Why American Catholics Don’t Fit In
Let’s face it: Faithful Catholics don’t fit in with everybody else in America. In fact, American culture is downright hostile to “papists,” and it always has been.
Our society is reeling from the clerical sex-abuse scandals and is being inundated with millions of copies of the notorious Left Behind series and The Da Vinci Code, books that are spewing lies about Catholic teaching and fictional clandestine Vatican conspiracies. Several authors recently have published books to address these attacks on Catholicism. Fr. Mark Massa’s Anti-Catholicism in America: The Last Acceptable Prejudice systematically examines the anti-Catholic bias in America from the country’s founding to the present day. He presents many well-known Catholic-bashers, such as Jack Chick and Jimmy Swaggart, as well as some lesser-known ones, such as social scientists Gerhard Lenski and Paul Blanshard.
As the evidence mounts, the reader is left to wonder why Catholics are so despised by mainstream (Protestant) Americans. Massa examines Fr. David Tracy’s insightful study The Analogical Imagination, in which Fr. Tracy investigates the basic level of religious understanding. The analogical language of Catholics “uses analogy, that is, it utilizes things we know to understand things we don’t know. . . . With this emphasis on God’s presence in history, a fundamental trust and confidence in the goodness of persons and human institutions ultimately emerges, even in the face of absurdity and chaos” (51–52). Catholics understand the world with the view that they are pilgrims, united as the body of Christ (the Church), traversing through the created world on their way to the kingdom of God.
Certain Protestant groups, on the other hand, view the world with what Tracy calls dialectical language. Dialectical language concentrates on individuality and estrangement from God. God’s word is meant as a judgment to make us aware of the vast gulf between him and us. For many Protestants, the world is beheld using the following dialectic: “thesis = we sin; antithesis = God says ‘no’ to our efforts to save ourselves as full of pride; synthesis = God saves us when we confess the truth and justice of God’s ‘no’ to our sin” (53).
Massa evaluates many samples of American anti-Catholicism through the lens of Tracy’s analogical imagination. He recounts that the Protestant colonists, who left England to avoid religious persecution, celebrated “Pope Day,” the “yearly public holiday [that] was celebrated by burning the effigy of the pope on town commons up and down the eastern seaboard while children sang anti-Catholic ditties and adults drank rounds of toasts to the overthrow of the pope” (19).
Massa also examines the presidential election of 1928, in which Herbert Hoover defeated Catholic anti-prohibitionist Al Smith. The Ku Klux Klan rallied Protestants of all stripes to oppose Smith. In fact, Charles Marshall, an Episcopal lawyer from New York, was prompted to publish an open letter in the April issue of the Atlantic Monthly in which he explained what he believed was an “irreconcilable opposition” between the principles of the Constitution and the loyalties demanded by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church.
Surprisingly, Massa notes that, during the 1960 presidential race, John F. Kennedy took a dialectical (private) approach to personal piety while his Protestant critics acted in notably analogical (communal) ways. Kennedy set an unfortunate precedent. Ironically, his “very success in winning the presidential office on secular terms has helped to categorize Catholic politicians as either hypocritical opportunists . . . or as unthinking slaves of the hierarchy on sexual and reproductive social issues” (85).
Massa provides what seems to be an appendix on the clerical sex-abuse scandals. He offers the view that the scandals were the result—at least partially—of the analogical imagination. The faithful, he says, have an often-unchecked loyalty to the hierarchy of the Church, which they view as the kingdom of God. While this assessment might be to some extent true, it is disappointing that he doesn’t mention the root of the problem, i.e., predatory homosexual priests who dissent from the Church’s teachings on sexual morality. Perhaps this reviewer is so steeped in the analogical imagination that he can’t see the forest for the trees.
Overall, this book is informative and does much to illustrate the (mostly) Protestant anti-Catholic bias in America. But it neglects to discuss in detail the threat of secularism and doesn’t mention the pervasive threat to Catholicism from Catholic dissenters lurking within the ranks of the Church itself.
