Roman Catholic Eucharistic Adoration “A Great Response to a Contemporary Need”

Holy Cross Parish in Winnipeg marks 10 years of perpetual adoration 

Holy Cross perpetual adoration chapel

In 2008, members of the Holy Cross Roman Catholic Parish in the Archdiocese of St. Boniface had an idea for something new: 24/7 perpetual Eucharistic adoration.

They thought they’d try it just for a month, during Advent, to see if they could do it. Ten years—or 3,650 days and 87,360 hours—later, they are still going strong.

“When the idea came up, lots of people wanted to do it,” says Dawn Kautz, who together with her husband, James, helps coordinate the adoration.

“We were amazed by how quickly the slots filled up.”

For Catholics, perpetual Eucharistic adoration is a tradition that goes back to the 16th century. During adoration, worshipers sit or kneel before an ornate display cabinet, called a monstrance. In the monstrance is a piece of consecrated bread they believe is the actual body of Christ.

While there are many adoration chapels across Canada that welcome worshipers at select times, including 26 in Manitoba, there are only about 30 in the country that do it 24/7—someone is there every hour of every day, all year round.

Currently, only one is located in the province, at Holy Cross, although a second is underway at St. Gianna Beretta Molla Roman Catholic parish.

For Dawn, taking time for adoration is a way to take a break from her busy life and spend time with Christ.

‘As a busy mom of seven kids, it was hard to find time for prayer and reflection with God if I didn’t set a time,” she says.

“There is value in making a commitment, an appointment to ensure it happens.”

Dawn and her family recently moved to St, Malo; before that, she took a regular evening slot at Holy Cross.

While there, she found “peace as I sat and rested in the Lord’s presence.”

John Scatliffe is a Ministry Coordinator at the Holy Cross parish. He takes a slot each Tuesday from 2 to 3 AM.

“Adoration a powerful thing for Catholics,” he says, adding that he finds the early morning hour very peaceful.

“I think I get more out of it at that time,” the retired anesthesiologist shares. “It’s so peaceful there with the Lord.”

For Christopher Robison, retired from the air force, “it’s a marvelous privilege to be part of adoration.”

Robinson takes a one-hour slot one evening a week at midnight. During his time in the chapel, he prays, reads a devotional or meditates. “Sometimes I just sit quietly and be with Jesus,” he says.

Access to both the Holy Cross chapel is guarded by security systems with access cards. 

This is to protect the adorers, who can be there late at night, but also to guard the sacrament from being stolen—stories are told of how Satanists have tried to get consecrated sacraments for their rituals.

In addition to Holy Cross, since 2014 St. Gianna Beretta Molla Roman Catholic parish has also offered perpetual adoration.

Unlike at Holy Cross, however, it does not yet operate around the clock; the plan is to get enough volunteers to be able to do that.

For Father Darrin Gurr, the adoration chapel at St. Gianna Beretta Molla is “a prayer ministry for the parish,” along with a special experience for individuals.

“People can send prayer requests that people can pray for while they are doing the Eucharistic adoration.”

Adoration “is a great response to a contemporary need,” Gurr says. 

“People are longing for more mindfulness in life, a way to put them in the now, to know what God has in store for them, a break from the chaos and busyness of the world.”

Holy Cross is looking forward to many more years of adoration. They recently updated the security system to accommodate more card holders, and are looking for additional volunteers.

“I still find that many Catholics don’t know it exists in Winnipeg,” says Scatliffe, noting that members of any parish are welcome to participate.

At midnight one November evening, I participated with a friend at the Holy Cross chapel.

As a Protestant, I have to admit I didn’t feel any special spiritual connection through the sacrament—unlike my Catholic friend, who believed he was in the actual presence of Christ.

But I did feel a sense of peace in that quiet and sacred space. And no matter what your belief, that is never a bad thing.

Godless in Dixie: Neil Carter on What it's Like to be an Atheist in the U.S. South

Neil Carter is a 44 year-old high school teacher in Jackson, Mississippi, and author of Godless in Dixie, a blog about living as an atheist in the deep south of the U.S. 

