There's this saying: "Once a Catholic, always a Catholic." The month of April has proven that it's not just a saying, at least for me. Everything Catholic comes back and lingers as they bury one pope and raise up a new one.
The thing that's baffled me has been the spit and venom thrown at Benedict XVI, the former Cardinal Ratzinger. He's an arch-conservative. Here comes the Inquisition, the New Crusade, the Great Purge of Anyone Not In Opus Dei. Almost every one of these comments has come from a non-Catholic. So, let me explain things to those of you who can't do an entire Mass in your head.
He's not an arch-conservative. If he were, this Sunday would be the return of the Latin Mass. Yes, he's against homosexuality and women priests. Last I looked, so is the Catholic Church -- and has been for more than a millenium. No surprise there. He's also anti-modernism and made some clueless remarks about the evils of rock music. Well, what do you expect from a 79 year old concert pianist? "I love that rock 'n' roll. Why, during the Conclave, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor and I got in a heated discussion over who was better, the Shins or the Thrills!"
I mean, what did people expect, Eddie Izzard? We just ended a 26-year papacy of a staunch defender of the faith. The sort of pope that would one would see would be one who is going to be the transition point between John Paul and the next generation, one who is going to be a bridge, not a song unto himself.
Not to say that B16 doesn't have problems. He's been one of the people responsible for taking local decision-making away from the dioceses and consolidating all that power in a micro-managing Curia. A parish priest can barely wipe his nose without getting a letter from Rome. His ties to Opus Dei, the Catholic answer to both the Masons and a certain group with ties to a writer named Hubbard, scare the bejeesus out of me. He talks of a "smaller" Church -- does he mean a smaller Roman bureaucracy or a church with all the moderates and liberals jettisoned for a hard-core fundamentalist base? And yes, there's sex abuse scandals, women's roles, and other long-standing issues mixed in there as well.
His talk about confronting "relativism" seems to hint at taking the church further out of society and into an insular box of yes. The Internet is remaking global society, increasing international connections, and leveling the economic playing field. Here, in this moment, the Church could engage an emerging culture desperately needing a relevant paradigm that can bring order to the chaos. But, it doesn't sound like he wants to engage as much as shake the dust off his feet. "You're all doomed to burn. Call us when you wake up and realize that. Meanwhile, let me condemn you again."
Non-Catholics, though, don't understand how personal this all is to Catholics, even the most lapsed. Like it or hate it, it's still the Mother who raised you. You don't like it that your Mother has a new man who's old, crotchety, and... old, but she's still Mother. So, when non-Catholics with no deep connection to the Church start pontificating (no pun intended), it sounds like, well, an old German cardinal ripping into rock music.
I've called myself a protesting Catholic for nearly half my life now. Mother Rome and I have some disagreements on women in the church, the over-veneration of Mary, and a few other things. So, we haven't talked in a number of years. But Protestantism sometimes feels like exile. I wish we had communion with real wine, not with Welch's from concentrate. I still make the Sign of the Cross every time the Trinity gets mentioned. I still say "trespasses" instead of "debts" in the Lord's Prayer, usually out of sheer rebellion. And I miss the poetry, the "bells and smells" of Mass, the cassocks and the majesty. Instead I'm stuck in exile, a land of preachers in bad suits, cross-waving Republican blowhards, Thomas Kinkade paintings and glurgy novels, spiritual fads that are weighed and found as wanting as a famine-ridden African vilalge, and tragic casseroles that look like rejects from Iron Chef: Battle Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup.
There's this off-quoted passage from Douglas Coupland's Life After God:
Now - here is my secret: I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God - that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.
That's where I am here in exile. I need God, Jesus, Spirit, by mystery and wisdom, to remind me that He's bigger than tuna noodle casserole, bad suits, bad art, and my own selfish and greedy ways. I look across the valley to the cathedral, knowing that God is Lord over both lands, even if they are filled with stupid, angry, arrogant, broken humans.
Maybe I'll go back one day. I don't know. For now, I'm here, stuck with Tom DeLay and a plate of cold green bean casserole.
Comments
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Not that I care, because you know me and religion, but a lot of the arch-conservative talk that I have heard has come from primarily Catholics. The German media (especially the editorials) are having a field day.
Posted by: Kat | April 21, 2005 04:30 PM
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Since when isn't 'trespasses' in the Lord's Prayer? Apparently I missed something.
Posted by: Kat | April 21, 2005 04:34 PM
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I went to a Catholic church every Sunday for years for mostly a learning experience (sociology) and because Yo Yo used to play there once and a while (they did Bach Cantata's every Sunday in Boston). I found the pomp-and-circumstance to be interesting (in the same way I find the head beating rituals of the Yanomama interesting). And I could see where people get off on feeling they're part of something as large as Catholicism. What I couldn't understand is how people like you can go along with the absolute bullshit that is the majority of Catholicism (women's rights, kiddie rape, guilt merchandising, gay bashing + men in dresses + celibacy of priests + gay kiddie raping = not getting humanity in the slightest, etc., etc.) and pull a Houdini by saying "I'm a protesting Catholic". That's about as close to total denial as "just" being a protesting Jew in Dachau.
D - I think you're looking for something much bigger than religion and have confused this need to belong and to find happiness in the mundane with faith and Catholicism.
"What did people expect?" - Something that showed the world that the Catholics had progressed beyond the Inquisition and the Crusades and were planning on going back to Christ's teaching - not all this political, control of the masses, scare tactics, has-nothing-to-do-with-anything, poppy cock that they've been shoving down peoples throats for more than a millennium. Just because something's old doesn't make it right - as the Middle East manages to prove on an hourly basis.
Well - not as political as Kat but what'd you expect from a full blown heretic like me?
Posted by: ben | April 22, 2005 09:41 AM
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As a recovering Catholic, all I can say is B16 is just another nail in the coffin of my adherence to that faith.
I realized long ago that I can have God in my life without all the accessories (rosary beads, scapulae, catechism, sacraments, stations of the cross, kissing the papal ass).
Too bad it didn't help with my hair loss! :)Posted by: Brian | April 22, 2005 01:56 PM
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Brian: There's probably a saint for male-pattern baldness you can pray to. There's a saint for every frikkin body part, so there's got to be one for hair loss. :)
Kat: Catholics pray "trespasses." Protestants pray "debts" or "sins." I think it's all a plot to identify and beat up Catholics. I noticed today that the Bildt came to B16's defense after The Sun and The Mirror ran some nasty "Nazi Pope" headlines. B16 -- he may be a grumpy old ass, but he's Germany's grumpy old ass.
Ben: Originally, the first line of this item was "Ben, just skip over this post." :)
Posted by: dw | April 22, 2005 09:54 PM
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I'd probably mirror Ben's comments and then add quite a few of my own except for the fact that you stated "I need God, Jesus, Spirit,..." and I can accept that as valid for you and leave it at that. From that perspective (and, yes, I too, was christened Catholic and part-raised by a grandmother who was part German and grandfather who was all Irish) your comments are most interesting and lucid.
Posted by: chas Redmond | April 23, 2005 01:16 AM
