Many truths? Coming to terms with pluralism.

Davidson and Hoge describe a difference in attitude toward other religions among Catholics of different generations, with older Catholics more likely to identify Catholicism as the only true faith, and younger Catholics, especially those of the "millennial" generation, more likely to think of other religions as just as good as their own, at least for those who espouse them. This is not really surprising, and it certainly corresponds with my experience of undergraduates (even "conservative" ones) in theology classes. What is surprising, and perhaps more interesting, is the similarity, rather than the contrast, this shows between the millennial generation and other age cohorts, even the generation of pre-Vatican II Catholics. I have a tendency to see the specter of relativism lurking behind every seeming concession to modernity, yet Davidson and Hoge's analysis shows that the openness of young Catholics to those of other faiths exists side by side with an attachment to, and even a deep affection for, the Catholic faith.

This widespread affection for the church exists despite the obvious difference in "feel" the young have for the church as an institution. It also exists despite the difference younger Catholics experience in the sense of connection to parish or diocese (partly accountable to the postponement of marriage and family), and despite the difference between younger and older Catholics in the degree of deference shown to church authority. This cross-generational affection for the church reveals an astonishing solidarity, a solidarity in love of the faith. It also represents a real intergenerational success story. Somehow the older generations have managed to hand on that which is most difficult to hand on to someone else: a love for something, a deep affection. This is all the more striking given the range of relations to the church and to official church teaching among the generation who are the parents of the current millennials. It seems that somehow we have all agreed to agree on something essential, namely, that the Catholic faith handed on to us from the Apostles is the one thing precious beyond price that we are determined to preserve precisely as a precious thing. This has been accomplished despite all the odds, and despite the recent sexual-abuse scandal in the church itself. Could we not see in this legacy the work of God at large?

From this perspective, it is not really a puzzle that the younger generation can seem more open to other faiths and at the same time happy with their own. For one thing, our era is generally one in which pluralism has made the extension of the benefit of the doubt to the "other" a cultural default mode--outside fundamentalist circles. If it went no deeper than that, we would simply be left with the seeming inconsistency that Davidson and Hoge find among the young (attachment on the one hand, the feeling that other religions are "just as good" on the other). But maybe these two seemingly contradictory values are actually connected. Perhaps affection for one's own faith--an appreciation for the benefits it brings both in times of joy and in times of trouble--makes it easier to recognize and thus respect the faith that others have. We could think of this as a kind of transitivity of affection for religious belief, in a way similar to what Cardinal Newman saw when he said "cor ad cor loquitur."

I am not saying that Catholics do not have intergenerational work to do. Although Catholics at large do not, at least according to the survey, put "ignorance of church doctrine" high on the list of things to worry about, I wonder how long you can hand down an affection for something when the substance of that very thing becomes fuzzier and fuzzier. Also, how long can affection for the faith be passed on when it is increasingly disconnected from its intrinsic bond with church leadership and structure? If the millennials do not seem much affected by the scandal in the church over sexual abuse, the study seems to indicate, it is because they never had much sense of being "led" in the first place by those whose leadership has now caused such a great sense of betrayal in older generations. Yet, if the survey's description of the connection millennials feel to Catholicism is right, even these flawed leaders, along with the rest of us, must somehow have done something right. It would be good to figure out just what were the right things we did, lest we squander that capital. Presumably, it has something to do with the individual witness of family and friends. Perhaps it is, ironically, the absolute determination of so many Catholics to persist in communion with the church despite such a variety of differences and grievances. Perhaps that determination, like any sacrifice made on the altar of the heart, appeared invisible and feeble at the time, but was in the end, quite visible, if only through a glass darkly. Perhaps too it has proved to be strong in the same way that any determined love is visible and strong and, in the end, nourishing to the souls of others.

It would be interesting to find out who young people believe are the leaders in the church, at least for them. I take their reported admiration for Pope John Paul II as a clue. What they see in him is perhaps something that youth of any age and period admire: idealism and commitment, tempered with warmth. John Paul has the ability to state ideals forthrightly without closing off openness toward the "other," regardless of the other's religion or lack thereof. Like our millennial youth, John Paul seems to respect, as something sacred, religious faith and moral commitment wherever he finds it. He sees it as a basis for the building of what he calls the "civilization of love." Without wanting to minimize the problems or real inconsistencies in the position of our younger brothers and sisters in Christ, are they not, in some sense, especially the children of this pope in this regard? In their abiding affection for Catholicism, coupled with an openness toward other faiths, could we not see an intuition, not of relativism, but of a religious alternative to the indifferentism of secular culture? In place of the secular ideals of "tolerance" or "respect for difference" simply as difference, is there among young Catholics a sense of love or charity founded on and in the Christian faith itself? On the one hand, charity makes no sense apart from the truth of the Catholic faith that proclaims the love revealed in the Incarnation as the absolute and final revelation. And yet it is that very charity that "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1 Cor 13:7) and so, in its very absoluteness, intrinsically implies an openness as well. This means that the evangelization of our youth should be aimed, not at undoing the "inconsistency" that Davidson and Hoge point to, but at making articulate the inarticulate commitments that are implicitly folded in the "joy and hope" this very striking juxtaposition seems to embody.

John C. Cavadini is chairman of the Theology Department at the University of Notre Dame.