A goofy question about "Catholic guilt"

[Ridgerunner]

OH NO! My daughter is dating a German boy! What would their wedding be like, with his German family, my Irish tee-totallers, and my excessively “happy” in-laws?

Okay. After this, I really will leave. I’m sorry but it depends on what kind of Germans they are. My wife’s family are of Alsatian descent, and most other German-descended people I know are Rhinelanders too. (Most U.S. Catholics of German descent are) If they’re Rhinelanders, they’ll think your Italians are a bit over the edge, but not irredeemably so. Rhinelanders are from “Mediterranean Germany”; that part of Germany that was within the Roman Empire, and they have some Mediterranean ways about them that, e.g., dour Swabians do not. My Alsatian wife was on a number of occasions thought to be Northern Italian in Swabia; “Germans” can be that different from one another. Irish Presbyterians (if that’s what your family is, or if they’re even close to that) will think the German guests are somewhat better behaved than the Italians, but still well outside the boundaries of propriety.

I say all that, as I did about Irish and Italians, about people of German DESCENT. In some ways, American descendants of Europeans are more like what those Europeans used to be like than the way Europeans are now. Perhaps you have heard of, e.g., Boston Irish being described as “More Irish than the Irish”. Lots of truth to that. So if the boy in question is of German nationality rather than German descent, I don’t know what to tell you.

 

[GFarmer]

For me Catholic Guilt comes from 8 year of Catholic School.

A few years ago I was having cocktails with a Sr. VP of a major Bank, he was telling about how he had went to 8 years of Catholic grade school, 4 years of catholic high school and 4 years of Jesuit College and 2 years in the seminary before he left and decided to get married. I asked him “John what did 18 years of Catholic Education get you?” his answer “lots and lots of Catholic Guilt!”