Who is a Catholic without qualification? (Semel catholicus, semper catholicus) ALTES Facts & Quotes Inbox March 11, 2014 / New York City Excerpts from What It Means to Be Catholic Now by Peter Manseau, op-ed contributor, The New York Times, March 9, 2014 • Effect of Pope Francis. Wishful thinking is rampant where Francis is concerned, perhaps especially among those born into the faith who have grown distant from it. While a recent Pew poll suggests that church attendance in America has not risen with the pope’s steady stream of positive press, the image he projects of a kinder, gentler Catholicism has inspired many of the lapsed, the recovering, the former and the fallen to reconsider the possibilities of being Catholic without qualification. • Who is a Catholic? The anecdotal surge in the church’s appeal known as the “Pope Francis effect” may be changing attitudes toward the word “Catholic,” but it could also highlight a truth as old as the church itself: Despite its primary definition — universal — there is no universal agreement on what it means. Who is a Catholic? Is it a matter of baptism? Belief? Loyalty? Psychology? For some, the answer depends on tests of political purity. For others, who may no longer receive the sacraments but continue to identify with the faith, “once a Catholic, always Catholic” is not just a principle of canon law (semel catholicus, semper catholicus), but the diagnosis of a chronic condition. • Similar question on Judaism. A similar question often roils Jewish communities, in which the religious laws of Judaism offer a definition based on matrilineal descent and ritual conversion, while various strains of observance vary dramatically in their interpretations of these laws. And it is not just a question of religion but of ethnic, cultural and national identity. • Dozens of affiliated Catholic churches. To begin with, there are dozens of ethnically and nationally affiliated Catholic churches, all of which make an equal claim on the title, though many have moved in and out of schism with Rome. This landscape is further complicated by proliferating independent churches that make elaborate claims to the lineage of spiritual authority known as apostolic succession, and ultra-devout lay societies that worry over orthodoxy like a freelance Inquisition. • Issue of papal infallibility. Disputes over ownership of Catholic do not break cleanly along expected lines, however. Many of the congregations associated with the Old Catholic Church, which separated from Rome over the issue of papal infallibility in the 19th century, are home to newer, reform-friendly interpretations of Catholicism. Some traditionalist Catholics, meanwhile, take the seemingly nontraditional stance that neither the church nor its popes have been truly Catholic since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Even a pope, another of Detroit’s allegedly illicit churches explains, may himself become a heretic.” • Other Catholics exist. Many Roman Catholics do not realize that these other Catholics exist, or that affiliation with Rome is often a matter of negotiation. Ancient grudges that make current schisms look like lovers’ spats are now part of the structure of the church, in which the Western and Eastern Rites maintain distinct traditions as remnants of bygone quarrels. The centuries-long spans over which previous rifts have been healed suggests that the fate of today’s breakaway churches will not be resolved anytime soon. • Matter of language than belief. Who is a Catholic? If the late priest and sociologist Andrew M. Greeley was correct in his assessment that Catholics remain Catholic because “they are loyal to the poetry of Catholicism,” the answer may be more a matter of language than belief. The hold the church’s symbolism continues to have on many, practicing and lapsed, Catholic and not, is also the key to understanding both the opportunity and the risk Rome faces in the age of Francis: The poetry of faith remains open to interpretation. Though he surely did not intend it this way, Who am I to judge? would be a fitting motto for a papacy that saw a thousand Catholicisms bloom.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 16:01:15 +0000
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