Catholics have become mainstream America

“If I have achieved anything in my life it is because I have not been embarrassed to talk about God.” –Dorothy Day

One of my classmates just forwarded me the results of a Barna survey that has concluded that “Catholics have become mainstream America.”

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Let us see the results.

The study can be summarized as follows: “The survey data portray Catholics as people whose lifestyles and thought patterns are more influenced by the social mainstream than by the core principles of the Christian faith.”

In addition, the Barna Group adds that “Today, [Catholics] are a large and vibrant group, but one that is faith-aware rather than faith-driven.”

Emphasis added. Faith-aware, but not faith-driven? How so? Well, let us see how Catholics view their faith and their attitude towards it.

Faith

“Two out of three Catholics (68%) said their religious faith is very important in their life – the same as was true among non-Catholic adults – but how their faith is manifested is quite divergent.”

Catholics differ to most Americans in their faith-related attitudes as follows:

• Catholics are only half as likely to mention their faith as the highest priority in their life. Instead, family is their highest priority.
• Forty-four percent of Catholics claimed to be “absolutely committed” to their Christian faith compared to fifty-five percent of the entire adult population.
• Catholics were less likely than average to look forward to discussing their religious views with other people, to attending church services, and to reading the Bible.
• Catholics were only half as likely as other Americans to say they look forward “a lot” to reading from the Bible.

Morality

According to the study, Catholics are different from most American adults in the following:

• Notably more likely to not say mean things about people behind their back.
• More likely to engage in recycling.

The behavior of Catholics are indistinguishable from mainstream Americans when:

• Illegally downloading copyrighted music from the Internet
• Stealing
• Engaging in physical abuse
• Getting drunk
• Using illegal, non-prescription drugs
• Lying
• Committing adultery
• Seeking revenge
• Twice as likely to view pornographic content on the Internet
• More likely to use profanity, to gamble, and to buy lottery tickets.

Other aspects of life

Regarding aspects of life outside of faith and morals, Catholics are similar to the rest of the public when accepting adjectives such as “independent thinker,” “seen as a leader,” and “loyal and reliable” to “stressed out” and “clear about the meaning and purpose of my life,” but differing from the rest of adults when rejecting “evangelical Christian” as an adjective.

Catholics also share the bulk of the attitudes investigated in the study regarding media, consumerism, vacations, health and exercise, and even household duties.

For some reason, this is not a surprise to me, especially based on the discussions I’ve read in the Catholic blogosphere regarding poverty in the U.S:

“[A] series of 11 questions about the existence and extent of poverty in the U.S., and people’s personal responses to poverty, showed no distinctions between Catholics and other adults.”

I pose the question again to our readers: Is the fact that as Catholics we have become so diluted in American culture to the point that we have become unrecognizable a good thing or a bad thing?

I can only think of the Epistle to Diognetus to answer this question:

“The difference between Christians and the rest of mankind is not a matter of nationality, or language, or customs. Christians do not live apart in separate cities of their own, speak any special dialect, nor practice any eccentric way of life… Though destiny has placed them here in the flesh, they do not live after the flesh; their days are passed on the earth, but their citizenship is above in the heavens. They obey the prescribed laws, but in their own private lives they transcend the laws. They show love to all men–and all men persecute them. They are misunderstood, and condemned; yet by suffering death they are quickened into life. They are poor, yet making many rich; lacking all things, yet having all things in abundance. They are dishonoured, yet made glorious in their very dishonour; slandered, yet vindicated.”

“To put it briefly, the relation of Christians to the world is that of a soul to the body. As the soul is diffused through every part of the body, so are Christians through all the cities of the world. The soul, too, inhabits the body, while at the same time forming no part of it; and Christians inhabit the world, but they are not part of the world. The soul, invisible herself, is immured within a visible body; so Christians can be recognized in the world, but their Christianity itself remains hidden from the eye.”

As lay people, we need to listen to our shepherds so we can be guided in our efforts to strengthen our daily encounter with Jesus Christ. Therefore, the irresponsible and uninformed criticism of our bishops, the USCCB, the Roman Curia, and even the Pope as being “anti-American” that we often encounter in the blogosphere is completely unacceptable. What message are we sending to American Catholics who may not be in those 44% who accept to be “absolutely committed” to their Christian faith and happen to visit our sites?

It is that encounter with Jesus Christ that makes our Christian faith more than just words and moves us out of ourselves. It is that love that flows from that encounter that cannot be contained within ourselves and makes us realize that this love is not meant to be confined only in tabernacle either, but that it is found in the daily occurrences of our lives if we only decide not to be ashamed of God and to recognize Him in everything we do. We encounter our Lord in the Eucharist, prayer and we decide to share in his love through the corporal works of mercy. That is how we become faith-driven and not merely faith-aware.

As Saint Josemaría Escrivá constantly emphasized, we need more than ever to live one life and not “a kind of double life. On the one hand, an interior life, a life of union with God; and on the other, a separate and distinct professional, social and family life.”