Catholic and Enjoying It!
The Irenist writes True Truth in my comboxes:
Very few Christians of any denomination in the contemporary West take their faith very seriously, or know very much about it. This leads Catholics, e.g., to vote, contracept, divorce, etc., in much the way that any other Americans would: there is *nothing* “countercultural” about most contemporary Catholicism because the days of the thick cultural web of the ethnic Catholic ghetto when Catholicism could be learned in part by osmosis are long gone, and no way to effectively catechize or enliven the faith of atomized assimilated American individuals has yet been found. I am beginning to fear that until we address this, all our inside-St. Blog’s squabbling about whether to vote for, e.g., Mitt Romney or Joe Schriner is a pernicious distraction, akin to the “Christianity AND vegetarianism” in the Screwtape Letters. Consider this, fellow Catholic political obsessives: Successful third parties and movements within established parties do not start by running for the Presidency. The non-flash in the pan ones start by running for local school board, or whatever. The Catholic application of this insight is that we need better Christians in better parishes before we have the sort of disciplined disciples of Christ countercultural enough to even *form the idea* of taking a battle to the culture, much less winning it. In brief, my advice is to skip the election news today and go read Sherry’s Weddell’s far more important than the election news “Forming Intentional Disciples: The Path to Knowing and Following Jesus” or something like it ASAP. I will most likely now return to my regularly scheduled paying too much attention to politics. But I do think all us Shea regulars need to at lest consider that we’re overdoing it.
He’s right. Listen to him. That book is one of the most important things written this year, if not this decade. Tolle, lege!
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