Catholic and Enjoying It!
Yesterday, I expressed puzzlement at the emergence of the swear word “neo-Catholic” as a descriptor of a class of people in the Church. Any term that can include both Janice Kraus *and* Scott Hahn, Karl Keating, Jimmy Akin and me seems to me to be so malleable as to be meaningless. The Wikipedia article on it was, in particular, mysterious since there seems to be no coherence to the thing.
In response, reader DM wrote:
In the past, when this semantic squabbling has arisen on your blog, I have proposed the following as the most concise, least polemical definition of “neo-Catholic”:
A Catholic whose enthusiasms and opinions are mostly defined by John Paul II’s papacy.
I’ve given this definition many times, and I don’t think you’ve ever given an opinion of it.
Now, there’s no accounting for O’Leary, who seems to think he invented the term himself and uses it in a way peculiar to himself, but among traditionalists (like myself), everyone knows what a neo-Catholic is, and it’s pretty well summarized by the definition I just gave. Indeed, I call on any and every traditionalist who reads this post to disagree with it if he thinks it inaccurate or insufficient; I doubt any will.
Now, I’m not going to pretend that it isn’t a term used unflatteringingly much of the time, but I certainly find it a useful term to decribe a set of opinions and enthusiasms held by many Catholics. If you want specifics, a “neo-Catholic” would likely agree with all or most of the following statements, all of which can be considered characteristic of John Paul II’s papacy. A traditionalist would disagree with all or most of them:
1) The Second Vatican Council was a positively good thing. Its documents are “marching orders for the new millennium”. The pastoral strategy given by Gaudium et Spes is authoritative and, more importantly, correct. The problems in the Church following the council are not the fault of the conciliar documents themselves, but can be blamed on misinterpretation, misimplementation, or ignorance of them.
2) The Bugninine liturgical reform was a positively good thing. The problems following the promulgation of the new Mass are not the fault of the content, form or circumstrances of origin of the new Mass itself, but can be blamed on liturgical abuse at the diocesan and parochial level. When celebrated reverently, there is “nothing illegitemate or doctrinally inexact” about the reformed liturgy.
3) The ecclesiastical tradition of the Church has no permanment objective content. All “little T” traditions can and should be modified according to perceived pastoral or evangelical expediency.
4) The pope can and should positivistically innovate in matters of liturgy and devotion.
5) Ecumenism is a positively good thing and a “solemn and binding duty” on all believers.
6) Modern philosophical (e.g. phenomenology), artistic, and cultural (e.g. World Youth Day) forms can and should be used as vehicles for the Gospel, and there is nothing intrinsically and qualitatively superior about the forms used by the Church in the past (e.g. Thomism, Gothic architecture).
7) The 1992 Catechism is a “sure guide” to the faith, and can be considered a final authority on any matter it addresses.
8) Disagreement with the above statements puts a Catholic in danger of “private judgment”, “being more Catholic than the pope” or “Protestant mentality”.
I don’t think that any part of that is inaccurate of unfair, and apologize if it is.
And, as usual, I ask that anyone who objects to the term “neo-Catholic” suggest a different name for the set of opinions and enthusiasms I have just described. (Refusing to call it anything other than “Catholic” winds up just being an integrist game of its own, as that suggests that “Catholisicm” is coterminous with that set of opinions and enthusiasms.)
Happily for me, reader Sam Urfer has a very articulate reply that is better informed than I am on liturgical stuff. But I still think some remarks are in order.
First, this definition seems to me to stick out from the cloud of quantum indeterminacy as having, at least for DM, a definite shape, and I like that. As to the charges:
1) I admit to the heinous guilt of thinking that a Council of Holy Church was a good thing. As a convert from Evangelicalism, I pretty much had enough of do-it-yourself Magisteria and when I became Catholic took it as axiomatic that I was agreeing to the proposition that the Magisterium of the Church was given us by Christ to preserve, develop and apply the Tradition as the Church navigates the waters of history. I have never understood or believed either the Progressive Dissenting nor the Reactionary Dissenting notion that, at Vatican II, the Church split into the pre and post conciliar Churches. So I have never felt obliged in the slightest to pick between the Progressive Dissent narrative (“Before the Council all was darkness and void till John XXIII threw open the windows and behold! There was light!”) and the Reactionary Dissent narrative (“Vatican II was a disaster and we need to just forget about it and get back to 1956 Cleveland when everything was perfect.”) I feel zero obligation to choose between the two Churches because I believe the Church is one and indefectible.
