Why Should I Know My Faith?

In a conversation with friends the other day, the question was posed on why one should bother to study his or her faith? Why continue study beyond the basic building blocks of fundamental faith understanding? In an earlier post I discussed the Church’s call to evangelize, specifically in regards to the New Evangelization. How, then, would it be possible to evangelize and spread our faith if we cannot explain it? Both in my work in the pro-life movement and as a Catholic, I have found that a deep understanding of one’s beliefs is essential to being able to share and explain your viewpoint with others.

Campus Ministry's Theology on Tap series is a great way to
learn more about your faith

Last year as President of the Right to Life Club, I was thrown into a position where people often looked to me for their answers. In all honestly, in the beginning of the year I was not prepared to answer questions about why the Catholic Church teaches that contraception is wrong or where the Church stood on the death penalty or to thoroughly explain the pro-life teachings of the Church. In many cases, I believed in certain teachings of the Church because they were just that, teachings of the Church and as a Catholic, these were the teachings I believed in. Especially in regards to contraception, I would not have been able to defend my beliefs beyond saying it was a teaching of the Church. In conversations about whether contraception is right or wrong, I would be easily persuaded to the other person’s beliefs – whether they were for or against it. It wasn’t until I really started to look into the issue, knowing that I’d be asked about it at some point, that I began to see the Church’s teachings as a truth that I knew I could believe in and actually began to develop my faith around the issue.

What I learned from this experience is that if I don’t take the time to educate myself on my beliefs, then not only will I have a difficult time discussing my beliefs with others, but I would also be at risk of being easily swayed to an opposing view. This is not to suggest that we should not listen to other faith perspectives but that we ought to understand more than just the surface of our beliefs. For me, knowing that I was pro-life was a good thing but eventually it was not enough. Without researching the issue, it became very hard to defend my beliefs and even harder to share them with others, to evangelize the pro-life mission.

The study and a deep understanding of one’s beliefs is so essential to being an evangelizing Catholic because it allows you to express your beliefs in terms that the person you’re in conversation with can understand. Without a deep understanding of your beliefs, it can be very easy to fall into a trap of doubting all your beliefs, especially when you are not surrounded by a community as supportive as Notre Dame.

Our Lady is always close to us, especially when we feel the weight of life with all its problems.
— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) February 24, 2014

Understanding your faith can be as simple as keeping up with the Pope’s activities and teachings (try following @Pontifex) and discussing points you don’t understand with family and friends or the religious on campus. Here at Notre Dame, we are surrounded by some of the premier theological scholars of our age, take advantage of that and visit them at office hours or attend one of their lectures. Don’t be afraid to have these discussions with friends of opposing beliefs, often time their questions can make you question what is at the foundation of your belief and make you research what exactly your beliefs mean. Remember that it’s okay to question where your beliefs come from, and why you believe what you do, but these questions should fuel our studies of faith rather than lead us to abandon it. 

Perceiving Pornography

Until last year I was very naïve about the pornography industry. To me, it wasn’t something that existed, wasn’t something that people wanted to look at. In a conversation with friends last year, the topic of pornography came up and I was surprised to learn that it was something that so many people on campus struggled with, people who I cared about and people who I never would have expected to struggle with it. Since then I’ve talked with friends about it, trying to figure out if it was true and what it all meant.

What I’ve learned from these conversations is that pornography is something that everyone, and especially men, have to deal with at some point in their lives. (Women are affected as well, but historically it has been far more prevalent among men.) In a conversation with a friend on how he fell into porn, he described it as an “innocent accident”: “you can find anything online these days, just type something into Google and hundreds of thousands of possible sites come up. All it takes is being a little too curious and clicking the wrong link and you find something you never intended to see…for me, as a boy just hitting puberty, when I would see swimsuit ads of course I was going to be curious. It doesn’t take much at first to get the hormones running as there is no desensitization. One nude picture would be enough to get sufficiently aroused, but as time progresses it takes more. And more.” As this testimony suggests, advertisers understand that men are very visual and use this to their advantage. Once boys view porn, even if it’s on accident, they are going to be bombarded with more ads, making it a struggle for boys to consider not looking at porn.

