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CCE Syndrome

In doing youth ministry over the years I have encountered two identifiable syndromes that have spread to varying degrees within my youth groups.

The first is "Catholic School Syndrome", which is a disease of the intellect that equates a living faith with a passing knowledge of the subject of Theology. God is reduced to a multiple choice answer on a test.

The second disease, one of the heart, is "CCE Syndrome", which affects the ability of public school kids to find any joy or excitement in their once-a-week faith formation program. CCE Syndrome prevents the teenage will from taking delight in the things of Heaven because they are immersed in the worst of the earth. CCE Syndrome is typically contracted through the lack of emphasis placed on a personal, living faith in God, replaced with a moldly monologue of religious instruction concerned with facts about God and Church history.

If the God of the Universe was madly in love with you, wouldn't that affect you somehow? It is a form of apathy, just like Catholic School Syndrome.

Here are some ways to smack it down.

Catechesis, Church LifeMichael GormleyApril 14, 2011CCE Syndrome, evangelization

follow up: Catholic Bloggers

Church LifeMichael GormleyApril 13, 2011vatican blogs

marriage, society, and my friend Chris

My friend Chris, a conservative law school student, was at a conference for the political and legal protection of traditional marriages. It is a pretty famous group that supports the Christian conception of marriage. At this particular conference the main issue was gay marriage and how to legally defeat it in the several states.

At one point there was a Q and A session where attendees could ask questions and make comments to the presenters. My friend Chris is a lot of things, one of them is not shy. He is what you call "confrontational" and also "fearless" and "thoroughly Catholic."

So at this conference filled with mostly Christians and other social conservatives of every stripe, he takes to the microphone and addresses one of the speakers who criticized gay marriage as the "undoing of the meaning of marriage in society".

He said: "Marriage is not just about a union between a man and a woman. It is that, but it is also about the procreation and education of children. That's the 'meaning' of marriage: babies and bonding with your spouse. I think, if we are going to be honest, we have to see that use of contraception within marriage was really the 'undoing' of marriages, because it separated babies from the sexual act altogether. No-fault divorce, remarriage, and all the rest are results from the widespread acceptance of contraception in marriage."

The place was silent.

One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic

Benedictine Monk practicing the Lectio DivinaThough I am no longer a full time employee at a parish, I still consider myself a youth minister. I do a lot of ministering to teens around the country in many parishes, not just one. That being the case, I still found the need to be grounded in a specific community and in a specific ministry. Through a lot of praying my family and I decided that I would volunteer in the middle school ministry at our home parish.

Brian Kelsch, the EDGE middle school youth minister, is a great guy. He follows the Life Teen, Inc. format - Gather, Proclaim, Break, Send - pretty devoutly and so it is easy for Core Members to identify with the flow of the nights. For this ministry I run a small group of 8th grade boys and girls, from 15-25 kids each week.

This small group has been very rewarding, and sometimes frustrating along the way. I think having some of the funniest kids in the room is a double-edged sword. They bring a lot of joy with them, but also a lack of, how do I put this delicately? An inability to shut up. That's it!

For the last two weeks in small group when we meet up, instead of asking vaguely connected-to-the-talk questions that are also supposed to be engaging and fun, we have been praying Lectio Divina as a small group. If you haven't listened to the podcast yet, you should stop reading and go have a listen. It's episode number 2.

Church LifeMichael GormleyApril 8, 2011EDGE, Lectio Divina, New Evangelization

Calling Catholic Bloggers

This was the Social Communication's own logo. Ugly, huh?This was the image that the Pontifical Council on Social Communication used for their article. Kind of ugly, huh?The day after Pope John Paul II's beatification the Vatican is sponsoring a day conference on/for Catholic bloggers. On May 2 150 bloggers are invited to the Palazzo San Pio X for this all-day conference.

The Pontifical Council for Social Communications and the Pontifical Council for Culture are hosting the event.

In order to get invited all one has to do is email the event host - blogmeet@pccs.it - and pray you get picked. Oh, and you need to figure out a way to fly to Rome and be put up somewhere. All costs are covered by you.

So I just sent in my own request for the conference. Maybe I can fundraise for the flight out there- if they pick me, that is.

Church LifeMichael GormleyApril 8, 2011Culture, Inter Mirifica, Social Communications, bloggers

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