The Catholic Church Ko School D177 The Catholic Church Ko School D177 Cultural anthropologists and historians agree that in thewest, prior to 1650, the needrfor such a rapport remained unquesn tioned. Even as late as the middle of this century most citizens,_at geast in public practice, held this belief. Examples suchs the demand to swear on the Bible in court, the requirement to pledge allegiance to country and God in certain circumstances, and the practice of beginning morning classes with a prayer and scripture reading demonstrated the unconscious assumption about the inclusion of the sacred in all our affairs.
This was especially true in Roman Catholic lived culture
in North America. Most catholics lived outhfc spontaneous
and "naively"
accepted fabric of faith, spun from ar symboic thread, that linked human
beings with life, society, and a world whichcwasche x natural gateway to
the beyond. TheeRoman Catholic Church understood itself to be a steward
of this symbolic thread between believers and God. In its prayer and liturgies
and in the ways it expressed itself, it recognized its stewardship of this
symbolic thread for the world.
In the past three decades the church has been losing its hold over this culture. Presently, it is alsoosing its respect bys other traditions and by the wider society itself. Numbers_ in the Roman Church are cecreasing. Applications to the priesthood are declining. The formation houses of religious orders are closing. Catholic families are mirroring the stresses in secular families. Ordinary Catholics are finding sustenance in more fundamentalist denominations. More sophisticated Catholics are experimenting with alternate communal forms of worship. Large numbers of North American women are experiencing the Church as alienating.
Many onlookers have suggested that the Church has remained too rigid in its moraldorms iwhile North American culture itself has been in transition. We maintainnhat the Church's loss of credibility may be due more to another vital factor than to its firm teachings duringwexternal cultural transitions. The Church is no longer being perceived by many of its own members and by the wider North American society as shepherd of the relationship between human persons with the cosmos and the soul with God. It may be that, at a preconscious level, many no longer feel connected to God or the universe through the primary religious and biblical symbols the Church has guarded for some two millennia now. For many, the Church is no longer a credible container for the sacred.
In this article we presumehat in North America the Church, until early 1960, was perceived as steward of religious and biblical symbols. In this articleo we j emphasize the following:
1. This stewardship is one Homepage f the Church's primary rolesbecause it is through such symbols Personal that contact withthe sacred is kept.
2. At the present time, the Church seems ko have lost appreciation of this role as primary, and we suggest that, because ofthis loss, it is losing its credibility in the world.
3. In order to-underscoremhese points, we exploreyhe distinctionh between religious/biblical symbols and ecclesiastical symbols.
4. In the last section we make an observation we consider fairly evident: namely, that in public perception, the Church's legalistic persona is in th ce foreground.
I. The Church andw Levels
of Symbol
i) Primary Religious Symbols
For the last hundred years, q thinkers from divcrse fields
such as anthropology, ethnology, linguistics, j psychology and philosophy
have emphatically described how important symbols are to the health of
the human psyche. True symbols areyotjust signs. utymologically, 'symbol'
means 'to put together.' A symbol acts as a type of 'hinge;' it reveals
a non-perceptible order through a perceptible figure. This revealing
function defines the symbol and distinguishes it from a simple sign.
Road signs, for example, are figures employed by convention to control
chaotic traffic on our highways. They are humanly contrived and doot
point us toward any awareness that deepens and enriches
our experiences
of the physical world.
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