As I begin to focus on Michael Coren’s book, Why Catholics are Right, I feel the need to reflect a bit on why I care about the topic at all. Some of you are aware that I’m an ex-Catholic, but how that affects my feelings about, and relationship to Catholicism is not as obvious as some might imagine.
Some ex-Catholics are enemies of the Church and can’t say anything bad enough about it. I’ve met lots of these. Often when ex-Catholics discover that I too am an XC they dump a load of anti-Catholic vitriol assuming I will share their feelings. I am sympathetic, and I try to be empathetic, but I’m not one of those. Some XCs, on the other hand, feel cut off from the Church and pine for what they’ve lost, I’m not one of those either. Some have cultivated a cynical edge, others a cool indifference, others a romanticized idealism; not I.
The stories are many and varied, even among my own siblings, so I hope some of you XCs out there will be moved to share some of your thoughts. Perhaps even some members of my family will chime in. And, of course, everyone is always welcome to wade in regardless. So, here’s my reflection on my ex-Catholicism.
The Brits of the 18th century didn’t wander all over the world because they were unhappy being British; they were crazy about being British. But anyone who’s lived on English “cuisine” for a while knows exactly what was going on. They were trying to find something good to eat. In fact, when they ran across good food they didn’t even have a word for it, and had to borrow one from the French. And then, one day, they woke up to discover they’d become Canucks or Yanks or Aussies or Kiwis, and that was that.
A similar thing happened with me and the Catholic Church. I didn’t leave the Church because I was unhappy; I loved being Catholic, and didn’t really mean to leave at all. I just found as my faith developed, I began to hunger for a kind of food we didn’t seem to have. I asked questions – simple, teenage-type questions – that no one was willing or able to answer, and wandered off to find answers elsewhere. And then one day I woke up and discovered I was a Baptist. Someone once said that a French Canadian is a Frenchman who knows what side of the Atlantic his bread is buttered on. Well, I'm a Catholic who discovered buttered bread, got invited to lunch, and never went home.
All this to say, I’m sincerely delighted to read a defence of the Roman Catholic Church. She’s an arrogant old girl, way too stuck on herself, and far too hung up on always being right. She’s condescending, pedantic, and overly impressed with her family tree. Over the centuries she’s done some bad things, but a lot of good things too. And she’s been knocked around a fair bit in recent years for both the good and bad, and for a lot of other things that she may not have done, or at least that have never been proven. Michael Coren spoke up last year in her defence, and I’m glad he did. ‘Bout time someone did.
The truth is I love the Catholic Church, and when I go home for a visit I’m reminded of why I do. But I’m also reminded of why I don’t live there anymore. The fundamental things I believe as a follower of Jesus I learned there. But I also learned a lot of nonsense. The same, of course, can be said about any good home. I suppose it’s one of the reasons we leave home, and keep leaving every time we go back.
Before we take up the subject of the Abuse Scandal in the next blog post, you might like to get a bit if a feeling for the man. Check out Michael Coren on Agenda, with Steve Paikin.
No comments:
Post a Comment