I have been pondering what "Thinking Catholic" means, ever since our rather rowdy discussion in response to this post (don't read the comments if you get upset easily, but enjoy if you like frank debate) in which Tim suggested we should all take RCIA courses and Clark wrote:
No matter how hard anyone tries, you cannot imagine what your new Catholic faith will be like until you walk in those shoes. I converted over three years ago and the biggest shocker was simply learning to think Catholic.
Well, of course a number of our respondents bridled at these suggestions! It reminded me of how I blasted a woman who told me and another Anglican Catholic that maybe our testimonies would be in the next edition of Canadian Converts. Grrrrrrrrrrr! I completely overreacted and told her that I was not in a hurry to convert to the Roman Catholic Church after the spectacle of the Teddy Kennedy funeral. "Our bishops would never allow eulogies in a funeral mass," I fumed. I told her I was content to wait until we were received as a group into communion with the Church. (I later did apologize to her and her husband, and they both very kindly accepted it.)
I recall a convert Catholic friend telling me his cradle Catholic wife told him he'd never understand the faith the way she did. There is this family or tribe or cultural aspect of Roman Catholicism that might help people to understand Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and the Magisterium of Nuns who gave many Catholics the cover they needed to support Obamacare, despite the firm opposition of the United States Catholic Bishops.
I always used to wonder why all these Catholic dissenters just didn't become Protestants. I have always leaned towards the view that one is Catholic for the faith one holds, not for the tribal membership. When I applied for my present job writing for Roman Catholic papers back in 2004, I explained to the panel of editors that while I was not Roman Catholic I was more Catholic than 85 per cent of the people in the pews. There was an exchange of meaningful glances, I was excused, and a while later they offered me the job.
But I soon learned there is more to Catholicism than a Catholic faith. It is a family. And I have learned it is not good enough to be a de facto member. The unity must be visible. And when a couple of editors slapped my hand after I put "so-called" Catholic or something like that in front of the name of a Catholic politician who was pro-choice or pro-same-sex 'marriage' I gradually began to understand something that I still struggle with about the Church. As one editor used to tell me, James Joyce described the Church as "Here comes everybody."
That said, I still think that most self-identified Catholics in North America are Protestants in thought and habit. And there are many self-identified Protestants who are more Catholic in the sense I will now describe because they are truly "thinking Catholic."
Back in the days I was a practicing cafeteria Christian who also loaded up my tray with poisonous Gnostic teachings from various sources, I had a friend who was an Anglican minister. I hesitate to say priest because he was evangelical and I'm not sure he saw the Eucharist as more than a table. But he did say once that it was important for him to have an Apostolic faith. I didn't really know what he was talking about, until much later, but those words stuck in my mind.
The discovery came maybe ten years later, after I had done Neil Anderson's Steps to Freedom, a series of prayers that involve the confession of influence by false teaching or occult practices, renouncing them and asking for forgiveness. The prayers also take one through renouncing unforgiveness, bitterness, sexual sin, a whole gamut of things that keep one separated from God.
I did these a little reluctantly because I was certain that many of my "truths" that I had picked up along the way were good and true and made me a lot smarter than those who bought into indoctrination and obedience to external authorities. Well, after doing them, I was amazed at my inner transformation. My mind was peaceful, no longer plagued with mental chatter and negative thoughts that I had to be very disciplined in battling. And it was as if scales had fallen from my eyes. What had seemed so innocuous to me or even good, was now so obviously poisonous, dishonest and false that my mouth fell agape at how I blind I had been to all this before.
It was then I realized how important it was to have an Apostolic faith, to choose to believe the truth, to seek out what the Apostolic faith is and to believe it in order to understand (stand-under) it. Soon after that God led me to the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada and our little Ottawa cathedral and my understanding of what an Apostolic faith is has been growing and growing ever since, and my conversion is not something where I say "I am a convert" like I'm finished but an ongoing process of conversion to a deeper and deeper faith as I submit more and more to it.
