Video Transcript

Edmund Mitchell:

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Real+True Podcast. I’m one of your co-host Edmund Mitchell, and today we have a fantastic episode with Dr. Timothy O’Malley. We’re going to be talking a little bit about liturgy, the sacraments, people leaving the faith, and what we could do about that, and how we get involved. And so I’m really excited for today’s episode.

Dr. Timothy O’Malley is a Notre Dame professor of theology, director of education at the McGrath Institute. He’s an academic director at Notre Dame Center for Liturgy, and he’s a founder and writer for the Church Life Journal and he has a ton of amazing articles over there.

He’s also on the advisory team for Real+True, and Dr. O’Malley researches and teaches at Notre Dame in the areas of liturgical-sacramental theology, marriage and family, Catholic higher education, catechesis, preaching, and spirituality. So, he has a lot to say on a lot of different topics, and so I really am thankful for you joining us, Dr. Tim. Thanks for being here.

Dr. Timothy O’Malley:

Thanks. Yeah, my colleagues might say I have too much to say on too many topics.

Edmund Mitchell:

That’s a good problem. So, I’m so pumped to talk about this relationship between catechesis and evangelization and the Church and then kind of its response to people being disengaged from the faith.

There’s a fantastic article that I would love to put in the show notes where you really kind of walk through this in great detail like, “What is the perception? How do we often sometimes respond to that as a Church?”

But first, I would love just for people to get a little insight into you. What has been your path of your relationship with Jesus, and then how do you find yourself in the work you do today where you’re talking about all these different topics and involved in all these different areas?

Dr. Timothy O’Malley:

Yeah. So, I am a happy Cradle Catholic. I was born in South Florida and was somewhat late actually to going to Mass and regular church attendance. I started going to Mass when I was in second grade, when my grandparents wanted to make sure I received my First Communion. So, they were like, “This is going to happen and you’re going to go.” So, I started going there.

And I think there are people in the world who have dramatic reversions or conversions to Christianity and to Catholicism. That wasn’t my story. I loved Mass from the beginning. I loved church from the beginning.

Moved to East Tennessee where I grew up, had a great youth group that, really, I think, taught me to pray well and to think about my faith. Went to Notre Dame where I was in undergraduate seminary for three years before I left to get married, eventually to the person who’s now my wife. But spent time in undergraduate seminary. I learned to pray the Liturgy of the Hours.

Really, when I think about meeting the person of Christ, it’s through the life of the Church. It’s just through the normal sort of pastoral, parochial life of the Church, and that’s where I meet him still. I meet him in the Psalms that I pray for in the Liturgy of the Hours. I meet him in the hungry and thirsty that our parishes feed and give drink to and clothe.

And then as far as… That’s my encounter there. I’m also a theologian, and I think I’ve always been attracted to theology not because I’m trying to master God, which I’d love to do in some sense, but that’s the part of me that’s full of sin, but rather that my spiritual life has always been connected to my intellectual life. The big questions I asked… I was telling a group of people…

I did my PhD on Augustine, and so every time I have a major problem in my life or every time I’m thinking about everything in my life, I always return and read as much Augustine as possible. That’s kind of where I am, and that’s where I still meet him. I meet him in study, I meet him in teaching. I meet him basically in everything that I do. Precisely because I want to consecrate my whole life to him and live a life of the spirit.

So, I’m somewhat different because, again, I’m an academic, so I spend a lot of time alone in a room reading books, but that’s still where I meet Jesus.

Edmund Mitchell:

Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, I’m very grateful for your voice in the Church.

We have a lot of parish leaders that listen to this podcast, and I’ve been in ministry for 10 years prior to working with Real+True. And one of the things that’s talked about a lot is the phenomenon of people leaving the Church, not just the Catholic Church, but religion in general. And there’s so many different interpretations of this and suggestions on what to do. But I’m interested in you explaining just your perspective on this phenomenon and contributing factors that you think are causing this.

