Dear Catholic World: Why Do YOU Remain A Catholic?

So, as I mentioned in this post, our own “Catholic Thinker”, Tod Worner — following the recent Pew report on diminishing Catholic numbers, and the glee that inspired in some corners — decided to write a post on why he will not be leaving the Catholic church.

Tod’s piece reminded me of an older piece of mine from NPR, where I also catalogued why I remain a Catholic, and it inspired Monique Ocampo to explain why she remains, as well.

And then Dr. Gregory Popcak chimed in, writing so well about the “audacious intimacy” of the Eucharist.

And then Denise Bossert kicked in with her convert’s insights.

I suggested that we may have the beginnings of a spontaneous Symposium, here and have nudged other Catholic Channel writers to jot down short pieces on why they intend to remain Catholic. Those will be popping up soon, and Ill be sure to link to them, so keep checking back, here.

But, in the meantime, I had another idea, which was probably inspired by this event. How about if we take this little project outside of Patheos? How about if Catholic writers from all over the internet — bloggers, reporters, poets, aggregators, newshounds, journal editors, politicians, new-media-storming priests and nuns, Catholics in secular positions — what if they all were to take a few minutes to jot down “Why I Remain A Catholic” and post it where they can, on websites or social media?

How great would that be — a cloud of witnesses in the ether, another kind of Communion of Saints?

Let’s do this! If you’re Catholic and have access to a web-page, a radio program, a Facebook page, whatever, take a few minutes, and tell the world why you are remaining a Catholic in an era where doing so seems not only counter-cultural, but also counter-intuitive and even, perhaps, a bit risky?

And for those of you who have access to nothing but comboxes, well, feel free: use the combox to tell us why you will stay with the church!

UPDATE: Hm, and maybe we should hashtag this: #WhyRemainCatholic

How about it, folks? This is a call-out to CatholicMom.com, and New Advent and Ed Morrissey and Our Sunday Visitor, and Crux, and dotCommonweal, and Brandon Vogt, and dear, brilliant Heather King, and Jennifer Fulwiler, and Big Pulpit and Catholic Digest, and DaTechGuy and Hallie Lord and In the Arena, and Relevant Radio!

I could go on and on but you get the idea, and I must dash out to noon mass, but what do you think? Ready to share your reasons why you will remain with the church as the world increasingly bares its teeth against it? My handle on twitter is @TheAnchoress. Tweet me with your post-links, and I’ll include them here!

This image makes a most succinct statement as to why I remain, but I’ll come up with something more detailed, later: