Cut Off Catholicism

Fr. Longenecker continues his series on What's Killing American Catholicism:

It is cut off from the deep philosophical and theological roots of the historic faith. Here are some examples. The Catholic religion–like all ancient religions both pagan and Jewish–is ritualistic. It speaks in the language of liturgy, sign, symbol and sacred gesture. We only have to experience the typical AmChurch Mass to see that the Americans attending Mass don’t understand such things. The altar servers wear robes but they don’t know why. They serve the altar, but have not the slightest idea of the liturgical or symbolic significance of what they do. The chew gum and wear da-glo sneakers underneath their robes. The people sit in the pews in big auditoria dressed as if they are at the movies or a basketball game. The music is an entertainment based blend of honkey tonk, nightclub style and country Western. This is made worse by the fact that the vast majority of AmChurch Catholics don’t realize there is anything wrong. The like this form of worship, and they like it because they don’t understand ritual, sign, symbol and sacred gesture–even worse they don’t understand that they don’t understand.

The historic ritual of Catholic religion is rooted in an acceptance of the metaphysical. In other words, we believe that through the ritual we are making a transaction with the other world. The supernatural impinges on us at all times. We are at the threshold of heaven and on the doorstep of eternity. Most AmChurch Catholics don’t understand this. I am convinced that it is simply not a part of their world view. Why should it be? They have been educated in a culture and by a system that is essentially materialistic, utilitarian and secular. There is no sense of the immanent, no sense of the awesome presence in life. The Protestant founding fathers weeded out all that “nonsense” and the deists and materialists finished the job. Such poetic and otherworldly ideas are not even dismissed by the typical American. They are not even misunderstood. They simply do not exist in their vocabulary.

Worship has become for most American Catholics therefore a mixture of civic duty, a way to inculcate good values into their children, a matter of family tradition which is presented in a way that is comfortable, easy going and entertaining. The idea that we are in touch with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the pillar of fire and the burning bush, the idea that we are on the threshold of a life changing mystical experience is utterly foreign to their imagination.

The desire for the mystical, however will not die, so instead of finding thismysterium tremendum et fascinans in the ritual, music, architecture and art of ordinary Catholic worship or in the religious traditions of contemplative prayer, monasticism and devotions the American Catholic is most likely to wander off into the misty mystical mess of New Age practices, Eastern religions or the occult.

It seems to me that this divorce from not only our ancient traditions, but our ancient way of viewing the world and our religion in America is not simply the result of the mis-application of the Second  Vatican Council or the ravages of modernism or the desire to make Catholic worship ‘relevant’. These are only part of the problem, and indeed are really only symptoms. The deeper malaise–and one which is most difficult to counter–is that the American founding philosophy is fundamentally opposed to Catholicism. America is individualistic, anti authoritarian, pragmatic, materialistic and aggressive. It has historically balanced this worldly view with a Protestant Christian ethos, but that is disintegrating because it also had woven into its genetic code a kind religious form of the American philosophy: a Christian form of individualism, anti authoritarianism, materialistic pragmatism with not a little bit of aggression.

What can be done?

Read the rest and find out.

Insightful stuff.