Why the name?

"Holy Conversation" does sound like an exceptionally pious name, even for a parish blog. And we can't guarantee that everything here will meet the high standard the name implies. But the phrase comes from the story of our patron saint, and we think it fits. Here's why.

St. Scholastica was a sixth-century abbess who, according to the Dialogues of Pope Gregory I, used to meet once a year with her brother, St. Benedict. On the last occasion they were together, they spent their time "satisfying each other's hunger for holy conversation about the spiritual life."

We hope that this blog can become a place where the members of our parish can find a taste of the companionship and conversation that Scholastica and Benedict enjoyed so much. Welcome!

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Faith & Politics, Part 1

How is your faith related to your political convictions?  An intrepid group of parish members and guests met on three evenings in January and February to explore this and other questions.

In the first session, "Rooted in Love?", we began a process of "thinking about our think" by stepping back to remember where our political views originated.

First, we read as a kind of litany part of an article by Bishop Zubik that listed all the many reasons Catholics gave him to urge him to forbid people from voting for Hillary Clinton--or Donald Trump!  [You can read it here (+).]  Clearly, there is a diversity of political opinion within the Catholic Church.  Why do we see things differently?

We sought to explore that question by recalling our own histories.  In small groups we answered questions such as:

As you look back in life, when do you think your basic political outlook was formed?  What was going on in the political world at that time?  Was there a group of people who were important in that development?
After a break, we considered further questions:
   Do your political ideas connect with your religion or faith? 
   When and how did that happen? 
   Who were the people who were most important to you in forming this connection?
Finally, we considered our religious "touchstones" in forming our political views.  That is, which stories (from the Scriptures or from the lives of the saints, for example) or practices (practices of prayer; the Eucharist) inspire and guide our decisions?

As you can imagine, sharing our own stories gave us insight into how we are formed politically--and religiously!  The people we were with at important times in our lives (and especially young adulthood) seem to have had a large influence on us.  And it was easy to see how different experiences led us to differing political ideas.

Before and after the break, we watched short videos on Catholic social doctrine.  We began with one from Trocaire, the international aid organization of the Irish Catholic bishops, on "CST [Catholic Social Teaching] in 3 minutes."  You can watch it here (+).

We also watched a brief video from the U.S. bishops and Catholic Relief Services (our international aid organization) on "Life and Dignity of the Human Person." You can watch it below.



We ended with a different sort of litany--a litany of our hopes for our nation.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for commenting on a post at the St. Scholastica parish blog!
Comments are moderated, so you won't see yours immediately, but it should be up soon.