Since the election and thereafter reading posts here and elsewhere as well as having discussions, etc.: Is it enough just to be Catholic?
Some people i speak with are happy that some of these politicians whom won on Tuesday are Catholic. Here in Md we have a new 'Catholic' governor as well as a new 'Catholic' Speaker of the House (Pelosi). There haev been articles on both Pelosi and O'Malley in at least the Post, how they have been brought up Catholic/ Catholic schools, etc. My dad emailed me saying we should be happy we have 'good Catholics' in these positions.Can we be happy that we have at least this? Or labelling one-self a Catholic is not enough any longer?Are they maintaining at least the minumum the Church requires? If so, if pro-Choice/ anti-Life and an accessory to other people's sins by doing so, especially they are in a position of authority--makes all worse.Yes, id think good they are Catholic but not sure good examples of how God wants us to live as Catholics.
Gerry
But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child - a direct killing of the innocent child - murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta
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Catholic Is Not Enough
By Thomas Howard, PhD.
Just when you thought it was safe to call yourself "Catholic," this convert from Protestantism explains what kinds of "Catholic" you shouldn't be.
A number of years ago, I wrote a book (which was not a bestseller) under the title, Evangelical Is Not Enough. The editors of Envoy have asked me now to write this article with the title which appears at the top.
What a malcontent this man must be, readers may be pardoned for murmuring. What an ecclesiastical dyspeptic. Will nothing satisfy him? Is anything enough? Come.
On the surface of things, such would indeed appear to be a just reaction on the part of a reader. On the other hand, there is a certain point which perhaps may legitimately be made without ones taking on the guilt of merely carping.
What, then, can possibly be meant by ones saying that Catholic is not enough?
Clearly we must begin with a demurral, or perhaps even a slightly sheepish admission of artfulness: The title is an editorial eye-catcher, of course. Readers of Envoy expect this journal to be squarely behind the assertion that Catholic is enough. Hence, when they see this title (or, so hope the editors and the author), they will snap up the magazine with, Oh-ho! What have we here? Envoy gone soft, eh?
On the other hand, unhappily enough, there is a sense in which the assertion that Catholic is not enough is very widely true. To be rigorously just, however, we would need to insert some modifiers: This sort of Catholic is not enough, or, what you hear being taught over there in that RCIA program is not enough.
But clearly, to venture such remarks is to sail very near the wind of arrogance. Well! I see we have a self-appointed inquisitor here, pronouncing on everyone's faith, and handing out obiter dicta hither and thither as to the quality of that faith. And all unsolicited in the bargain.
Such an accusation might well hit home, and to tackle an assertion such as we have in the title of this article, one must venture along hesitantly and tentatively, frequently testing ones own attitudes with the litmus test of Charity.
We might canvass several situations in which we find ourselves encountering a Catholic outlook which is not enough.
For example, here is Mr. O'Brian, or Mr. Przybyzewski, or Miss Spiridigliozzi, or Mrs. de la Rocha or Mrs. Garcia who, if asked about their faith, might pass off the question with some reference to the Old Country from which their family emigrated to America and leave it at that. Obviously, that won't quite suffice when it comes to the Divine Tribunal. There is neither Jew nor Greek (nor Englishman, Irishman or Mexican) in Christ. Your country of origin won't save you. A highly ethnically-conscious Catholicism can be a genuinely robust thing, most heartening to behold (besides being perhaps enormously curious to someone strange to that background). The pluck, fidelity and loyalty which often accompany such an ethnic faith can well turn out to be the stuff of which martyrs are made.
On the other hand, as we know, such a stance can thin out into a merely nominal Catholicism. "Yeah, I was baptized Catholic, but I got teed off at the Church when they came out with that encyclical on such and such, and I haven't been to Mass for thirty years. But I'm Catholic. I mean, you can't be from my country and not be Catholic."
I should perhaps point out that, if I were quizzed on a TV show - say, Mother Angelica's - viewers would very quickly (and correctly) conclude that here is a man who is a total papist, 100 percent loyal to the Magisterium, and whose very ecumenism comes down to the conviction that every Christian believer ought to be in visible, obedient, organic communion with the Apostolic See in Rome. Interminable colloquia, symposia and congresses, be they never so amiable, are not what John 17 is about.