2) One of the paradoxes of the Traditionalist positions, from where I sit, is that it is purely a product of the past 40 years. The notion of a large subculture of lay Catholics who feel themselves endowed by God Most High with the authority to sit around and bitch about the fine points of the liturgy based on the fact that they have a keyboard and a grudge is something I just don’t see happening anywhere before the Council. It is, if you will, remarkably Modernist. When I became Catholic, I came from a Tradition whose liturgy consisted of three fast songs, three medium songs, three slow songs, a time of praise and worship typically involving tongues and prophecy, an hour long homily/Favorite Bible passages melange, a time of prayer and personal ministry, and the sacrement of coffee and donuts. It was a real liturgy, albeit rather impoverished and only unconsciously liturgical in that it never varied from week to week.
When I became Catholic, I did so knowing that I came from a world that was impoverished and so I did not take it upon myself to waltz into the Church and start holding forth on How She Could Improve the Mass to Suit Me. I’ve held to that policy ever since. I don’t know from nothing about the details of liturgy, but I do know it’s my business to be grateful for the Mass, not bitter and hyper-critical about it. I have this weird notion that Eucharist means I should be thankful. I’ve seen not a few converts of the Matatics variety sashay into the Church but fail to check their pride at the door. They look around, find it’s not perfect, and proceed to walk out the opposite door because She doesn’t suit their discriminating tastes or theological theories.
Me: I’ll take any Mass Mother Church gives me and be grateful for it. OF, EF, I don’t care. And I don’t care if enthusiasts for either look down on me for my indiscriminate gratitude for the Mass. They are not my Judge nor even my bishop. Just some laity who have deluded themselves into thinking somebody died and made them the arbiters of what constitutes a valid and worthy act of worship to God. Likewise, any theology the Church has not condemned, while it may not be my cup off tea, will not become grounds to declare brother and sister Catholics to be quasi-heretical “neo” anything. It’s the Church’s business, not mine, to decide who is and isn’t “really” Catholic.
Are there problems with the liturgy? Sure. I’m from Seattle, land of liturgical abuse. But when the liturgy is not abused–and indeed, even when it is–my focus is on the love of God that overcomes even our human idiocies through the Great Gift rather than on preening over things that God has never called me to fuss about and passing judgement on those who fail to be sufficiently bitter about the liturgy.
3) If by this you mean “neo-Catholics” want to junk small t tradition, I can see no evidence of this. If you mean “In essential things, uniformity; in doubtful things, scruples and guilt; in all things, merciless adherence to the letter of the law” then yeah, I suppose I do think small T traditions are, when push comes to shove, less important than actual human beings and can be treat flexibly. I see no reason why that means they need be scrapped though. So, for instance, though I think the Rosary a fine thing, I might well not recommend it for somebody with obsessive-compulsive disorder who was liable to get trapped in scruples about saying the prayers just so or losing count or some other irrelevancy. Similarly, Trad tendencies to fret about whether the Host was elevated sufficiently high, or fussbudgetry about this or that pronunciation or article of clothing can easily become a snare to scrupulous newbies who are trying to find their feet in the Church.
4) I think Sam Urfer answers this adequately. Me: All I know is that it’s not up to me to legislate such things and I trust Holy Church to take care of it without the help of self-appointed liturgical fussbudgets in comboxes whose opinions and authority, plus five bucks, will get me a cup of Starbucks.
5) Like Sam, I have this funny notion that when the Church teaches something in Council, my task as a Catholic is to listen and obey, not repeat it in the same tone of voice as I would use when saying, “You left your soiled underwear on my coffee table.” I dislike Reactionary Dissent as much as Progressive Dissent, not least because despite the contempt for ecumenism emanating from the bunker Catholics, the fact remains that Vatican II’s demand that Catholics engage with, rather than avoid and heap contempt upon, Protestants is in no small part one of the reasons I could eventually become Catholic. It produced a crop of Catholics who took the time to actually explain the Faith to me in terms I could understand instead of, like Janice Kraus, simply saying “We have the Faith and you, vile Evangelical, because of the accident of your birth and breeding, will *never* have what it takes to be Catholic!” I’m oddly grateful about having a crack at eternal life and the fullness of the Faith, so I’m grateful to the Church’s teaching on Ecumenism at VII.
6) Why the either/or caricature? Very Protestant of you. But not descriptive of anybody I know and certainly not descriptive of those sinister archetypes of neo-cath thought and culture called EWTN, Scott Hahn, Jimmy Akin and Karl Keating.