Dr. Timothy O’Malley:

Yeah, I think the massive thing we have to do is not to find a single factor. I think that’s the temptation, “If we can fix X, then it’s all fine.” We meet this amongst a lot of people who say, “Okay, if we can only return to this form of the liturgy or if the liturgy has this kind of energy or if this happens, then necessarily all people will be Catholic and all will return to…” well, we can return to the 1950s, which is sort of wonderful and all will be well.” In fact, actually, things weren’t that great in the 1950s, it turns out, because it was out of the ’50s that the very situation that we have today has come about.

And so what I always think about is here’s what happened: religion became something that was optional. There was an optional dimension to it. Nona, for the Italians out, there was no longer standing in the back of church ensuring that you were there, and so fewer people began to go and fewer people began to go.

Now, the good news is there’s a sort of apocalypticism system in the Church around this, and I think it’s often with people who are trying to sell you something. They’re like, “This is terrible and it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened, but luckily I wrote a book and that will help you solve the problem.” In fact, it’s actually okay.

I mean, what we have right now is that people have left because they don’t have to be there. There’s not a sort of necessity. In my experience, working with undergraduates at Notre Dame, they’re not hostile to religion, but there’s not the sort of commitment there. And so the task of the Church is to creatively, with energy, with vision, to re-propose sort of everything. And so I actually think it’s a great time.

People talk about we’re in an age of disaffiliation, this is true. But I think we’re actually in a great age to invite people to affiliate, to find a home and to meet our Lord in the life of the Church. So, I think it’s a very complicated sort of problem, it involves a lot of social dynamics that led to this, but I think we’re in less of a bad situation than sometimes it’s treated.

Edmund Mitchell:

Yeah, it reminds me of a little bit of, I don’t know if it was at the time, Cardinal Ratzinger or Pope Benedict saying the Church will become small over the next couple of decades, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing but it brings a unique context.

And it also reminds me of… There was a big campaign a while back where they were putting out these commercials of, “People, return to Mass.” And one thing that parish leaders really struggled with was all these new people showed up who maybe the night before were not engaged in a church, but then what were they showing up to?

And that really is why I loved a lot of your conversation around culture and building a culture and that it’s not a quick fix. Especially, my experience in catechesis, a lot of people think, “Oh, catechesis, here’s the textbook and we’ll just do it. Or here’s this one magic method that will fix everything,” as opposed to this idea of catechesis as a craft and building a context and culture.

And so I wonder, yeah, you brought up this problem in this article where you said 99% of the week, people are not in the culture of the Church, for a lot of people. And so that means 99% of the week, they’re being informed, for better or for worse, by another culture. And so how does evangelization, catechesis, the Church, better address the lack of this Christ-centered culture that people experience on a weekly basis?

Dr. Timothy O’Malley:

Yeah, I mean, so, if, for example, the Catholicism, we were talking about one where people had to be there, had a sort of locus, it was in the actual activities of the parish. And so by this, we mean you went to the parish for the things and that was how you evangelize.

When people don’t go to the parish, it’s going to mean that, actually, the parish has to go out to people. And actually, this isn’t so revolutionary, as I like to remind people, parish isn’t a building, it’s not just like Our Lady of So-and-So. It’s actually a boundary. It’s the boundary by which the gospel is to be announced. And so what does it mean then to build a culture? It means a culture that doesn’t just stay in.

So, I think how do you start to build this culture? Well, families in homes, where is domestic practice being encouraged? And I don’t just mean amongst married people with 2.5 children or whatever, or I guess this is Catholic, so 8.5 children. We’re not just talking about that.

I’m talking about neighborhoods and domestic spaces where the gospel is lived, preparing people to live it within the workplace and to introduce it to those that they’re involved in their workplace with, who might be Catholic or might be interested in Catholicism. So, when I think about it, I think that’s part of building this culture. It’s a culture of going out, rather than just staying inward.

Parishes are very naval-gazing institutions sometimes. We love our committees and we love our programs. But how do we get out into the world into dialogue with the people who are in our neighborhood?

I love my pious students. I adore them. I love my religious students. I love going to speak to religious people. But I also love going to talk to normal human beings in normal places about things that matter in their lives. And if we can start to do that, that puts us in a much better situation. That’s part of creating that culture.

