A few years back, I was standing in line at the grocery store, shuffling canned goods and boxes of cereal onto the conveyor belt, when a particularly raunchy Rolling Stone magazine cover caught my attention. The display was at eye-level with my three young children, who were already staring at it. Trust me, it was disgusting.
Glancing at the signs that proclaimed, “This is a Candy-Free Check Out Lane,” I decided to light one very small candle instead of cursing the dark. I complained to the cashier that the magazine was inappropriate and should be placed elsewhere.
She stared at me blankly. I persisted and showed her the magazine cover. She responded by asking me how many pastries were in my bakery bag, so she could ring them up.
I went on undaunted, saying “If you’re going to have candy-free lanes, shouldn’t you have smut-free lanes too?” That’s when the people behind me started to fidget uncomfortably.
Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, as they say. I took a breath and asked to speak to the store manager. That’s when the eyes started rolling and the tongues began to cluck in disapproval all around me. But here’s what surprised me the most: there wasn’t a soul there under the age of 65, including the cashier, the man bagging my groceries and the customers in my line and adjacent lanes. Some were quite elderly, with canes or walkers. And no one came to my support.
Fast-forward to last week at a local prayer group where I am, literally, the only woman under the age of 70. Over coffee, this group of seniors was celebrating the “change” that would arrive when newly-elected Barack Obama took the White House in January. “The Catholic Church will just have to listen now,” said one, her rosary beads still warm in her pocket from our prayer session. “It’s so exciting that the old ways are finally going to be put behind us.”
Whatever happened to sweet old people who could be counted on to smile at children, open doors for women and honor the traditions of the Catholic faith? I’ll tell you what happened, they’ve gone haywire.
The Church can talk about evangelizing the younger generations with catechesis and outreach programs that motivate and inspire, but I’m here to tell you there’s a serious generation gap going on and it’s not just the young people.
My mother is one of them. This lovely woman, who hasn’t missed Sunday mass in 50 years, and who used to teach the neighborhood children their religious education on Wednesday afternoons, is an 85-year-old stereotype of a senior gone haywire. Not too long ago, she announced to me that priests should be allowed to marry “because then they would understand how hard it is for the rest of us.”
Not particularly complimentary to my father, the poor guy.
When I patiently explained to her that a priest is called to be set apart from us, to be married to the Church and to be an Alter Christus, she answered, “Well, Jesus was married, wasn’t He? He even had kids. They never told us that in the old days but now everything’s coming out.”
Everything’s coming out, all right, like sewage out of a blocked septic system.
It used to be that with age came wisdom, that with life’s experiences a person grew closer to God, shedding unimportant material concerns in favor of a more enlightened attitude about life and death.
Not any more. The generation we used to be able to count on to stand for conservative values is not so reliable now, and many Catholic seniors are losing their religious sensibilities. Fueled by liturgical confusion, lack of Episcopal leadership, and a late-in-life casual attitude, more of them seem to be questioning what they missed out on during all those years of Latin Masses and Baltimore Catechism lessons. The reasons may vary, but here are a several frontrunners:
- Poor catechesis. Many of the senior and elderly Catholics I’ve talked to practice their faith without understanding it. Instead of applying faith and logic, it’s more of a reflex action. That was passable when priests could be trusted to be orthodox and our culture was not outwardly hostile to the Gospel. Now, subtle and not-so-subtle heresies are rampant and this generation is often confused and unable to defend doctrine to others or to themselves.
- The Fear Factor. Many elderly Catholics seem to have based their faith on fear of being struck down by God, rather than a love for Him and an understanding of His commandments. Now, with cultural and moral shifts towards liberalism, even the eldest population of Americans is wavering. One parishioner recently told me, “I’m too old to be afraid of God anymore.”
- The perks of age. Many seniors believe their age entitles them to override most rules and customs, and that they’ve somehow transcended any struggle to be faithful in the current culture.
- Material comforts and financial security outweigh their faith. Money trumps morals. This could be said of all generations in America at this time, but it’s especially surprising among seniors, many of whom lived through early years of deprivation. According to research and polling information, senior citizens consistently choose financially-related topics as their primary concern, ahead of social, moral or religious factors.
It’s no wonder that seniors voted in record numbers for the most liberal president-elect this nation has ever seen. They fully expect, like most Americans, to get something out of the incoming administration, or at least to hold on to the financial benefits and incentives they currently have.
I’m not the only middle-ager who has noticed these trends. A friend of mine told me the other day that she was faced, quite suddenly, with defending Humanae Vitae to a group of older seniors at a meeting of lay “apostles,” (similar to a third order) at a local convent. These women maintained that the Church must allow birth control in order to combat abortion rates and that abstinence doesn’t work. She patiently informed them that birth control is a form of abortion itself. Despite her arguments, the group was skeptical of her “radical” beliefs.
As my mother has said to me, “When you’re young, you like to believe in everything the Church says, but when you’re older you decide for yourself.” She couldn’t expand on her opinion at the time — she was rushing out the door to a funeral. The man who died had been co-habitating with a friend of hers. He was 89 years old; her girlfriend is 86. Marriage hadn’t been an option because neither wanted to lose their Social Security benefits.
My apologies to all of the seniors who are reading this and who believe their generation is getting a bum rap. I’m sure there are many seniors and elderly out there who are still keeping the faith, but this trend of seniors gone haywire is significant enough to impact the economy, the culture and the recent election. Seniors are adding to our nation’s cultural woes in a significant way. Considering we are at only the beginning of the Baby Boomer generation reaching senior status — a generation long known for abhorring conservative and Christian values — this trend promises to grow and worsen.
So the next time you’re in a check out lane, be careful what you say — there just might be a senior gone haywire coming to a grocery store near you.
