Catholics and the Next America

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:

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”:

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.

Since I've never referred to Mary in those terms perhaps your comment might be be directed elsewhere.

On the other hand to go far beyond what Jesus himself said of her and their relationship brings up the question of when veneration and devotion becomes worship in all but name.
As the Catholic Encyclopedia describes this veneration and devotion:

“As the Blessed Virgin has a separate and absolutely supereminent rank among the saints, the worship paid to her is called hyperdulia”

So yes, some folks might really think Catholics worship Mary.

Well, the Protestants got one thing right: let us consult the scriptures to find out who the heretics are. The foundational Protestant doctrines of salvation by faith alone “sola fide” and the scripture being the only rule of faith “sola scriptura” are not found, and outright contradicted in the scripture. Nothing we teach contradicts the scripture. Go figure who the heretcis are.

A difficult passage in James cannot overturn the multitude of verses that clearly explanation that it is by FAITH we are Saved.

It is only "difficult" because you need to spin it to say the diametrical opposite of what it says. We are saved by faith and works, which are both the gift that comes with the grace. Not by faith alone. Understand that, and no single passage in the Bible needs to be so shamefully spinned.

Rom 3:20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law

Correct.. The works that contribute to salvation are indeed not the works done in obedience to any law. The Protestant error is to think that because there are many passages in the Gospel where it is said that we are not saved by works of the law, or works for which there is a temporal reward, then -- that is the error -- we are not saved by ANY works. Once you make this logical error, you need to spin away 80% of the gospel, that calls for good works as a condition of salvation. You need to spin, for example, St. Paul just in the previous chapter of Romans (Rm 2:6-10), the second half of Matthew 25, the Parable of the Talents, Titus 3:1-8, and just anywhere were people are called to charity.

But having spun all these you still cannot overturn the simlpe scriptural fact: not a single verse says that we are saved by faith alone; and James 2:17ff says plainly that we are not saved by faith alone. You do not have faith in the scripture, through whcih Christ is speaking to you. You instead have faith in the Protestant traditions of bamboozling the ignorant about what the Gospel really says.

clearly, eating and drinking is a metaphor for believing. How is that "clearly"? Christ says repeatedly in that passage that His flesh is "food indeed".

Do you also believe that Jesus is a literal Lamb as observed by John the Baptist?

Is Jesus going to give literal "living water" to the samaritan women at the well and she must literally drink it?

Is Jesus a literal Vine, a Gate, a Lion, a phycisian?

Is Jesus a literal shepherd of literal sheep?

Will Jesus be drinking his own blook in heaven or clearly wine as he says?

Matt 26;27Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. 28This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom."

Clear explanations were only given to the twelve and metaphors were not explained to outsiders, like in John 6.

Mark 4:10When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. 11He told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables 12so that, " 'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!"

Matt 13:34Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable.

We are saved by faith and works, which are both the gift that comes with the grace. Not by faith alone.

How do you read the following ?
Isaiah 64:6
For all of us have become like one who is unclean,
And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment;
And all of us wither like a leaf,
And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
filthy HSN-5708

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach

Putting parts of a passage in bold and in uuppercase does not negate its meaning.

Saved thru Faith, NOT of ourselves, Gift of GOD, NOT a result of works, can't boast, HIS workmanship, Created in Christ FOR good works (Horse/cart).

We are saved through faith, correct. It does not say through faith alone.

Not of ourselves, not a result of works. You thinkit refers to faith? Grammatically it refers to grace. It is true that faith also is a gift of God -- however what the passage says is that grace is not a result of works, it is something God gives us. But verse 10 says that good wotrks are also a gift of God: He "Prepares them". So, it teaches that we are saved by grace alone through faith and conditional on good works.

I think you confuse Justification and Sanctification

Sorry to transpose your statements, but that is because this is secondary to the understanding of Eph. 2:1-10. Indeed that would be another Protestant error, to separate justification and sanctification. Both are processes, both, if completed result in the gain of Heaven and sainthood. Nowhere in the Gospel are they presented as separate things. The reason two words are used is because righteousness or justification (these two are synonyms) refers more to God shaping us through chastisement and suffering and sanctification refers more to our purity and our good works of love. But as Divine chastisement and our acts of love are inseparable so justification and sanctification are inseparable: both infuse saving grace into the soul. There is also final justification, which is the same as salvation, and comes at the end of our life. I know, almost none of that is familiar to the Protestant thinking, which built a complex and erroneous theological house of card on that matter.

You cited many passages where the effect of faith on salvation is taught. Faith leads to righteousness. The Catholic Church, of course, teaches the same thing. But none of these passages say that we are saved by faith alone. For the Faith to save you you have to end up righteous. This is up to you to do or not do what righteousness dictates. If you do, you will be saved; if you don't, you won't be. Nothing in Romans contradicts that, and of course we have Romans 2:6-10 and Matthew 25, second half, where the Catholic teaching on salvation by good works (inspired by faith, of course) is directly taught.

Rom. 11:6

... seems to say something negative about works but what is says is that grace is not the result of works, on which we all agree. It does not say that salvation is not the result of works. Besiees, that passage speaks of the fact that the faithful remnant of theJews is not saved by the works of Jewish law -- circumcision and kosher food.

That latter part, by the way, is key to the understanding of Romans. It is a letter sent to encourage the non-Jews in faith. It tells them that Jewish works of the Law are not anything special, and not necessary for salvation. Every time "works" is mentioned in Romans, the context is circumcision, complex rules of everyday behavior, kashrut.

