A reader writes:

I cannot believe how well you hit the mark in this article.  As a recent college graduate, I can definitely sympathize with the “dominant paradigm” that has gripped so much of Catholic America, particularly in places of higher learning.  I went to public university (here in sunny San Diego), and in the light of a lack of orthodoxy that seems to be a common trend in Catholic universities, perhaps it is often overlooked that there are countless Catholic students in non-Catholic schools that are similarly starving for the true Gospel and the true Church.  On college campuses we have an obsession for mass appeal, not realizing that the few we scrape up with Hip Hop Mass, liturgical dances, and watering down of Catholic mores are but a distressing shadow of the thousands of students that desert the Church each year not because it lacks enough pop appeal but because it contributes no substance and no challenge to their lives.  The Church is losing relevance with young people not because it is old, but because it speaks nothing of relevant import.  A community that is truly out of touch is one that believes it can be relevant to my generation without talking about sex and morality.  A community that is truly out of touch is one that believes it can witness to Christ without speaking of the meaning of suffering, and of our need for salvation.

You are right in many things, Mr. Shea, and I am particularly relieved to hear your warning of how easy it is to fall into bitterness and hatred.  In my life I’ve definitely run that course from dissatisfaction to bitterness, something that I often recognize in myself and actively try to avoid.  What scares me is that I see many other people falling into that trap.  I am afraid of becoming a reactionary, because the flip side of the situation of Catholic America is that many of the people that agree with us are bitter and angry people.

And so I think our subversion has to be twofold.  But with a twofold subversion, perhaps the difficulty increases exponentially, for we will feel doubly alone.  We will feel the blows of a false dichotomy between the Pepsi generation and the radical reactionary.  On the one hand is a group we agree with in spirit but not in fact, on the other hand is a group we agree with in fact but not in spirit.  This is the situation I often find myself in, and I am thankful to read your post and find that perhaps I am not so alone after all.  There are still sane, loving people dedicated to the truth, and I am glad to have some affirmation in my belief that witnessing and defending the truth does not mean giving up your love, and that spreading the love of God does not mean giving up on the truth.  That kind of affirmation is relatively rare nowadays.

I am heartened by your letter, because it is not the only letter or feedback of its kind that I’ve gotten since I wrote the piece in question.  There are an awful lot of people in the rising generation who are hungry for what Sherry Weddell calls “creative orthodoxy”.  That is, the old tradition spoken in terms accessible to people who long to hear from Christ but don’t even know where to start.  The key, as you you note, is not tedious novelty (Hip Hop Mass?  Give thou me a break!  As painful as Richard Nixon attempting to disco).  Nor is it embittered reactionary anger.  It is the joy of the Faith spoken and celebrated with the full integrity of the Tradition.  It can be and is being done and the great thing is that you and I live in an age where we have access to all sorts of resources our ancestors could never have dreamed of.  Need role models?  The internet can put you in touch with information about saints both living and dead who bear inspiring witness to lives of love, joy and courage in Christ.  For instance, I find inspiration from G.K. Chesterton (among others) and find fellowship (both real and virtual) from the American Chesterton Society and the Seattle Chesterton Society.  Lots of other little groups around the country and around the world, such as Communion and Liberation are busily creating authentic Catholic community in ways that are centered around the Eucharist, filled with love and hope, and rooted in the Tradition.  The Newman Center at the University of Washington (not to mention my own Blessed Sacrament parish) are thriving witnesses to the fact that there does exist a Catholic faith that can pour forth from the well of tradition a faith that is both fully engaged with apostolic tradition and fully engaged with the culture.  Likewise apostolates like the Catherine of Siena Institute, Militia of the Immaculata or the Archdiocese of Sydney, Australia’s massively successful Theology on Tap program or Denver’s St. Augustine Institute all bear witness to the fact that it is possible to have both orthodoxy and rich, prayerful, liturgically sound worship and devotion that brings people closer to God and to one another in love, joyful fellowship, and outreach to the world.

These are just a few of the opportunities that are out there, drawn from my own (extremely limited) experience.  There’s a lot more.  The key is to be pro-active.  As my friend Sherry Weddell says, the key is to make disciples, starting with ourselves.  The 12 apostles had much less to start with than we do.  Generations of Catholics have done a lot of spade work for us.  The fields are, now as then, white for harvest.  But we have to respond and not stay stuck in our our intramural quarrels.  The happy news is, a lot of people are beginning to get unstuck.  Your holy dissatisfaction with the status quo is a call, not to get mired in anger (as you yourself put is so eloquently) but to turn that energy to action.  Go!  Subvert the Dominant Paradigm.  Settle for neither twaddle nor rage, but take some step to found, with a friends, a Society for Creative Orthodoxy and Pizza Studies and see where it goes.  Chesterton will hoist a heavenly brewski in your honor and intercede for you.  Make it a practice to have a Holy Hour each week (or better still, a Mass), to discuss a book (a good one, I mean, not The Shack), to find some way to live out the corporal and spiritual works of mercy in common, and to eat in common as friends.  Doesn’t have to be huge, but it does have to be expansive.  You are starting something Catholic, not a clique.  Or, if you are not the Founder type, find something already in existence like something I mentioned above.  Just make it subversively happy, like Francis and his friends, or Karol Woytila, joyfully resisting the grim grey totalitarianism of Communist Poland, or Chesterton gaily rejoicing in God despite 20 German professors scolding him not to.