The book ends on a positive note. Clearly, Catholics don’t fit in with everybody else in America, but is that such a bad thing? Massa argues that it is not. After all, if Catholics fit in, how would they be set apart? Christ’s own words from John’s Gospel show Catholics where their loyalties should lie: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18). If American culture hates faithful Catholics, we must be doing something right.
— Mike Sullivan
Anti-Catholicism in America: The Last Acceptable Prejudice
By Mark S. Massa, S.J.
Crossroad
224 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 0-824-521-293
A Step in the Right Direction
It’s nice to see a Protestant publisher take Catholic teachings seriously enough to engage them in dialogue in one of its own books. Fr. John Waiss, a priest of Opus Dei, is surprisingly competent in debating Church doctrine with his longtime friend James McCarthy, a well-known anti-Catholic. Unfortunately, the book does not live up to expectations.
The text is organized into seven sections, each dealing with a contentious topic such as justification or the Virgin Mary. Each section consists of an exchange of several short letters between the authors, interspersed with “conversations” that supposedly took place over e-mail.
One rather annoying trait of the book is that each letter is prefaced with a personal greeting (“How are Jean and the girls? . . .” “We went to Yosemite this weekend. . . .”). The publisher obviously wanted to emphasize the authors’ personal friendship, but doing so takes up valuable space that could have been better used for nitty-gritty apologetics.
Furthermore, the so-called “conversations” are more like interviews. One person asks all the questions while the other does all the answering. Any reader—Catholic or Protestant—will be frustrated by this, and one gets the sense that the authors were as well. For instance, in discussing the infallibility of Scripture, McCarthy asks, “Why did anyone listen to the pope before the bishops of your church declared him infallible in 1870?” (126). Because he is the “interviewer” in that particular conversation, Waiss is never given a chance to respond.
Waiss himself, though well-versed in Scripture, uses arguments that are frequently odd and often weak. He argues almost exclusively from the Bible (to the point of nearly ignoring the Church Fathers). While this approach may be effective in dealing with sola scriptura Protestants, it comes across as a tacit agreement with the Protestant notion that no Christian said anything about Christ’s teaching until the time of the Reformation. Besides, by limiting oneself to Scripture alone, one gets only half of the story.
Moreover, the amateur Catholic apologist would be unfamiliar with Waiss’s interpretations of certain Scripture verses and would most likely not use them himself. For instance, McCarthy points out that Waiss’s argument for the infallibility of Moses and Joshua logically extends to the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. Waiss then defends the infallibility of the Pharisees, saying that “the Sanhedrin never ‘formally’ taught that Jesus wasn’t God or the Messiah. The scribes never proclaimed erroneous magisterial teaching; they just refused to exercise their teaching authority” (101). In fact, it is not clear that the Sanhedrin had infallible teaching authority.
Of course, even though the reader can sense an editorial leaning toward McCarthy, the Evangelical position leaves itself vulnerable. “I treat the Bible much the same way that the Supreme Court treats the Constitution,” McCarthy says. “They settle disputes by referring to the written document. That is what we need to do as Christians” (26). So if the Bible is analogous to the Constitution, then that means McCarthy is the Supreme Court, right? And presumably every Christian is his own Supreme Court, able to issue his personal edicts from on high about what the Bible really says? Waiss challenges McCarthy on this point, but unfortunately, McCarthy is able to wiggle free: “Scripture is our chief authority, but we recognize that it delegates authority to the church, to parents, to governments. However, even the church . . . must use Scripture as its standard. That is what we mean we say Scripture is ‘the final court of appeals.’” The debate then goes on to another topic.
Another difficulty with this book is that it sometimes centers on issues that are peripheral to the main argument. For example, in the section on sola fide, rather than exploring the question of whether justification can be lost, the authors focus on the issue of infant baptism and whether it is necessary for salvation. In the part dealing with the Eucharist, the interpretation of John 6 takes a back seat to a syrupy discussion of “the Holy Spirit’s communion of love.”