For me, "Thinking Catholic" means making the switch between "I understand in order to believe and retaining the right to pick and choose beliefs", to "choosing to believe what the Church teaches in her fidelity to the faith of the Apostles," beginning with the eyewitnesses of Jesus Christ, who touched him, heard him, saw him and those who have at great cost passed down this faith intact to us. And not only choosing to believe but choosing to obey.
But the two are inseparable. If you choose to disobey, your faith will grow cloudy. That Anglican minister I wrote about? He fell in love with another woman and left his wife, causing her a great deal of suffering. I watched him drift away from the Apostolic faith that he had thought so important in his younger years. He began reading Gnostic material that I had once found attractive. I am not in touch with him anymore as it seemed a requirement was for me to agree he did the right thing in divorcing and remarrying but I do not think he has found the happiness he thought he'd find.
E. Michael Jones' book Degenerate Moderns has a most interesting thesis: either you bend your desires to the Truth, or your desires will bend "truth" to your specifications.
"Thinking Catholic" means bending your desires to the Truth, as you bend your mind to the teachings of the Church.
Related posts:
Excellent!
Wow!!! This one is out of the ball park….very, very good.
May I recommend this link to you. I just finished reading it and I believe it supports your thoughts on the subject.
http://fathernewman.blogspot.com/
Best Wishes
Thanks Sailorman,
Indeed, Father Newman's post is excellent reading. I especially loved this:
Amen to that! I am for evangelical and charismatic and traditionally liturgical Catholicism. Let's hope our Ordinariates are like this.
Now you will be able to suffer with us the next time someone trots out the latest sin from Peter to the present. Our unity is very visible. Just like a family we are linked to all of our members in the body of Christ for better or for worse.
One difference in protestantism is you are always able to distance yourself by saying "not my people".
Couldn't agree more.
As a convert to the Catholic faith from Evangelical Protestantism, I can sometimes relate to the feeling of being excluded from the "tribe," so to speak. Usually I get this feeling the most from non-practicing cradle Catholics who don't like being one-upped when it comes to, well, being Catholic. There's also the patronizing "oh you're so cute, little neophyte, knowing all this stuff about the Church, but we will continue to celebrate the Mass how we want it" remarks from the neocons. As a side note, my two year anniversary was Monday, so I'm no longer a neophyte. The "convert" stigma remains the same.
At the same time, I tend to be tribalistic as well. I feel a greater connection to, say, the Kennedys than I do to James Dobson.
Being a convert is something that I'm proud of. It's a truly amazing grace that God would take a kid in high school and draw him totally out of his comfort zone into the Catholic Church in a year's time. No, I don't have the generational inheritance of the Catholic culture to support me, but that simply means that I've truly had to make the faith "my own," something that might be harder to do for a cradle Catholic. As a convert, you can appreciate the Catholic faith all the more because you've "been there; done that." I wear my convert badge with pride.
One thing that does somewhat concern me about the Anglican brethren entering the Church is somewhat of an unwillingness to admit that they are, well, entering the Church. The Catholic Church is either what she claims to be or she is not. By saying that the Successor of Peter is the Head of the Church Universal, you must be willing to accept what has been proclaimed from the Chair, including what it means to be "in the Church." Understand that I'm not saying one has to be a "Roman" Catholic (I hate that term), but being Catholic is more than external ritual. All the liturgy in the world won't confect a Sacrament. Only Apostolic power can do that.
When in RCIA, I often felt like "well. I'm more Catholic than THESE people. What more do I possibly have to learn?" Being confirmed changed all of that. My whole universe shifted when I received Confirmation in the Catholic Church, and it's hard for me to remember what it was like before that. I can't really explain it. Two years later, by trying (and sometimes failing) to live in the Mind and Heart of the Church and staying close to the Sacraments, it's almost laughable how different I am. There is a difference, even if it can't be explained. Having the Apostolic Faith is more than just an intellectual assent to the Creeds and Traditions of the Catholic Church. It means living them, and having the humility to say: "oh. Maybe I was wrong about something. Maybe I don't have it figured out. Maybe there is something that I NEED that I can't get on my own."
After all, isn't that the first step to conversion?
