From an interview with Archbishiop William Levada by Vatican Radio [Via Ad Limina Apostolorum]
WE OFTEN HEAR, ESPECIALLY IN THE WESTERN WORLD, THAT PEOPLE NOW SAY THEY ARE SPIRITUAL THEY ARE NOT RELIGIOUS. WHEN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO IS DESCRIBED THEY OFTEN USE THE WORD DOCTRINE AND WHEN THEY USE THE WORD THEY DON’T USE IT IN A POSITIVE WAY, IT TENDS TO CARRY MANY NEGATIVE CONNOTATIONS. WHY IS THAT?
Let me say in general, you raise the question as one that is a phenomena that we look at the idea of spiritual versus the religious. Let’s take cannibalism for example. What is the spirituality of cannibalism? I would say eating is the doctrine. But is there really a spirituality of it and is it a good one? In other words is every spirituality, a spirituality of good? You know today is Halloween there are people who embrace a spirituality whose doctrine is witchcraft. They want to get in touch with a spiritual side but our tradition tells us that there are good spirits and evil spirits. There is good and bad in the spiritual as well as in the human corporeal realm, so spirituality without doctrine is an amorphous spirituality that can be anything I want to make it. People want to break out of what they consider are constrains and limits of those religions. So they say I am spiritual, not religious. But in effect a real spirituality has to involve religion because religion is about how you order your human life vis-à-vis God. That spirituality, there is a kind of popular sense in saying, oh well, I am trying to find something that is helping me to be better that’s spirituality. But religion means that you are face to face with some options that you have to make about whether there is a God and what that God may be asking and what that kind of relationship he wants to have with you, his creature. There is a whole sense in which modern man is saying I don’t want to be a creature. Religion is always going involve a concrete challenge to us in terms of our relationship to God.
7 comments
This is gibberish
I’ve heard the “you can be spiritual w/o being religious thing before”.
It was in a Protestant magazine for teen girls.
I would argue that far from being gibberish, Archbishop Levada’s statement is clear in its debunking of the common notion that it makes sense to describe oneself as being “spiritual” without the set moral restraints involved in organized religion. I would also argue that once one has accepted that there is a spiritual significance to our human experiences, it is possible to draw a parallel between our physical and our spiritual lives. Stating that you believe in being spiritual, but not religious is akin to saying you believe in living, but not living in any particular way. It is a statement of almost sublime banality.
I saw a show on Phantom Hand Syndrome once. This is a condition where the sufferer has a sudden loss of control over their limb. The arm and hand will lash out and do things contrary to the person’s will. “I’m afraid I’ll strangle my cat,” said one sufferer.
I mention this because I find this condition similar to the “I’m spiritual, but not religious” condition. Yes, we all agree that we have a spirit, but what prevents the religiously undictated spirit’s body from strangling their cat?
Gibberish? No! But it is necessary to actually engage you mind and move beyond the superficial. I love being Catholic. Some of the best thinkers in the world are Catholics. I used to laugh when people would read an out-take of JPII’s theology and say ‘he doesn’t know what he’s talking about’. It is amazing how we dismiss great thinking because it is Catholic or we do not understand it.
Gibberish as in he could have said this in a more understandable manner. I found Ratzinger a lot more readable and easily understandable CDF Prefect and I got lost in Levada’s words. Look how easy it was for Dan to say the same thing
I don’t believe it to be complete gibberish. I was raised Catholic and worked in a Baptist church for years. I believe alot of what I learned, but I also learned belonging to a specific religion was not for me. No matter how I tried, certain elements of religion did not feel right. I believe in God and Jesus. I believe in the commandments and so farth, but I do not subscribe myself any longer to ‘religion’. Does that make me a sinner? Does that make me any less faithful than my former catholic or baptist self? I think not. If we believe as we are taught in the bible, who r any of those in ‘religion’ to judge me on my spirituality because I decline to attach myself to a church? Cannot my home and sancuary, be a church to God to which I pray faithfully. Because it doesn’t fall under a certain umbrella called church or religion…it is wrong?