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The observer | Wednesday, March 31, 2021 | ndsmcobserver.com

Am I Catholic?

Ashton Weber

Living relig-ish

I try not to plan my columns too far in advance because I want my words to be timely. Yet, most times I sit down to write a column, it ends up being about my weird relationship with religion. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out why this happens and I think it’s probably because I go to a catholic school and interact with the church a lot. but I think there’s also something to be said for the fact that the church played such a huge role in forming the way I live. so, without further ado, here’s another look into Ashton’s faith life!

The other day, someone asked me if I still consider myself catholic. They said, “I assumed you don’t, but I was curious to check.”

I had to think for a minute about what my answer should be because I realize how complicated my relationship with the church has become. I don’t go to mass or say traditional prayers, but I still read lots of theology (if it’s feminist, womanist, mujerista or related to liberation) and spend considerable amounts of time thinking about the future of the church.

When the congregation for the doctrine of the Faith releases statements like the one saying priests cannot bless same-sex marriages because the church “cannot bless sin,” they have no bearing on the way I live my life. Yet, I still find myself upset to the point of tears. so, am I catholic? something that was a crucial part of your life for 16 years doesn’t just stop influencing you when you stop interacting with it. many of its lessons will be deeply entwined with your beliefs and behaviors, and it’s up to you to do the hard work of disentangling what you really believe and who you want to be from its ideology. beyond the hard work of disentangling myself from the catholic church’s structures, I’ve had to think a lot about what it means to be catholic. Were the harmful teachings I internalized actually in line with what Jesus preached? not exactly. but I was told so many times that people who don’t follow the church 100% are just fake catholics. so, could I be catholic if I reject the teachings of the hierarchy and embrace theologies of liberation? According to my indoctrination, no. so, am I not catholic?

I could accept that. I don’t really want to be part of the institutional church that has been complicit in the harm of marginalized communities for decades. The church as a formal and hierarchical structure has brought a lot of pain and rejection into my life. but, at many points, the church as a community has brought me a lot of joy. many of my best childhood memories have to do with church. I loved getting dressed up for holiday services and singing happy songs with the rest of the congregation. even if I now disagree with some of the things we learned in church camps, I had a ton of fun attending vacation bible school when I was in elementary school and teaching the camp’s art classes when I was in middle school. I loved going to church festivals and participating in parish picnics. since the majority of my education has been taught by catholic schools, every good memory I have from school is also a good memory of the church. so, am I catholic? on a practical level, I suppose the answer is technically yes. I’ve been baptized, and in eighth grade I decided to get confirmed. however, according to the theology classes I took in high school, I have been disengaged with the institutional church for so long now that I have “abandoned the faith” and am essentially excommunicated, albeit informally.

This leads me to wonder: do I have the right to be so critical of catholic teachings and leadership if I’ve already decided that I won’t allow them to dictate my life?

In my theology class this semester, “Theologizing Women,” my peers and I have been having this discussion a lot. I’ve come to the conclusion that the church has been such a force in my life that I do have the right to claim space in conversations about it. I should be allowed to criticize the church and push it towards something that can be better and truer and more liberatory for every person who, like me, feels rejected by its teachings.

The catholic church is part of my story and my family’s story. even if I can’t accept my place within it anymore, I should absolutely be permitted to demand changes that would allow me to return. so, am I catholic?

I guess the answer isn’t as simple as I might have hoped it to be. I’m learning to hold the complexity of my relationship with catholicism and to find places for it to fit into my life. right now, that looks like active engagement with radical theologies that center people who the church often marginalizes. It means speaking out against church teachings that cause harm and giving myself enough distance from the church that I can be safe from this harm. maybe someday the answer will become clearer. Perhaps I’ll fully embrace the church, or perhaps I’ll leave completely and never look back. but, for now, I feel comfortable living in the in-between and continuing to engage with the question:

Am I catholic?

LeTTer TO The edITOr

KERRY SCHNEEMAN | The Observer

Ashton Weber is a junior with lots of opinions. She is majoring in gender studies and economics with a minor in sociology. Ashton can often be found with her nose in a book, but if you want to chat about intersectional feminism, baking blueberry scones, growing ZZ plants or anything else, she’d love to hear from you. Reach Ashton at aweber22@nd.edu or @awebz01 on Twitter.

The views expressed in this column are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Observer.

Editor’s note: This story includes descriptions of sexual abuse and violence. A list of sexual assault reporting options and on-campus resources can be found on the Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s and Holy Cross websites.

Pulling pigtails and name-calling are the early warning signs, yet we tell our little girls that they are displays of affection. That a little boy’s teasing is because he has a crush on you. This behavior goes unchecked, sending the message that disrespect is tolerated so long as you are a guy.

