Several people, many of them new readers of Another Voice, have asked me to explain the relationship between faith and religion. I have touched on this before but have added some new elements and suggestions.

 

Faith is an Experience:  In the Faith Experience people do have an experience of the Divine, often described under various names: God, Creator, Father, Mother, Allah, the Ground of Being, etc. To be open to the faith experience, we need quiet and reflective time. We are often so busy that we neglect simply being ourselves.

These days I resonate more and more with the words of Karl Rahner (1904-1984), the German Jesuit priest and theologian who was one of the most influential Roman Catholic theologians of the 20th century: “I must confess to you in all honesty that for me God is and has always been absolute mystery. I do not understand what God is. No one can. We have intimations, and inklings. We make faltering attempts to put mystery into words. But there is no word for it, no sentence for it.”   

I also liked the U.S. feminist theologian, Rosemary Radford Ruether (1936-2022), who stressed that God is not an external cosmic monarch, but the underlyin matrix of existence that grounds life, connection, and transformative renewal. She argued that traditional concepts of God have been distorted by patriarchy into an oppressive, male ruler separate from creation. Ruether was professor at Howard University in Washington, D.C. and later at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Although she remained a Catholic, her first book, The Church Against Itself (1967), criticized the doctrine of the church and the church’s views of sexuality and reproduction, and it got her rejected by Catholic institutions.

I like especially the current theological reflections of Ilia Delio (born 1955), a Franciscan sister and theologian in Washington DC, who views God not as an old man in the sky or an external ruler, but as the dynamic, absolute power of love and the evolving “sacred Whole” of the universe. God is the core energy driving cosmic evolution and is deeply intertwined with matter and human consciousness. Ilia Delio currently serves as Executive Director of the World Institute for Science, Religion and Culture (formerly the Center for Christogenesis) which she founded as an online educational resource, building upon the vision of Teilhard de Chardin and the integration of science, religion and technology today.

Some clarifications:

Belief is the attempt to put into words the meaning of our Faith Experience. Belief is really theology which is “faith seeking understanding.”

Religion is an attempt to interpret and systematize Belief. Any religion is a system of beliefs and practices that helps people understand and live their faith experience. Religion therefore gives people: rituals, ritual places, ritual leaders, sacred books, sacred places, sacred days and seasons, codes of morality and creedal statements of belief. Religion provides helpful aids – MEANS – that point people to the Divine. That is good and proper. But religion is not Faith. Sometimes religion gets distorted and very religious people can be very ungodly. And all religions go through a four-stage life cycle.

 

The Religion Life Cycle

 

• All religions begin with the charismatic foundational stage – for example, the primitive Christian community. Here men and women had such a vivid lived awareness of the Faith Experience that they had little need for institutional structure. They relied on do-it-self and charismatic ways of praying, speaking, and celebrating. Men and women, who were local leaders, presided at Eucharist. It all seemed so very natural and normal.
• Then when people started thinking and asking: “how do we safeguard what we have and how do we pass this on to the next generation?” the religion entered stage two. This is the stage of institutionalization: important statements like the Gospels are written down, set ways of praying like official sacramental rituals and gestures are established, and properly authorized leaders are established. Ordination was then created as a kind of quality control mechanism to make certain that the Christian leaders were competent and reliable. Ordination, please note, was not originally about power over people and not about sacramental power! Important to remember.
• After some time, the religion enters stage three. I call it the stage of self-focused short-sightedness. The institutional religion becomes so self-centered and so self-protective that it becomes less a means and path to the Divine and more and more the OBJECT itself of religious devotion. This stage comes close to idolatry. In stage three the religious institution and certain institutional leaders, become religious objects and are treated like IDOLS. People get so involved in acts of religious veneration that they miss or distort the Divine.
• When stage three happens, the only solution is reformation, which demands a serious effort to regain the vision and focus on the Divine – the spirit and life of stages one and two. We need to recapture the vigor and creative enthusiasm of stages one and two and create new structures and theological explanations to guide contemporary believers.

In the post-stage-three-reformation, we need to change our Christian environment.

We are there right now. I suggest six ways to change, improve, and move ahead.

(1) We must move from living in the past to engaging with the present and thinking creatively about tomorrow. This means moving well beyond, for example, antiquated understandings of human sexuality and gender, prejudice against women, and distorted biblical and historical understandings.

