Generation L

by Carol Kennedy of CarolsComments.com

WHILE WE WATCHED THE BRADY BUNCH...
It is popular today to categorize American adults in terms of their generation: Generation X, Baby Boomers, Baby Busters, etc. I think the Catholic Church, at least in this country, has produced a generation that I like to call "Generation L."

"HERE'S THE STORY...
...OF A LOST GENERATION"
Generation L is the generation who was born just prior to and after Vatican II, from the mid 1950's to the later 1960's. Generation L is the generation that attended elementary school about the time when religious, priests, and theologians began to openly defy Church authority. The first major attack on this authority came through their rejection of Humane Vitae. Then other attacks followed with the rejection of papal authority, doctrine, and practice.

Generation L experienced the effects of this rebellion first hand with the sisters in the Catholics schools abandoning their habits. My husband, a member of Generation L, can still recall when Sister Juliet showed up at school in a modernized habit that showed wisps of her gray hair and her nylon covered legs. Later that year, other sisters dropped their habits all together and showed up in jeans and sandals. Other members of Generation L began hearing that Fr. "such and such" or Sister "so in so" were leaving their life-long vocation to "find themselves"...together.

Generation L is the generation upon whom many catechetical experiments were performed, such as "collage catechesis", "God is love and love is God", and the ever popular "Don't give them the answers, just the questions." By the way, the fancy titles are mine, but many of you must recognize the trend. Quite a few of these experiments are still being conducted today despite the fact that history has shown they have failed, and have failed miserably.

"THIS IS WHY WE ALL BECAME GENERATION LOST"
I call this group of people Generation L because we were Left Behind; we were Lost. I guess you could call us Losers. We happened to be born in a well-planned void. It was planned, I am convinced, by the evil one himself. He reveled in the way we were sent off to Catholic schools and CCD programs in which we had our faith stolen from us.

For many of us, our parents grew up at a time when the teaching of the Faith could be entrusted to the good sisters at school. Our parents were sent to Catholic school and there they learned their faith from the many religious sisters that ran Catholic schools at that time. When they went home, for the most part, the culture in the neighborhood and on the TV, if they had one, supported the basic message they received at school. However, when our parents became our parents, the good sisters could no longer be trusted, the neighborhood was swiftly becoming a danger to the moral conscience, and the TV was openly assaulting our souls. Our parents were broadsided and we were left behind and lost.

As a result, when we went off to Catholic school or CCD classes, our parents assumed we were learning the Faith and that we would not make the same mistakes as the newsmakers of the day: the young people with the long hair and dirty clothes singing "Give peace a chance." We would be OK, because the good sisters would teach us and keep us in line. But, what our parents didn't realize was that we were not learning the Faith any longer.

Starting in elementary school we were getting a watered down version of the Catholic Faith and more and more doctrine was being left out. By the time most of us got to high school the teachings of the Church, especially the moral ones, were being openly contradicted by our teachers–lay, religious, and clergy alike.

Many of our parents were mystified at what had happened to the sweet children they had sent off in their plaid uniforms at age six. Why did these kids hate going to Mass so much? Why did these kids look down on their parents so much? Why were their girls pregnant at fifteen? Why were their boys so apathetic about school, life, even sports?

It was a difficult time for young Catholics. We saw very little reason to adhere to the morality that our parents seemed to expect, and there was no support or explanation of that morality in the catechesis we received. The liturgy to which we were exposed seemed like it was "cool" in junior high, then it became sentimental in high school, and irrelevant by college. We were told to be involved in our parish, but for those of us who couldn't sing, or wouldn't dare get up in front of people to read, it appeared that our parish had no need for us.

All of these things led many of us to the conclusion that our Catholic Faith was really not a necessary part of our lives. Sure it made you feel good to go to Mass with the family on Christmas and Easter. And it was fun to complain about the nuns in Catholic school and what you used to give up for lent. But, in the long run most of what we used to believe or do seemed disconnected to real life. Trying to be really Catholic (at least according to what we were taught that it meant to be Catholic) was like trying to live in an episode of The Brady Bunch–fun for awhile, but impossible to sustain without getting nauseous.

WHERE HAVE YOU GONE JOHNNY BRAVO?
Generation L was the generation that came of age after the major part of the rebellion had already permanently changed the Church (the liturgy, the lack of religious habits, the open dissent) and before anyone realized how bad things had gotten. Today some young Catholics are beginning to benefit from hindsight and can see that dropping the disciplines and challenging the moral teachings has not led to more happy Catholics. Rather, it has led to fewer Catholics and more slavery to sin. Hopefully they will be able to avoid the pitfalls of youth.

For Generation L, this realization often came after our lives had already been messed up by foolish marriages, hasty divorces, drugs, and STD's or all of the above. Or even worse, the lives of our loved ones, especially our children, had been ruined by our mistakes.

Could Generation L have avoided these things if we had been learning what being made in the image and likeness of God means for human sexuality instead of making a collage of couples acting out love for each other –like the ones in pictures of Woodstock?

Could Generation L have avoided these things if we had been given deep and mysterious liturgy from childhood through young adulthood instead of four verses of Kumbaya?

Could Generation L have avoided these things if we had been given churches filled with smells and bells and the art of Michaelangelo, Bernini, and others instead of ten foot high banners with bumper sticker messages like "Bloom where you're planted"?

Could Generation L have avoided these things if we had been given answers to our questions instead of more questions to ask ourselves?

Could Generation L have avoided these things if we had been exposed to Aquinas, Augustine, and Edith Stein–Great Thinkers of the Church instead of Lennon, McCartney, and Cat Stevens–mere pop stars?

Could Generation L have avoided these things if we had been taught that being a lay Catholic did not mean being a lector, but transforming the culture from within–in the school, the workplace and the home?

We will never really know the answer to these questions. I suspect that the answer to each question is "probably". However, the only value of these reflections is the wisdom we get from looking back at mistakes that were made. We must apply that wisdom to the raising of future generations.

We are now the parents and we have the benefit of hindsight. We have seen how bad things can get when the Church is not presented to our children in all her Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. Let's not make the same mistakes over again. Let's give our children liturgy filled with mystery and beauty; let's give them true answers to all of their questions; let's inspire them to transform their culture by the renewal of their minds proving what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (cf. Romans 12:2)

In 1997, Carol Kennedy received her MA in Theology with a certification in Catechetics from Franciscan University. She spent the next year teaching catechetical methods at the university. She then moved on to Ann Arbor, Michigan where she worked with the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist as the DRE of the Spiritus Sanctus Academies. While in Ann Arbor she met her husband, Jim Kennedy, on the Ave Maria Catholic Singles website. Carol now lives in Northern California with her growing family.