I was interested in the recent survey published at National Catholic Reporter that discusses the attitudes of Catholics in the US. This is the fifth such survey, sponsored by NCR as well as several other groups (see the bottom of the linked article). It is done every six years, and gives a snapshot of Catholics’ views of themselves in relation to culture and church at any one particular time. The survey results are lengthy and can be accessed via additional links at the page above.
What I was most interested in is the way Catholics understand what it means to be Catholic. Various groups of Catholics love to throw around the phrase “Cafeteria Catholic” to name negatively those they perceive to be “picking and choosing” their faith. There are often online debates – often in election years – about who is “Catholic enough” and who is the “real Catholic”.
Maybe the study suggests that “cafeteria Catholicism” is alive and well. I note, for example, the contrast between the numbers of Catholics that say the sacraments and helping the poor are “very important” to Catholic identity (about two-thirds), while about a third say that church authority is “very important.”
But as well:
Large majorities say that a person can be a good Catholic without going to church every Sunday (78 percent), without obeying the church hierarchy’s teaching on birth control (78 percent), without their marriage being approved by the church (72 percent), and without obeying the church hierarchy’s teaching on divorce and remarriage (69 percent). Though still well over a majority, fewer Catholics agree that one can be a good Catholic without obeying church teaching on abortion (60 percent).
Lest we think that this means Catholics find the church to be irrelevant to their lives, the study finds that “More than three-quarters (77 percent) of American Catholics say that the Catholic church is important in their lives, with more than a third of these (37 percent) seeing it as among the most important parts of their lives, and an additional 40 percent regarding it as quite important, similar to other important aspects of their lives.”
By contrast, Catholics have a strong sense that belief in certain doctrinal views is more important than the way in which one lives:
For example, 40 percent say that one can be a good Catholic without believing that in Mass, the bread and wine really become the body and blood of Christ, compared to 36 percent who said so in 2005; and 31 percent in 2011, compared to 23 percent in 2005, say that a person can be a good Catholic without believing that Jesus physically rose from the dead.
What I see in these numbers is less “cafeteria Catholicism” but maybe something more troubling (especially speaking as a moral theologian): a divide between belief and practice, and between soul and body. There seems to be a strong sense that having particular beliefs is what makes one a Catholic.
On the one hand, I want to affirm that sense. I’ve always been suspicious, actually, of a charge of “cafeteria Catholicism” because it seems to suggest that there is such a thing as a “perfect” group of people called “Catholic. But in fact, I think the tradition would suggest otherwise. We are a collection of sinners – led by Peter, who surely sinned by denying Christ – but sinners always seeking forgiveness and seeking to forgive. Jesus talked about removing the logs from our own eyes in order to see clearly to remove the splinters from others. We are called, I think, to humility and a spirit of forgiveness.
What it takes to be a Catholic – to be a person starting on that journey toward friendship with God – is baptism, and to be baptised requires an affirmation of beliefs. “Do you believe in God the Father Almighty?” the priest will ask. “I do!” the potential baptizand is supposed to respond. Belief is important; sacraments are important; liturgy is important. Baptism makes us “Catholic enough.”
But the thing is – baptism and this statement of belief is a beginning, rather than an end, in this journey. Jesus asks us to love God and to love neighbor; what we say about God and what we do in practice are inextricably linked. If what we think about God is not connected to the ways in which we live life – all of life – there is a disconnection somewhere. On this blog, we take the time to write weekly reflections on Sunday’s scriptures because we see that there is a connection and we want to make that connection much more strong. So while I want to affirm how intensely important it is that the sacraments are part of Catholic life and identity, I also want to say that it isn’t good enough to end there and not seek to have the Eucharist inform the rest of our lives together – including our stance on the death penalty, our treatment of the poor, our stance on abortion, and so on.
Those issues are not simple ones; on many issues (like the death penalty) I know there is honest disagreement. But what is important is that we are willing to be on the journey with each other, to wrestle with the questions, to be willing to seek forgiveness and to struggle to forgive. What this survey didn’t measure – and couldn’t – was the degree to which Catholics are doing that.
“Catholic enough?” ultimately isn’t a very good question. Asking it only pits people against each other – the NFP users versus the artificial birth control users; those who are concerned about capitalism against those who see capitalism as the best economic system, and so on. But if all of us baptized are members of Christ’s body, then what matters is our striving together rather than trying to point out all the places where another member appears to be a cafeteria Catholic – rather than trying to remove other peoples’ splinters?
Jana, thanks for this post. “Baptism makes us Catholic enough.” Well said! I find these survey results very interesting but I think they are often used in a way that contributes to polemics instead of building communion among people of faith. Thanks for your analysis!
Thanks immensely for this post, Jana. Another way to work through the thicket is to step back and recognize, “Aren’t we all cafeteria Catholics” in some way? The tradition is so long and wide that even when we respectfully grant the magisterium the presumption of truth, we have to be selective just to digest it. (And if the “we” here could be “we theologians,” then all the more if it instead means “we non-heroic but faithful average Catholics.” But then what are the chances that someone will not struggle with conscience on at least a few matters? The question ought to be whether we are practicing something like what Benedictines call stability by hanging in there with one another even when we’re pissed, looking one another face-to-face (literally) and conversing about our struggles to follow Christ, and taking on the painful disagreements in that context. The NCR survey is salutary if it reminds us that we are probably all cafeteria Catholics in some way, precisely so that we stop lobbing the epithet over the fence (or through the blogosphere!) and instead encounter one another face-to-face as graced sinners and pilgrims.
One of the most troubling things for me is the use of language that determines, based on no reliable standard, of just who is “Catholic” or not. The Catholic blogosphere is rife with this language which does nothing to “re-member” the Body of Christ, but does a lot to “dismember” it.