(2) We need ongoing education that moves people from boxed-in perspectives to open and developing theology. All doctrinal statements are provisional understandings. We are all learners. No one has all the truth. There is still much to learn and discover.

(3) We need to shift from self-protective bureaucratic hierarchies, whose vision is to protect and save the institution, to being supportive communities of faith. People forget that Jesus did not exercise power over people. He empowered people to take responsibility in living, learning, and caring for one another. Jesus did not control people through authoritarian decrees.

(4) We need to abandon religious arrogance and move into humble inter-church collaboration. No Christian and no Christian tradition can be regarded as superior to others and therefore act in a haughty or snobbish manner. Some Catholics still think they have all the truth. Some evangelicals think that way as well.

(5) We need to stop being energetic and proud temple-builders and start being traveling pilgrims. What do people today really need? An impressive and bigger cathedral or a roof overhead, a meal, health care, childcare, compassionate understanding, and a more secure and hopeful life. It is a values question.

(6) We must not focus on just schooling professionals but mentoring spiritual leaders. When it comes to Christian ministry, the mentality of the professional is often not enough. We need pastoral leaders and ministers who are much more than professionals. We need leaders who are men and women anchored in deep faith and who, as our fellow travelers, understand us and support our own faith development as compassionate and genuine spiritual guides.

And so, we can move ahead!

 

Jack

Dr. John A. Dick – Historical Theologian

Email: jadleuven@gmail.com

 

I have been and still am a U.S. Catholic, born, baptized, and raised in SW Michigan. Although I currently live in Belgium, as a retired professor of religion and values in American society at the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven), I remain a committed and thoughtfully critical U.S. Catholic.

 

Actually, I became a critical Catholic in eighth grade at St. Mary’s School in Paw Paw, Michigan, when our local priest, Fr. Linus, visited our class. For some reason he went into a tirade about Protestants. Then asked how many of us had a Protestant parent. I raised my hand and said my dad was a Protestant. Fr. Linus then yelled at me and said: “Be careful because your dad belongs to a false religion.” I replied, without yelling, and said very firmly: “Fr. Linus you are wrong. My dad is a prayerful and wonderful Christian.” A couple of classmates applauded, and an irritated Fr. Linus left the room. Well…several years later, when I was a college student, I got a letter from Fr. Linus, sent to my parents’ address. It included his address at a retirement home and his phone number. He said he wanted to see me and asked me to call him. Home on summer vacation, I visited him. We had a delightful conversation, and he said “I have been thinking. I have been a terribly ignorant old priest. I hope you keep thinking and learning. Your Protestant dad is indeed a wonderful Christian…And may God bless you!” Fr. Linus also gave me a box of cigars.

 

So, I do indeed try to remain a thoughtful and learning Catholic, in a church that is now going through its own contemporary transitions.

 

Some statistics

 

The U.S. Catholic Church faces a long-term structural decline. Data from the Pew Research Center shows that the share of U.S. adults identifying as Catholic dropped from 24% in 2007 to roughly 19% today. Growing disconnects between official church teachings on social, sexual, and political issues and the views of modern American laypeople contribute to the disaffection. Vital markers of institutional health – such as infant baptisms, Catholic school enrollment, and sacramental marriages – have fallen, depending on the region, by roughly 30% to 50% since the early 2000s.

 

Politics

 

Politically, U.S. Catholics overwhelmingly backed Democrats through the mid-20th century, culminating in JFK’s election in 1960, as the first Catholic U.S. president. About 80% of U.S. Catholics voted for John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963), who was also the youngest elected president at age 43.

 

After the 1960s, Catholic demographic changes, social movements, and evolving party platforms caused a multi-decade political realignment. Today, according to the Pew Research Center, a modest majority of U.S. Catholic registered voters, around 49%, identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, giving the GOP a slight advantage over the Democratic Party, which claims roughly 44% of Catholic support. However, the Catholic vote remains deeply divided along racial and ethnic lines. Roughly 60% of white Catholics lean Republican; but about 54% of Hispanic Catholics favor the Democratic Party. In 2024, 56% of all U.S. Catholics voted for Donald Trump.

 

Today most of the 270 active U.S. Catholic bishops share the Republican stance on issues like abortion, traditional man/woman marriage, and religious liberty. There are also 165 retired bishops. Leadership elections within the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have regularly favored conservative figures, especially after the papacies of John Paul II (Pope from 1978 to 2005) and Benedict XVI (Pope from 2095 to 2013) in which most episcopal appointments featured very conservative men. The current president of the USCCB, Archbishop Paul Coakley is a good example. He aligns with traditional and conservative stances on major social and moral issues, including restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights and gender-affirming care in healthcare. But, he has also spoken out in strong support of humane treatment and policies for immigrant families.

