"Catholics See Themselves Being Singled Out; They Are Becoming Strangers in Their Own Land"

Fr. James Schall is asking whether being Catholic really, ultimately, means much of anything:

While there was much anti-Catholicism in early American history, Catholics were said to have reached the mainstream in the latter part of the 20^th century. That is, they did not seem to be different enough from anyone else to cause a stir. But, more recently, Catholics see themselves being singled out; they are becoming strangers in their own land. They are separated out because of a radical cultural change that they did not always notice. This separating out is not so much because of any specific doctrinal issue peculiar to Catholics but because of issues of reason and natural law concerning human life and family, the very pillars of civilization. Ironically, the attack on Catholics is an attack on reason. They are not persecuted because of their faith but because of their reason. The reason for this is that, in principle, faith itself is directed to reason at its best.

Ironically, Catholics today are different not because of any dispute about the Incarnation or the Trinity, as was the case in the early Church, but because of reason and its validity. Statistically, not a few people who say they are Catholic now accept the stances concerning marriage, abortion, contraception, single-sex marriage, and euthanasia that the culture not only embraces but more and more enforces as necessary to be present as participating members of the political order. These latter people still claim to be “Catholic”, even though they reject the rational grounds of faith. The Church itself excommunicates few (if any) on any grounds. These differences are not those of being unable or not wanting at times to practice the faith. Rather, they are statements about what the Church “ought” to hold but does not and never did. There is an implicit claim that the Church is “wrong”. But if the Church is wrong, it is not the Church and there is really no reason to stay in it on that hypothesis.

So what is the Catholic difference? Do we “just-happen-to-be-Catholics” as we might happen to be born in Philadelphia because our mother was there at the time? Or do what we hold and how we live because of what we hold make a difference in our very purpose for existing in this world?

In discussing this topic, one thing that we need to remember is that “bad” Catholics, sinners of various shades and hues, are still Catholic. To sin, as such, is not to renounce the faith. Rather it is to hope, at some time, that it is true so that, sooner or later, we can be forgiven. The press is fond of finding a Catholic politician, cleric, or writer caught in the web of some sin or scandal. This publicity is designed to show that all Catholics are hypocrites.

For Catholics themselves, however, if they do not sin when they might, all that they can say, with St. Francis de Sales, is: “There but for the grace of God, go I.” When Catholics sin, does it follow that they cease to be Catholics? Quite the opposite. When they sin is when they begin to realize most clearly the truth of Catholicism. Christ came to save sinners, not to stop human beings from sinning. He did not come to encourage sinning, of course, but to locate its real sources in our wills.

Much more at the link, all of it confirming that I've come home and home is where I intend to stay.