Posted on 07/08/2010 5:28:39 PM PDT by Desdemona
In many ways, the American experience is all about forgetting. Since this is a nation where almost everyone descends from immigrants, homogenization of cultural differences is necessary for creating a harmonious social order. It is only a matter of time before this affects the religious sphere of any given group. It is at least arguable that religion in the United States must inevitably become individualistic, consumerist, and fascinated with innovation. What came from the past, from ancestors in another time and society, must be forgotten since it is irrelevant; or at the very least, it must be subjugated to the needs and prejudices of the present.
Thus, forgetting has been an important survival mechanism in our society. In the Catholic experience, believers have often been confronted with a hostile environment that considers their beliefs and practices to be backwards, atavistic, and even pagan. As a result, Catholicism has frequently bowed to the prejudices of the American Protestant society. Our Catholicism thus became highly institutionalized, moralistic, and sober. Arguably, it went from being a faith and practice based primarily in the home and hearth to one that obsessed over how Catholics could be better citizens of American democracy. The predominantly Irish hierarchy of the first half of last century thus sought to flatten the heterogeneous Catholicisms of Italians, Poles, Slovaks, Mexicans, Louisiana Creoles, and so on into one homogenous American faith. Forgetting was an important ingredient in this new Catholicism.
The trajectory that this process took is pretty well known by all. As the Catholic ghettoes emptied and the suburbs filled, festivals, devotions, languages, and imagery were lost to the bunker-style mega-parishes of middle class America. Perhaps some of the traditions of the past were preserved by the older folks, but those who were born in the aftermath of this movement were left with little sense of the Faith that had come before. What was passed on was Catholicism at its lowest common denominator: a Catholicism of convenience, a Catholicism with the ethos of a strip-mall Starbucks.
It was inevitable that certain people would revolt against such a faith. While many progressive elements see nothing wrong with the present state of the Church (mainly out of a visceral dislike for "pre-Vatican II" ways), many more Catholics are extremely dissatisfied with the flavor of Catholicism in 21st-century America. The larger portion of these people is often ignored: those who leave the Church altogether. Why these people leave is a topic for another day; but other more "conservative" elements do indeed feel cheated by the state of the Faith as it was passed down to them.
These Catholics -- call them "Neo-Caths," "traditionalists," or "conservatives" -- seek to satisfy their hunger for a "thicker" Faith through books, Web sites, clubs, and even specialized "niche parishes" where they are allowed their own liturgical and devotional particularities. While such aspirations are legitimate, they must be tempered by the realization that these efforts do not necessarily create an organically traditional Catholicism, but rather can be yet another manifestation of American consumerism on the religious level.
In these circles, arguments over what Tradition is can miss the forest for the trees. Having been deprived of a tradition, properly speaking, many try to recreate it using books, Internet forums, and popular media. What often results is a parody of the ancestral faith; a version in which certain practices are preserved while others are conveniently dropped. Variations on the theme of remembering and forgetting are often at the heart of the arguments among members of the Catholic right. Some want one thing done at Mass, others want another. One group says we must follow this page in the book, others say that we must follow that page. These arguments often have nothing to do with what we were taught at the home by our parents, or what was passed down to us by our forbearers. In other words, they have little to do with tradition proper, and more to do with personal taste.
I have come to learn the hard way that such debates over what constitutes tradition have little foundation in what tradition actually is. I confess here that I first learned to pray the rosary out of a book. I had joined my local Legion of Mary as a teenager and said the rosary the way the Legion did. After a long youthful period of religious exploring, which included a stop in the Eastern Church, I ended up once again where I started from: in the house of my grandparents.
I began to pray the rosary in Spanish with them, and in the process realized that this was not the rosary I had learned as an adolescent. The method of saying the rosary that they had brought with them from Mexico was a rushed catechetical poetry, an echo of generations of prayer that I could never learn from a book. There was nothing wrong, in principal, with what I had learned as a youth, but the way my grandparents said the rosary seemed better precisely because it was old. It belonged to me. It was my birthright. It was almost in my blood.
It is that organic tie with the past that is missing in many of the polemics over liturgy, devotions, and the general shape of Catholic life in this country. When some pundits speak of capital-T Tradition, they are often speaking of a disembodied ideal that they want for everyone that was lived in the past by no one. It is found only in books, beamed to them directly via satellite feeds from the Vatican, packaged in cellophane wrap complete with a user guide. It is often disconnected from real life, and negligent in terms of the little details of the Catholic ethos. How does one pray the rosary, bless the food, decorate a home altar, etc.? Like learning to drive or raise children, there is only so much one can learn from a book (or from a blog, for that matter).
Of course, not everyone has Mexican parents who grew up in a rural village in the 1950s to teach them these things. If the Catholic ghetto of yesteryear is dead and buried, then where can we learn these things if not from books, EWTN, Web sites, and so forth?
While acknowledging the objection, I would at the very least exhort the reader to reach out to other, less conventional sources when arguing about tradition. Perhaps one could go to an elderly relative, an old devotional book, or an ethnic festival where vestiges of the old ways can be seen. Perhaps we have to begin to acknowledge once again that to be Catholic is to venerate old things precisely because they are old. Tradition is not convenient, and it may not even seem tasteful. But like many old things, it can be wise.