 

Paul Stagg Coakley (born June 3, 1955) serves as the current Archbishop of Oklahoma City and he has been President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops since November 2025.

 

So much for some general U.S. Catholic background…

 

My current U.S. Catholic focus, however, is: (1) on U.S. Catholic involvement in U.S. Christian Nationalism, and (2) on the theological perspective of today’s young Catholic priests.

 

Christian nationalism

 

Christian nationalism is a political ideology that merges religious and national identities, seeking to make Christianity the dominant force in U.S. public policy, law, and cultural life. Critics and scholars note that it often promotes traditional social hierarchies, links national belonging to very specific racial or ethnic identities and challenges the U.S. constitutional separation of church and state.

 

According to the Public Religion Research Institute’s 2025 American Values Atlas, 32% of Americans qualify as Christian nationalism adherents or sympathizers; and approximately 30% of white U.S. Catholics now qualify as Christian nationalism adherents or sympathizers. Two prominent American Catholics associated with U.S. Christian nationalism are Vice President J.D. Vance (born 1984) and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito (born 1950).

 

The blueprint for U.S. Christian nationalism is Project 2025 and its main author is the conservative Catholic Kevin Roberts (born 1974), the president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative political think tank in Washington DC. Christian nationalism is a political ideology that seeks to merge Christian and American identities, distorting both the Christian faith and U.S. constitutional democracy.

There are no prominent Catholic bishops who officially support or endorse Christian nationalism. The leadership of the U.S. Catholic Church explicitly rejects the ideology as contrary to church teaching. While some lay political figures and commentators who identify as Catholics express nationalist views, hierarchical leadership views the movement as incompatible with the Gospel. Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington (born 1957) and Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami (born 1950) have publicly stated that Christian nationalism confuses religious devotion with national identity and contradicts core theological teachings. Bishop John Stowe (born 1966) of Lexington, Kentucky, has publicly stressed that Christian nationalism is a dangerous distortion of the Christian faith that can only be overcome through compassion and love for all. He views it as a significant minority influence that corrupts Christianity in the name of Christ.

Young priests

Moving beyond Christian nationalism, as a contemporary American Catholic I am also interested in the theological persecutive of today’s young U.S. Catholic priests. For more than twenty years I taught and helped form Catholic seminarians, at The American College seminary at the Catholic University of Leuven. What I find so surprising today is that about 70% of U.S. priests ordained in 2010 or later describe their political views as conservative or very conservative, compared to les than 15% of priests ordained before 1975 who hold that position. 

These younger Catholic priests are far more uniform in holding traditional views on church teachings, such as maintaining that homosexual behavior is always a sin and upholding male-only priestly ordination. Many are also fond of the old-time Latin Mass.

These young priests are far more conservative than Catholics age 65 and older. Among priests ordained before 1975, more than 70% described themselves as theologically progressive.

It’s not difficult to explain where this young priestly conservatism has come from. After Pope John Paul II (1920-2005) was elected in 1978, seminaries became more conservative as John Paul appointed conservative bishops. He also appointed arch conservative Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (1927-2022) to head the Vatican doctrine office. Ratzinger cracked down on progressive theologians, chasing them out of seminaries.

Some contemporary bishops, however, are really trying to turn their seminaries around. Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger (born 1960) the Archbishop of Detroit, for example, has removed three Detroit seminary professors, who had publicly criticized Pope Francis and his teachings. But such reforms, if they happen, will only impact future generations of priests. Edward Weisenburger, by the way, is a friend and a graduate of The American College, Catholic University of Leuven.

Once again, the theological views of younger priests are out of sync with their priestly peers and with the general Catholic population. U.S. Catholics tend to favor progressive views on married priests, gay marriage, Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics and the use of contraceptives. As a result, in coming decades, Catholic clergy will be even more out of sync with lay Catholics than the clergy is today.

Some observers argue for ignoring the views of Catholics who aren’t in church most Sundays and are less conservative than Catholics who attend Mass weekly. Yet even 40% of weekly Mass attenders support the ordination of women, according to the Pew Research Center. In addition, more than half of weekly churchgoers favor allowing Catholics to use birth control (72%) and in vitro fertilization (71%), allowing unmarried couples who live together to go to Communion (59%) and allowing women to become deacons (54%).