When our little boys turn into young men, they remember how their actions were never corrected. They take advantage of this. Touch a girl. Kiss a girl. do what you want when you want. This is a man’s world, right? We normalize a woman’s risk. The risk of being slut-shamed The risk of being harassed of being raped. Killed. but remember it is never the guy’s responsibility. They are not taught to take responsibility.

They’ll blame it on her clothes, or her attitude, or how drunk she was. Those little boys were never told to stop pulling that pigtail or saying that nickname. They were never taught to respect girls.

And so that little boy, the “great kid” that all the neighborhood moms love, grows up to be a woman’s worst nightmare. he grows up with complete disregard for a woman’s well-being. he grows up and he strips us of our dignity self-love Innocence virginity respect confidence

he leaves us to pick up the pieces of our lives he so willing shattered. no remorse, no penitence. because he did nothing wrong, remember? There are no consequences for his actions. The cycle continues.

When will enough be enough? how did we get to 97%?

97%

Carolina Bolivar

first-year march 19

The observer | Wednesday, March 31, 2021 | ndsmcobserver.com

Confront our free-expression problem

Gregory Miller

bridgend

Universities face a problem with free expression and civil dialogue on campuses nationwide, and notre dame is no exception. The student body and administration must take expansive steps to creating a culture of robust and constructive disagreement. The first step should be to recognize that the academic journey toward truth requires uncomfortable and challenging conversations, disassociating ourselves from the contemporary (often reactionary) telos of comfort.

In a recent center for social concerns survey on notre dame campus attitudes, students were asked whether campus climate discourages individuals from freely speaking their opinions. A surprising 66% of notre dame students agreed with the statement. For perspective, a university, the central hub of the marketplace of ideas, should strive for that number to be zero.

The University must take an active role in promoting campus dialogue. The first several weeks on campus are the most formative in setting expectations of campus culture. From the first days on campus, the University should inculcate students into an atmosphere of civil disagreement. Welcome Weekend should include explicit calls to de-bias, starting with informing students of the ways cognitive biases operate. The moreau First Year experience curriculum must actively promote disagreement. Political conversations and disagreement should be at the forefront of the moreau experience, and disagreement should have a more active role throughout the entire year.

Professors should foster disagreement in classrooms, not only because of the virtue of civil dialogue but because of its ability to reinforce learning. As an economics student, each course I have taken has potential to spur debates on pertinent topics, yet no course has allowed students to dive deep into those disagreements with each other. Professors can and should devote class time to group conversations — which should start with each student explicitly stating their current views, including areas of uncertainty, thus giving students opportunities to engage with different perspectives. no one can shy away. departments can and should support this process. The department of economics, for instance, is uniquely situated to be the first department to make meaningful action due to the nature of the material. Tradeoffs should not only be learned through didactic lectures, devoid of meaningful relation to real-world decision making, but should be debated and weighed through conversations among students. Professors should be taught methods of incorporating these conversations into their courses. For dedicated students, the economics department should consider creating an undergraduate fellows program for engagement in economic theory.

Ultimately, though, students create culture. conservatives, unsurprisingly, were 2.5 times more likely to strongly or very strongly agree that students cannot speak freely on campus. There is a tendency among liberals to conflate political beliefs with personal morals and, simultaneously, a tendency among conservatives to conflate personal criticism with political attacks. These tendencies dually explain the divergence between conservative and liberals on feelings of open expression.

Liberals and progressives must expand the scope of the tolerance they correctly practice to include tolerance of political disagreement. Just as context shapes an individual’s chance of success, so too does context shape an individual’s political thought. Political beliefs should be met with understanding and charitable interpretation, not an automatic assumption of bigotry and moral inferiority. conservatives, themselves, should embrace the individualism they espouse and fight the temptation to be offended by being the dissenting voice. conservatives must welcome the discomfort of disagreement; the “silent majority” is only silent insofar as conservatives remain silent.

We can harness the power of the hall communities. Individuals should work with their rectors and hall presidents to host occasional bridge-style events to discuss politics. I have started hosting these in duncan to great success, and I encourage readers of this article to do the same.

If you are ready to engage in uncomfortable conversations, bridgend will be hosting a discussion series with free food. each discussion will place individuals at tables to create ideological diversity. The first will center on abortion, the next on race and the last on gender and identity. These are three of the most controversial issues of our time, and they are, therefore, three topics most in need of deep, but civil, disagreement. Let’s embrace the discomfort.

Junior Gregory Miller is an ACMS and economics major from Duncan Hall and is co-president of BridgeND.

BridgeND is a multi-partisan political club committed to bridging the partisan divide through respectful and productive discourse. It meets on Tuesdays at 5 p.m. in the McNeill Room of LaFortune Student Center to learn about and discuss current political issues, and can be reached at bridgend@nd.edu or @bridge_ND on Twitter.