Were a big family. Like the story of the prodigal son we have the father welcoming you back with open arms, the brother a little annoyed at your return. The big party going on and no one seems to notice, but Ben we are truly overjoyed that you are with us.
Daily conversion is for all of us.
Though a lifelong RC for sixty years, I did not experience the "tribal" bit (wasn't raised in a Catholic ghetto), except in the sense that I wasn't forced to defend "being Catholic" when I was a young man growing up. In fact, it is almost the reverse. You need to decide why to remain Catholic when any number of Catholic friends are criticizing the Faith, and walking away from it. That also is a learning experience.
I should add that the example of one's immediate family is also a positive help to remaining faithful, so it was not a "go it alone" kind of experience either.
In any case, no "convert" ought to feel "inferior" to the "natives": in the end we are all converts, or unconverted and searching.
>>"It was then I realized how important it was to have an Apostolic faith, to choose to believe the truth, to seek out what the Apostolic faith is and to believe it in order to understand (stand-under) it. "
I liked that statement. It was a very Anglican thing to say.
Saint Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, DISCOURSE ON THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
I do not endeavor, O Lord, to penetrate thy sublimity, for in no wise do I compare my understanding with that; but I long to understand in some degree thy truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe,—that unless I believed, I should not understand.
As a convert from Anglicanism myself, while I do think groups converting en masse should undergo some sort of catechesis (probably in common?), it is far from clear precisely what form this might take. One thing that does need to be stressed is that not all Anglicans have the same amount of theological education, even if they are catholic-minded. Perhaps, rather than being seen (or presented) as a hoop to be jumped through or some sort of "qualification" to be obtained, it should be seen as an opportunity to grow in the faith. I wonder whether some of this, in some cases at least, might not be an education in the Anglican tradition, a recovery of lost Patrimony.
On the other hand, Anglicanism has a great deal to offer to strengthen the Faith of those on this side of the Tiber: the Mariology of the Anglican Divines, a clear understanding of the Eucharist as sacrifice (as in Mascall, for instance), an appreciation of the Fathers, a strong sense of community centred around the parish, and a strong liturgical sense. I, for one, would like to see a mutual Enrichment.
I converted to Catholicism after having been raised attending a Baptist Church (of the more generically mainstream Protestant variety than the evangelical bible-thumping kind), and I have to say that in my parish there's almost no "tribalism" at all, thanks be to God. Everyone made a very big deal out of converting during the process of inquiring about the faith and being received into the Church, but about two weeks after receiving the sacraments of initiation, it was kind of like, "Meh, you're one of us now."
And at the time it was a little disconcerting because I felt like I was just thrown in to it all and it felt like no one cared, but I look back now and see what a relief it was to simply be accepted as someone who was as fully Catholic as everyone else. A lot of my friends will even say things like, "Oh, don't you remember [something that happened years before I was a member of the Church]?" and when I just smile and say "That was before my time" they look at me and say, "Oh. I forget you haven't always been 'one of us'".
So it's now very weird and disconcerting when I occasionally come across Catholics who preface EVERYTHING they have to say about the Church (and what they have to say is usually quite negative) with: "I know from 12 years of Catholic school…" The sort of people who are "more Catholic than the Pope" you know.
But in a way it can be nice, too, to know that Catholics still have enough of a sense of cohesion and identity that they bother to be "tribalistic" and "Catholic thinking" even long after they've left the Church, or have watered it down to something unrecognizable.
I'll be very interested to see how Catholic identity is formed and transformed among the groups of Anglicans to be received into full communion.
