I read today on Yahoo! News that the U.S Conference of Catholic Bishops is launching an inquiry into the Girl Scouts. Yes, you read that correctly—the Girl Scouts. According to the AP article:
"The new inquiry will be conducted by the bishops' Committee on Laity,
Marriage, Family Life and Youth. It will look into the Scouts' "possible
problematic relationships with other organizations" and various
"problematic" program materials, according to a letter sent by the
committee chairman, Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne, Ind., to his
fellow bishops."
It is terribly tempting and rather justifiable to make a laughingstock of this group of guys for being out of touch, fearful, patriarchal. But what would be an appropriate spiritual response?
I'd assert that this move by the bishops demonstrates a fear-based reaction to changing times and expanding minds that sounds like, "We need you to believe as we believe, or else bad things will happen." Whether they fear for themselves, the church, or the girls, can only be guessed at unless you're friends with a bishop.
The late Jesuit mystic Anthony tells a great parable about belief, in which the Devil and his friend followed a man and watched him stop and find some truth. When his friend expressed concern at the Devil's lack of response, the Devil told him "I don't have to do anything. I'm going to let him make a belief of it."
What do we make of it when our friends, children, or family members respond to something we disagree with and run with it? A child who becomes a religious zealot, a parent who joins the Tea Party, or a friend who "finds herself" using drugs: Do we react, attacking the new-found belief of our loved one? Do we judge them and entrench ourselves in our own position? Or do we roll with it, understanding that the human perspective on truth is that we are always discovering what makes sense to us, and that as we mature different things make sense to us that didn't carry much weight earlier?
Today's invitation: What is the latest thing you thought was true that you are now reconsidering? Or has it been too long since your beliefs got stirred up?