Despite its problems, Letters between a Catholic and an Evangelical is a step in the right direction. We need more one-on-one dialogue between Catholics and Evangelicals without the name-calling, mischaracterization, and ad hominems that usually plague such discussions. But this is not the way to do it.
— James Kidd
Letters between a Catholic and an Evangelical
By Fr. John Waiss and James G. McCarthy
Harvest House
300 pages
$12.99
ISBN: 0-736-909-893
Reference Material
Slawomir Biela is an unfamiliar name to most American Catholics. A physicist living in Poland, he is out of the mainstream of authors in what has been termed the New Evangelization. He is, though, a layman with a profound perspective. It is a simple yet comprehensive spirituality that two of his books, God Alone Suffices and In the Arms of Mary, outline in some detail.
God Alone Suffices effectively guides the reader through his own misconceptions and unhealthy attachment to material possessions, personal achievements and accomplishments, and other people. This part of the book likely will serve to awaken the reader to the fact that his children, parents, and spouse, along with all of the “treasure” that he has accumulated over his lifetime, is not really his but God’s. Many fine people have heard this message over and over again, but it is only at times of loss that they are reminded of this reality.
Of course, it is only those with the spiritual tools to recognize loss for what it is that we ever have the comfort of knowing that God has given us some of his treasure (or some of his souls) for us to use and form during some time here in our world. When God decides to take our loved ones away from us, we hopefully will realize that they have been called to their true home.
The book’s weakness lies in bringing us from this realization to a useful spirituality to overcome it. The information is presented, but it is done without any sort of example or anecdote. The author does not provide even hypothetical examples of people who are, or have been, struggling with worldly attachment. He speaks not of his own life or spiritual struggles nor anyone else’s. This makes the book abstract and difficult to follow. Many of those engaged in apologetics or evangelization know that the best way to reach others about the truth of Christ is by witness and example. Surely one has to be a holy person in order to bring others to holiness. Someone who is struggling with some sort of spiritual crisis or deficiency needs to know that others have walked the path before. It is in this type of witnessing that this book falls short.
As a philosophical textbook the book has a great deal of value, because its treatment of the author’s philosophy and spirituality is complete. The dedicated reader will gain a great deal from it, but it will take such a degree of discipline to read, absorb, reflect, and change one’s behavior based on the information presented that I believe very few will get the intended amount of benefit from it.
After reading the first book (assuming that interest in the subject is not exhausted by the end), one will be drawn to In the Arms of Mary. This is because all informed Catholics know that our Blessed Mother is waiting for us to ask for her assistance in achieving holiness.
This initial interest in the book is soon to wear off. Biela borrows heavily from the writings of others to support his work, and throughout the book an awkward indented text serves to illustrate or highlight a point that he has attempted to make. Some of this indented text is taken from Scripture, and some is taken from other spiritual writers. Some of it is a prayer that the author is guiding the reader through. Very little of it is clear in its origin. I found myself reading along and then getting to one of those indented passages, reading it, for the most part agreeing with it, and then wondering where it came from. If 90 percent of those passages simply were re-formatted into the narrative, the book would read much better. Digging through footnotes and flipping back pages to ascertain the origin of the passage to put it in its proper perspective is not conducive to fulfilling reading.
Both of Biela’s books are better suited to the reference shelf of one who has to write about spiritual matters on a regular basis than the nightstand of a layman who spends his energies on more pedestrian tasks. After reading them one will be grateful to be able to pull them off the shelf, use the detailed table of contents to find the author’s thoughts on a particular subject, and somehow incorporate those thoughts into another work. The spiritual ideas that Biela puts out are profound, but the manner in which he does so leaves something to be desired.
— Michael Barnett
God Alone Suffices
By Slawomir Biela
In the Arms of Mary Foundation
152 pages
$14.00
ISBN: 0-972-143-22X
In the Arms of Mary
By Slawomir Biela
In the Arms of Mary Foundation
179 pages
$18.95
ISBN: 0-972-143-211
A Reformed Protestant Model of Leadership
Ecumenism, a matter close to the heart of Pope John Paul II, marks this pontificate as no other in recent history. Walter Cardinal Kasper, the German theologian who heads the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, offers keen insight into the ecumenical efforts of recent decades in his recently translated collection of essays, Leadership in the Church: How Traditional Roles Can Serve the Christian Community Today.