It strikes me that it's the Protestant in us that leads us to look at, e.g. pro-choice Catholics, and label them "so-called Catholics." I've done this myself. But as I've advanced in my Anglo-Catholicism, I've railed more and more against Protestants who say that so and so is not a Christian because of his bad behaviour. In the biblical view, which is clearly taught in the Baptism rite in the classic Book of Common Prayer (and no, 1979 is not a real BCP!), one's behaviour does not determine whether one is a Christian. Baptism does. That is where we are regenerate (the BCP word for 'reborn'), where God the Father adopts us as his sons (baptized women are sons of God too, just as baptized men are brides of Christ), and where we inherit the kingdom of heaven. C.S. Lewis says that among the baptized, there are not Christians and non-Christians, just good and bad Christians, just as many parents have good and bad children. After all, how does one get oneself "unadopted"? The same goes for being a Catholic. There are good ones and bad ones. VP Biden, Speaker Pelosi and all those other pro-abortion RCs who voted in Obamacare acted as bad Catholics in voting as they did- but they're still Catholics. Just as Gene Robinson is a bad Anglican and a bad Christian, but an Anglican and a Christian nonetheless. Heaven help us. Mary pray!
Just a common-sense reflection:
Some might be tempted to take the lowest common denominator approach: because some Anglicans have little doctrinal instruction, all Anglicans should take the same courses of instruction as a condition for becoming Catholics [through the Ordinariates].
I am sure that instruction for adults is already available in most TAC parishes, and will continue to be available in the Ordinariates. We are all on a learning curve throughout life, and I would think that doctrinal instruction can be a 'continuous formation', an expression often used in the Church today. I do recommend having different levels of instruction for varying degrees of knowledge and need.
It would be very good for doctrine classes in TAC parishes to seek the help of Catholic priests, where this is possible. I am sure most priests would be more than willing to give regular study sessions or at least occasional talks.
I don't think we need to be worried about this. 'Thinking Catholic' is thinking with the whole Tradition and history of the Church. It is not being pressed into the mould of some kind of totalitarian 'political correctness'.
Passiontide is a 'wonderful' time for polemics and disputes. It shouldn't be, for we are called to prayer and conversion from sin to Christ.
Father, if you were to design a course in doctrinal instruction for Anglican Catholics entering an Ordinariate, what would it include?
In general terms, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, according to the intellectual level of the people involved – can be a quick overview of the Compendium, can be the big one. People should also know about the meaning of the liturgy, and have a suitable introduction to the Mass and the Office, with a sensible use of para-liturgical devotions.
Thanks Father! Any texts you might recommend for suitable intros to liturgy, Mass, and Office?
I must say; this is the first post with comments that is truly exceptional. Deborah, I think we are getting on the same page. We must be growing in fellowship with one another. This is a great thing! I enjoyed you speaking about your ongoing conversion. This is the spirit of metanoia (which means to turn away from that which is bad, or sinful, and a turning towards that which is good, meaning Christ) that is prevalent in the writings of the early Church Fathers and all monastic literature.
Ben, you have said with greater clarity what I have tried to covey for months. Conversion is truly unexplainable. My hat is off to the eloquence in the simplicity of the profundity of your explanation!
Bending our desires to the truth is easy on some matters and hard on others. I would not say that this is a universal truism for everyone, but probably for the vast majority. There are those areas that the Church does not present a black and white position on truth and those areas where praxis and teaching on truth create friction.
For instance, in the former category I would put the death penalty (when is it just? After all, the Church did not believe Saddam Hussein, a murderer of hundreds of thousands, deserved death.), wealth (can you honestly say you only live off what you need and give away that which is “superfluous?” This is a Church teaching), medical care as a right for all (excluding abortion, see Pacem in Terris-11), just to name a few. If you are an employer, do you pay your employees above average wages and benefits? Remember, in school average was a “C,” and I don’t think any of us wanted to be average. Along this same line of thinking, why is it that we talk about economic justice, yet our workers in the church are grossly underpaid (If you have any doubts on this there are numerous CARA studies over the past 20 years that affirm this fact)? In the latter category I would place birth control, holy days of obligation, confession, weekly mass attendance and daily prayer. I realize that some may disagree with my categories, where I placed particular items, which items I included or which items I left off (whew, I think I covered myself), but consider the point.
Anyway, it is something to think about what being Catholic will mean for each of us individually and all of us collectively as Anglican Catholics.
