A few weeks ago, there was a rather
Cat;3903963 said:
“warm” discussion on CAF about Catholics and alcohol use. If you look up this discussion (I wouldn’t recommend it), you will see that I am adamantly opposed to alcohol use of any kind, except for the occasional Nyquil shot during a sinus infection, and the use of vanilla extract in baking.
Ouch. No alcohol? I always love some whiskey with my bangers and mash!
Is this what you mean by “Catholic culture?” I hope not, because in all honesty, the alcohol issue was the hardest hurdle for me to leap over to become Catholic. Everything else was easy–True Presence, Papal authority, baptism of infants, Sacraments, Marian dogma, etc.–easy. It was the “culture” of alcohol use that repelled me and, I’m sorry to say, still repels me. Unless the Lord performs a miracle and changes my personality, I will never fit in with this aspect of Catholic culture.
No I wasn’t referring to things like alcohol. I’m mainly referring to a mindset of Romanitas.
Specifically for me, I mean a different conception of time than that of the Protestants and the Secularists. I think the Catholic ethos Brennan was referring to kind of revolves around this conception of the past as eternally valid and renewed, which is necessary for the maintenance of the Catholic faith in its entirety. As St. Augustine said, “Beauty ever ancient, ever new.” Since the Incarnation happened 2,000 years ago, and the Church’s organic development has continued since then, refining itself again and again, to cut out the middle 1500 years destroys this sense of time, and with it fidelity to those doctrines that were refined during those centuries.
This has grave ramifications for the Catholic faith. People laud how they go to the Mass of the “Early Church,” even though the records (and I’m not informed on this) seem kind of sparse. The problem with this is that St. Thomas Aquinas, perhaps equally as important as Augustine, lived and wrote in the Middle Ages. Augustine himself lived in the waning period of the Classical era, so he can hardly be identified with the Early Church. The doctrines of the faith defined in the Middle Ages and afterwards are still part of that development.
All of the aspects of an authentic “Catholic” culture whether they are pieces of music, visual works of art, literary works, and even the Latin prayers themselves came into being to defend everyone of those dogmas and historical developments. Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel not merely to express himself, or to create something that looked pretty, but was commissioned by the Church to facilitate the Church’s expression of its spirituality. By abandoning Vivaldi (just an arbitrary example, or any other great Catholic artist, scholar, or writer, we abandon the cultural context that stemmed from those dogmas and instructed Catholics in the reality of those dogmas, and thus submission to the Church’s doctrine was not only argued from a Biblical and Magisterial standpoint, but also an artistic one.
It’s also a reassertion that Christianity is not merely a conglomeration of subjective feelings and community experience, but a philosophically defensible, artistically viable, culturally refined, ethically sound, and fully “adult” way of life. In short- we can work to create a thoroughly Roman Catholic civilization.
I’m sorry about that. It separates me and that is a shame.
And I’m not the only one. During the course of that thread, I received several PMs from converts and from those considering converting who feel the same way about alcohol. Catholics are incredulous that such a “little thing” is such a big problem for us, but again, just being honest–it IS a wall between us and “Catholic culture.”
I’m sorry you feel separated. I don’t want to get into a discussion of alcohol (I’m going to look for that thread, you’ve raised my curiosity) but prohibition of alcohol is a Protestant movement based on puritanism. I wouldn’t think, however, that anyone would need to drink to be Catholic in any way.
IPrayforMallory, I would be careful if I were you about accusing evangelicals of anti-intellectualism. I was 47 years old before I became Catholic. In all those years, no Catholics ever talked to me about their Church, explained how the Bible and Catholicism are compatible, or defended various aspects of Catholicism (e.g., Marian devotions, etc.) I remember talking to Catholics and it was obvious that they had never read the Bible on their own. Many of them knew nothing about their own history.
It’s certainly true that most Catholics are ignorant of their faith, but this is also true of Protestants. I was raised in an evangelical setting, and I would imagine that if I pointed out that they were “Protestants” some of them wouldn’t know what I was talking about.
I realized early in my life that I wasn’t encountering authentic Christianity. It was just the justification of bits and pieces of the stagnant southern culture by out of context impositions of the King James Bible, combined with charismatic emotionalism and irrationality.
I realize that I was probably talking to people who were catechized after Vatican II. But I knew plenty of older Catholics who, if asked if they knew Jesus as their Personal Savior, would just stand there and say, “We don’t believe in that.” or some other lame answer.
Yeah. I encounter that too. Unfortunately nowadays, most of my peers are somehow “Catholic but not Christian.” Sadly.
I believe that one of the reasons why my husband and I, and many evangelicals, have converted, is that we ARE both intelligent and devoted people who came to realize through both our minds and our spirits that the Catholic Church is the True Church.
Of course there are exceptions to everything. Knowing that the prayers of the Tridentine Mass are definitely much more accessible than plenty of people are wanting us to believe, I’m sure that if you and your husband sought it out you could get the hang of it in no time.
But in any case, I think we’re in a period where most faithful, intelligent Protestants are in fact joining the Catholic Church.
Still, I think they should definitely provide people with access to their adopted historical heritage, their spiritual heritage, so that they aren’t allowed to remain Protestants who flee to the Papacy because they are tired of interpreting the Bible, because that’s not really something we can build a Catholic culture on. It was the first stage of my conversion, but, I don’t think it should be all there is. That’s certainly not the case with you or with a lot of converts, but it is a problem.
Thankfully places like Catholic Answers exist now, and many Catholics are learning how to be ready to give an answer to those who ask, as St. Peter urges us to do in his first letter.
I agree.