Edmund Mitchell:

Yeah, you mentioned this drop, after Vatican II, a little bit of this drop in devotional practice or culture in the home. And even though I really care about these things, I was thinking that even I’ve fallen victim to presenting doctrines of the faith or catechesis and then not really thinking about, “Well, what does this mean for this person’s everyday life? How could I celebrate this in my daily life? How do I integrate this into my home and my lifestyle?”

And I mean, do you feel like that’s part of it, too, is that we’re presenting the faith and not really giving people a way to live it out throughout the rest of the week?

Dr. Timothy O’Malley:

Yeah, I mean, that’s kind of what I meant by it being we must be persuasive. You can propose any doctrine, any teaching of the Church, if you know how to do so persuasively. And part of the persuasion is, “Well, what’s the good news for me?”

I mean, think about a particular doctrine. Jesus Christ being fully human and fully divine. God became a baby, God emptied himself, God dwells among us, and he did so to be an absolute relationship with me.

And that means that the true flourishing and happiness of human life is not about fame, fortune, prestige, but about relationship, emptying yourself in love, being in communion with others. That’s a very practical thing and I’m not sure that we have prepared catechists to propose things in this way, to propose it so that it has meaning for the person rather than that they just like, “Oh, yes, well, fully God and fully human. And I read the apologetics around it and I can explain why it’s fitting and most apt if you read St. Thomas Aquinas. I’m not against any of those things.

“But how is it existentially meaningful and what are the implications for the rest of my life? Can I articulate them?” Parents, can they articulate to their kids why this is important, not just that they go to Mass or do this, but why it’s important?

So, I think that’s part of creating this culture and part of creating an existentially meaningful Catholicism. Which, it is, you don’t have to create it, it is by nature, but to sort of teach in this way.

Edmund Mitchell:

Yeah. And it reminds me of this next point that you had made, as well. You had said, “Catholics fall into the problem of reducing sacramentality into a category relating exclusively to presence.”

And I think if sometimes when catechists start thinking, “Okay, well, why does this matter for those who we’re trying to reach?” Often it’s, “Okay, well, the sacraments, they’re going to come here for the sacraments, they’re going to celebrate the sacrament every Sunday, or they’re trying to get married or baptism.” Like, “This is a practical situation, we can help them with the sacraments.”

But maybe you could explain a little bit what you mean by relegating it to exclusively presence.

Dr. Timothy O’Malley:

Yeah, so, I think one of the things that happened in the 20th century with a lot of people were like, “Oh, sacraments are just a general category of God’s general presence in the world.”

So, it’s true. God is great, present in a real way in the created order. God is there. God’s wisdom is made available to us. I was just hiking by beautiful lakes and my heart was lifted up in praise as I walked along, that’s how God communicated to me.

And so then people in the 20th century, a lot of theologians were like, “Okay, there are just seven really particular examples of this. Those are the sacraments.”

And I think what was left out is that sacraments aren’t just presence, they’re God’s actual action here and now. So, it’s not just that the sacraments are like, “Oh, these are nice little rites of passage that allow me to meet Jesus in one of the myriad of ways,” but that there are the particular ways that God is active through the life of the Church. When I’m baptized, it’s Christ who baptizes and I’m entering into his life. When I receive his body and blood in the sacrifice at the Mass, it’s him who comes to offer himself again for us.

And so this stuff matters, it’s real. Sacraments are efficacious signs. That is, they’re not just signs revealing God’s presence, they’re efficacious, they do something. I know that beforehand we chatted about things of interest to me and what I’m interested in. That’s why, to me, the sacraments are necessarily kind of evangelizing. Because whether or not they’re immediately fruitful, and God willing, they are fruitful, the sacraments are evangelizing because they are Christ acting in the sacraments.

So, we have to be careful about using terms like, “They’re sacramentalized but not evangelized.” The way I like to think about it is, they’ve received the sacraments, they’re conformed to Christ, their life has been changed, and yet it’s not been fruitful. And we want fruit, we want fruit. We want to make that possible.

So, this is, I think, something that the 20th century was wrestling with in theology, and it certainly seeped into catechetics.

Edmund Mitchell:

Yeah, it’s making me think of, we were just recently doing a unit on funerals, and the language there is that we’re called to live a sacramental life. And I think that’s a phrase I was thinking… Because I was also prepping for this interview, I was thinking, “Man, I don’t know that I’ve explained that enough.”

