someone homeless or not-quite-homeless in the Midlands, and you mention Catholic Charities, they’ll know just who you’re talking about.

Note that diocesan web pages aren’t updated with very much disaster information yet — that would be because HQ is down on the coast, still wet and getting wetter. But Catholic Charities is already putting together plans for long term recovery work in the aftermath of the flood. You can donate online here.

10/5/2015:

A levee breach at the Columbia Riverfront Canal, Columbia, S.C., during a statewide flood Oct. 5, 2015. The South Carolina National Guard has been activated to support state and county emergency management agencies and local first responders as historic flooding impacts counties statewide. Currently, more than 1,100 South Carolina National Guard members have been activated in response to the floods. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Tech. Sgt. Jorge Intriago/Released)

10/3/2015:

South Carolina National Guardsman from the 1052th Transportation Company cover a truckload of sandbags preparing to head out to one of several locations in S.C. at the Wateree Correctional Facility, Oct. 3, 2015 to prevent flooding in low-lying areas in the wake of Hurricane Joaquin. The National Guardsmen transported the sandbags after the inmates filled them and then delivered the completed sandbags to one of the drop-off points in Chester, Columbia, Greenville, Florence and Clinton. Soldiers from the S.C. National Guard train throughout the year in preparation for these types of natural events and are always at the ready when the Governor calls to assist in emergency response or disaster clean up. (U.S. Army National Guard Photo by Sgt. Brad Mincey/Released).

Thinking About the SC Flood: The Lay of the Land #scflood

Last updated on: October 6, 2015 at 10:25 am By Jennifer Fitz

In my next post I’m going to talk about the notion of whether the devastating flooding in the Columbia area can, in fact, be considered a “1000-year flood.” But before I do that, it will help if you understand some of the words I’m going to use. They are place-words, and they may not mean what you think they mean.

What is “Columbia, SC”?

When speaking to outsiders, or speaking of your travel from the hinterlands back to the homeland, one uses the term “Columbia” to mean the vast metropolis centered on two counties smack dab in the middle of South Carolina, and extending arms and fingers into several other surrounding counties, with the Capitol Building sitting mostly-ignored there in its center. Once on the ground in that metropolis, though, one ceases to speak with such gross imprecision.

This is rolling terrain. The swampy floodplain that hugs the coast sits to the east, though there is some flatland where the city stretches eastward.

The conglomeration that is “Columbia” is a collection of dozens of cities and towns, pressed together and at times wrapping around each other in shapes to make Picasso squirm. Boundary-drawing, in South Carolina, is an art sacred to the politicians, who have no particular concern for the natural world nor common sense.

Knowing what town you are in is something of a dark art, and the newcomer attempts it his peril. If you really wish to know where you live, gather up all your utility bills, study them carefully, and then phone someone who’s been in public works forty years — in that corner of the city — and ask them to advise you. Pay no attention to your voter registration card, it is a red herring.

Likewise, you must not take the points of the compass too literally when trying to understand the capital city. Columbia is the place where the two major east-west highways intersect at right angles.

How many rivers are there in Columbia?

There are three river-names used in Columbia, and then a pile of creeks no one talks about unless they are flooding. (We’ll save creeks for another day. Rivers are enough to think about right now.)

The Broad River comes in from the northwest, and for the purpose of assigning blame, consider it un-dammed. By the time it reaches downtown Columbia, it’s been flowing unsupervised far too long to really expect it to behave in a rainstorm.

The Saluda also comes in from the west, just south of the Broad. It flows out the bottom of Lake Murray just west of the city-center, which means the water is always cold (trout!). If you stand on top of the dam (there’s a road) you can see downtown Columbia; if you stand on top of a building in downtown Columbia, you can see the dam.* They are that close.

The water flow of the Saluda is largely a balance between the questions of how much electricity the city requires and how full or empty you want the lake to be. (People who live on the lake have strong feelings about this, as do people who live under the dam but do not wish to live underwater. Lake levels matter.)

Right downtown smack dab in the center of everything, the two river converge, forming the Congaree. So people say there are three rivers in Columbia, but that’s something of an overstatement.

Where is the flooding?

