Some while back I told one of my sisters in the Dominican Laity that I wanted to be \u201cas Catholic as the Pope: no more and no less.\u201d And she, getting entirely the wrong idea, lauded me for having such a worthy goal. She thought I meant to be as devoted, as loving, and as holy as the Pope. And that is<\/em> a worthy goal (assuming that the pope is indeed devoted, loving, and holy, which has not always been the case), and in line with the Church\u2019s universal call to holiness, but that\u2019s not what I meant\u2014I just didn\u2019t have any better words at the time.<\/p>\n What I meant was this: that I want to do no less than Christ\u2019s Church requires of me\u2026and (here\u2019s the kicker) require no more of anyone else<\/em>. The former does speak to personal holiness, and it\u2019s limited by my own sinfulness and ignorance (like everybody else, I don\u2019t know what I don\u2019t know). But it\u2019s the latter that I was really aiming for.<\/p>\n Uncle Screwtape tells Wormwood,<\/p>\n What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call \u2018Christianity And\u2019. You know\u2014 Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform. If they must be Christians let them at least be Christians with a difference. Substitute for the faith itself some Fashion with a Christian colouring.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And I might add to that \u201cChristianity and Gay Marriage\u201d, \u201cChristianity and the Latin Mass,\u201d \u201cChristianity and Women Priests,\u201d \u201cChristianity and the Pro-Life Movement,\u201d \u201cChristianity and Inclusiveness,\u201d \u201cChristianity and the Environment,\u201d \u201cChristianity and the Third Secret of Fatima,\u201d \u201cChristianity and the Poor,\u201d and any of a number of other things, some of them consistent with Church teaching and some of them not.<\/p>\n We are not as a people called to \u201cChristianity and X,\u201d for any particular value of X you choose to name. We are called to \u201cChristianity, therefore<\/em> X,\u201d where \u201cChristianity\u201d is the same for all of us, and there are as many values of \u201cX\u201d as there are people. Because here\u2019s the thing: as Uncle Screwtape notes, if we pursue \u201cChristianity and X,\u201d we will soon find ourselves pursuing \u201cX, and Christianity in support of it,\u201d or even \u201cX\u201d all by itself. And when that happens, we are noisy gongs and clanging cymbals.<\/p>\n We must do everything with love, which is to say Love, which is to say God, which is to say Christ, which to say with Christ\u2019s love. We cannot do that if we don\u2019t put Christ first and let his love flow through us.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t want to oversell this. To do good without Christ\u2019s love is still to do good. A man who feeds the poor is objectively doing good, even if there\u2019s no shred of genuine Christian charity in his heart. But that\u2019s not our call. Our call is to love the poor because Christ loves the poor, to pray for the victims of abortion because Christ loves them, to pursue any good because of Christ\u2019s love.<\/p>\n We are each called to \u201cChristianity, therefore<\/em> X\u201d for some X. There are general requirements: Jesus makes it quite clear that we are to feed and clothe the poor, and comfort the sick and imprisoned. But in the body there are many members, and each of us has our own emphasis. It is simply wrong for me to take my own emphasis and its particular requirements, and levy them upon all of my brothers and sisters; it is wrong for the gall bladder to censure the foot for not having enough gall, but it happens all too often.<\/p>\n And so: as Catholic as the Pope, but no more, and to put Christ first in all things. There you go.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some while back I told one of my sisters in the Dominican Laity that I wanted to be \u201cas Catholic as the Pope: no more and no less.\u201d And she, getting entirely the wrong idea, lauded me for having such a worthy goal. She thought I meant to be as devoted, as loving, and as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1131,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[10,21,22,33],"class_list":["post-331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-living","tag-catholic","tag-christianity","tag-holiness","tag-interior-life"],"yoast_head":"\n