Or again, it is possible to come upon what we might call an embarrassed Catholic. The ethnic factor may loom large here, and there may be an undoubted and deeply-rooted awareness of oneself as Catholic, but it is a mute and, at times, even hangdog sort of business. One goes to Mass, to be sure. But an onlooker might suppose that he was seeing a man awaiting the dentist's drill. Great gloom emanating from the facial expression, heavy winter jacket all bunched up, mouth clamped firmly shut during anything as stupid as singing, and a beeline for the door at the instant of dismissal. It can happen that, upon being asked about his faith, such a man will only mutter awkwardly, and change the subject.
The trick here for the onlooker is to keep a very short rein on the conclusions he might be inclined to draw, upon seeing such an unhappy-looking Catholic. The demeanor is not always a trustworthy index of the quality of faith. "Man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh on the heart," said the Lord to Samuel. (1 Sam. 16:7) It might turn out that one fine day, you will see this miserable-seeming man place his head on the block for the sake of Christ. But our remarks here do not constitute a set of tests to be applied to others. We can only test ourselves here. I may be a rumpled and hangdog man, but that leaves open the question as to whether the love of God is shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5), or whether it is, alas, true, that I am bored and embarrassed by religion. If the latter is the case, then of course that sort of Catholic is not enough.
Not altogether dissimilar to what we have just discussed, we might find ourselves having taken on a sort of unwitting clericalism. In this case, one's inclination is to imagine a double-decker standard for Catholics: Let the clergy and the hierarchy do the talking about religion; just leave me alone. I'll pay my money, and show up at Mass. But the laity ought not to be bothered with a lot of grief about becoming lively, articulate, ardent Catholics.
Yes, they should, says the Church or at least, if grief is scarcely the word, then let us say that the Church, especially under the pontificate of John Paul II, is urgently stressing the universal call to holiness. There is not a double-decker standard for Christians, with the religious and clergy alone doing the praying and praising and witnessing. Every Roman Catholic in the world is called to the fullness of the Faith, to forsake everything (our Lord's words, not mine), deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Jesus (Matt. 16:24). Scripture and Church tradition do not provide for a reluctant or inert Catholic identity.
If I have, all unknowingly, absorbed some such notion as this double-decker idea, then of course that sort of Catholic is not enough.
Again, it might be the case that I have placed my hope and confidence in a hectic program of fulfilling all sorts of obligations that, I hope, will add up to a passing score, thus getting me through the pearly gates when I die. So many Masses, so many rosaries, so many novenas, so many points accrued . . . I just hope God will look favorably on all my accomplishments.
The Catechism is a great help here. "With regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man... [T]he merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God . . . Man's merit, moreover, itself is due to God, for his good actions proceed in Christ, from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit . . . The merits of our good works are gifts of Divine Goodness . . . Our merits are God's gifts . . . [N]o one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification . . . The saints have always had a lively awareness that their merits were pure grace" (CCC 2007 2011).
A Catholic should be as stoutly forthcoming as the most zealous Protestant in saying, "We are saved by grace." If I have somehow missed this, which is the center of the Good News, then of course that sort of Catholic is not enough.
In this connection we may make the experiment of attending to words which we encounter in every single Mass: ". . . Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from Heaven." Jesus is the Savior, not my pile of works. "Behold the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world." Jesus is the Savior, not my pile of works. "This is My Body . . . this is the cup of My Blood, the Blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven." The Salvation Army has no corner on the Blood of the Lamb, so mocked by Broadway and Hollywood, who think that people who believe that are funny. If my Catholicism has somehow missed this point, then it is most gravely inadequate, that is to say, not enough.
And again, it may be that I have been cheered and encouraged by discovering that to be Catholic is to belong. I am part of a great family made up of all sorts and conditions of people, and I am accepted just as I am, as the hymn puts it. This togetherness is a great consolation to me.
A young priest friend of mine, Fr. Richard Erickson, recently wrote a book entitled, Late Have I Loved Thee (Paulist Press). In the course of interviewing people who had become Catholics late in life, he found that many had been attracted to the Church by this prospect of belonging. But a corollary to this, which disturbed Fr. Erickson, was that many, many people gave an account of their conversion with no reference to God at all. Now of course, if pressed, some of these people might well have urged that God had indeed been a factor in the whole process. But the bare fact that any account at all of ones journey to the Church could be volunteered with no reference to God is certainly anomalous, and we would all agree, presumably, that such a Catholicism is not enough. (Incidentally, Fr. Erickson includes, as a sort of postscript to this part of his study, his own resolve to make the gospel clear in all of his preaching from now on. As a faithful priest, he feels obligated to bear witness to the fullness of the Catholic nature, that is, of the Faith).