So we have the Congaree river there in the center of the major metropolis. In my next post I’ll talk about the evidence we can gather from the way the city developed around that river. What you need to know for now, and you can look at Google Maps as you think about this:

The east side of the river contains the City of Columbia properly speaking. Half a dozen blocks up from the river sit the state capitol building and all the Main Street skyscrapers. Columbia is where you go be important, and it’s where they store the Democrats. It’s Richland County. (For the purposes of this blog, anyway; don’t even talk to me about water mains and school districts.)
To the west of the river, Lexington County is so Republican they don’t let you in if you don’t have God and a gun both. The democratic candidate on that ballot is also a Republican. It’s where people live when they fully understand they are unsophisticated and short on cash, but they need to be close to town anyway, or else they just want lower taxes. There are bunches of townships stuck to each other there on the west side, but you can call it all “West Columbia” if you’re around people who aren’t from there.
Meanwhile, back east of the river, Columbia got a growth spurt in the middle of last century, which I’ll talk about in the next post. The end result is that well-bred people live Shandon (a Columbia neighborhood) and in Forest Acres and Arcadia Lakes (which are both townships, even though it seems like they are just more City of Columbia).

The catastrophic flooding in the City of Columbia — where you see businesses and lots cars and houses covered with water — itself is happening around Forest Acres. This is going to matter in the next post, where we talk about history.

All the other graphic stuff you are seeing from the hilly Midlands-area of the state is scattered around Richland, Lexington, and all the other Midlands counties. You are also no doubt seeing plenty of horrible pictures from the “Low Country” which is the flatlands along the coast, and which is, in absolute terms, harder-hit with flood damage than the greater metro Columbia area.

My next post will not talk about coastal-region flooding at all, except in passing. We’ll be talking about the reasons that the Midlands-area flooding is maybe not the rare event it feels like, even though we are all shocked silly because this stuff just doesn’t happen here. Everyone expects the beach and the swamp to flood. No one expects the hills to fall apart. And maybe we should.

File:National-atlas-south-carolina.PNG

Map courtesy of Wikimedia Commons [Public Domain]

*And it’s a pretty neat view in either direction — check it out sometime. The other very-cool view of the city is driving into town on highway 302 from the south. At the top of the giant hill as you crest and begin your miles-long descent into town, the view is just stunning. If middle-sized southern cities are your thing.

Non-Cantankerous Evangelization with St. Jerome and Team

Last updated on: September 30, 2015 at 2:04 pm By Jennifer Fitz

My top two picks for St. Jerome posts today are Amy Welborn at Charlotte Was Both and Julie Davis at Happy Catholic. Take a look. Definitely read the poem aloud, well worth your time.

Meanwhile, from the inbox, two evangelization initiatives from ladies who have all the Gospel spirit of St. Jerome but not so much the flame-war thing going on.

First, an update from J.C. Crowley at The Catholic Navigator:

Things here are at breakneck speed . . . Along with the Navigator and the Tugboat, we now have a ‘sneak peek’ at the teen version, The Catholic Clipper (for launch in year A). There are two versions actually, one for those who use it as curriculum and one for those who use it to supplement curriculum.

Cool feature: For each issue, they post links to the sources they used in compiling their lessons. Love that.

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Meanwhile, from my CWG friend Nancy Ward:

My dear friends,

“Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence.”  (1 Peter 3:15)

I just finishing the last step of the Internet launch of my “Sharing YOUR Faith Story” DVD on Joy Alive.net Shop, Amazon.com andCreateSpace eStore. The DVD is a 3-part seminar for evangelization that I know will help people tell their faith stories which many of you are familiar with.

The battle was fierce these last 3 weeks. I had a stack of perfectly good DVDs ready to go on the market. It turns out Amazon’s new policy on listing DVDs has radically changed. It rules out anyone who can’t document thousands of dollars in past sales (one person estimated $10,000).

Undaunted, I discovered I could go through CreateSpace and they would list it in their eStore and also on Amazon. So I had to create a new label and a cover of a different size for their specifications. “Sharing YOUR Faith Story” DVD is now in the eStore of CreateSpace and on Amazon.com.

How did I get through this challenge?

My prayer warriors were on duty for me. We are triumphant!

Many challenges are ahead – a product launch at a local bookstore, radio interviews and a blog tour with a Facebook and Twitter campaign – all new to me except for the radio interviews.

The thing is, I need a few more prayer warriors!

