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SUNDAY SPECTATOR
August 14, 2005
Cologne
I carry vivid memories of World Youth Day, three years ago in Toronto. I was in a continuous state of amazement to see kids by their tens of thousands on the streets, all decently dressed, respectful, well-behaved. And happy -- that was the most unusual thing. You seldom see young people who look happy any more, except among recently-arrived immigrants from exotic lands. But it used to be quite common, even here.When I wrote about this, back in 2002, I mentioned that, to the credit of my native city, these young Catholics were fairly well-received. Few were insulted. This coming week, another huge congregation of these “Papal youth” assembles in Cologne, Germany. It is the first Youth Day after John Paul II. And what a coincidence: we have a new German Pope. At the city’s central “Cathedral” subway station, they will be greeted by vast posters and other displays from an organization called “Condoms4Life”. They will be descended upon by another organization called “KJGay”, who will set up “warming tents” for “fun and action” -- as they did at a recent German Catholic Boy Scouts’ convention. And various other, mostly publicly-funded groups, have, according to German media, spent the last year preparing to make World Youth Day memorably unpleasant for all the clean-cut kids. It is a mystery, not only to me and my kind, but to many non-Catholics, why people who are so obviously aggrieved and outraged by pretty much everything the Catholic Church teaches, can’t leave it alone. What’s in it for them? Why, in particular, do apostate Catholics feel such an aching need to plague their faithful co-religionists? There are, after all, so many other religions to choose from. Buddhism is still popular. Not real Buddhism, which has hierarchy, discipline, fixed texts, and a moral structure not unlike Roman Catholicism -- but the kind of Buddhism you can buy in paperback along with your joss sticks at the New Age store. Islam is in vogue, and there are dawah centres in every large town. Just type “Muslim” in Google-search, and you’re away to the races. Or, “paintball” if you run very fast. Or if you want something a little more traditional looking, there are plenty of empty pews in mainstream Protestant churches. And woman preachers, too: I’m sure many of them would appreciate an audience. I’d suggest some lively Pentecostal congregations, the Mormons, or sundry “born-agains”, but the sort of person who thinks Catholics err on the side of “fundamentalism” will find these separated brethren rather literalist, too. Ditto, the Greek and other Orthodox tend to be hidebound traditional, and probably not for you. Then again, you can always invent your own religion, which is a lot of fun. I invented several, quietly, as a child; but the more ambitious can find a tailor, and dress themselves up, or get some pamphlets printed. You never know, you might be the next L. Ron Hubbard. So many alternatives to picking on the Catholic faithful. Is it just lack of imagination, on the part of the pickers, or is it something edgier? One may partly understand “cradle Catholics” whose views have “evolved” away from the Church, and towards what the Zeitgeist is teaching, in the cinemas and the shopping malls. They expect the Church to make them feel “at home”. Even in theory, the Church can’t do that without making every faithful Catholic feel an exile. And either they don’t understand this, or they don’t care -- because the same Zeitgeist has contrived to make them into pathological narcissists. So what drives them? I have no idea myself, but find one in the Gospels. You will recall (perhaps) that Christ kept telling us not only to follow Him, but that if we do, we are likely to be reviled, persecuted, slandered and so forth. (What a bad marketing strategy! -- the most successful of all time.) That was just the half of it. Even more controversially, He suggested, not casually but earnestly and repeatedly, that we are up against devils, against satan himself, the Prince of this World. (I think “Zeitgeist” is the modern word for that phenomenon.) Quite frankly, true Christians believe that people who behave badly are “bedevilled”. (I know you didn’t learn that in science class.) The good news is, no need to hate them in return, or even hate oneself, when one goes on the occasional auto-destructive bender. What needs driving out is neither us nor them, but the devils afflicting everyone. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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