So, a year ago we left the university parish we'd been at since we got married, and deliberately fled to a trusty orthodox parish with an adoration chapel and all the smells and bells. When we did that, we experienced an abrupt change in homily focus.
At the university parish, we were constantly exhorted to avoid prejudice and discrimination, particularly against those of a different race. I can barely remember a homily exhortation against any other sin. (There were other topics, for example plenty of explication of the Gospel readings and lots of God-is-good stuff. And there were some discourses about the dangers of materialism and various antiprogressive economic policies, and encouragement to do things like volunteer in soup kitchens. But the only exhortations I remember were against racism.)
At our current parish, there are lots of exhortations against things. Racism is one of them. Materialism is a sizable chunk. But also against pornography, divorce, contraception, abortion, too much television, the sanitization of religion from the public sphere, parents afraid to discipline their children in any way, selfishness, negligence of prayer life, irreverence towards the sacraments, etc.
I can't help but notice that in both cases, the homilist was, is... well, excuse the cliche, but I mean to say "preaching to the choir." I'm not saying it's his fault. Both parishes are the sort that attract people from all over the metro area, rather than only those who live in the parish boundaries. (The college students are a special case.) So maybe it's a case of people flocking to hear homilies that help them feel satisfied that they are doing the right thing.
Not that we can't still be challenged by them. Even though I'm right on board with our parish priest on the whole pornography-divorce-adultery-contraception-abortion-bad-bad-bad bandwagon, his homilies still challenge me to strive for greater holiness. I'm sure that we're in a more challenging place now than we were before. Perhaps this is because there is a greater diversity of exhortations.
Speaking of diversity: It strikes me that racism is a pretty easy thing to rail against from the pulpit. Not only that, but for many people --- not everyone, but many people --- especially in the educated, urban/suburban, largely white, middle-to-upper-class and college-student audience of the university parish I mention --- isn't it a pretty easy thing to hear from the pulpit? Does it really challenge that demographic (which I freely includes me) very much in daily life? (a) Everybody already admits that racism is bad. (b) Most people in that demographic don't interact deeply on a daily basis with people of a different race unless those people are very much like them in numerous other aspects, e.g. also educated and also well-to-do, perhaps employed in the same industry, etc. We're still a pretty segregated society when it comes to neighborhoods and schools and social circles. Most of us can get along without having to fight racism in our hearts and actions every day, unless it's part of our job (e.g. public school teacher, social worker, customer service in a part of town we don't live in...) If they have to strive at all against racism, I suspect that it's largely an interior struggle, and very easy to ignore.
Likewise, at the parish I'm at now, it's like an NFP convention or something. Young families, including us, have gravitated there to see every Sunday the almost legendary spectacle of a priest who preaches against contraception from the pulpit. I suspect that for these families, who fill the pews to bursting, it is easy rather than challenging to hear that sort of message. It is for us.
Would the parochial system, rigidly enforced, make more sense? No more choice of where to belong? Each parish drawn from its own neighborhood, regardless of politics? All of us subject, for better or worse, to the pastor bestowed on us by the archbishop? Maybe overall --- if all the pastors were uniformly good enough. That is, if "he's not a very good pastor" meant only that he wasn't a talented preacher, or that he was a bumbling manager of parish employees, or that he is hopeless at raising money. As it is, it sometimes means he doesn't teach the truth, or he teaches falsehood. An uninspiring preacher or a church that can't afford to keep the air conditioning on --- those things can and should be borne in Christian submission. But when the parish priest or the DRE teach error, we parents at least have the responsibility to flee. Thank God we also have the right.
Because it wasn't preaching against racism that made us leave the first place; it was negligence, if not abuse, of the Holy Eucharist. And we couldn't bear that anymore.
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