Muslim Catechesis in Catholic Schools

I hope that post title made you quirk your eyebrow. Today was the first day of LA RE Congress 2010 and I came out of it with two ideas.

My third workshop of the day, hosted by Thomas Groome, was on the new framework for Catholic high school curriculum. There is nothing more affirming as an oft-frustrated Catholic than listening to a bunch of frustrated, pissed off Catholic educators. There were innumerable valid complaints about the new system but Professor Groome left me feeling empowered. The new cirricula are still being written and it is still up to the teachers to decide how to teach it and there are certainly enough of them to voice any problems they have with the system. There is a reason textbooks have editions.

Professor Groome shared an anecdote about how he had seen many Catholic schools in Pakistan, where the student population is 90-95% Muslim teaching Muslim catechesis. This anecdote came out of one woman's outburst and tons of grumbling voices attesting to the fact that this new curriculum assumes an entirely Catholic religious student body. What I took from hearing this frustration and this story is my proposal for Catholic schools:

Offer catechesis for people within their own religious traditions and require everyone to attend dialogue sessions with one another to share what they are learning.*

(If atheists want a catechesis for atheism then awesome, if not, study hall but still must attend dialogue sessions)

2. My first afternoon workshop was about human sexuality and the theology of the body. What I heard made sense within the Catholic understanding of natural law and was logical within the system. I heard some good things and some problematic things.

The good thing: as an educator you have a responsibility to know the why behind the things you say. Students have a right to ask why and you have to have an answer more so than "because I said so."

The bad thing: any artificial form of insemination is a sin. Sterile couples = meant to be sterile. The priest meant well but it irked me.

However, the whole abstinence/chastity talk made me think about writing an article on the subject. "Sex with the Imago Dei." It would be an abstinence talk not based on the "sex is bad/dirty/hell-worthy/only for marriage" idea but on the basis of:
1. Mutual respect
2. Empowerment through Knowledge
3. Why it's worth waiting not just on sex but also oral sex, etc. Everyone remembers their first sex experience; everyone also remembers their first experience giving and receiving mouth-pleasure (yes, i did just call it mouth-pleasure).

I think sex is an important, sacred experience and needs to be taken seriously. But if people want to teach abstinence and chastity then it needs to be done without disparaging the sex act or placing intercourse as more important/meaningful than any other. Down with the cult of the hymen!

Would love to hear feed back on these thoughts.

Buddy Christ & Weak Links

One of the surprising discoveries of complexity theory came from Mark Granovetter of John Hopkins University. He proved that a strong network is made up of many weak links. In fact, a network comprised of many weak links is stronger and more enduring than a network made up of fewer but stronger links

                                                                 - Dwight Friesen, Thy Kingdom Connected (138)

I know very few people in my church. I know the middle schoolers; the middle-school youth group catechists/volunteers and the religious education leadership. But when I go to church on Sunday I have no idea who I am sitting next to. If I stopped going to church or if the church was sucked into a black hole I would never see these people again and I wouldn’t think twice about it. I am connected to them only because we all chose to go to the 9:30am service that particularly Sunday.

When I was in college I remember bumping into someone who told me she was culturally Catholic. This is a concept I hadn’t considered prior to that moment. Catholic jokes, movies about or that feature Catholicism, memories or opinions on Catholic school, feelings/opinions on the Pope, etc. When I tried to bring up Catholic jokes/humor as a thing that unites Catholics together I felt the other volunteers go quiet, go cold. I’m sure some of you reading this have had this experience where you think you have a great idea but you are regarded with suspicion. And it got me thinking; I can’t be the only one in my whole congregation who has a Buddy Christ sitting next to my icons. So how do I meet these like-minded people? Because, I’ll be honest, these are the people I would love to meet and the people I would still want to hang out with if the church building disappeared.

So how do I make these weak links? Whose responsibility it is to make these relationships? Who says I can’t get to know people in my church on an intimate friend basis through watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer as opposed to through a weekly Bible study? But the church doesn't offer a weekly B-Horror movie night. I think that it should. I would love to see this in my church bulletin “Holy Family will be offering a night of laughter – sharing Catholic jokes over dinner” or “Who wants to go get coffee after the 11am service? I’ll be waiting by the holy water font” or “Holy Family will be offering a screening of Dogma/Homicidal” or “Who wants to go watch the Hurt Locker? Here’s my phone number/email.”

Individual and church offerings that are not directly related to religion would be great. If you’re both going to church and reading the bulletin you’re probably going to get on the subject of your faith organically – it doesn’t necessarily have to be a starting point. And if it is, it can have a sense of humor. People's identity is built on their beliefs but not only on those beliefs. Building weak links through social contact is a multi-pronged process that involves partnership between the individual and the church. Furthermore, those weak links should be BOLD. 

So let’s get on it.