Time will tell of course what will happen. Will Bishop Robert Francis Prevost, born in Chicago in 1955 and now Pope Leo XIV, move the U.S. Catholic Church forward? I believe he is a good man and I appreciate his public statement that he has “no fear” of the incumbent presidential administration. He clarified that his mission is to preach the Gospel and promote peace rather than engage in partisan politics or personal political debates.

In continuity with Pope Francis (1936-2025), Pope Leo XIV shares strong concerns about climate change, poverty, and caring for migrants. But he currently opposes women’s ordination and supports traditional Catholic teachings about sexuality and gender. Nevertheless, I believe positive change can happen and I remain optimistic.

Jack

Dr. John A. Dick – Historical Theologian

Email: jadleuven@gmail.com

 

 

This week, I feel a strong need to return once again to some serious reflections about authoritarianism in very contemporary form.

Authoritarianism is a form of government in which all power rests with a single leader or a small ruling group. They feel no accountability to anyone but themselves.

Authoritarianism has always bothered me because it uses and abuses people. It destroys human freedom to think, act, and live. It manipulates people, puts problematic people in detention camps, and often simply destroys the “undesirables.”

The historical Jesus stressed that human greatness is based on compassion and service. His life story and teachings were used to motivate and guide people, to heal, support, and call to conversion. Some self-proclaimed “Christian leaders” today still do not understand Jesus and Jesus’ message. In fact, they oppose it.

In contemporary political and religious life, we are confronted with the creeping virus of authoritarianism that seeks to dominate and control – and often displace and destroy. A very unhealthy kind of leadership. Honesty and integrity are replaced by self-promoting deceit and dishonesty. And authoritarians make big money in the process.

Some symptoms of contemporary authoritarianism:

1. Ongoing efforts to intimidate and discredit the media. The distinction between information and misinformation disappears.

2. Genuine truth becomes fake news….and the actual fake news becomes the to-be-accepted real news. As George Orwell (1903-1950) predicted years ago: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

3. Police surveillance and violence against ideological “enemies” is accepted as a contemporary and necessary public safety necessity. Today it is growing increasingly powerful.

4. Foreigners are arrested, families are torn apart, and children and adults are incarcerated for indefinite amounts of time in military camps. Some “undesirables” are simply eliminated.

5. Authoritarian followers justify their behavior with the scapegoat mechanism, introduced by René Girard (1923-2015) the French historian, and philosopher of social science. He spent most of his career at Stanford University. In 1972, he published Violence and the Sacred, a work that explained the scapegoat mechanism and fundamentally changed the study of collective violence. Girard wrote that when a group is in crisis, when tensions are rising and the group is at risk of tearing itself apart, the group converges on a single individual or minority group to place blame. All of the group’s anxiety, guilt, shame, and aggression are projected onto this target. The target is then punished, expelled, or destroyed. And the act of collective punishment temporarily restores order and unity to the group. Right now, we see the scapegoat mechanism being used against Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Authoritarian Followers

Authoritarian “leaders” can only succeed because authoritarian followers applaud and support them. Much more so than the average person, authoritarian followers go through life with impaired thinking. Their reasoning is often sloppy and based on prejudiced beliefs and a fierce dogmatism, that rejects evidence and logic.

So, what does one do?

• We must first of all acknowledge that authoritarian followers are extremely resistant to change. The more one learns about authoritarianism, the more one realizes how difficult it will be to reach people who are so ferociously aggressive and fiercely defensive.
• We need to educate and promote a balanced education which hands on authentic information, tells people where to find correct information, and gives people the skills to be well-informed critical thinkers.
• Our Christian communities, more than ever, must become, compassionate and supportive gatherings of multicultural, multi-ethnic, and all-gender, brothers and sisters.
• We need to courageously speak out and we need to help other people courageously speak out. If something is wrong or something untrue, people need to strongly and clearly state that it is wrong or untrue.
• Those who courageously speak out need the strong support of friends gathered around them. Going alone is increasingly difficult if not impossible in our cyber-linked world.
• We need to be on guard, as well, that we do not become promoters of polarization and vicious partisanship. We need to learn how to work together for the common good. As Jesus says in Matthew (chapter 12): “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.”

 

Jack

 

Dr. John A. Dick – Historical Theologian

Email: jadleuven@gmail.com