In November, following a presentation to the Humanists, Atheists and Agnostics of Manitoba, he answered some questions about being an atheist in America today.

What is your religious background?

I was raised Southern Baptist and was saved at the age of 15. I graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary in 1998 with a Master's degree in Biblical Studies and relocated to Atlanta in 2000 to be a part of a small but international network of home churches. I was there for ten years.

I started helping with new church plants in 2004, and wrote a book about Christian community in 2007.

I left it all in 2009.

Was there any one specific thing that pushed you from belief to unbelief?

It was a death by a thousand cuts. I feel like I always lived with an inner skeptic. But toward the end there were a couple of primary factors, such as getting around more and seeing just how diverse Christian belief really is, and yet seeing how convinced everyone always is that their theology is the only right theology. 

That inspired me to ask myself harder questions about why I believe what I believe.

Also, my evangelical tradition stressed having an intimate, personal relationship with God. Yet after two decades I realized that I had to supply both sides of the relationship. The moment I quit "making" God real, he disappeared entirely.

One day it dawned on me that if I can't really point to anything objective, anything outside my own head that could validate the existence of this invisible person, then maybe I needed to think some more about why I believed what I believed. 

The rest just kind of added up from a dozen unanswered questions that made a whole lot more sense the moment I considered the non-existence of God as a better explanation than the previous religious answers I was given for everything.

What happened after you told others you were no longer a believer?

At first, I kept it very private. But in 2012 one of my students discovered I had liked a Facebook page about atheism and asked if I was an atheist. I said it wasn’t relevant to the class, and she said “why didn’t you say no?”

Soon after, the principal pulled me aside to ask me about it and later transferred me to another class. When the year ended, my contract was not renewed for the next year—no reason was given, but I knew why.

It also affected my family, driving an emotional wedge between me and my wife. A year later we decided our differences were irreconcilable, and we filed for divorce. 

Coming out as an atheist also fractured relationships with friends. They believed I was going to hell for rejecting Jesus. Some of them saw me as a project to bring back to faith. Some friends even staged an intervention.

Do you think that was because of where you live, in the U.S. south?

Yes, it is largely because of the central place religion plays in the life of people in the Deep South. 

Granted, rural areas all over the country have the same quality to them, the same culture, but down here it's even prevalent in our big cities. The first thing people do when they move to a new place in Mississippi is join a church.

People around here take religion very seriously. It's the most important thing about you in their minds. So coming out of the closet as an atheist is a problem.

You use the terms "come out.” Is that terminology common for atheists?

Quite common, especially among people who de-convert from evangelical and fundamentalist Christian families. 

Our families don't take this news very well at all. They all believe we are going to hell for rejecting Jesus, and they also are quite shamed by our departure. It hurts their reputation among other church members, and most of them feel very strongly that we are supposed to "come back."

Keeping this to ourselves saves us a ton of grief from our families, and in many cases it may also be necessary for protecting our jobs and the cohesion of our families. 

Has the election of Donald Trump, and the rise of the Christian right, made things more challenging for you?

Significantly. It would take a long time to flesh out just how badly his ascension has polarized public discourse in my country, but it's been like a giant toxic wedge that has emboldened the most racially intolerant, bigoted elements of our country to come out of the woodwork, as we say.

Do you know atheists who have left other religions?

Yes. I have a number of ex-Muslim friends. I know fewer who have left Judaism. Most Jewish folks I know were always pretty secular to begin with.

What advice would you give to atheists about interacting with people from the evangelical community? And what advice would you give believers for dealing with an atheist?

I always advise atheists who have very religious family to keep it to themselves until they are so financially and socially independent from their families that they could weather even the worst treatment as a response. 

The nicest, kindest people will turn mean overnight (or at least passive-aggressive)when they learn their family has "turned from the Lord." It's a scandalous, painful thing for them and it brings out a side of them that you can only see after you've "left the fold."

I advise people to build up a strong enough social support network that they have people to turn to for help when they need it. Only then will they be ready for the worst. 

And if their families surprise them by being consistently gracious, then it still didn't hurt to be prepared for the worst. Take your time and become more secure in your beliefs before you make yourself transparent to your family.

