A priest on finding, losing faith

ABBIE SMITH Staff Writer

“I became a mental health counselor with a focus on addictions. What I noticed was that everybody I was working with in addictions, if they were able to embrace their spiritual nature, all of those people were able to heal much more completely and quickly and easily,” Whitney said.

“This led me to think, okay, there must be something to this. What is it? There is something, but it’s not quantifiable. It was right around this time that I started gravitating back towards faith myself.”

In a time where college students are creating a new class schedule every semester, moving once or twice a year and trying to figure out what’s coming next for them after graduation, there’s a plethora of instability and uncertainty. Students are also questioning their identity

“I belong to an order of priests called the Paulist Fathers and one of our focuses in campus ministry is how we can help you transition into what we think of as an ‘adult’ Catholic,” Whitney said. “You know, you went to church and did all those things with your parents because that’s what you did with your parents, so now it’s got to become yours. As you move your identity from your parents’ child into your own person, how can faith and spirituality help you move further and forward?”

Week of 4/10/23 - 4/16/23

Having grown up in the South and attending Catholic school for all of my adolescent years, Catholicism has provided me with many opportunities. I got confirmed my sophomore year of high school and my sponsor was a man named Monsignor Carr – the pastor of our church. My mindset was “go big or go home,” in part because it was funny to have my pastor be my confirmation sponsor, and the other part was because I had stopped identifying with Catholicism years before then.

That being said, I’m still open to Catholicism. It had such a large impact on the way I function and how I’ve structured my life. My Catholic school taught me routine. The community around me gave me friendships and relationships that are going to last as long as I’m alive (if my parents and grandparents are any example to follow).

I had a conversation recently with Father Richard Whitney, a priest at St. John XXIII here on the campus, where we talked about the phenomenon of college students distancing themselves from faith and why it matters.

Fr. Whitney discussed his own experience of falling away from the church for a period of time, from middle school until he was 40. The big question for college students and those who have lost touch with their faith, Whitney thinks, is “What’s this got to do with me?”

Fr. Whitney grew up in Boston and did not have the same type of upbringing I did, where religion was ingrained in my life and where the church and the community were almost one and the same. Whitney likens John XXIII on UT’s campus to a neighborhood within a larger city, UT. We discussed the guilt that comes with leaving your community, your church and drifting further from religion.

“I think the guilt is counterproductive,” Whitney said. “Especially in this case, because what it tends to do generally is make a person hunker down and want to move away from it. I think what’s much more helpful is to have a venue where people like you can ask questions about faith without it being seen negatively. A lot of our rules and suggestions as Catholics fall into a gray area, but there’s not a way to question the rules without polarization.”

Fr. Whitney is trying to create that venue for anyone who is questioning their faith or searching for information. He keeps his door open and wants to offer help to people who are willing to seek it. Personally, after this talk with him, some of my questions about faith were answered, but the work remains unfinished.

“There’s an emptiness that people are trying to fill,” Whitney said in closing. “But when trying to stop the pain that comes with emptiness, you can grab the good thing, the bad thing or the best thing. The best thing takes more effort.”

If you want to attend mass at John XXIII, they have daily mass at 5:05 p.m. Monday-Friday, mass at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday and at 9 a.m., 11:15 a.m. (live streamed), 5:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Sundays.