7) Again, I’m funny this way, but in weighing the merits of the Catechism as a “sure guide” I do, in that neo-Cath way I have, figure that the Pope is probably better qualified than some guy with a keyboard and a grudge to say that the Catechism is “a ‘valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion’ and as a ‘sure norm for teaching the faith,’ as well as a ‘sure and authentic reference text’“. Once again, as an Evangelical who pretty much had his fill of do-it-yourself bishops, I think this is a prudent judgement. Particularly because guys with keyboards and grudges, in their haste to caricature and marginalized fellow Catholics as neo-Catholics, tack on cartoonish notions that the Catechism is therefore “a final authority on any matter it addresses”, something I certainly don’t believe since the Catechism largely deals in broad strokes, not in prescribing micromanaging solutions for all the problems of life. It is no more the Big Book of Everything than the Bible is. That said, when somebody proposes an idea that is directly counter to the obvious and plain sense of it–(Progressive Dissenter version: “Gay sex is okay so long as the gay person is authentically expressing the inner truth of who he/she is and is not engaging in it out of a false desire to conform to some external pressure.”/ Conservative Dissenter version: “Torture is really fine because Fr. Brian Harrison said you might be able to do it under conditions that only exist in the movies.”)–my assumption is that the person is a sophist and the plain sense should be trusted.
8) Pretty much.
Three final points. First, the irony of your definition:
A Catholic whose enthusiasms and opinions are mostly defined by John Paul II’s papacy.
…is that it is either blind or dishonest in its suggestion that “neo-Catholics” alone bear the marks of deep influence from John Paul the Great. In fact, however, Trads whose labor has been for decades to decry “John Paul the Overrated” have had their enthusiasms and opinions about the faith defined just as much by that huge and long papacy. What living Catholic could not? Traditionalists are frequently defined by their opposition to the (in their view) disproportionate influence of John Paul on the present generation. Everybody born in the past 40 years, whether they admire the man or think him an overrated disaster, has been formed by him and live their Catholic faith in deep relationship to him. He was the freakin’ Pope–for a quarter of a century!
So what you *really* mean by your definition is “A Catholic who is insufficiently bitter about John Paul II’s papacy or, worse still, grateful for it.” This, like my lack of animus toward the Council and my gratitude for any Mass the Church offers me, is a heinous charge to which I will happily confess. Do I think JPII above criticism? No. Nor do I think his papacy somehow trumps all previous papacies and councils. That’s because (let me be very clear here in repeating it for the umpteenth time) I do not subscribe to the Progressive/Reactionary Dissent theory that the Church split into a pre and post conciliar Church. I believe in the (Pre-conciliar and post-conciliar) dogma that the Church is one and indefectible.
That leads to my second point: namely, what’s with the “neo” as a prefix. By your definition, people (like Karl Keating and Pat Madrid) who have been Catholic all their lives are somehow rendered “neo” by the crime of being insufficiently bitter and contemptuous of the Council and the papacy of JPII and, worst of all, regarding them as a good thing and the work of God. This lends great force to the notion that the term is meant to suggest that the Church is defectible and has split into a pre and post conciliar Church and even Catholics who were born and baptized before the Council are somehow members of a quasi-apostate Church if they don’t share Trad enthusiasms. So it appears to be a descriptor of anybody who does not buy the Reactionary Dissent version of the Two Church theory.
Finally, with respect (or perhaps more accurately “disrespect”) to your attempt to steal bases by declaring:
And, as usual, I ask that anyone who objects to the term “neo-Catholic” suggest a different name for the set of opinions and enthusiasms I have just described. (Refusing to call it anything other than “Catholic” winds up just being an integrist game of its own, as that suggests that “Catholisicm” is coterminous with that set of opinions and enthusiasms.
Sorry, but no deal. “Neo-Catholic” remains a swear word designed to impute the odor of heresy to faithful Catholics who are docile to the Church, to Vatican II, and to the papacy of JPII. To say that such people are not Catholic is a smear. And to say that calling them “Catholic” means that people with Traditionalist sensibilities are not Catholic is a lie. The Church is the home of many kinds of piety and many schools of opinion. Traditionalists are Catholic. So are people who think the Council was a good thing and JPII a good Pope. Indeed, sometimes those two classes of people overlap. All “neo-Catholic” does is provide Traditionalists who would like to reduce the Faith to their particular cultural obsessions with a tribal label designed to traduce the good faith of Catholics docile to the Church. It’s crap. And I reject it.
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