I’m inviting you to join us and become a part of this exciting ministry.

To understand better the project you are praying for, “Sharing YOUR Faith Story” is a seminar to teach people how to always be ready to tell their faith story. The three-part presentation is available live (me!) and on DVD with a free study guide. You can read more about how this all started in this blog post and the attached .pdf of the “Sharing YOUR Faith Story” booklet.

Essentially I am in this because I know:

1. As baptized Christians we are meant to be evangelists.

2. The most effective method of evangelism is personal witness.

3. We can learn how to always be ready to tell a brief or detailed experienced of conversion, reversion, miracle, healing or answered prayer.

My invitation to you is to become a part of this ministry first through prayer. I ask you to lift up this ministry to the Lord for his glory and to ask him for wisdom and guidance in big and little decisions ahead.

Secondly, you can support “Sharing YOUR Faith Story” by spreading the word and suggesting it be used as a seminar (live or DVD) for

·            Days of renewal

·            Evangelization seminars

·            Book Group discussions

·            RCIA sessions

·            Prayer groups

·            Bible Study series

·            Ministry or parish staff motivation

·            Parish missions

·            Peer ministry and share groups

This is an exciting adventure and I hope you will join my team of Always be Ready Prayer Warriors.

Thank you for your prayer support. I couldn’t do without it.

God bless,

Nancy Ward

JoyAlive.net

Facebook.com/Nancy Cook Ward

Twitter.com/@NancyHCWard

Google + Nancy Ward

LinkedIn.com/Nancy HC Ward

Nancy is a voice for joy in a world where even the Catholics too often leave their joy on the floor of the coat closet.

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There’s no shortage of good work being done by all kinds of folk out there. Bazillions of choices these days from firmly faithful Catholics. There’s no excuse not to look around and find the thing that works for your family or your parish.

Photo by Edna Winti (Cloisters, St Jerome Monastery) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Getting Past a 2nd-Grade Faith with Pope Francis

Last updated on: September 27, 2015 at 8:24 pm By Jennifer Fitz

One of my pleasures lately has been the privilege of getting to watch bunches of priests and laypeople do the Catholic thing and do it well. It is heartening to see so many faithful people love God so fully, and put that love into action.

Thus last week I found myself watching two priests do exactly the thing they needed to be to doing, mentoring a dozen or so disciples-in-formation. In the course of group conversation, Father G.* posed a question in passing, and I paraphrase:

So many adult Catholics are walking around with a faith that stopped maturing in second grade. How do we get them past second grade?

So that’s the question I want to talk about, and about how that ties into the way that Pope Francis is carrying out such a love affair with the whole world.

What’s It Like in Second Grade?

Second-graders are fun. They are lively and enthusiastic, and they will try to do what you teach them to do. They have questions, but mostly they count on you for answers, and they count on you to tell them the answers to questions they don’t know to ask. If you tell a second-grader it’s important to memorize the Our Father or to make the Sign of the Cross correctly, he’ll do his best to please you. My son who hated uncomfortable shoes with a passion freely chose to wear the dreaded dress shoes for his First Communion because our DRE had given a talk about wearing your very best for Jesus.

Second-graders are followers. They don’t know a whole lot, and they count on adults to keep leading them into the world of adulthood. They are experts at complaining, but it’s the job of the adult to translate the many variations on “I’m not happy” into meaningful solutions.

This doesn’t mean second graders are helpless or useless. They enjoy learning and contributing. They can help take care of the baby or get dinner ready or clean out the car, or any other task suited to someone who is smart but not so world-wise and not always 100% reliable.

From Second Grade to Adulthood

There’s eleven years from second grade to high school graduation, and anyone over forty will tack on another decade or so when estimating at what age someone becomes an “adult.” (You should not necessarily believe everything people over 40 say.)

I like that we call teens “young adults” because that’s what they are: People who are ready to take on serious responsibilities and begin navigating the trials and terrors of the adult world, but who are still very young. They don’t have much experience, and they need guidance from those who do.

But the process of getting from seven to seventeen isn’t just second grade repeated over and over again, and it’s not a process that’s carried out by snapping your fingers and telling the kid to grow up already. To see what that process involves, let’s think about the people we know who “never grew up.”

Big Body, Childish Soul

What are the characteristics of people who remain immature into adulthood?