The views expressed in this column are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Observer.

Principles for thee, but not for me

Eva Analitis

on second Thought

one of the most remarkable things about politics is what it does to people, rather than for them. In a year when the stakes were enormously high, believing that our overarching goals were good, many of us at one point or another defended some pretty bad behavior on the part of politicians. In pursuit of an ultimately good end, we become so hellbent on ensuring the triumph of our own side that we fail to recognize wrong along the way. sometimes, our principles take a backseat to power. republicans typically claim to revere the U.s. constitution and the American system. on november 2, 2020, I would have believed that they did. They are the patriots, right? In the days after the election, however, I was not so sure. I saw people who claim to love America willing to destroy it and shatter all norms just so their beloved president could stay in office. People who had said if Trump lost the election, they would “get up and go to work the next day” and continue on with their lives, living in total denial of the results as they were certified in the following weeks. A few republican voters even said to me, as it became clear that Joe biden had secured enough electoral votes to win, “Just wait. This will go to the supreme court, and they’ll settle everything.”

To the people who had this mindset, I ask: What would you say if hillary clinton had behaved this way after the 2016 election? better yet, what would you say if, in 2020, donald Trump had received 306 electoral votes as well as approximately 7 million more popular votes than Joe biden, but democratic voters insisted that the election was not over and that recounts and court cases would set things straight? You would call them sore losers, fascists and traitors. Are you now not the same? my point, however, is not really about Trump. We’ve moved on to a new administration, and I will not harp on the past. While Trump is now gone, however, this cognitive dissonance remains. A record-high number of migrant children are arriving at the southern U.s. border, likely prompted by President biden’s more lax immigration rhetoric relative to his predecessor. According to bbc news, as of march 21, U.s. customs and border Patrol is holding more than 15,500 unaccompanied children in custody. Additionally, “At least 5,000 children have been kept for over 72 hours, the legal limit after which they are meant to be transferred to the custody of health officials in the office of refugee resettlement (orr).”

As supposedly better-equipped orr facilities have reached capacity, the biden administration is reopening temporary overflow facilities. Journalists have thus far been denied access to the facilities — I imagine because the government is afraid of what conditions the journalists will find. A photo of the facility in donna, Texas, released by Texas rep. henry cuellar, shows migrants huddled together, unable to maintain social distance and sleeping on foil blankets on the floor.

To those jumping through hoops to downplay the humanitarian crisis at the border, I now ask: What would you say if this situation occurred under President Trump? What did you say when a similar situation more or less did in fact occur? Kids in cages, families being torn apart, inhumane conditions. What’s so different about this time? spare me the arguments over “cages” under Trump versus physically nicer structures now. The core issue is effectively the same: children crowded into facilities, apart from their parents or families — this time during a pandemic caused by a highly contagious virus.

It’s tempting to see only the good in our preferred political side and overlook its shortcomings, especially when we think its cause is the most righteous overall. however, in the political haze, the only way to maintain a clear vision of morals and justice is to look at everything through the same lens. If a certain behavior is a problem when the opposing side does it, it should also be a problem when our side does it. We cannot determine the morality of an action based on who is performing it. “What do you think about so-and-so scandal?” “hold on, let me check whether the candidate I voted for is involved, then I’ll get back to you.” sure, in a system where we elect representatives from typically only two real choices, we probably won’t agree with everything that either one of them says and does. casting our ballots is almost always a compromise — we simply choose which candidate is more closely aligned with our priorities. but still, we cannot let this turn us into “yes-men” for our preferred candidates, abandoning our capacity for critical evaluation of their policies and actions. otherwise, we will end up excusing politicians — and we do — for unethical behavior regarding topics we do not particularly care about, so long as they deliver on the topics we consider most important to us. We cannot in good conscience adopt this attitude.

Just because Joe biden supports the equality Act doesn’t mean he gets a free pass on the border. Just because donald Trump cut your taxes doesn’t mean he gets a pass to embolden white supremacists. We must keep our principles and remain vigilant, ready to call out any official for wrongdoing. don’t sell your soul for an election win. Parties come into and fall out of power. movements rise and fall. candidates and leaders come and go — but the precedents they set, the policies they enact and the way we behave in response to their time in office will have consequences that long outlast them. so, when your favorite officials — or even the candidate for whom you begrudgingly cast your ballot — come under fire for something they said or did, don’t be so quick to defend them. Instead, ask yourself: What if the other side did it?

Eva Analitis is a junior in Lyons Hall majoring in political science and pre-health. Even though she often can’t make up her own mind, that won’t stop her from trying to change yours. She can be reached at eanaliti@nd.edu or @evaanalitis on Twitter.

The views expressed in this column are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Observer.