Put this story in the “yeah, the world’s about as messed up as I figured” file. Catholic teens feel no more guilt than other U.S. teenagers, according to the Free Republic.
If they cheated on an exam, lied to their parents or engaged in serious petting, it’s not bearing down on their conscience, according to a study by University of North Carolina researchers. At least it’s not making them feel more guilty than their non-Catholic peers.
The emotional fallout of transgressing the Catholic Church’s long list of sins — venial and mortal — may be a thing of the past. Blame the decline of ruler-wielding nuns at Catholic schools, or assimilation into the wider society.
Now, of course, I don’t trust studies at all, especially because they don’t separate out Catholics who actually take their faith seriously rather than just nominal Catholics. The study points out that while teens who went to confession were no more likely to feel guilty than non-Catholic teens, those who did reported higher levels of relief from guilt.
One researcher said Catholic teenagers may not know enough about church teachings — especially about premarital sex, birth control or abortion — to feel guilty about disobeying. “They haven’t internalized it, or they disregard it.”
Changing values probably also account for a drop in Catholic guilt, said the Rev. Joseph Vetter, Duke University Catholic chaplain. Catholics used to feel guilty for not attending mass or for living together before marriage. For many, those behaviors are now common.
To me, this is not a child problem. This, at its root, is a parenting problem. If children don’t know their faith then how can they grow it? If children don’t feel guilt how can they become better? If someone never recognizes themselves as a sinner how can they become a saint?
I think as a country we’re obsessed with “self realization” but what this ends up with is people saying “I’m perfect just the way I am” and “I’m OK, You’re OK.”
Look, it’s because of my faith that I know I’m not OK. And I certainly know I’m not perfect. I hear a line from young people quite often which essentially says, “You just have to accept me for who I am.” I thank God that He doesn’t accept me the way I am or just leave me the way I am because left to my own devices I’m pretty terrible.
In short, a lack of guilt is a lack of God. And that shouldn’t surprise anyone.
June 10, 2008 at 1:27 pm
“a lack of guilt is a lack of God.”
Nicely put. I want my children to feel guilty when they do something wrong.
June 10, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Excellent analysis! Very well said.
The thing is, as a parent you have to accept that you’re not perfect before you can instill in your children that they are not perfect. And a lot of parents — Catholic parents — can’t face that. They’ve imbibed for so long the “We’re all ok” mentality that they just don’t know how to sit down with their kids and say, “Ya know, we’re not ok. There’s this thing called sin….”
June 10, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Too many parents leave the teaching of sin up to CCD classes or religion classes in Catholic schools. But they don’t teach that stuff anymore because its not touchy feely enough. Wouldn’t want to “ruin” their sense of self esteem. And when was the last time you heard a priest even mention the word sin in a homily?
June 10, 2008 at 8:43 pm
>And when was the last time you >heard a priest even mention the >word sin in a homily?
Pretty sure that would be Sunday…. unless you count the “mini-homily” before VBS started – I’m pretty sure Father mentioned sin in there somewhere (in the context of asking our guardian angels to help us avoid it…)
(The VBS theme this year is “St. Catherine Laboure and the Guardian Angels… so much cooler than when I was a kid!)
June 12, 2008 at 1:17 am
Not guilt, not God; no God, no guilt. Why should any of us feel guilt or sorrow for misdeeds? When’s the last time any of us heard a Catholic priest say that salvation is a choice and that we have to strive mightily to obtain it? You’re okay, and I’m okay and don’t let no holy rollin pope get in our way! We’re all headed to Beulah Land no matter what. Folks, if there’s no hell, God is a monster–think about it!
June 12, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Well, I hear about sin regularly in homilies. And about the importance of confession. We teach about it in CCD and the CCD kids have an opportunity to go to confession 2x during the year, even if their parents don’t take them. Ya’ll need to come over to our parish!
Sally
June 12, 2008 at 5:45 pm
My favorite bummber sticker is “A child raised without morals becomes an adult without a conscience”
September 7, 2008 at 9:00 pm
I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but as a teen and young adult I did an awful lot of self-deception and rationalization to avoid feelings of guilt. I was spiritually adrift and unfortunately did not have much in the way of good role models of living an authentic Catholic faith. My family and the parish to which we belonged placed great emphasis on certain parts of scripture (particularly Matthew 25:40) but pretty much ignored anything unpopular in today’s society.
Luckily God did not give up on me and eventually I opened my heart to the fullness of His Truth. I’m still struggling with the challenges of actually putting that into practice in every aspect of my life but it’s something that I now strive for, rather than dismissing outright as I did when I was younger.
As Catholic Christians, we need to reach out to youngsters who are spiritually adrift like I was. If God can turn someone as sinful as Saul of Tarsus into His great disciple St. Paul, then He can certainly bring today’s lost sheep back into the fold 🙂