[Tax-chick]

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.

[Desdemona]

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.

[Judith Anne]

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.

[Claud]

We American Catholics give short shrift to our own culture--we kind of think of it as a blank slate on which these various immigrant cultures imprint themselves. It's not true. The Catholic Church in America has its own ethnic feel which we can't really appreciate until we step out of it.

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.