by Megan Buhrmann

On the brink of a second lockdown, what will ongoing government restrictions mean for our Church? Our identity is already changing. 50% of Catholics have yet to return to Mass, many rightly aware of their health. What’s not yet clear is the percentage of Catholics who discovered they weren’t struck by lightning when the Sunday obligation was lifted, and now wonder about having to go every week. Or those who never really ‘got’ the Real Presence, and are content to ‘watch’ Mass enjoying a cup of coffee, much to the alarm of Cardinal Sarah.

Why is the good Cardinal worried the obligation has been lifted for so long? Traditionally, Roman Catholics have (over?) valued obedience. If that changes, what else might change in the way we approach the faith? We haven’t always had such a focus on obedience. In the Garden of Eden, there was just the one rule; don’t eat of the fruit of the tree of good and evil. In defying God, Adam and Eve came to understand for themselves the difference between right and wrong. And there the rot set in… because this is the genesis of so many of our rules and regulations about who’s in and who’s out. The genesis of the kind of faith that turns my generation off. The ‘waggy finger’ kind of faith that makes it hard to evangelise.