As for Christians, take time to listen to us and don't assume you already understand what makes us tick or why we stopped believing. 

Don't assume you know better than we do what we are thinking, and please believe us when we say we truly don't believe in spirits or ghosts or gods or afterlives anymore. 

They have the hardest time accepting that. They think we are lying to them or else to ourselves. 

I wish most that they could understand that changing our minds about God is usually an intellectual response to questions or realizations of things that make us see things differently. 

It’s  not a moral failing. We aren't "rebelling against God" even though they are certain that's how it should be seen.

We cannot help the fact that we've stopped believing and as far as we are concerned it wasn't a choice we made at all. It just kind of happened whether we wanted it to or not. 

I wish they would stop reframing it as a choice on our part. We cannot choose to believe something that no longer makes sense to us.

Click here to read what it's like to be an atheist in Manitoba; it isn't easy for some here, either.

Not Always Easy to be an Atheist in Manitoba

HAAM booth at the University of Manitoba.

Is it easy to be an atheist in Manitoba?

In our increasingly secular society, you would think so. Who cares what people believe—or don’t believe?

But for some Manitobans who have chosen not to believe in God, that’s not the case.

In November I met some of them at the monthly meeting of the Humanists, Atheist and Agnostics of Manitoba (HAAM).  

They had gathered that evening to hear a presentation by Neil Carter, a seminary graduate, former church planter and now author of the Godless in Dixie blog.

Speaking via the Web from his home in Mississippi, Carter, 44, said there were a number of factors that led him to leave his evangelical faith to become an atheist.

These included “seeing how convinced everyone always is that their theology is the only right theology,” and his own inability to have the kind of personal relationship with Jesus his tradition promoted.

“One day it dawned on me that if I can't really point to anything objective, anything outside my own head, that could validate the existence of this invisible person, then maybe I needed to think some more about why I believed what I believed,” he said.

When he “came out” to his family and friends—a term atheists use a lot to describe what it’s like to tell people they no longer believe—Carter lost his job as a public school teacher, his marriage and many friends.

While those who grow up in non-religious homes may find it easier to be publicly atheist, people who “deconvert,” especially from more conservative religious groups, find that the news isn’t taken “very well at all,” he stated.

“They believe we are going to hell for rejecting Jesus, and they also are quite shamed by our departure,” he said.

When Carter left his faith, some people saw him “as a project,” to bring back to belief in God. Some of his old church friends even “staged an intervention,” he said.

These are the kinds of responses that can cause some atheists to keep quiet, he added.

“Keeping this to ourselves saves us a ton of grief from our families, and in many cases it may also be necessary for protecting our jobs and the cohesion of our families,” he said.

This is especially true in the southern U.S. where he lives, a place where religion is woven into every part of life—family, friendships, business, education and politics.

“People around here take religion very seriously,” he said. “It's the most important thing about you in their minds.”

For members of HAAM, things are not nearly as difficult in Manitoba. Yet only one person I spoke with was willing to go public for this story—they wanted to be anonymous, or only use first names.  

“My ‘coming out’ wasn’t as dramatic as Neil’s, simply because I didn’t talk about it with anybody,” said one woman.

When she did ask questions about faith, she was “met with anger and lectures from family members, so I stopped talking,” she added.

Another man agreed. “I'm still not very comfortable making my atheism public,” he said, adding “I have friends and family in rural Manitoba and am reluctant to be open because of that.”

Arthur grew up Roman Catholic, but later attended an evangelical church. He also keeps his atheism quiet—something he feels has prevented bad experiences.

“People can be nasty if you say you aren’t a believer, they can react badly and you can be ostracized,” he said.

He knows some people who “have been rejected by friends and family for being atheists,” he added.

That’s why many local atheists like coming to HAAM’s monthly meetings—it’s a place where they can be open and feel safe with others who share their views.

Plus, as Arthur put it, the meetings are a great place to socialize and experience community. It’s the one thing he misses about church, he said.

For Peter, the social aspect is also one of the things he most appreciates about the group.

“Losing that social connection was the biggest loss after losing my faith,” he said. “I was glad to find a community of like-minded people.”

