The Lost Are Still Lost

It's been a little over three months since my parish hosted a question and answer session with Regional Bishop Mark O'Connell.  I had put myself out there by discussing the struggles single Catholics face and telling everyone how lost I felt.  Sadly, nothing has changed.

The simplest action our clergy could take is to acknowledge our existence.  During the Q and A session, the bishop and some of my parish priests heard me ask why no one ever publicly prayed for people like me at Mass yet singles seeking marriage continue to be left off the lengthy list of intentions.  It makes me wonder what my priests see when they spot me sitting in the pews with my mother each week.  Can't they tell how lonely I am?

My parish does have some joyful and sincere men of the cloth but lately a typical sermon tends to boil down to this:  “Every one of us has hardships in life.  Sometimes we are sad and feel like failures but we should rejoice because Jesus loves us.”  You know what?  I need more than that.

Despite Bishop O'Connell describing my conversation as humbling, he hasn't openly addressed the plight of Catholic singles either.  His parish's weekly bulletin highlights many “nuts and bolts” topics regarding the operation of his parish.  That's to be expected but he has also touched upon some pretty trivial matters like why parishioners at St. Theresa's kneel at certain times during Mass or what the symbols on a bishop's ring stand for.  You'd think in between all of this, he could mention some of the issues we discussed.

To my surprise, Bishop O'Connell was featured in the October 10th edition of The Salem News.  The newspaper article began with a short biography but then it focused on increasing vocations to the priesthood.  The reporter asked, “So what is the archdiocese doing to persuade single Catholic men that they too can find joy in service as priests?”  I found this question to be hurtful because it failed to recognize the fact that there are single Catholics with a very different calling in life...one that DOES NOT include a vocation to the priesthood.

http://www.salemnews.com/news/local_news/bishop-reach-out-to-lapsed-catholics/article_33cf4980-656f-5f06-966e-bd61886b0a66.htm

“We're not doing enough,” Bishop O'Connell said adding that some parishes have witness talks for men contemplating the seminary and the Archdiocese itself has a full time vocations director and two assistant directors.  The article asserted, “During the last couple of decades, the archdiocese has closed numerous parishes due to the declining number of priests.”  So dwindling Mass attendance and expensive maintenance issues had nothing to do with it?

The bishop suggested each parish had a responsibility to promote priestly vocations adding, “If we could ordain 12 priests a year, we could sustain all of the parishes.”  He continued, “If every parish produced one vocation every 17 years we would be fine.”  I just could not agree with this rosy assessment.  Even if all the parishes within the Archdiocese met that quota, would these new priests be saying Mass in empty churches?

Cited in the newspaper column was a 2014 Pew Research Center study that said the number of church-going Americans dropped slightly from 2007.  I predict this decline will increase exponentially over the next ten years as more and more elderly parishioners pass away.  If the hierarchy focuses on solving the priest shortage but fails to adequately address the Church's other problems, we will not be fine.

I told Bishop O'Connell this during the Q and A session and my long talk with him at St. Theresa's but you'd never know it by reading that article.  Once again, priestly vocations are given top priority while singles who yearn for a spouse aren't even worth mentioning.  I'm left to wonder why so many priests hear but they do not listen.

A Catholic Walks Into A Bar

For this black sheep, few things in life make me feel so out of place than participating in my hometown's nightlife.  Every autumn, the local institution where I volunteer holds an annual meeting which features food, speeches and a small awards ceremony.  Formal wear isn't required but it's an excuse to get dressed up.  The festivities wind down around 9 PM so it leaves a few of us all dressed up with nowhere to go.

After a recent annual meeting, someone suggested going out to a local bar.  Since I didn't have much of a social life, they asked me to join them.  “How will you ever find anyone if you don't try?” one acquaintance remarked.  I decided to tag along just to prove her wrong.

Whether I stay home or go out, the results have always been the same because visiting a bar is one of the most inefficient ways to meet people.  You put all your hope on the random chance a woman with similar interests and beliefs will be sitting there just waiting to strike up a nice conversation.  Being an older Catholic single makes the odds of this happening pretty slim.

That night, six of us went out to a small Irish pub in the downtown.  We found a mostly jeans and t-shirt crowd but I was still wearing my dress shirt, tie, waistcoat and slacks from the annual meeting.  The place was filled with tattooed hipster millennials since there was an art college nearby.  Guess the odds didn't play out in my favor.

Our small group started ordering drinks but I only had water.  We joked to the waitress that I was the designated driver but in reality, I just didn't like the taste of many alcoholic beverages.  That didn't stop my acquaintances from offering me a sip of whatever concoction they ordered.  Hmmm.  Feeling awkward and being pressured to drink.  Why don't I go out more often?

