I cannot recall a time when it was normal in the United States for strangers to wish one another “Merry Christmas” in the streets. Neither can anyone my age (40) or younger. “Happy Holidays” has been the default greeting between the months of November and January our whole lives. And we’ve never been bothered by this fact — not one of us, not once.
On the contrary, the pleasantly alliterative “Happy Holidays” has a welcome ring to the millennial ear; if nothing else, it is preferable to the barely perceptible grunts to which we are accustomed.
But with the approach of the Christmas season, younger Catholics have begun to brace for the annual bombardment of inane banter on the “War on Christmas”. And once again, we will play along by pretending to pine for the days when ruddy, Rockwellian men wished one another “Merry Christmas” with a solemn tip of the fedora.
We have no choice, after all. We are outnumbered and have nowhere else to turn.
But the exercise has grown tiresome — not only the “War on Christmas” business, but also the dour attitude that is pervasive in so many American parishes, particularly during the most wonderful time of the year.
We, too, lament the decline of Christian influence in culture, but we simply cannot relate to the sour-grapes nostalgia routine so often on display in December. It is irrelevant to our lifelong experience as a cultural minority, contrary to our mission-driven mindset, and counterproductive to our spiritual journey.
It is tempting to chalk this up to a common case of generational disconnect. But in his incisive 2021 essay From Christendom to Apostolic Mission, Mgr James Shea suggests that something more momentous is at play.
With the gradual (and then sudden) passing of Christendom, defined as “a society that goes forward under the imaginative vision and narrative provided by Christianity,” Shea argues that the Christian West now finds itself in an “apostolic age” for the first time since the fourth century. As a result, present culture has more in common with the pre-Christian age than with 20th-century America.
In other words, the “War on Christmas” is over. And we lost.
And yet many older American Catholics, particularly those in the clergy and parish leadership, appear to be in denial of this fact. For Shea, consternation over perceived slights such as “Happy Holidays” reflects the failure of the Church to develop pastoral and evangelistic strategies that address this “change of ages.”
“Not surprisingly, there are many who still have a Christendom mentality,” he writes. “They were raised with it, and it has become part of the assumed furniture of their minds. This inherent attitude is understandable, but it is also disastrous… For those with a Christendom orientation, the news of our time is one long tale of decline and loss: numbers down, institutions secularized or moribund, loss of cultural clout is evident. All this can produce an atmosphere of discouragement and defeatism.”
For younger Catholics with no memory of Christendom, the failure of the Church to operate in a mode that corresponds with the age has two principal effects.
First, it exacerbates the difficulty of evangelizing in our increasingly hostile culture. Emanations of self-pity and despair in the pulpits and on social media too often overpower the joyful truths of the faith. This is indeed disastrous and doomed to reduce Christian influence further still.
CS Lewis likened the challenge of spreading the Gospel in the post-Christian age to winning back the hand of an estranged divorcée, which is inherently more fraught than courting a young woman for marriage. It’s worth wondering: has anyone ever won back the heart of an ex-lover by whining about unfair treatment? Or by indulging in nostalgia about the good old days?
There is simply nothing attractive about a pity-party.
Secondly, operating in the wrong mode interferes with the spiritual life of the Church. Homilists who fixate upon the decline of the Church’s cultural influence distract from the prayer of the Mass, which young Catholics need more than ever for spiritual fortification.
As Shea notes, “the great temptation of the apostolic age is not to hypocrisy but to cowardice.” To live as a committed Catholic in the world today requires a courage that can only be acquired through deep-rootedness in the faith.
When the parish church devolves into a “safe space” for older Catholics to complain about the state of the culture or worse, into a generic “community gathering space” indistinguishable from a YMCA, the quality of worship suffers. These visions of the Church come from a different age and badly misunderstand the moment.
Contact with God through the sacraments and prayer is the priority in the apostolic age. Everything else is a distant second.
As we prepare to celebrate Christmas, may we remember that our strength is not measured by the extent to which the world bends to our ways, but by the depth of our friendship with God. So let us concentrate our energies this Christmas on the mysteries of Christ, the New Adam, whose birth to the Virgin Mary inaugurated the new creation and ushered in the new birth of God’s children.
To be consumed by the frivolous and the petty in light of such unspeakably marvellous truths suggests a certain degree of unbelief and even privilege, dare I say. It certainly doesn’t help to spread Christianity’s influence in the new apostolic age.
The cultural shift is indeed unsettling, and even a little scary, but is it not also exhilarating? We find ourselves at a dramatic apex in the story of salvation. May we step forthrightly into the cultural moment and, with the love of Christ as our sword and shield, raise up saints and make straight His paths.
Peter Laffin is a contributor at the Washington Examiner.
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.