Viewing porn, especially continuously over a long period of time, has a huge effect on a person’s mind. Having struggled with porn for several years, my friend suggested that “porn is a perversion of love in the ultimate sense. Instead of giving fully of yourself, you are taking from another. In viewing porn all I would care about is my pleasure, how to get what I want…I was literally killing my sense of love. Pope John Paul II tells us very clearly that we live to love, while pornography told me you live for my lust. It rewires the brain such that I would see others as objects for my pleasure and not as humans with dignity…Once porn has turned your definition of love on its head, you turn to it instead of proper sources of love. When you’re stressed, super busy, get rejected, or searching for something to do all it takes is just one little click of the mouse and you are back into it. In all of those cases, I was looking for love and instead of turning to friends or family, pornography filled that hole.”

Movies rated X often have displays of pornography

Unlike drug or alcohol addictions, porn addictions are never talked about on campus. We persuade ourselves that as Catholics or good students, this is something that surely does not affect our friends or family members. Or if we are struggling with it, we persuade ourselves that it is something that we must struggled with alone; in some ways, it is not something that we are not allowed to struggle with. Rather than shying away from this topic, however, it would be much more fruitful to acknowledge its presence. Challenge friends we know who view porn to stop.  As my friend suggested to me, “I cannot count the number of times I wish I had been caught. Deep down I wanted someone to discover it, to force me out, to bring the shame to the surface so I no longer had to hide it…I was a lucky one though, for just as porn had driven me away from an understanding of love, my friends and family, and the love that we shared brought me back. After years of struggle and finally opening up to some friends with similar struggles, I was finally able to dump porn altogether…Pornography distorts love. That is its most basic and harmful aspect. The best weapon we have against that is living a life of true love by gift of self. ” Perhaps in bringing to light some of the effects of porn in conversations with friends we can work to change the culture. 

Notre Dating

I’ve heard more often than not that the dating culture at Notre Dame, or “Notre Dating”, is unusual. I disagree though, I think the dating culture is strange in our generation, that this is a not a problem isolated to Notre Dame. The fact that we have single sex dorms, that many students identify as Catholic, or at least religious, and that we have an entire department related to gender relations may give the perception that our culture is atypical, but I’d like to offer a different conclusion: that our entire generation has lost its understanding of what it means to date.

Growing up in society today, young men and women are taught that we must go to the best college possible, focus on our careers, be leaders within our clubs or dorms and everything in between. Peer pressure teaches us that we must look like we are having a great time on the weekend, that we have to be up to date on the latest music, TV shows, celebrity scandals and make sure we have at least a couple of Instagram and SnapChat -able moments throughout the week. Young women have the added pressure of being up to date on the latest fashion trends and young men must finish the newest X-box or PlayStation game and know every possible fact about sports. Oh yea, and don’t forget about classes, you need to get straight A’s. All of this adds up to a lot of pressure, little time for sleep and even less time for relationships; it’s no wonder that we no longer know how to date, we don’t have time for it!

This mountain of pressure and stress, however, does not have the power to overtake our natural desire to love and to be loved. Instead, the pressure allows this desire to manifest itself in a way that is entirely unhealthy. Our generation has managed to replace traditional dating with hook-ups and one night stands. We have been trained to not get attached, check our emotions at the door and allow our physical desires to rule. In some ways, I would argue that we are not responsible for this mindset. We have grown up in a culture in which half of all marriages end up in divorce, we are constantly bombarded with messages from the media that relationships ought to be casual and that we are not worthy of love until we have attained bodily perfection. Yet it is childish to suggest that we are not responsible for our own actions.

In many ways you can argue that this atypical dating culture is because so many of us have grown up in broken homes or witnessed friends struggle with their family. While I think there is a prevalent misunderstanding of marriage that attributes to this culture, I also think there is a prevalent misunderstanding of dating and the goals of dating. What does it mean to date? At what point are we ready to date? And what does dating entail?