Finally, in mulling over this topic of a Catholicism which is not enough, we might juxtapose, or counterpose, rather, two opposite attitudes, each of which turns out to be not enough.
On the one hand, it might be that I am the sort of person who loves the old ways, and deplores the changes that rush at us all so unremittingly in every aspect of life. The bulldozers ruin my childhood neighborhood, music gets worse and worse, kids don't have any respect, and now the Vatican has gone and joined the parade. Oh, for the old Mass . . . (I may as well be frank and admit that this attitude is very much my own inclination.) One feels disenfranchised, dispossessed, outraged even. Everything would be all right again if we'd just get back to the pomp, the mystery and the splendor of the old ways.
At the other extreme, I may have identified myself with the great number of contemporary Catholics who think of themselves as absolved from obedience to the Church, and as possessing the right to judge (and even condemn) the Church's teaching, and who find it exhilarating to be on the forward edge of protest. It may be that I prefer to speak of the pope as this present pope, rather than the Holy Father, thus implying with infinite finesse that he, like the U.S. President, is merely a transitory figure, soon enough to be replaced by the next man, and hence not to be taken seriously.
If, to me, being Catholic is primarily a matter of belonging to one or the other of these parties, so to speak, then I am under the most somber of obligations to admit, to my own shame, that my Catholicism is not enough. I have turned the ancient Faith into a quarrel. I have lowered my eyes from Jesus Christ and from His Mother, and have joined a putsch.
The key word in the above paragraph is primarily. A man like myself may well have certain tastes (I like Latin, I like Renaissance polyphony, I like fiddle-backed chasubles and the capa magna) and even certain strong convictions for which he is prepared to argue (I would write articles, for example, against efforts by clergy to make the Mass chatty or cute, and I would belabor a Catholic whose stance vis-a-vis the Magisterium is principally that of critic). But if all of this has crowded the matter of holiness off to one side, then my Catholicism is not enough.
By the same token, a man (unlike myself) who has picked up the whole busy agenda of contemporaneity and eagerly works for revolution in the Church needs to ask himself some questions. For example: Am I more zealous on behalf of my four of five favorite topics of protest than I am the imitation of Christ? If so, then my Catholicism is not enough.
Is there a point, then, at which any of us might arrive where we can say confidently to an interlocutor, "Catholic is enough"? Perhaps the difficulty in wording that last sentence just that way lies in focusing on a "point at which any of us might arrive." St. Francis himself, not to mention Saints Augustine, Benedict, Catherine of Genoa, Hildegard of Bingen, and the rest of them, would all demur if you hailed them with, "Well - are you the paradigm?" The most advanced saint would claim to be, at the very most, en route to "being Catholic." Where this leaves the rest of us is a matter for much sober reflection. Certainly, we have our work cut out.
But all of us can say with great fervor, "Yes, Catholic is enough!" if what we are speaking of is the "fullness" (catholicity) of the ancient Faith which was handed on to us from the Lord Himself, via the Apostles, the bishops, the Church Fathers, the martyrs and confessors, and all the saints and faithful who have borne witness by their lives and deaths to that Faith which has been entrusted to the Church, and is accessible in Scripture, in the sacraments, the Magisterium, the liturgy, and in the communion of saints which embraces all of us - those of us still in pilgrimage here on earth, and all of those who have gone before us, right up to the great Mother of God herself.
Yes, Catholic is enough, if by Catholic I mean the fullness of the Faith once delivered to us. But no, if by that noble word I mean my ethnicity, or superstition, or mere togetherness, or any other agenda I might have that takes precedence over the excellency of the knowledge of God in Christ Jesus. All other renderings of the Christian message are to some extent attenuated. There are loyal, faithful and robust fellow-believers who are not Catholic, but whom we may count on to stand firm when the test comes. Catholics yearn, in their behalf, that they would avail themselves of the immense and superabundant graces which brim over and flow like a great crystal river to the whole world from the fountainhead of the Roman Catholic Church.
It is a salutary exercise for us Catholics to examine our own grasp of the Faith, and to be sure that the word "Catholic" bears its full richness in our own lives. If it does, then we may say, "Catholic is enough."
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