My Ramblings on Southern Catholics inspired by this Time Magazine article
This is an interesting read in light of my reluctant southerness and a whole bunch of stuff a whole bunch of folks have been blogging about lately.
In my very first real post in this blog thing, I joked about being asked Where Do Y'all Worshipp whenever I met someone new when I moved to Kentucky. I guess it really isn't a joke:
Dianne Rider, 45, was a doctrinal moderate when she lived in Yonkers, N.Y. As a parishioner at St. Mark, she is a strict adherent to Vatican instruction. One reason: in a region where the first question you're asked when you meet someone is often "What church do you attend?," Rider is in constant contact with Evangelicals and other Protestants who are still mystified by Catholics and frequently "call us onto the carpet to explain what we believe. It has helped take me back to the basics of my faith."
Then also recently, both Puritas Cordis and Open Book wrote about some things that reflect how cultural traditions and attitudes can somehow make you miss out. Amy even goes so far as to say that "I wonder sometimes if this is the result of living most of my conscious Catholic life in the South, where Catholicism is more than a thread in the social fabric, something much different than cultural background noise." She also is not alone:
Says the Rev. Jay Scott Newman, pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church, less than two hours south in Greenville, S.C.: "Here you're not Catholic because your parents came from Italy or Slovakia. It's because you believe what the church teaches you is absolutely true."
Add to all this The Parish is fixin' to contribute to the (I guess OKC) Catholic paper why Evangelicals are becoming Catholic. Check out the link because his reasons are pretty funny. I wonder, though, if the reverse is true in the North, Catholics becoming Evangelicals in almost the same numbers. I always thought that if my family has been doing this for about 1000 years, it's good enough for me. When you take away the ethnic glue thing, most Northern Catholic Churches give folks little reason to stick around. And I'm not talking about Krispy Kremes, though I had considered joining a Unitarian Church in Pittsburgh once because they had fantastic cake every week (Dr. Art MacDonald from Third World Theology was also a bigshot there). I'm talking about carrot cake with the heavy cream cheese frosting and marzipan carrots. MMMMMM. Sorry --Day of Fast. Maybe Open Book is on to something here in this post where a note sent home from her daughter's Catholic Grammar School in Indiana talked about some general behavioral issues at the school, using a very secular vocabulary instead of a Christian vocabulary. I don't have all the same problems Amy has with the letter (probably because I'm not footing the bills there), but I do have to wonder--what the hell are they so afraid of? It is one thing for a public school or a private school with no religious affiliations to address these sorts of things from a Civil Manner framework rather than an explicitly Christian Morality Framework. But a Catholic school, afraid to say Jesus taught us that such and such is wrong? Perhaps in the North we have become so divorced from Christ in our everyday life, that even in the situations where it would be more than appropriate to bring Him up, we back down.
Anyway. The Time article is a good read, though too brief for me. I've always said the best Catholic experiences I have had were in Kentucky, and I have always thought that was an unlikely place for that to happen. I guess I may be wrong. Maybe it was the ONLY place for that to happen?
In my very first real post in this blog thing, I joked about being asked Where Do Y'all Worshipp whenever I met someone new when I moved to Kentucky. I guess it really isn't a joke:
Dianne Rider, 45, was a doctrinal moderate when she lived in Yonkers, N.Y. As a parishioner at St. Mark, she is a strict adherent to Vatican instruction. One reason: in a region where the first question you're asked when you meet someone is often "What church do you attend?," Rider is in constant contact with Evangelicals and other Protestants who are still mystified by Catholics and frequently "call us onto the carpet to explain what we believe. It has helped take me back to the basics of my faith."
Then also recently, both Puritas Cordis and Open Book wrote about some things that reflect how cultural traditions and attitudes can somehow make you miss out. Amy even goes so far as to say that "I wonder sometimes if this is the result of living most of my conscious Catholic life in the South, where Catholicism is more than a thread in the social fabric, something much different than cultural background noise." She also is not alone:
Says the Rev. Jay Scott Newman, pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church, less than two hours south in Greenville, S.C.: "Here you're not Catholic because your parents came from Italy or Slovakia. It's because you believe what the church teaches you is absolutely true."
Add to all this The Parish is fixin' to contribute to the (I guess OKC) Catholic paper why Evangelicals are becoming Catholic. Check out the link because his reasons are pretty funny. I wonder, though, if the reverse is true in the North, Catholics becoming Evangelicals in almost the same numbers. I always thought that if my family has been doing this for about 1000 years, it's good enough for me. When you take away the ethnic glue thing, most Northern Catholic Churches give folks little reason to stick around. And I'm not talking about Krispy Kremes, though I had considered joining a Unitarian Church in Pittsburgh once because they had fantastic cake every week (Dr. Art MacDonald from Third World Theology was also a bigshot there). I'm talking about carrot cake with the heavy cream cheese frosting and marzipan carrots. MMMMMM. Sorry --Day of Fast. Maybe Open Book is on to something here in this post where a note sent home from her daughter's Catholic Grammar School in Indiana talked about some general behavioral issues at the school, using a very secular vocabulary instead of a Christian vocabulary. I don't have all the same problems Amy has with the letter (probably because I'm not footing the bills there), but I do have to wonder--what the hell are they so afraid of? It is one thing for a public school or a private school with no religious affiliations to address these sorts of things from a Civil Manner framework rather than an explicitly Christian Morality Framework. But a Catholic school, afraid to say Jesus taught us that such and such is wrong? Perhaps in the North we have become so divorced from Christ in our everyday life, that even in the situations where it would be more than appropriate to bring Him up, we back down.
Anyway. The Time article is a good read, though too brief for me. I've always said the best Catholic experiences I have had were in Kentucky, and I have always thought that was an unlikely place for that to happen. I guess I may be wrong. Maybe it was the ONLY place for that to happen?
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