"As a cultural anthropologist I was taught...."

¡Ora, Chestnut Hill College's Department of Anthropology!

¡Ora, UTEP's Anthropology Department!

¡Adelante, DESTINO!

¡Ora, MEChA!


Basic source: "Religious Life in the Age of Facebook: Where have all the young people gone?" By Fr. Richard G. Malloy, S.J., described as an assistant professor of anthropology at Chestnut Hill College, Philadelphia, Pa. The Jesuit magazine "America," July 7 - 14, 2008.

"As a cultural anthropologist, I was taught that good fieldwork reveals what everyone knows but no one in the host culture talks about."

A local example of what he means? Humm .. o.k. ... how about this: The clergy of Saint Mary Magdalene's Catholic Parish and the prevalence of witchcraft among the general population?

'Cause you can well believe that "everyone knows," for all "no one in the host culture['s clergy] talks about [it]!"

Remember what the good father is talking about in what follows is most likely an American Catholic institution of higher learning, o.k.?

OK!

"1. One's culture consists of what one knows.

"Today's young adults do not know very much about Jesus, the church, the faith or religious life.

"In fact, young adults do not know many things tat used to be common knowledge among Catholics, and they often know more about other faiths than they do about their own religious tradition.

"When one excited young woman ran up to me and exclaimed, I'm going to study Buddhism. It's so cool!

"I said, Wow. Did you ever think of studying the religion that teaches that God became what we are so we could become what God is?

"Ooh, that sounds cool.

"What one's that? she asked.

"Catholicism, I answered, the faith in which she had been baptized and confirmed."


Culturally, we are the stories we tell....


"Culturally, we are the stories we tell.

"Too easily we assume that young adult Catholics know who St. Francis or St. Ignatius was, but we assume such at our peril.

"Today's young adults know Harry and Hermine better than Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

"One student I spoke to last year thought Vatican II was the name of a pope!"

Then, further along, we read this interesting observation:

"7. American society may not be producing people who are able to live religious life.

"Perhaps more problematic are the cultural deficiencies of American upper - middle - class families.

"In The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids, (2007) , the psychologist Madeline Levine describes children (often from economically comfortable families) who are in deep emotional distress.


"One young woman Levine describes is a cutter, who wears along - sleeve T - shirt with a thumbhole in the sleeve.

"She is covering up a forearm into which she has repeatedly carved the word empty.

"Too many of our young people are empty.

"Problems ranging from serious addictions to attention deficit disorder permeate the young adult population..."

A good read...!!!