Galatians, Phil 3:9 all speak of the works of the Jewish (or any other) law that do not save.

Eph. 2:8-9

Cute. Didn't we just dicuss this? Want to start over? Read verse 10. Grace gives us faith and prepares our good works so we should walk in them.

“let us consult the scriptures to find out who the heretics are. The foundational Protestant doctrines of salvation by faith alone “sola fide” and the scripture being the only rule of faith “sola scriptura” are not found, and outright contradicted in the scripture. Nothing we teach contradicts the scripture. Go figure who the heretcis are.”

LOL....look friend. You missed the point, you can call me a heretic, or any other Protestant a heretic and it doesn’t matter. You cannot get beyond that there is a wide array of Protestant denominations. You fail to ask “why” though, which is interesting.

You are the one jumping up and down screaming “heretic! heretic!” You can’t prove it, and if you want to go back to Trent - it was made quite clear that ordinary Catholics were not to interpret what came out of Trent - but you and a few others still bleat out the “You’re a heretic!” refrain to be provocative and cute.

You should probably shut your pie-hole on heresy. If not only to simply have the good form to be religiously tolerant, as all good Americans should be - then do it because otherwise you risk being labeled a heretic yourself for interpreting Trent and coming to your conclusions - something Pius said you aren’t qualified to do. So do it to save yourself within your own faith.

Interesting word you choose: bamboozling: 1. to deceive or get the better of (someone) by trickery, flattery, or the like; humbug; hoodwink (often fol. by into ): They bamboozled us into joining the club.
2. to perplex; mystify.
3. to practice trickery, deception, cozenage, or the like.

Tell me, what would be the motive for us "Protestants" to trick people from what the Gospel says? Who benefits from preaching the gospel of salvation by grace through faith alone in Christ alone (which IS the good news, BTW)? Who benefits from preaching salvation can only come as a result of exclusive attendance, adherence and obedience to only one organization and condemnation for anyone who does not? Interesting choice of words indeed!

Tell you what, I'll stick with what Scripture - God's own revealed words - tells me is the truth and you can choose to follow what fallible men think it is. But answer this one question: Who is glorified when salvation is based upon man's good deeds?

Tell me, what would be the motive for us "Protestants" to trick people from what the Gospel says?

Draft dodgers! There's the motive. People against the Vietnam war, who thought America was on the wrong path, who didn't want to do their fair share, who thought too much was being demanded of them... so they left and tried to convince everyone they were right for doing so.

I've looked at Catholicism/Protestantism as Jews/Samaritans, but I think there's an analogy in our own country as well. The president is nuts, many of us can barely bring ourselves to even refer to the man who holds the office as president, the congress is nuts, the Supreme Court is nuts, the states are nuts... the country is in a shambles. Do we go off and start a "pure US" somewhere else anointing ourselves President/Speaker/Chief Justice?

Anyhow, one motive of people who schism is to legitimize their own position by convincing others. In some social situations it's ok to do that.

Eph. 2:8-9
Cute. Didn't we just dicuss this? Want to start over? Read verse 10. Grace gives us faith and prepares our good works so we should walk in them.

Your interpretation again is off and the Magisterium is no help, again.

A fellow Catholic does not agree with your interpretation of Eph 2:8-10 and considers it a bad argument.

"Citing Ephesians 2:10 against justification by faith alone. This passage, even rightly interpreted, contains nothing inconsistent with Protestant theology. Having been saved by grace through faith, we ought to do the good works which God prepared beforehand for His children to do. This statement does not require that these good works should themselves be salvific, but is consistent with the supposition that these works are merely the necessary outgrowth of a salvation already completed. In order to establish that good works are salvific, the Catholic must look elsewhere."

http://www.pugiofidei.com/unsound.htm

Rom 4:4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. 5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, 6just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

Hmmmm..."Draft Dodger for Jesus"... I LIKE it!

To answer your question, no, we don't go off and start a "pure US" somewhere else anointing ourselves President/Speaker/Chief Justice. Instead, we clean out the wrong-headed leaders, and return the country to its original ideals, much like the reformers tried to do to "The Church". It had lost its way and had been perverted by evil men.

either Roman Catholics have been "catechized correctly" or they haven't.

Apparently many of them haven't been.

That is unfortunately very true. In the case of St. Paul, obviously the Church holds him in exceptionally high regard even among the other Holy Apostles, due to the volume and clarity of his writing. Further, the view that St. Paul is somehow more "protestant" than other inspired authors of the Scripture, -- for example, that in order to teach salvation by grace alone through faith and works the teachings of St. Paul, especially in Romans and Galatians , have to be somehow denied or bent into harmony with other scripture -- is not held by the Church. There is nothing that St. Paul ever said on the issue of salvation, grace, faith, and works that taken alone on its own face value contradicts anything the Church teaches, or other scripture writes, on these subjects.

The passages in James, though few, are used as proof texts by those who desire to boast in their own merits and good works in attaining salvation.

Who would these be? The Church teaches that good works are works that God through His grace enables us to do; that it is by grace and infinite merit of Christ's work on the Cross that our works become salvific for us. We are saved by grace alone, and not by grace and works.

Ummm...you, for starters. See post #537 of this thread:

Yes, you can say that. You can say that true mature faith is one that is accompanied by good works. But what you cannot say, because on that passage alone, that we are saved by faith alone. We are saved by faith and by good works.

Can't y'all make up your minds about this subject?

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