I’m not sure many people have as rich as you’re explaining it, an understanding of what that means to live a sacramental life. They just think, “Well, just means I’ll bring my baby to get baptized and then I’ll show up at Mass.”

Dr. Timothy O’Malley:

Yeah, no, I mean, it is the whole of life that’s meant to be taken up and be lived in union with God. And I think that phrase in the catechism is referencing, actually very implicitly, something from the medieval Church around the sacraments is that they actually conform to all of our lives.

So, from birth in baptism, if you’re baptized as an infant, to the anointing of the sick that you receive at the end of your life. And the funeral, strictly speaking, not a sacrament because sacraments are for the living and the person who has died is not alive. But it’s a sacramental because it’s pointing towards the way that all of one’s life, in principle, should be conformed to Christ. So, a sacramental life means you’re conforming your whole life to Christ, and that means that the sacraments have a special mode of allowing you to enter into union with him to engage in this process of being conformed to him.

Edmund Mitchell:

Yeah. I sometimes dream about how things would be different if the Church was much more like the early church in the sense that to even get into Mass, in some situations, you had to first go through RCIA or what’s now OCIA, and I wonder how that would change things.

But we’re kind of in a unique, compared to our maybe Protestant brothers and sisters, where the first exposure to Church, if someone decides to go to a Catholic Church or their first time back in a long time, is often not any event or community thing. It’s just go to Mass, just show up at Mass.

And I wonder what you think about that as can and should the Mass be seen as an opportunity for evangelization? And it’s just such a big topic that parish leaders are really wrestling with is like, “Well, this is where everyone shows up for the first time, so maybe we should make it look a certain way. Maybe that’s not appropriate. Are we fostering a culture of evangelization or even a Eucharistic culture,” as you’ve mentioned?

So, anyways, I’m not doing a good job maybe of framing it, but-

Dr. Timothy O’Malley:

No, no, you are.

Edmund Mitchell:

… I know it’s a difficult thing and there’s so many different solutions people have tried, and I don’t even know if there should be a solution. Is the Mass the right place to be focusing a lot of that effort?

Dr. Timothy O’Malley:

Yeah, I mean, I think if you take evangelization in what I would say its most basic form, which is like, “Okay, we want to announce the gospel to people who haven’t heard it before,” then the Mass is a complicated place for this.

It has very particular kind of style and structure. It’s the prayer of the one who’s been fully initiated into the life of the Church. So, there’s reception and not reception. You don’t know what’s going on. So, in that sense, it’s complicated. But I think we often take that basic sense, and when people sort of say like, “Oh, well, the Mass should be an evangelization space,” the only thing they really talk about is, “Gosh, we should have really great hospitality ministers,” or, “Man, I hope that we have a nice valet to pick up cars or people greet them at the doors.” I’m not against any of this. This is not like totalitarian dictatorships. This is an intrinsic good. Do these things.

But I think the thing that’s missed out in this is like, “Well, the Mass is evangelizing in actually the richest sense of what evangelization means in the Church.” Paul VI said that evangelization… He didn’t say this exactly, but from one of his documents, St. Paul VI, that evangelization is that gospelization of all of life. It’s really the gospel has permeated everything. And the Eucharist, as Benedict XVI noted, is the space where that unfolds.

And so I like to think about the Mass as the ordinary space of evangelization for Catholics for most Catholics who go to Mass. And they’re learning to offer their lives, to make of their lives a living sacrifice back to the Father, and therefore live that within the life of the world. Is that happening? Probably not. And there’s some good reasons that they’re not.

The liturgy is often celebrated without a lot of reverence. The music can be really dreadful. The preaching can be offensive. The general tenor is not of people who know how to pray in their lives. If you’re a part of a community of people who know how to pray, then the Mass prays well. If you’re not, then maybe some more work is needed.