They’ve never been held accountable for their actions. When they mess-up, someone always swoops in to rescue them.
They’ve never been given real responsibility. There’s always someone to pay the bills, sort out problems, and generally ensure they can cruise through life like one long visit to Disneyland.
They’ve often never been given the tools of adulthood. No one taught them how to budget, or how to use self-control to resist various temptations, or how to get a job and keep it.

One of the reasons parenthood will cause you to finish growing up is that for the first time in your life you’ve got some real, sacrificial responsibility, and no one to bail you out. Following through is the only option.

How Do You Help Someone Grow Up?

If you have a child, or a class full of children, or a parish full of grown-up children in your life, there are some things you do to help those children mature. None of the things are magic formulas. You are in a relationship with human beings endowed with free will, not robots in need of better code. Still, there are some general principles that mostly apply:

1. You have to know the person. Walk into a room of strangers, and the best you can do aim for a general target — people in this situation generally seem to need ______. The better we know somebody — and we can never know another person perfectly — the better we can identify interests, personality traits, strengths and weaknesses, and thus we have a better chance of being able to offer help that is in fact helpful.

This is one of the reason parish life is so daunting: Two priests putting in hour after hour mentoring just a dozen or so adults is not big-bang. It doesn’t produce quick results. We have to invest in individuals, trusting that those few people will in turn grow into mature Christians who will go and take what they received and in turn mentor others.

2. You have to teach. There are people who just seem to naturally “know what to do.” Everyone has gifts, and everyone has personal interests that cause them to seek out skills independently. But humans have long childhoods for a reason: We need to be taught. We need someone to teach us how to put our pants on, how to go to the toilet, how to wash our hands properly. It does no good to tsk tsk that those people don’t know how to ________ — someone has to step in and teach the skill, even if it’s galling that someone must be taught ______ so late in life.

It’s true that some people, given a lecture on the importance of Algebra or housekeeping or being more reverent at Mass will stand up, take notice, and get right to work. But most of us can use a few pointers, and actually most of us need a lot of pointers.

3. You have to get out of the way. Here’s my failed method of helping a certain teenager learn Algebra:

Mom reads through the text.
Mom does a few problems.
Mom says, “See, that’s not so hard is it?”

This method doesn’t work. Sooner or later you reach the point where you have to hand over the pencil. You have to let the student work through the problem on his own, even though he’s probably going to be slow and sloppy and make mistakes.

This is where Catholics tend to fall down. We want parents to take responsibility for teaching their children the faith, but we don’t dare let them teach their children the faith. We want parishioners to take the initiative in carrying out the works of mercy, but we don’t dare let them take any initiatives.

We have a fear, and that fear is grounded in reality: If you let people do things, they will screw it up.

That’s the law. Let people do things, and they will screw it up.

But what’s the alternative? Perpetual childishness.

Pope Francis Makes a Mess

The reason Pope Francis has charmed the whole world, and exasperated no small number of Catholics in the process, is that he’s willing try his hand at being Pope and he’s an experiential learner. We love him because he does bold things that aren’t in the Pope Manual, and that we instinctively know are the right thing do to do. He also sometimes makes us crazy when he tries things that aren’t in the Pope Manual and he talks himself into a hot mess in the process.

All the Popes have been like this, trying out the business of being Pope as best they can, doing some things right and getting some things wrong. No one’s born knowing how to be Pope, and the only way to learn how to do it is to get in there and try.

This is how it is for all of us. We each bring our own personalities. Some of us are too cautious, some of us not cautious enough; some of us can be counted on to stick to the proven, some of us love nothing more than a new problem, never solved, waiting for someone to step in experiment. As a general rule, the person who washes the altar linens should be the cautious, precision-obsessed, do-it-right-the-first-time type.

Having “the Talk” With Your Spiritual Children

When my husband and I showed Father E. Sherry Weddell’s Forming Intentional Disciples, he gave us his informal blessing: No, at this time the parish wasn’t ready to take on that project, but he encouraged us to go out and make our mess. We put together a discipleship group, felt our way through it, and two years down the road the group has borne much fruit. We started with relatively mature Christians, and with very little prompting they’ve moved on to making messes of their own (including running the follow-on to the original discipleship group).

Not everyone is ready to leap out of the nest unprompted.

