I prefer just plain “Catholic”, thank you

Over the past decade, people have been inventing a couple of new swear words to marginalize those Not of the Tribe. Over at Andrew Sullivan’s place, for instance, the terms “theocon” and (more mysterious still) “Christianist” have been bandied about for years. They mean “Anybody whose Christianity disagrees with mine–particularly when it comes to sexual matters.”

Also, I’ve notice (in a more spotty way) the mysterious epithet “neo-Catholic” tossed around now and then. This one is even more mysterious to me. Fr. Joseph O’Leary, the famed “Spirit of Vatican II” combox denizen who seems to have endless amounts of time to troll the net on behalf of gay causes and no time to, like, do his priestly duties introduced me to the term some years ago when he declared Janice Kraus, the minor celebrity in the convert-hating crowd to be a “neo-Catholic”. This baffled me at the time and I have since run into it now and then, but have never quite figured out what it means.

Yesterday, a reader sent along a link from Wikipedia on the term–and this has has only served to darken the mystery for me. It would appear that, like “Christianist”, “neo-Catholic” is mostly a swear word meant to link “convert Catholics with an Evangelical Republican flavor” to “neocons”. But, the three examples used make no sense. And coupled with O’Leary’s usage, it’s a total muddle. For O’Leary, Janice Kraus, the loather of all things Hahn/Akin and Keating is apparently a Neo-Cath because of her contempt for Protestants (or perhaps her general conservatism), while Wikipedia tries to pin it on Hahn, Akin and Keating for being too Protestantized and papolotrous. Mysteriously, the Wiki piece lumps them all in with neocons too. But Scott (who opposed the Iraq war and has little enthusiasm for neocons) and Karl, (who fiercely rejects neocon bunk about the glories of Hiroshima (having a Japanese wife provides moral clarity here)) hardly fit that bill. And Jimmy’s mysterious “Protestantized” tendencies have yet to become visible to me, unless what is meant here is that Jimmy (and Karl and Scott) attempt to present the Faith in ways intelligible to Protestants so that they will, you know, become Catholic and become docile to Holy Church.

Me: I always sort of thought the point of the Church was “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations”, so I fail to see that problem either–unless, of course, you just don’t want former Protestants in your Church.

The more I ponder the term “neo-Catholic” the more wonderfully malleable it seems to be. I discover, for instance, that I’m one, now and then. But what that means, I don’t know. If I oppose the war and agree with the Pope I am a Papolotrous neo-Catholic who believes the Pope incapable of the tiniest error. If I support the Pope but fail to be sufficiently bitter about the Paul VI Mass and contemptibly content with my parish, I am Protestantized and still a neo-Cath.

Is it being a convert that makes you a neo-Catholic? Nope. Karl’s a cradle and was always a Catholic. Pat Madrid too. Yet, somehow they are neo-Caths too. What the blazes is “neo” about somebody who was always Catholic?

Does it have something to do with the hostility toward lay teachers who are trying to do something to help with catechesis? Yes, that would seem to be part of it. But the hilarious thing is that the principal authorities cited at the Wiki article are some lay guy named Chris Ferrara and some lay guy named Bob Sungenis, whose main qualifications are, well, nothing really. But they don’t like EWTN, Hahn, Akin, or Keating, so they are qualified to do lay catechesis by whoever it is posting the Wiki piece.

So I conclude that, like “Christianist”, “neo-Catholic” is a tribal label meaning “Eww! Them!” It can mean almost anybody if EWTN, Kraus, Hahn, Akin, Keating and I are all neo-Catholics. Which means, at present, that is means nothing. My suspicion is that the term will settle down out of its current state of quantum indeterminacy and come to mean mainly “Converts from Protestantism and other Catholics who are not bitter about the Second Vatican Council or the papacy of John Paul II and who do not subscribe to some inchoate Two Church Theory.” I suspect it will also connote Catholics enamored of the grave sins of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self control; as well as Catholics who think the mission of the Church is to make converts to the Faith, not hunker down in the bunker and fighting a defensive war against converts.