Posted on 09/18/2010 8:26:32 PM PDT by markomalley
One of the key myths of the American Catholic imagination is this: After 200 years of fighting against public prejudice, Catholics finally broke through into America’s mainstream with the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy as president. It’s a happy thought, and not without grounding. Next to America’s broad collection of evangelical churches, baptized Catholics now make up the biggest religious community in the United States. They serve in large numbers in Congress. They have a majority on the Supreme Court. They play commanding roles in the professions and in business leadership. They’ve climbed, at long last, the Mt. Zion of social acceptance.
So goes the tale. What this has actually meant for the direction of American life, however, is another matter. Catholic statistics once seemed impressive. They filled many of us with tribal pride. But they didn’t stop a new and quite alien national landscape, a “next America,” from emerging right under our noses.
While both Barna Group and Pew Research Center data show that Americans remain a broadly Christian people, old religious loyalties are steadily softening. Overall, the number of Americans claiming no religious affiliation, about 16 percent, has doubled since 1990. One quarter of Americans aged 18-29 have no affiliation with any particular religion, and as the Barna Group noted in 2007, they “exhibit a greater degree of criticism toward Christianity than did previous generations when they were at the same stage of life. In fact, in just a decade . . . the Christian image [has] shifted substantially downward, fueled in part by a growing sense of disengagement and disillusionment among young people.”
Catholic losses have been masked by Latino immigration. But while 31 percent of Americans say they were raised in the Catholic faith, fewer than 24 percent of Americans now describe themselves as Catholic.
These facts have weight because, traditionally, religious faith has provided the basis for Americans’ moral consensus. And that moral consensus has informed American social policy and law. What people believe—or don’t believe—about God, helps to shape what they believe about men and women. And what they believe about men and women creates the framework for a nation’s public life.
Or to put it more plainly: In the coming decades Catholics will likely find it harder, not easier, to influence the course of American culture, or even to live their faith authentically. And the big difference between the “next America” and the old one will be that plenty of other committed religious believers may find themselves in the same unpleasant jam as their Catholic cousins.
At first hearing, this scenario might sound implausible; and for good reason. The roots of the American experience are deeply Protestant. They go back a very long way, to well before the nation’s founding. Whatever one thinks of the early Puritan colonists—and Catholics have few reasons to remember them fondly—no reader can study Gov. John Winthrop’s great 1630 homily before embarking for New England without being moved by the zeal and candor of the faith that produced it. In “A model of Christian charity,” he told his fellow colonists:
We are a company professing ourselves fellow members of Christ . . . That which the most in their churches maintain as truth in profession only, we must bring into familiar and constant practice; as in this duty of love, we must love brotherly without dissimulation, we must love one another with pure heart fervently. We must bear one another’s burdens. We must look not only on our own things, but also on the things of our brethren . . . We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of others’ necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So we will keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
Not a bad summary of Christian discipleship, made urgent for Winthrop by the prospect of leading 700 souls on a hard, two-month voyage across the North Atlantic to an equally hard New World. What happened when they got there is a matter of historical record. And different agendas interpret the record differently.
The Puritan habits of hard work, industry and faith branded themselves on the American personality. While Puritan influence later diluted in waves of immigrants from other Protestant traditions, it clearly helped shape the political beliefs of John Adams and many of the other American Founders. Adams and his colleagues were men who, as Daniel Boorstin once suggested, had minds that were a “miscellany and a museum;” men who could blend the old and the new, an earnest Christian faith and Enlightenment ideas, without destroying either.
But beginning in the nineteenth century, riding a crest of scientific and industrial change, a different view of the Puritans began to emerge. In the language of their critics, the Puritans were seen as intolerant, sexually repressed, narrow-minded witch-hunters who masked material greed with a veneer of Calvinist virtue. Cast as religious fanatics, the Puritans stood accused of planting the seed of nationalist messianism by portraying America as a New Jerusalem, a “city upon a hill” (from Winthrop’s homily), with a globally redemptive mission. H.L. Mencken—equally skilled as a writer, humorist and anti-religious bigot—famously described the Puritan as a man “with the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
In recent years, scholars like Christian Smith have shown how the intellectual weakness and fierce internal divisions of America’s Protestant establishment allowed “the secularization of modern public life as a kind of political revolution.” Carried out mainly between 1870 and 1930, this “rebel insurgency consisted of waves of networks of activists who were largely skeptical, freethinking, agnostic, atheist or theologically liberal; who were well educated and socially located mainly in the knowledge-production occupations, and who generally espoused materialism, naturalism, positivism and the privatization or extinction of religion.”
This insurgency could be ignored, or at least contained, for a long time. Why? Because America’s social consensus supported the country’s unofficial Christian assumptions, traditions and religion-friendly habits of thought and behavior. But law—even a constitutional guarantee—is only as strong as the popular belief that sustains it. That traditional consensus is now much weakened. Seventy years of soft atheism trickling down in a steady catechesis from our universities, social-science “helping professions,” and entertainment and news media, have eroded it.