This afternoon I posed a question to my fifteen-year-old: How eager are you to move out and live on your own? I’m not trying to get rid of the kid, but the question is one we have to address. Each young person reaches that point when he is ready to try his hand at going solo, and it’s our job as parents to get our son to the point where he’s ready to go out and give it a shot. An eighteen-year-old who wants to try working full-time and paying his own bills needs a different type of preparation than one who’s mapped out a course of extensive post-secondary studies.

But we have to agree on the goal: You are going to grow into a full-fledged adult, and it’s our mutual job to work together and do what we need to do to get you there.

So it is with the spiritual children.

Photo by Gonzo Carles (Giddy Up!) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

*G. is for “Gonzo,” which, interestingly, is not the part of the guy you see on the outside so much. Fr. E. is for “Excellent.”

Why I Love Presenting for Family Honor

Last updated on: September 21, 2015 at 3:23 pm By Jennifer Fitz

This week while the executive director of Family Honor is up at the World Meeting for Families, I’ll be getting ready for my first presentation of the new school year. Family Honor offers courses in chastity for parents and for parents-and-teens. Last year was the first year my husband and I participated as presenters, and I’m absolutely sold. As a teacher and speaker, working with Family Honor is a dream. Here’s why:

Your whole team is thoroughly trained. It’s not easy getting through Family Honor’s online course, The Truth and Meaning of Sexuality, Love, and Family, because it’s serious preparation in the reasons behind chastity and the most effective ways of teaching chastity. You don’t have to be an amazing scholar, but you do have to do the work, pay attention, and think for yourself. It’s a pleasure working on a team where everyone knows their stuff.

(Frankly: I don’t think it should be possible to be certified as a catechist unless you’ve completed this course or one like it.)

All the behind-the-scenes business is impeccably organized. For every presentation, there is a checklist of roles and responsibilities. As a presenter, I can be confident that the support team has got the venue under control, all the props in place, and jobs assigned. I just show up ready to give my portion of the class, no need to worry that I’ll be putting out 10,000 fires at the last minute.

The presentation manual has everything written out to the letter. I don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I can commit to a class without having to write the class. My job is to review the day’s class, then look at my parts in detail and read through the “script.” I’ve got the flexibility to add in personal observations, but if I don’t know how to put something into my own words, there’s a perfectly good explanation right there on the page.

You don’t have to be an amazing speaker to do a good job. The class presentations have been carefully crafted, and then revised and updated to respond to feedback over the years. The talks are robust. Because presentations are divided among multiple speakers, no one person has to carry the whole show. You can be an average volunteer, and if you put in the time to learn your talk and practice it, you’re good to go. The content speaks for itself.

It’s fun and relaxed. We’re talking about sex, and some of the big themes are reverence for our sexuality, respect for ourselves and others, and regard for the inherent dignity and worth of every human being. Huge topics. But the talks include some good skits and dialogs to keep things lively, and all the presenters are always fitting in a few good stories from their own background.

Everyone on the team is happy. Not fake-happy, but genuinely glad to be there and full of love and joy. Can’t say that every place you go.

The trains run on time. You start on time and end on time. One of the team roles is timekeeper — making sure that each presenter sticks to his or her allotted time, so that classes don’t go off the rails. When I’m giving a talk, I have a clear view at all times of how much time I have left, and I get the five-minute, two-minute, and one-minute silent warnings, no squinting at the watch or trying to figure out what 7:53 plus eighteen minutes is. It’s that respect for the human person embodied in a respect for each other’s time and patience.

I can do this. I’m a busy person. I’ve got kids, I homeschool, I write, I teach — I’m not looking for things to do with my free time. I don’t need another hassle, and frankly I can’t take on very much else beyond my normal life. Presenting for Family Honor is plug-n-play. Nearly all the presenters are busy people, and the reason the program works is because isn’t doesn’t weigh you down. You just pick up your part and go.

The parents are the best. When you present with Family Honor, you meet parents from across the spectrum. Parents who know more about teaching chastity than you do, and parents still struggling with the topic in their own life, or wondering how to respond to really difficult situations. But all the parents love their kids and want what is best for them. It’s an absolute pleasure getting to see so many loving people packed into one room.

Best gig ever. Check it out.

Image courtesy of Family Honor.