On the other hand, and I think this is the important thing to finish with is, yeah, that is the ordinary way that people come together to pray together. And sometimes I hear people in evangelization movements secretly creating like, “Listen, all these people who are just going to Mass, what are they really doing with their lives? And they’re not real disciples unlike the real… There’s only 10% of our parishes that are real disciples.” That’s Donatism. That is saying that there’s a pure church and a fake church. When the Church is gathered together for her worship, that’s the Church, the baptized faithful, and there’s an evangelization activity going on in the hearts of faithful.

And so if I had one piece of advice to those involved in evangelization movements in the Church, I would be much more reticent to start speaking about all the people in our Church who supposedly don’t believe and need to be really evangelized. If they’re going to Mass, and believe me, I have kids, it’s hard to go to Mass, and if you are in the morning getting up and taking your kids to Mass on a Sunday and you don’t have to, then let’s give a little bit of recognition that the Lord is moving in the heart of that person, rather than saying, “Well, you’re not like a real intentional disciple like us.”

Practically, I think part of it is learning to celebrate the Mass well and forming people to recognize, who are in the pews, what’s unfolding in the Mass in the ordinary way. It’s really good preaching that shows. Preaching isn’t just telling people things about things. It’s making available an encounter with Jesus Christ through the words of scripture. So, priests really need to focus on preaching. And we, the lay faithful, need to prepare ourselves to hear the Word before we show up. So, that I think is really sort of quite practical.

The other thing is I think we should understand this is a practical thing, it’s in the language of understanding, but it’s really practical. It’s that the Christian life is hard and that we are all on this journey together, and that this actual sacramental vision of evangelization recognizes this. That when I go to Mass, I am praying alongside you, and you might be in a better state right now than I am, and I hope I know you and I hope I know things about your life. And in fact, parishes should make sure we know each other and know things about each other’s lives and hang out with each other in our neighborhoods or in the parish itself.

But I think part of it is just recognizing, that’s an extraordinary act of love and hospitality and commitment to share a space together and to worship together to make this offering. So, practically, it’s really to do worship in such a way that we understand that what we’re doing is not just like, “Oh, getting over something as quickly as possible in an hour and 10 minutes,” but that we are actually offering our lives back to God. I mean, the more that this is talked about in homilies, little bulleted inserts. There’s lots of ways of doing this.

And I suppose, lastly, just avoid trite answers to the problem of evangelization. If you’re like, “This book solved it, and if we give it to every person in the world, then our parishes will be full of people.” That’s just not how things work.

Think about changing a culture of a parish as a 10-year project rather than a six-month project. And I think that’s the huge thing, so plan long ahead. Like, “Okay, who’s your team? Who cares? Who’s already all-in? What would they need better to do this work of evangelization and how could we provide it for them?” And then let things unfold in time rather than trying to do everything in about eight seconds.

Edmund Mitchell:

Yeah, I’m thinking that it’s almost like reading one book on how to live the best Catholic family you possibly can, and then turning to your kids who are two and three and being like, “All right, we’re going to have a six-month process and then it’ll be done. We’ll be the best Catholic family ever.” And it’s like, “No, it’s the entire journey of living with your kids and trying to raise a family.”

I love that you said that the parish is not just the building, but the actual boundary because I feel like majority of people do not know that, and I loved telling people. And another issue that comes up often is this idea of membership at the church. And there’s the practical of it, of how do we make sure we’re contacting our quote, unquote, “members,” but everyone in the parish boundary is a member of that parish, whether they know it or not.

And you mentioned in one of the articles, “One reason for disaffiliation today is the lack of a eucharistic culture in many of our parishes,” and you described really well this experience people often have. A couple comes forward to receive baptism, they’ve been away from the Church for years, and they’re not greeted with merciful joy, but a reminder that baptisms are only given to those who’ve been members of the parish for six months.

And so I would love to hear you kind of talk about how parish leaders should be viewing membership and what practically they could do to make sure that they’re not just beating people over the head with this idea of membership, but fostering a culture you’re describing, that’s beautiful, of the Church journeying together.

Dr. Timothy O’Malley:

Yeah, I mean, I think it’s linked to what we said at the beginning around a change in identity. So, the ’50s is over, so belonging to a parish because, “Okay, that’s going to be our neighborhood, necessarily, that’s going to be the place that we live…” I mean, I belong to my neighborhood parish, but a lot of people don’t and so we’re in a very different sort of stage of life.