Blessings,
Clark
Clark writes "conversion is truly unexplainable" and that is why I don't think there will ever be one particular course or book or scientific method for making it happen. God is the author and finisher of our faith, and all of us have those moments of supernatural conversion or insight where the words in the Bible suddenly came alive, or something someone said the strikes home.
Another thing, the faith is caught as much as taught. And there are some people who radiate such love that you say to yourself, "I want to be like them; I want what they have."
Thinking Catholic is just truly being Catholic in your heart and beliefs. Accepting all of the doctrines of the Catholic Church. I converted several years ago from an Anglo Catholic parish and finally felt at home. I no longer had to question that I was Catholic. I know that many Anglicans feel they are Catholic, some even more so than Catholics. I find this attitude as self righteous. Catholics come in many different forms within the Church. Some go because that is all they know, some are cafeteria Catholics which would be more like the Anglican mindset of many Anglicans. Choose what you like and do what you like.
I was on a website and a clergyman who is high up within the movement towards becoming part of of Ordinariate stated that the Anglicans joining would be "Anglican" Catholics. Words we use to describe who we are are extremely important; they define who we are and what we believe. This person said "we will be 'Anglican' Catholics not 'Roman' Catholics." As far as I am aware Roman/Latin refers to the rite/liturgy used. The Church in all its documents refers to itself as the "Catholic" Church. Using Anglican Catholic instead of just Catholic sets one apart and separate from the Church as a Communion of all believers. Do we just want to be "in communion" with the Church or do we want to be fully part of the Church?
From the comments posted to some of the remarks made, the Catholics felt that these Anglicans were "wacko". In a sense using particular words expressed to the posters that Anglicans had set themselves above and more Catholic than Catholics. There were maybe two posts that weren't negative towards Anglicanorum Coetibus because of the attitude that Anglicans were more Catholic and their traditions and desires were greater than the Roman/Latin Rite Catholics. This type of attitude defeats our purpose to be fully Catholic and is not always well received by other Catholics.
I am sure that for some Anglicans it is a struggle to accept all the doctrines and teachings of the Church, but if this is the case they need to pray and discern whether they are ready to submit to the Catholic faith. There is only One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church and if a person is not truly in agreement with this and wants Rome to change so that they attain favors that the normal Catholic is not allowed, they are not accepting submission in full to the Church. It also causes other Catholics to resent us.
I have always felt Catholic and although there are cultural differences, there is also a tremendous feeling of finally belonging and being in true communion with all Catholics.
I believe most Anglo Catholics have very little problems with thinking Catholic as that is what we practiced as Anglo Catholics. At least in my parish we practiced the Faith fully.
I am concerned that when the above statements are made that they are harmful towards Anglicans being accepted fully as brothers and sisters in Christ. We are not superior; yes our traditions and liturgy are different, but our beliefs are the same.
Bravo, Gay. A brilliant post. I couldn't agree more.
A few weeks ago the priest finished the sermon at daily Mass with “Everyone wants to be one with Christ, but if you are one with Christ you are one with every one else who is. Christ yes, but that weird person in the next pew? Yes.”
It took me a long time to realize it but, If I want to be Catholic, then I have to call all Catholics (and Christians) my brothers and sisters in Christ. Not that I can’t disagree with them, but I have to accept them. Actually the realization was liberating.
It depends on how one thinks. The Roman Church, unlike the many and various Protestant sects, takes the whole issue of thinking quite seriously. The present Pope is evidence enough of this thinking culture.
J.M.J.
There is a difference, though, between thinking, pondering, and as St. Dominic said "Contemplation and sharing the fruits of the contemplation," and debating and expecting the teaching of The Church to be "proven" to anyones satisfaction.
Even worse, is not believing until one has had the teaching proven and "defended" to their satisfaction.
There is nothing wrong with thinking and using the mind we were given by God to explore and probe for a deeper and clearer understanding.
This has nothing to do with the Catholic mind knowing what to believe. We believe what The Church teaches.
Faithfully,
Sean W. Reed
This quote from John Paul II's letter Ut Unum Sint describes the bonds which make us Catholic. By contemplating what makes us Catholic we are better able to "think Catholic".
God bless us as we move toward visible unity.