2008 Woodie Awards
Loyola sets example for Catholic community
Christina Kiser
Issue date: 9/27/05 Section: Opinion
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I've never enjoyed going to Mass at home. I find it boring, and feel that the priests rarely know how to relate to the congregation. If there is one who does, he usually gets snapped up pretty quickly by the archbishop's office for a higher position. All too often, I find myself leafing through the bulletin during the homily, taking a sudden incredible interest in parish nursery school registration.
Here, on the other hand, I usually make it to Mass every week, because -- corny as it may sound -- I do actually like going. It seems that everyone around me wants to be there. The priest knows how to relate to us well enough so that sometimes, I'll remember his homily all week (or at the very least, not fall asleep). At the six o'clock Mass, chapel choir is, in a word, amazing. All last year I asked myself, "Why can't church at home be this good?" During the summer, I didn't go to Mass that much because it was a let down after what I'd experienced over the past eight months.
I feel like Loyola's Catholic community is an example of how the Catholic Church should be -- warm, welcoming, enthusiastic -- whereas the community back at home, at least where I go, is evidence of how it really is -- distant, out of touch with the real world and unwilling to change. I know that there are many, many great parish communities out there. I guess I just didn't get lucky enough to be part of one.
There have been so many times in the past few years when I've been frustrated with the way the church operates. It doesn't seem to want to face up to its own problems. A prime example is the way it dealt with the abuse scandals that have been going on for years and years. All too often, we heard that officials in the archdiocese covered them up by moving suspected priests to other parishes, or worse, not doing anything about it at all. On top of that, many victims stayed silent for years, out of fear. The Church didn't confront the problem, it just pushed it out of the way in hopes that it would disappear. But all too often, it kept happening.