These are questions that I’ve heard professors speak about, that I’ve had discussions with friends about and that I’ve struggled to understand myself. To me, dating must have a goal, without which it loses its purpose. The goal of dating seems obvious in my mind, to find the person you are going to marry. But does this mean you have to be ready to get married before you start dating someone? I don’t think so. Marriage is the complete union of two people, it is not something that you can prepare for by yourself and so it makes no sense that you would be ready for marriage before you find someone to marry. I do think, however, that you have to be open to the possibility of marriage in the next few years before you start dating. I’ve heard a professor tell students that dating can only end two ways: in heart break or in marriage. Following this logic, we ought to be mature enough to consider the idea of marriage, otherwise we are simply on a self-destructive path. This goal, this understanding of why we want to date, seems so lost in college life today. I have heard many people say that they want a significant other and yet it seems like we don’t consider what this commitment may entail, and whether we are even ready for commitment. While there is no perfect answer, it is certainly something worth considering and taking an introspective look at, as well as a conversation worth having with friends and family, or someone you are considering dating.

This Wednesday night, Campus Ministry’s event Theology on Tap provides the perfect atmosphere to have this discussion in a relaxed atmosphere with friends and classmates. Join Bree Haler at 8pm at Legends as she discusses the two different extremes of trends in today’s romantic relationships. (All ages welcome).

The University's Call to Love

Two and a half years ago I was confronted with a difficult decision, whether to remain at Providence College where I spent my freshman year or to transfer to Notre Dame, which had always been my dream school. After my first semester at Providence, I really did not even want to apply to transfer to Notre Dame. I loved it. I had great friends, professors who pushed me and a supportive atmosphere. After some encouragement from my parents, however, I decided to apply and was thrilled to be accepted. Even after I received the acceptance I was unsure of my decision. On the final day to send in my letter of acceptance, I was in the car driving through the Blue Mountain Ridge on my way to a family vacation and made my decision to dive in, challenging myself to leave my comfort zone and transfer to Notre Dame.

It wasn’t until I became involved in various activities on campus that I realized that what made Notre Dame so special was its true Catholic identity. Not to say that Providence wasn’t Catholic but that Notre Dame has really been challenged as an institution, constantly criticized and forced to stand strong to protect its Catholic mission.

Last week, the University of Notre Dame received a special blessing from Pope Francis I. Pope Francis’ remarks were one of accolade and a reminder to stay true to the true mission of Notre Dame – to the “missionary spirit” which inspired Fr. Sorin to found Notre Dame in 1842. As we celebrate the 200th birthday of Fr. Sorin, Pope Francis’ words are a reminder to stay true to our beliefs, “It is my hope that the University of Notre Dame will continue to offer unambiguous testimony to this aspect of its foundational Catholic identity, especially in the face of efforts, from whatever quarter, to dilute that indispensable witness. And this is important: its identity, as it was intended from the beginning. To defend it, to preserve it and to advance it!”.

The Catholic mission of Notre Dame is what makes me so proud when I tell people that I go to Notre Dame. This mission is constantly shown in various events and activities on campus from Appalachia trips sponsored by the Center for Social Concerns to various worship and leadership opportunities supported by Campus Ministry. This weekend, Notre Dame will host the Edith Stein conference on campus, showing once again that Notre Dame is not only dedicated to educating the mind but to feeding the spirit.

The Edith Stein conference is a yearly tradition centered on the life and teaching of St. Edith Stein who dedicated her life as a Carmelite sister and died in Auschwitz, unwilling to deny her faith. This year’s theme is “Relationships and the Call to Love”, based off of Blessed Pope John Paul II’s call to love as “the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being”. The conference, though open to all, is specifically geared toward Catholic women, highlighting Notre Dame’s dedication to advancing the understanding of the role of women in the Catholic Church. The various conference speakers will address the question of exploring how “the differences between men and women [can] beseen as gifts, and not limitations”.

Notre Dame is a special university not because it is Catholic but because it is committed to educating the mind and the heart, just as Congregation of Holy Cross founder, Basil Moreau intended. The Edith Stein conference is yet another example of Notre Dame’s dedication to its student body and a reminder of why I’m proud to say that I am now a member of the Irish community.

Registration for the conference is free to all ND/SMC/HCC participants, registration and an entire conference schedule can be found here.