Cardinal Clancy Centre for Research in the Spiritual, Moral, Religious and Pastoral Dimensions of Education.
Spiritual, Moral and Religious Education is a Flagship area for Research in Australian Catholic University

On Catholicism and Religious Education:   Cardinal Lustiger, Archbishop of Paris

In August 2001, Cardinal Jean Lustiger visited Australia.   In Sydney he delivered the Helder Camara lectures.   At an informal discussion at Australian Catholic University in Sydney, he joined in dialogue about the church, the role of a Catholic University and contemporary ministry.

Both one the Directors of the Catholic Education Office and Cardinal Clancy talked about the contrast between the declining numbers of parish mass goers while Catholic schools are unable to take in all of the students that parents would like to enrol.   The question was asked:   “Why is the younger generation not participating in the local church?”

In his reply, Cardinal Lustiger asked an alternative question:  “But why did many more people go to mass on Sundays in the past”?   His own personal interpretation of the issue suggested that attendance at mass within the Catholic culture earlier this century was an integral part of “social control” --  it was an inbuilt part of being in a Catholic sub-culture.   Sunday mass attendance was a fundamental, relatively unquestioned and well accepted part of what it meant to be Catholic.   There was a cultural/psychological orientation (some would even use the word “pressure”) to attend mass on Sundays.   There was even an element of fear in the motivation that affected people’s mass attendance.   Some would worry about what might happen to them if they did not attend.

That same sort of social control does not apply today – for a number of complicated reasons.   How and why things have changed in contemporary culture as well as within Catholic Church are difficult questions to answer.   And the answers are complex.   Catholicism needs to be able to communicate meaningfully with its people without the ‘old’ social control.

However, the interest that the Archbishop of Paris had in following this line of thought was to note that many young people today are subject to a more subtle form of social control than was the case earlier—and they are not aware of it.

His special interest in Christian ministry is to help show people that Christian life in the modern world is all about ‘true liberty’.

Liberty, in the French sense of the word, is intended to mean much more than simply freedom, as a loose English translation might tend to suggest.   Amongst many other things, it means a critical awareness of contemporary processes of social control.   In particular, the media and the commercial world are making a pervasive contribution in subtly defining for people what constitutes the good life and happiness.   What makes this message more difficult to challenge is that it is not presented as an argument or case.   It is just presented as reality—and often a reality stimulated and reinforced by omnipresent, vivid images.

Cardinal Lustiger’s view of Christian ministry sees a very important place for promoting the critical interpretation of culture and helping people aspire towards a responsive awareness of the shaping influence that culture can have on beliefs, values and behaviour.   If Religious Education can contribute in this direction it will make a very valuable contribution.

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