And while much of that kind of talk comes from a group tilted towards a more Orthodox stance, those on the other side of the divide have their own prideful call to how Jesus loved everyone. We do know that Jesus loves – present tense – all and invites all, but that does not mean that there are no boundaries. This group often thinks it is OK and very Jesus-y in fact, to just call out the “Pharisees” and move on with caring for the poor. Don’t even get me started on misuse of the term Pharisee…
Sorry for my own rant, but in the end I come to places like this to encounter the very kinds of thoughts espoused in the posts and comments.
Your analysis of the split between belief and practice and body and soul cry out to be read more widely. This is very troubling and yet it is rampant. It is not just the wide body of people who live in this state of dis-integration, a place that I myself spent an inordinate amount of time in, it goes beyond that. That very state can lead to a new way and I am grateful to have found a new way. But that does not make me any “better” than anyone else! Just at a different point on the road.
I am also reminded that along with the split, there are as many issues with those who live by a rigid set of rules, a set of rules however, that may be Catholic practice to them, but is sadly lacking. That is equally disturbing to me.
Thank you again for providing this thought and forum for discussion.
@Gerald – Yes! I think we forget just how deep and broad Catholic tradition is and how difficult it is for any one person or even group of people to hold on to it – hold on too tight, and other parts of the tradition get overlooked. So “We’re all cafeteria Catholics in some way” strikes me as true.
@Fran – I definitely think that the “cafeteria Catholic” charge cuts both ways, though yes, it more often appears as “you don’t really love your neighbors (in exactly the same way I do)”… And it would be worth it to think much more about the belief/practice dichotomy. I see it in my classes all the time – some kind of conception that God only cares what’s on my mind or in my heart (again from across the spectrum) without much recognition of how even the most minor-seeming details affect how much we can even perceive God in our world. This is especially why I think moral theologians need to pay much more attention to the mystics and to the question of spiritual pilgrimage – because in paying attention to the saints, and their particularities, we begin to see how much supposedly ordinary things affect our whole view of the world. In my own case, I think about the vast difference between me, coming home and spending a couple hours on the internet, versus me, coming home and spending time playing with my kids. My very relationships change – both with people online and with the ones at home with me. Prayer works similarly. And that’s to say nothing of what it might mean to try to live at peace, with love, joy and the other fruits of the spirit, or to try really to be open to life, or to try really to forgive – and all the other bodily/mind/soul practices that Jesus asks us to do.
Just read Mark Shea’s blog post this morning – I think he rather nicely demonstrates some of the issues with the “Catholic enough?” question: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/mark-shea/a-reader-helpfully-illustrates-my-point/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NCRegister%2FMarkShea+Mark+Shea&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher#When:2011-11-9
This is probably a tangent, but does anyone else in the Catholic blogosphere care that the throwing around the charge of “Pharisee” is totally unfair to the actual Pharisees of the first century, who in turn shaped rabbinical Judaism? Historic Phariseeism was a renewal movement encouraging inner piety and fidelity to the Torah in a time of Hellenistic secularization. (Hmmm — thinking about the analogies could take us on yet another tangent.) Jesus’ critique of the Pharisees of his day was so heated precisely because he was probably closer to them than he was to any other of the parties of this day, and thus took on the characteristics of a family feud. (Hmmm — more possible analogies available for exploration, but I’m not going to go there.) In any case, main point: At a time when we are just beginning to learn and learn from Jewish-Christian dialogue, there is reason for yet another level of grief at the lobbing around of this particular charge.
Jana– Great post – sorry to come late to the discussion. Such surveys are helpful, and I have found Christian Smith’s books to be similarly illuminating.
I generally agree about the problems with the whole “Catholic enough” situation. But I have to say I find surveys like this to be extremely troubling. First, I am not sure what is supposed to be meant by “good Catholic.” Say a person is struggling with the contraception teaching: does this make them “bad”? The category of “good Catholic” is not very theologically compelling. Too often, it ends up being reduced to a notion of “Catholic in good standing,” which itseslf relies on canonical standards. The whole thing is a tangle of canonical legislation, manualistic moral theology, and Protestant perfectionistic sectarianism.
Second, you rightly point to the problematic split between “belief” and “practice.” Christian Smith suggests that when one asks in a survey “do you believe such-and-such?”, for many people, a yes answer is merely a “cognitive assent” rather than a “life driver.” The survey suggests a significant number of folks think that you must believe in some doctrine of the real presence, yet do not need to go to mass on Sunday. What can this MEAN?! I fear that a number of beliefs that are more generally affirmed, such as Jesus being the Son of God and dying for our sins, much less the resurrection of the body and the real presence, aren’t really “affirmed” in any true sense. I read Jesus’ account of those who will “Lord, Lord,” but who do not do what he says (Mt 7), and I fear I see half my students at least not even making anything close to the effort.
Third, I think the whole battle ends up being a version of Lindbeck’s experiential-expressivism versus cognitive-propositionalism – the majority are EE, the conservative minority respond with a kind of “fundamentalism of the magisterium” (CP), and what is lacking is any real sense of the grammar of a coherent culture of faith. It is absolutely true that we should all be in struggling together – I thank God for growing up in a Chicago neighborhood and school system where everyone was Catholic – but if “we should all be struggling together” means “well, believe what your experience tells you to believe,” then we have a different sort of problem. The solution is not ramming particular doctrines down people’s throats. The solution is a coherent sacramental culture – rather than a heightened individualistic piety of the sacraments. A sacramental culture is one that comes to liturgy to celebrate and gather around the water and table of our identity, and then to break open that identity and be poured out in shared and joyful service to a world in need of healing.
After all this back-and-forth ends in a few generations, hopefully that will be seen as what Vatican II was trying to do!