Arturo Vasquez is a writer and independent researcher in New Orleans. He blogs regularly at Reditus: A Chronicle of Aesthetic Christianity.
I think the author is nostalgic for something - a sense of family and ethnic tradition, connected in some way with the Church - that was rather tenuous for him, and that doesn’t exist at all for many today. I can’t find Catholic traditions among older members of my family: they’re all Protestant. I don’t have an ethnicity: I’m an American. Yes, we can adopt practices that we learn about in books or from visiting others, but they are not ours. I could dress up like a Klingon, too, but that wouldn’t make me one.
The modern American experience of Catholicism is something new in our country’s history, and maybe in the Church’s history. Among those who believe the doctrines of the Catholic Faith and submit to its moral teaching, many have no historical connection with the Church. They’ve chosen the Faith because it is true, and the Sacraments because they are the action of Christ, and the Church’s morals because they are right.
The devotional or cultural practices of ethnic communities are not the Catholic Faith. They may be aids to experiencing and following the Faith, or they may not.
The Tridentine Mass has its history and tradition tied to the Council of Trent, almost fifteen hundred years ago. Nothing since equals the deep spirituality, compelling virtue, and clear joy of all encompassing TRUTH. This cannot be denied given the millions upon millions of saved souls and thousands of inspired martyrs that developed over these multiple centuries.
Not recognizing what has occurred in history is ignorance personified.
Er, what year is it in your time zone? The Council of Trent met from 1545 to 1563, on and off.
This is reminding me of a "Star Trek" episode and I'm getting confused. Must be the heat ...
As you know, Tax-chick, the Council of Trent confirmed the Mass of Ages and didn’t “invent it.” But thanks for mentioning the relevant Star Trek episode.... :-)
One of my favorite shows to watch right now is Cake Boss about the Italian bakery in Hoboken, NJ and mostly because watching the passing down of what they do is so authentic and the sense of family is so strong. Aside from that, they're Italian and half of what makes Italy such a great place to go is the people. They make things fun. But they never forget God.
I would add that I find American Catholics not from the enclaves or New Orleans or New Orleans Lite (that would be here) to be a bit puritan in their disposition particularly about alcohol. I seriously wonder where that came from as it's NOT a traditional Catholic way.
That would be Carlo’s Bakery, one of a handful of old school Italian businesses that survived the gentrification/yuppification of Hoboken. Well worth a visit, although it is very crowded on Saturdays and Sundays.
Yes!
I’m sympathetic, too. However, I can’t see ethnic culture as key to Catholicism. Cultural practices arise in specific circumstances, and they change or decline as the circumstances change.
My family’s life revolves around our church, too. However, our specific expression is anchored in the Bible and in church and community service, rather than in the culture of our ancestors. Certainly there’s nothing in Northern Ireland that I need, except maybe Bushmill’s.
I think the point is missed that it’s the PASSING DOWN of the faith through culture that was tossed out and people are trying to recapture it. In the comments at the source of the piece someone recounts listening to the way her grandmother said her Rosary. Mine said it with a gin and tonic in one hand. It’s the little every day things in culture that remind one of all that loving Christ and His Church is all about.
One of the family traditions my late husband and I started ealy in our marriage is the Advent Calendar, and Advent wreath. Some years, we made our own calendar for the children, with little paper doors to open, Bible verses, and some treats as they counted off the days to Christmas.
I’d love to go sometime and just visit with the family that lives life at the top of their lungs. And the episode where Danny and Frankie go out to try to catch some doves was hilarious. Well and the polar bear club.
St. Francis of Assisi in Chicago by UIC Pavilion is an Hispanic parish and their particular traditions brought a welcomed depth to my Catholicism. Since my daughter swam at UIC’s pool for several years, I was able to spend a lot of time at St. Francis (during her downtime, which is all but about 5 minutes of the 4-hour meets). Beautiful group of people; enormous faith expression, from leaving locks of their children’s hair laid at the foot of the “Bloody Jesus” statue, to hand-written letters from soldiers, to baby pictures, etc. (and the church does not remove these items, but eventually frames them behind the statue). And I’ll never forget the boiling hot (no air in this church!) day when a man and a woman came to an otherwise empty church, and on their knees “walked” side-by-side slowly down the entire long center aisle in prayer.
I disagree somewhat with the author. Yes, family traditions are fantastic and should be kept up. BUT in families the faith is going to go through periods of weakness and indifference. Generations will forget. And even well-meaning supposedly devout relatives do things wrong or superstitiously. Book knowledge helps preserve those traditions against fickle trends and fashions. It anchors us directly to previous generations.
We need both, really.
We’ve had an Advent wreath and Advent calendar for many years. During Advent and Lent, we read the lectionary both morning and evening, in the hope that everyone will pay attention at least once ;-).
If we have an “inherited culture,” it’s the military. Praying for the troops, decorating the graves, sending packages and cards are all part of our expression of our faith.
I did know that ... it was just the placing of the modifier that leapt out at me. I get goofy when I stay up too late.
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