The seven essays explore specific roles within Church hierarchy (diaconate, priesthood, and episcopacy) and reexamine apostolic succession. While not stated explicitly, each of the seven essays is oriented toward how an ecumenical accommodation of separated Christian communities might take shape in the light of reconsidered biblical texts and early Church documents.
A former professor of theology at the University of Tubingen, Cardinal Kasper packs heavy theology into 240 pages. This is not a volume for the casual reader. Frequent references to historical or theological issues are left unexplained, as it is assumed the reader has sufficient background. Even well-grounded Catholics will find the material difficult (footnotes refer to German works not readily accessible) and in some instances discomforting. One cannot escape the impression that Cardinal .asper writes about leadership with an eye on a Protestant model reformed by some Catholic particulars.
While the Cardinal is careful not to employ loaded terms associated with dissent (such as “restructuring the Church”), he does use analogous phrases including “medieval restriction of church ministry,” “renew the form of the church,” and “a unity in a pluriformity of expressions.” Catholics parrying dissent from within the Church will read these essays with justified caution as they note some adjustments in the traditional formulation of doctrinal teachings.
The essay on the role of the bishop begins with the subtitle “In Search of a New Vision of Church,” a phrase sure to give orthodox Catholics a lump in the throat. But there is an intriguing examination of the sacramentality of the office. As for the authority of the priest versus that of the bishop, the question is answered by underscoring that a bishop enjoys the plenitude of the sacrament of holy orders. The bishop does not possess greater authority than a priest in regard to the Eucharist (corpus Christi verum) but does have greater authority with regard to the Church (corpus Christi mysticum).
Most problematical for a non-theologian is the essay addressing apostolic succession. This is the teaching that guards authority and papal primacy. While it is possible that specialists will have few qualms over the propositions presented, the average lay person may well encounter significant confusion. Kasper acknowledges that the matter is “an ecumenical problem,” and notes that Cardinal Ratzinger describes succession as the “core question in the Catholic/Protestant debate.” Further, “no full consensus exists on this question.”
Briefly, Protestants and some conciliatory Catholic theologians entertain a concept of apostolic succession favoring “vertical” succession—coming directly to a community from God above—versus the Catholic tradition of a “horizontal” succession, where authority is handed on laterally to the coming generations. The crux seems to be the “historical developments” that led to “differing definitions of the relationship between the visible institutional form and the hidden spiritual essence of the church which only faith can perceive.”
The claim is made that the ancient formulation of apostolic succession—wherein Christ ordained his immediate successors who in turn ordained their successors with a laying-on of hands from one bishop to a new priest—no longer holds. Kasper is clear: That understanding “has been thoroughly shattered by modern exegesis, but no new historical reconstruction has found universal agreement among scholars.” Evidence of this late-in-history realization is a new perspective on the ministry of Paul, whose authority was not horizontal but came from “above.” Thus apostolic ministry cannot be seen as a “mere institutional matter”; rather, it is better grasped as a “following of the apostles teaching and life.” This in essence is the Protestant hope for understanding their tradition as in addition to Catholicism, not as separated from Catholicism.
Notably missing from this book of essays written over a dozen years is any discussion of the meaning of hierarchy (sacred order) or the disarray within Protestantism with its ever-splintering sects owing to the lack of authority. The opposite of hierarchy is not plurifomity or collaboration, but anarchy. If there is indeed a “vertical” apostolic succession that should be recognized and thus move us toward greater communion and the sharing of Eucharist, some further theological work remains to be done. Theologians will need to discern why the Holy Spirit has withheld—for 2,000 years—this vital understanding from the Church that Jesus entrusted to Peter.
— Mary Jo Anderson
Leadership in the Church
By Walter Cardinal Kasper
Crossroad
249 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 0-824-519-779