Click her to read a Q & A with Neil Carter that goes deeper into his experience as a de-converted evangelical and atheist in the deep south of the U.S. 

Religion and the U.S. Midterm Election: Why do Evangelicals Keep Voting Republican?

What role did religion play in the recent U.S. midterm election?

An exit poll by NBC News showed that, overall, 56% of Protestants voted Republican and 42% voted Democrat. 

That is down slightly for Republicans from the 2014 midterms, when 61% voted for that party, and up a bit from the 37% who voted Democrat that year.

The Catholic vote was split, with 50% favouring Democrats and 49% Republicans. This is also a shift from 2014, when 54% supported Republicans and 45% supported Democrats.

As for the Jewish vote, it went 79% to Democrats versus 17% to Republicans. 

Voters from the Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu faiths voted 73% in favour of Democrats versus 25% for Republicans.

Of those who say they belong to no religion, known as the “nones,” 70% voted Democratic, 28% voted Republican.

But what many want to know is: How did evangelicals in that country vote?

Unsurprisingly, they continued to support the GOP. Seventy-five percent voted for Republican candidates and 22% voted for Democrats. 

Support for Republicans did fall slightly from 78% who voted Republican in the 2014 midterms, and it is up slightly for the Democrats from the 20% they received from evangelicals that same year.

For many Canadians, including many evangelicals in this country, this support for Trump and the Republican Party continues to be a mystery. 

How could a group of people who say they stand for truth, morality, ethics and compassion vote for someone who seems to be the opposite in so many ways?

I posed that question to Ryan Claassen, a political science professor at Kent State University in Ohio and author of the book Godless Democrats and Pious Republicans?

“The primary reason is they are Republicans and Trump is a Republican,” he says, adding that the improved socio-economic status of evangelicals has propelled many into that camp over time.

“High socio-economic status individuals tend to be more supportive of the Republican Party, and evangelicals have realized significant socio-economic gains over the past half century,” he says.

Another reason is deeply-entrenched racial attitudes.

“Evangelicals are concentrated in former Confederate States,” he notes, adding that political trends for white evangelicals in the South “are very similar to the trends for non-evangelical whites in the South.”

These “racial attitudes explain more of the evangelical shift to the Republican Party over time than do their abortion attitudes,” he says—as important as that and other moral issues are to them.

(This is an argument made by Randall Balmer in Politico, where he says the real origin or the religious right was segregation.) 

What about the rise of the nones—how will that affect voting in the future in that country?

For Claassen, the fact “this is the fastest growing group within American religion has serious political ramifications,” with this demographic trend favoring the Democrats.

It could be offset, however, by how evangelicals punch above their weight in elections—although they are just 15% of the population, they comprise a quarter of those who vote.

That could change if younger evangelicals vote differently from their elders, but exit polls in the mid-terms “showed similar voting patterns among younger and older white evangelicals,” he observes.

In other words, evangelical support for Trump and the Republicans shows no sign of waning.

This is something that frustrates Jacob Lupfer, a commentator on religion and politics for Religion News Service.

“In any sane, normal world,” he writes, evangelicals “would be appalled by Trumpism.”

Yet, he adds, “they embrace him without consequence, because what little institutional or elite evangelical resistance to Trump that existed in 2016 has almost completely evaporated. 

"With the passage of time, even principled white evangelicals have lost their appetite for resisting Trumpism.”

“While a vocal minority of evangelical faith leaders once spoke out firmly against a politician whose life embodies so many unacceptable attitudes and behaviors, those voices have now gone silent,” he says.

“Trumpism is now business as usual for white evangelicalism, and white evangelical politics are inseparable from Trump’s,” he adds.

The word “evangelical,” he concludes, “comes from the Greek New Testament. It means ‘good news,’ in reference to the gospel of Jesus Christ . . . true Christians would never abide the race-baiting, lying, dehumanizing rhetoric that Trump spews daily.

“The ‘good news’ for Trump is that they just don’t care.”

From the November 17, 2018 Winnipeg Free Press.

Canada's First-Ever National Faith and the Media Conference: 20 Years Later

Cover of the spring, 1998 issue of Media, the
magazine of the Canadian Association of Journalists.

