Michael Leach - I Like Being Catholic: Treasured Traditions, Rituals, and Stories

Table of Contents

FOR
OUR TEACHERS

Introduction

I LIKE BEING CATHOLIC

What do Martin Scorsese, Cokie Roberts, William F. Buckley, and other famous people have in common with 63 million ordinary folk across the U.S.A.? They share a deep affection for some of the treasured traditions, rituals, and stories that run through the bloodstream of American Catholics. And they celebrate them in this book.

The title comes from a memorable answer given by Andrew Greeley on the Donahue show. A woman in the audience scolded him, If you dont like the Catholic Church, why dont you stop being a priest and leave the church? His spontaneous response: I like being Catholic!

The people who contributed to this book like being Catholic.

They may not always agree with the Churchs rules but they wouldnt think of being anything else. Catholicism is in their bones.

They may find other Catholics too liberal or too conservative but they will always give them the kiss of peace. Catholicism is in their hearts.

They may call themselves lapsed Catholics or recovering Catholics or good-enough Catholics but they are always on the lookout for what is good and beautiful and true. Catholicism is in their eyes.

And it never goes away.

Being a Catholic is about seeing whats really there. Its about a baby whose Fathers house has many mansions but who chooses to be born in a manger. Its about the cardboard stable and plaster figures we put beneath the Christmas tree. Its about symbols that remind us of what is real. Being a Catholic is about seeing the things that last.

Its also about people and stories and memories. Like Martin Scorsese, many Catholics are grateful for the Sisters who wrapped their knuckles but also built their self-esteem. Their faith is embodied in grandparents and godparents, in the sagas of saints and the rumors of angels. They remember the touch of a medal on their chest, the smell of incense smoking from a thurible, the midnight glow of Easter candles that really were a thousand points of light. Novels and movies and songs remind them of spiritual truths long buried or newly learned. The word Catholic is more to them than the answer to a census question; it is acknowledgment of the Word that was impressed on their hearts before they began to beat.

This is not a book of theology. It is simply about the good things that come with being Catholic. It is about what Teilhard de Chardin called the chosen part of things. It endeavors to show, in word and picture, with pride and joy, why so many of us like being Catholic.

Michael Leach and Therese J. Borchard
January 2000

Chapter One

ITS FUN TO BE CATHOLIC

BY ANDREW M. GREELEY

In its best moments Catholicism is the happiest of the major world religions. It is permeated by the reverent joy of Christmas night, the exultant joy of Easter morn, the gentle joy of First Communion, the satisfied joy of grammar school graduation, the hopeful joy of a funeral mass, the confident joy of a May crowning. Catholicism is shaped by the happiness of hymns like O Come Emmanuel, Adeste Fideles, the Exultet, and Bring Flowers of the Rarest.

Catholicism is an old, variegated, complex religious heritage. Many different cultural streams have emptied into its vast rivers. New ones still pour into it today. One can find in its history almost anything one wantssuperstition, ignorance, bigotry, cruelty, arrogance, pride. One can easily find such realities today, too. Our ancestors have tortured and burned heretics and witches. They have murdered pagans, Muslims, Jews, Greeks, Protestants, and other Catholics. Anyone who has been raised Catholic has had experience with the harsh, negative, dour, repressive components of our heritage. Yet at its bestand all religions should be judged by their best Catholicism is essentially a religion of sacramentality and community, a religion which believes that God is everywhere in our daily life and world and that we honor God as part of a community of believers. Anglican historian Owen Chadwick, in his book The Popes and European Revolution , comments, The religious world of Haydn and Mozart had this characteristic of the Catholic eighteenth century, that it was a world of happy religion.... Like rococo architects, these were not men of an otherworldly religion, or (if they were) the other world was close to this world and permeated all its being.

Precisely. Perhaps without realizing it Professor Chadwick put his finger on the essence, the genius, the fundamental orientation of Catholicism, that aspect of our heritage which distinguishes us from all the other great world religions. We believe that the sacred is everywhere, that it lurks among us, sanctifying everything. We live in haunted houses, enchanted by the Holy Spirit. God is not (only) distant. God is among us in the water, the bread and the wine, the oil, the body of the beloved. And in the sun and the moon and the stars, in reconciliation after quarrels, in the touch of a friendly hand, in a glorious summer sunrise, in a chill winter sunset behind a frozen lake, in a familiar face seen in a crowd after many years of absence, in the cool waters of summer and the blazing fire of winter, in chocolate ice cream (with raspberry sauce!), in a joyous romp with our lover. Grace is everywhere. All is grace!

Andrew Greeley, 1928: a sociologist contemplates the future

Alone of the major world religions, Catholicism affirms life, affirms flesh, affirms pleasure, affirms art and music, affirms a God who is present in the objects and events and persons of daily life. Hence we have angels and saints and souls in purgatory and stained glass and statues and Mary the Mother of Jesus. They all remind us of the presence of God in the Sacraments as well as in all the sacraments of our world.

Sure, Catholicism can easily slip over into superstition, folk religion, and a syncretistic blend with paganism. But other world religions that emphasize the distance of God and the god-forsaken nature of our world risk reducing the world to an empty and almost meaningless place. God is both present and absent, of course, both near and far, both immanent and transcendent. Catholicism bets that its emphasis on his presence, his nearness, his immanence, is legitimated by the mystery of the incarnation, that the word became flesh and dwelt among us (literally pitched his tent among us).

This appeal, this attractiveness, this charm of Catholicism is the reason why we remain Catholic, no matter the sins of the past or the foolishness of the present. Once a Catholic, it is said, always a Catholic. If Catholicism can enchant and enthrall your imagination in the early years of your life, you will always be haunted by it. As novelist Alice McDermott said, with considerable pride, we are forever doomed to be Catholic. Theres no turning back.