By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer 

During his homily on the closing of the Year of St. Paul on June 28, Pope Benedict XVI explained that an “adult faith” is not the “do-it-yourself’ kind of faith that has sprung up in recent years, but one that is courageous enough to adhere to the Church’s teachings, even when it contradicts the prevailing culture.

“In the last few decades, the expression ‘adult faith’ has become a widespread slogan,” the Pope said. “It is often used in relation to the attitudes of those who no longer pay attention to what the Church and her Pastors say — which is to say, those who choose on their own what to believe or not to believe in a sort of ‘do-it-yourself’ faith.”

He went on to say that “expressing oneself against the Magisterium of the Church is presented as a sort of ‘courage.’”

But this is not true, he explained, because not much courage is needed to profess something that will gain a person public acceptance.

“Instead, courage is needed to adhere to the Church’s faith, even if it contradicts the ‘order’ of today’s world,” he said. “Paul calls this non-conformism an ‘adult faith’. For him, following the prevailing winds and currents of the time is childish.

“For this reason, it is part of an adult faith to dedicate oneself to the inviolability of life from its beginning, thus radically opposing the principle of violence, in defense precisely of the most defenseless. It is part of an adult faith to recognize the lifelong marriage between one man and one woman in accordance with the Creator’s order, re-established again by Christ. An adult faith does not follow any current here and there. It stands against the winds of fashion.”

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