And so when someone approaches us for a sacrament to say, “Okay, there has to be a six-months process. Sorry, take some time. We really need to prepare you up and prepare you well.” I mean, that may be broadly true, but I think Pope Francis is right, this language of accompaniment is actually needed in this situation.

I mean, before you found out who they are, why they don’t belong to the parish, why they want their kids to be baptized, what they’re thinking about, you’ve already made six assessments about them, that they are just showing up because they didn’t care and their parents wanted them to be baptized, and now we’re going to erect these barriers to show only the really sort of in habit. I think that that’s something we need to be wary of, I think especially people who work in the Church. I think anyone who works in anything gets a little jaded by it and jaded about the “customers,” quote, unquote.

I work at a university and my undergraduates, there’s a temptation for me to be like, “Wow, my undergraduates, they’re annoying me. They’re asking me for all these things.” But they actually literally are the reason that I exist.

So, if you think about a parish and if someone calls and says, “Hey, I want to baptize my kid,” your response should be like, “Wow, what excellent news. Hey, let’s set up a meeting and let’s talk about what you want and why this is on your heart and what this is about, and let’s get this kid the sacrament as quickly as possible so that they can live sort of in light of Christ’s grace.”

So, as I think about it, it’s kind of like an improv attitude. No, parish leaders need to respond with not, “No, because…” but, “Yes, and…” “Yes, and…,” right?

“Yes, of course you’d want your child to be baptized because all your family have been baptized in this particular parish. How beautiful that is. Let me tell you a little bit more about the larger family that you’re actually joining. This is a family of the Saints, and let me tell you about the story of Christ so your babies to be united to, and do you know that you’re united to Him already?”

These kinds of things, I think, are essential. So, it’s a, “Yes, and…” It’s an improv style rather than a sort of mere institutional style of like, “These are our rules and regulations, which by the way, we made up and are not in cannon law, but we’ve made them up.” So, I think we have to think about it like this.

Edmund Mitchell:

Yeah, that’s great to hear. One of the things we tried at the parish when I was in ministry was instead of either yes or no on your child being allowed to receive First Communion this year, it was always a yes, but it was just when. It was like, “Yes, your child is going to receive at some point, but we’re going to have a different journey to the First Communion than maybe someone else who’s been coming every week. Your child hasn’t been here in years. They are going to receive First Communion, but we have a unique process that we’re going to bring your child through, a custom process,” instead of either yes or no this year. It was more like, “Yeah, we want your child to receive First Communion. Here’s what that would look like for someone who’s never been to church, or here’s how it would look for someone who’s really, really excited and they’re ready right now.” And I think that’s really, really important.

Dr. Timothy O’Malley:

Yeah, That’s really wise.

Edmund Mitchell:

Well, thank you. Dr. Tim, I could talk to you forever about this stuff. Unfortunately, we don’t have a ton of time, and would love to have you back on at some point.

Where would you like to point people to find more of your work and just more of the writings of things that you’re working on?

Dr. Timothy O’Malley:

Yeah. I mean, the best place to go to find out about our work is the McGrath Institute for Church Life at Notre Dame. Mcgrath.nd.edu has a lot of our programs on there and then texts that we’ve written as faculty members, my own included.

Edmund Mitchell:

Okay, awesome. And for people who aren’t familiar with the McGrath Institute, how would you describe that organization, the institute?

Dr. Timothy O’Malley:

Yeah. We’re a group of the mafia. No, I’m just kidding.

Okay, so we are one of the ways that Notre Dame connects the Church very concretely to the academy. So, we like to bring the best of academic life to the life of the Church, and we like to bring the best of the life of the Church back to the academy to think about and reflect and be in conversation with. So, it’s a two-way bridge, and that’s our goal. And we’ve been around for a long time now, but I think we’re really enjoying the massive amount of publishing and things we’ve done recently, so we’re much more public than we used to be.

Edmund Mitchell:

Yeah, that’s amazing. Well, thank you, Dr. Tim, for being here.

Again, the mission and vision of Real+True is to help unlock the truth and beauty of the catechism and help people discover its pulsating heart, which is Jesus Christ.

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