Twenty years ago, it was a different world for the media.

The Internet was in its infancy. E-mail was a brand-new technology. Most people got their news from the traditional media—print newspapers, TV and radio news. Magazines were strong.

And most, if not all, major Canadian daily newspapers had full-time religion beats and robust faith pages.

That was the world the first-ever national Faith and the Media conference took place in.

The conference, which was created and organized by a small interfaith group in Winnipeg, was held June 7-9 at Carleton University in Ottawa.

It was an audacious enterprise; nothing like it had ever been done before.

But the small interfaith group believed the time was right to challenge the media to do a better job of reporting about religion, audaciously setting out to raise funds, gather sponsors, invite speakers and plan the event.

The Winnipeg Free Press was one of the earliest sponsors, helping to get the process moving.

Soon, other media came on board: The Globe and Mail, Ottawa Citizen, Abbotsford News, Vancouver Sun and the CBC.

Altogether, there were about 50 sponsors from the media, foundations, businesses and individuals.

Another important sponsor was the Canadian Association of Journalists, which dedicated an issue of its magazine, Media, to the issue.

Major faith groups and organizations also joined on, from the Christian, Jewish, Ba'hai, Hindu and Muslim communities, along with the Carleton University School of Journalism, which hosted the conference.

A major coup occurred when Canadian-born Peter Jennings, anchor of ABC World News Tonight, agreed to be the keynote speaker. His acceptance put the event on the map.

It was Jennings who put faith forward at ABC, prompting it to hire Peggy Wehmeyer as the first full-time national TV news religion reporter in the U.S.

Jennings subsequently had to beg off, sending Wehmeyer in his stead. It was a tremendous choice; she did a masterful job based on her experience of reporting about faith in that country.

Altogether, a total of 270 people from across the country attended the conference, coming from the media and faith groups.

They heard keynote addresses from people such as Aloysius Cardinal Ambrozic, Archbishop of Toronto; Reginald Bibby, a sociologist of religion in Canada; Nicholas Hirst, editor of the Winnipeg Free Press; Peter Desbarats, former dean of journalism at the University of Western Ontario; Neil Reynolds, editor of the Ottawa Citizen; Kirk Lapointe, at the time the former editor of the Hamilton Spectator and soon-to-be the editor of the new National Post; and John Stackhouse, then a professor at Regent College.

The conference also included a presentation by Andrew Grenville, then Senior Vice-President for the Global Research division of the Angus Reid, based on research about religion in Canada done by the pollster.

Another feature was the report about a newspaper scan of religion reporting in 20 newspapers over a one-month period. The report was commissioned by the conference, and presented by researcher Joyce Smith.

Along with the major addresses, the conference addressed topics such as whether a reporter could be a person of faith and still be a good reporter; tips on covering faith; what faith groups wished the media knew about faith; and what the media wished faith groups knew about how the media works.

As a result of the conference, the issue of faith and the media was put on the media map. Many articles and other reports appeared in newspapers, magazines, and on TV and radio.

The CBC did a live panel from the conference during its signature evening news program, as well as an edition of Cross Country Check Up from the event.

At the same time, the conference encouraged reporters covering the faith beat in Canada, and empowered and encouraged faith groups to do a better job of telling their stories to the media.

The event led to the creation of the Centre for Faith and Media, based in Calgary and headed, at first, by former Calgary Herald religion reporter Gordon Legge, and later by Richelle Wiseman.

Before it Centre closed in 2010, it held another conference in Ottawa, worked with local Muslim communities to help them with their media relations, and also produced guides for reporters about Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and the Ba’hai faith.

Looking back, I wonder if such an event could be held today.

Traditional media is on the ropes. Many Canadians today get their news from social media. As for faith coverage, there are no full-time religion reporters at any newspaper in the country.

At the same time, faith groups are struggling, with many downsizing and cutting back on communications. A number of church publications have closed.

And yet, faith is just as important today as it ever was.