They racked up a pretty hefty tab because in their minds, alcohol equaled happiness and they didn't care if they got wasted.  One person from the group had even suffered a mild heart attack the week before but that did not curtail his intake.  It just happened to be open mic night so when the mildly talented singers belted out the tunes, it was difficult to hear what anyone at our table was saying.  Later, two strange looking old women shuffled in with a guitar to do a dramatic poetry reading that was just awful.

As my acquaintances enjoyed more adult beverages, one of them thought I was being a bit uptight for refusing to order a drink.  He then asked if I had ever been laid.  Suddenly, all eyes were on me but I told them it was none of their business.  As a devout Catholic, I had encountered this question a few times before but there was no good way to answer it.  If I said yes, they would want to know details.  If I said no, I'd be the butt of their jokes.  As they continued to pry, I just acted dumb until they found something else to talk about.  When I got up to go to the bathroom, the smell of marijuana wafted in from the back deck.  There was absolutely nothing here for me so after awhile, I decided to leave.

Experiences like this make me wonder why alcohol must be a night on the town's central focus.  I don't see anything wrong with moderate drinking especially if your beverage compliments a meal but people get carried away.  Perhaps this is why I think those Theology on Tap events seem very gimmicky.

Single Catholics don't have many options when it comes to finding a spouse but the bar scene seems like a big waste of time and money.  How often should we go to the local watering hole before we realize there just isn't anyone there for us?

A World Of Lower Standards

Aside from a few bars, there isn't much for single people to do in my hometown.  (That's really bad for me because I don't drink socially.)  Recently, a woman on the community's Facebook group complained about this and decided to create her own Facebook page for local singles.  Members were invited to post meet ups or any other activities that appealed to the unattached.  She then categorized us into age groups and I suddenly found myself lumped in with people in their late 50s!

In fact, most of the site's members were women in their 40s and 50s but almost all of them had kids.  It made me wonder what the heck happened to the sanctity of marriage.  When some of them started complaining about how lonely they were, I felt it was a bit unfair because at one time they had boyfriends or husbands to sleep with.  Try walking in my shoes.

Some of them seemed very jaded.  When a cooking class was pitched as a possible meet up, a woman said she wanted to go just to discover new recipes...not to meet men.  With an attitude like that, why was she part of this group?  In another post, one woman said she was going to spend her Saturday night at home with a good book.  A few females then suggested they all get together to form a reading club.  Now what kind of signal did that send the opposite sex?

I decided to ask the group if anyone wanted to go mountain bike riding on a nearby rail trail but no one took me up on the offer.  This wasn't surprising because it looked like many of the people here didn't get a lot of exercise.  Unfortunately, the word “single” means many different things: Never married and no kids, never married with kids, divorced with or without children and widowed with or without children.  Not all of these groups have the same expectations.

After showing this Facebook page to a few acquaintances, they said I was being too picky.  I told them “too picky” was refusing to go out with a woman because she had green eyes and blonde hair.  There were good reasons for some of my preferences.  Even if we looked beyond religious beliefs, dating someone with kids added extra pressures to a relationship right off the bat and if a woman is divorced, isn't it natural to wonder why her marriage broke apart?

One of these acquaintances thought I was being too judgmental so she asked if potential suitors had to be thin and good looking too.  I told her a girlfriend who took care of herself would be nice but my definition of beauty was slightly more quirky than what society put on a pedestal.  Then she wondered if I would ever date anyone outside my own religion.  Keep in mind, this acquaintance was Jewish and had a husband who shared her faith.  She was also very liberal so I asked her, “If you were still single, would you date a Trump supporter?”  Of course she wouldn't.  Did that make her close-minded?

Over the years, I've noticed proponents of tolerance try to make us feel guilty for our personal preferences.  We all have attractions.  Some of them aren't that important but others are deal-breakers.  I'd like a girlfriend who has made similar sacrifices for her beliefs.  My acquaintance thought I was looking for the impossible adding, “If a woman is in her 40s and has never had a serious relationship then you should ask yourself what's wrong with her.”  Now who was being judgmental?

Some people find Catholic values so inconceivable, they have to goad anyone who embraces them toward sin.  They'll tell us we should give up on celibacy and just enjoy ourselves.  No one saves themselves for marriage anymore so we need to lower our standards.  Divorce and broken families are just an inevitable part of life.  People fall out of love all the time so it's no big deal.  Advice like that reminds me of the peer pressure found on elementary school playgrounds: “Everyone else is doing it.  Why aren't you?”

In this age of diversity and tolerance, there doesn't seem to be much room for devout Catholics.  That's why singles like me need the Church to step up with increased fellowship and support.  We certainly won't find what we're looking for in a world of lower standards.