Obviously many faith-friendly exceptions exist in each of these professional fields. And other culprits, not listed above, may also be responsible for our predicament. The late Christopher Lasch argued that modern consumer capitalism breeds and needs a “culture of narcissism”—i.e., a citizenry of weak, self-absorbed, needy personalities—in order to sustain itself. Christian Smith put it somewhat differently when he wrote that, in modern capitalism, labor “is mobile as needed, consumers purchase what is promoted, workers perform as demanded, managers execute as expected—and profits flow. And what the Torah, or the Pope, or Jesus may say in opposition is not relevant, because those are private matters” [emphasis in original].
My point here is neither to defend nor criticize our economic system. Others are much better equipped to do that than I am. My point is that “I shop, therefore I am” is not a good premise for life in a democratic society like the United States. Our country depends for its survival on an engaged, literate electorate gathered around commonly held ideals. But the practical, pastoral reality facing the Gospel in America today is a human landscape shaped by advertising, an industry Pascal Bruckner described so well as a “smiling form of sorcery”:
The buyer’s fantastic freedom of choice supposedly encourages each of us to take ourselves in hand, to be responsible, to diversify our conduct and our tastes; and most important, supposedly protects us forever from fanaticism and from being taken in. In other words, four centuries of emancipation from dogmas, gods and tyrants has led to nothing more nor less than to the marvelous possibility of choosing between several brands of dish detergent, TV channels or styles of jeans. Pushing our cart down the aisle in a supermarket or frantically wielding our remote control, these are supposed to be ways of consciously working for harmony and democracy. One could hardly come up with a more masterful misinterpretation: for we consume in order to stop being individuals and citizens; rather, to escape for a moment from the heavy burden of having to make fundamental choices.
Now, where do Catholics fit into this story?
The same Puritan worldview that informed John Winthrop’s homily so movingly, also reviled “Popery,” Catholic ritual and lingering “Romish” influences in England’s established Anglican Church. The Catholic Church was widely seen as Revelation’s Whore of Babylon. Time passed, and the American religious landscape became more diverse. But the nation’s many different Protestant sects shared a common, foreign ogre in their perceptions of the Holy See—perceptions made worse by Rome’s distrust of democracy and religious liberty. As a result, Catholics in America faced harsh Protestant discrimination throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. This included occasional riots and even physical attacks on convents, churches and seminaries. Such is the history that made John F. Kennedy’s success seem so liberating.
The irony is that mainline American Protestantism had used up much of its moral and intellectual power by 1960. Secularizers had already crushed it in the war for the cultural high ground. In effect, after so many decades of struggle, Catholics arrived on America’s center stage just as management of the theater had changed hands -- with the new owners even less friendly, but far shrewder and much more ambitious in their social and political goals, than the old ones. Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox, despite their many differences, share far more than divides them, beginning with Jesus Christ himself. They also share with Jews a belief in the God of Israel and a reverence for God’s Word in the Old Testament. But the gulf between belief and unbelief, or belief and disinterest, is vastly wider.
In the years since Kennedy’s election, Vatican II and the cultural upheavals of the 1960s, two generations of citizens have grown to maturity. The world is a different place. America is a different place—and in some ways, a far more troubling one. We can’t change history, though we need to remember and understand it. But we can only blame outside factors for our present realities up to a point. As Catholics, like so many other American Christians, we have too often made our country what it is through our appetite for success, our self-delusion, our eagerness to fit in, our vanity, our compromises, our self-absorption and our tepid faith.
If government now pressures religious entities out of the public square, or promotes same-sex “marriage,” or acts in ways that undermine the integrity of the family, or compromises the sanctity of human life, or overrides the will of voters, or discourages certain forms of religious teaching as “hate speech,” or interferes with individual and communal rights of conscience—well, why not? In the name of tolerance and pluralism, we have forgotten why and how we began as nation; and we have undermined our ability to ground our arguments in anything higher than our own sectarian opinions.
The “next America” has been in its chrysalis a long time. Whether people will be happy when it fully emerges remains to be seen. But the future is not predestined. We create it with our choices. And the most important choice we can make is both terribly simple and terribly hard: to actually live what the Church teaches, to win the hearts of others by our witness, and to renew the soul of our country with the courage of our own Christian faith and integrity. There is no more revolutionary act.
Charles J. Chaput is the archbishop of Denver.
Congratulations. The Protestant work ethic is alive and well in you.
What Jesus said, According to Matthew was,
“this (estin) the body of me......this for (estin) the blood of me” (Matt. 26:26-28) and Bible translations and scholars such as
A New Translation of the Bible by James Moffatt (1948), The Authentic New Testament by Hugh J. Schonfield(1956), The New Testament-A Translation by William Barclay(1968)
translate Matthew 26:26, (estin) as “means” or “signifies” by paying attention to the context.
“The same once-and-for-all sacrifice is re-presented in the Mass. It’s called the Eucharist.”
If Catholics need a sacrifice to be offered or presented and re-presented over and over again then perhaps their sins have not been forgiven since Paul said that when sins are forgiven there is no longer an offering for sin. (Heb. 10:28)
Note that well....”Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.”
So if Catholics feel the need to have Christ sacrifice offered, presented, re-presented, again and again that is for them to consider whether their sins have really been forgiven or not.