Whether its politics in the U.S.; war and conflict around the world; the rise of nationalism in various countries; gay marriage and same-sex relations almost everywhere; crackdown on religious groups in Russia and China; the scandals rocking the Catholic church; the #MeToo movement; climate change; and human rights—there is a religious angle.

But how will those stories be told without any resources dedicated to that beat? Without people who are knowledgeable about different faiths?

That’s a big—and important—question.

Twenty years later, some people in Winnipeg are creatively working on a new and audacious idea to help address that question.

Time will tell if this effort will be as successful as the previous one.

Stay tuned . . . .

Visit the old Faith and the Media website on the Wayback Machine.

Healthy Churches Need Healthy Church-Related Colleges and Universities

What’s the state of Christian higher education in Canada today?

Nationally, enrollment at church-related colleges and universities is in slight decline, according to Christian Higher Education Canada (CHEC), the umbrella body for 34 Christian colleges and universities, including four in Manitoba.

Last year, just over 16,000 students were enrolled in CHEC schools, down from about 17,000 in 2013.

What about this province—how are the four church-related schools in this province doing?

Things here are mostly stable, with one school reporting an increase this year.

Altogether, a total of 2,617 students are enrolled at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU), Providence University College, Booth University College and Steinbach Bible College this fall.

The largest of the four is CMU, with 1,589 students. Of that total, 739 are at its Shaftesbury campus, including 41 in its service, learning and adventure program, called Outtatown.

An additional 850 are at its downtown campus, Menno Simons College, located at the University of Winnipeg.

The story of CMU since 2000 is “growth for 10 years, a relative steady state for six years, and slow growth for the last two years,” says President Cheryl Pauls.

This includes growth of 4% over last year among undergraduate students, while programs at MSC show steady enrollment.

At Booth University College, which is owned by The Salvation Army, there are 476 students, including those in continuing studies. Two hundred and eighty-eight are at the Winnipeg campus.

According to Communications Specialist Chris Albi, this total is similar to last year, following several years of approximately 8-10% growth per year.

Steinbach Bible College, the smallest of the four, has 100 students—about the same number as during the past decade, says President Rob Reimer.

Most of those students, he says, come from rural Manitoba, and from within a two-hour drive of Steinbach.

Providence University College, an evangelical school in Otterburne, has a total of 452 students, including 272 in undergrad courses and 165 in its seminary. Nine are enrolled in Mile Two, its service, learning and adventure program, and six in its English Language Institute.

That total is below the ten-year average of 473, says President David Johnson.

I asked the four schools about the challenges they face. Foremost among them is the health of the church in Canada.

Since churches are a main source of students for all four schools, the decline in church membership and attendance is of concern.

Other challenges include raising funds and convincing students, and their parents, that going deeper into their faith is time well spent—even if only for a year before taking other studies.

According to Justin Cooper, the executive director of CHEC, the challenges facing Manitoba schools are also felt across the country.

“There are fewer students in general, a tighter economy, and fewer young people in many churches,” he says, noting that recent research shows that churches—including evangelical churches—are facing a challenge of retaining their youth.

Looking ahead, he is optimistic about the future of church-related schools. But he thinks some will have to “re-invent themselves” to succeed. Mergers might also be necessary.

As well, schools that are “remotely located” outside of major urban centres will have a tougher time attracting students, he adds.

Leaders at the four schools in Manitoba are working creatively at the challenges. But they can only do so much. 

If a young person never hears a pastor, youth leader or older adult in their congregation recommend a year or more of study at a Christian college or university, chances are they will never see it as an option.

Which is too bad for these schools. But it will ultimately be too bad for churches as well. 

The future health and success of individual congregations, and denominations themselves, will depend on them having leaders, both clergy and lay, who have thought deeply and intelligently about their faith.

Only having access to people with a Sunday school education won’t cut it.

What they need are people who know how to apply their faith to the issues facing the church and society today—things like climate change, global poverty, the environment, reconciliation with Indigenous people, dealing with diversity, artificial intelligence, assisted suicide, and many others.

Healthy churches need healthy church-related colleges and universities, and vice versa. 

Let's hope the two can find creative ways to help each other.

Originally published in the Oct. 20, 2018 Winnipeg Free Press.