I'll accept Christ's sacrifice that he offered for sins perpetually. (Heb. 10:12-14)
Prosperity is not a good
"Tangible good" is not "prosperity" in goods. Prosperity is peace of mind, mental well-being, confidence in the future, certainty of faith. And all those blessings are tangible.
Obviously Rome denies these gifts to its members because Rome wants to keep them uncertain and fearful. Pitiful.
You are a Protestant. Therefore you read one thing and think another, and believe the liars that lead you so much you even think your quotes support your delusions.
Well, we know that Roman Catholics think Paul is "loony" and "deluded." But we'll follow his Scriptural teaching all the way home.
Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." -- Philippians 4:4-7"Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.
Christians can only wonder why Rome preaches another gospel of fear and unfulfilled promises of Christ.
ping to 463
I am the one who posted that I thought St. Paul was loony, I am not all Catholics. I do not recall that the rest of the Catholics came to my defense, rather they all pointed out positive things about the epistles of St. Paul.
The fact that you have twisted my words and tried to make them the words of all Catholics is a good indication of the quality of theological argument that you are able to muster. Further, nothing you have posted has changed my mind Rather, looking at the behavior of disciples of St. Paul in the OPC has made me ever more attached to the Gospels and the very words of Christ therein recorded.
Stop making the thread about individual posters, how many times do you need to be told? How hard is it to follow a few posting rules?
Another very bizarre statement. Pathetic.
“Out of the abundance of the mouth the heart speaks”.
Yes, this is true.
That is why I am often amazed at what abundance of the heart is “mouthed” on the religion forum.
You know, RnMom, it’s quite pointless for me to continue with this. You see it your way, and I see it quite differently. I still believe that your interpretation of Catholic life as it is being lived out daily (by practicing, sincere Catholics)is a one-dimensional view, a miniscule portion of the Catholic people at large.
There’s a Catholic world out there that I would guess you haven’t seen.
Would that things were such that I could invite you to my parish. And the parishes adjacent to it. I think you might be quite surprised. You have mentioned that you have been away from the Catholic Church for a long time. That makes a difference.
SO this is where I get off the bus, because I don’t think it’s useful for me to keep repeating—to your repeatings.
May the Lord richly bless you...day by day.
Wow, another RF mod! Wonderful!
Discuss the issues all you want, don’t take it personal
LOL!
Why must you constantly do battle with a flimsey strawman, rather than addressing what I wrote in my post?
I said nothing about a “feeling,” that is where your Godless unbelieving mind has taken you.
You paganism requires a pagan ‘priest,’ and that ‘priest’ has to have powers created by the men that created the belief. That is Papism.
God’s word says plainly that Christ’s presence here in this age is his spirit. That is not a ‘feeling,’ he speaks to his own. If he speaks not to you, then you are obviously not his.
Please do not diminish my Lord to a ‘feeling.’
.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
“Well, we know that Roman Catholics think Paul is “loony” and “deluded”. But we’ll follow his Scriptural teaching all the way home home.”
Interestingly, Pope Benedict has just written a treatise on the Epistles of (St.) Paul..Beautifully written.
“Rome wants to keep them uncertain and fearful”
“...Rome preaches another gospel of fear and unfulfilled promises of Christ.”
Now that’s just not true.
Now that’s just not true.
Now that’s just not true.
Why is it that I’m NOT quaking in my boots and cringing in the corner and biting my fingernails and trembling in fear of the Church? (which you call “Rome”) I am part of the Mystical Body of Christ, His Church, so there is no reason for me to fear.
PRAYER FROM THE CATHEDRAL OF CHARTRES
Lord, in the quiet of this morning hour
I come to You for peace, for wisdom, power
To see the world today with love-filled eyes
To be patient, understanding, gentle, wise
To see beyond what seems to be and know
Your Children as You know them..and so
Naught but the good in everyone behold.
Make deaf my ears to slander that is told
Silence my tongue to all that is unkind
Let none but thoughts that bless dwell in my mind
Let me so kindly be, so full of cheer
That all I meet may feel Your presence near
Oh, fill me with Your beauty, this I pray
Let me reveal You, Lord, throughout the day.
1Peter 2:10
Proverbs 17:22
Very true!
The posts of most of the Catholics here are full of formulas to be saved, and no formula is given in God's word except that we must fully believe on him who was sent by the Father.
You can read the chilling fear in their every post, as the redescribe the pagan machinations that they follow blindly in their fruitless quest for their unrevealed security.
This is why I spend so little time on the Religion forum lately. It is disheartening to see them thrash in angry fright at the revelation of the word of God. Even Buddists have more peace than Catholics.
But nothing at all like any of the Christians of God's inerrant word!
You can read the chilling fear in their every post, as the redescribe the pagan machinations that they follow blindly in their fruitless quest for their unrevealed security.
How about a few specific examples of the formulas and chilling fear in every post?
I wouldn’t take their rants to seriously. After all, they HATE the Epistle of James.
Just re-read this thread!
.
Oh wait: 1 = Amazing Start
How formulaic of me!!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.