Who are we as U.S. Catholics?

Who are we as U.S. Catholics? In pursuit of the truth - www.cinopsbegoneblogspot.com - Thursday, May 3, 2012 Preface: Catholics have been conditioned like everyone else. “My Catholic Faith will not inspire my decisions in the White House.” President John F. Kennedy “One of the primary consequences of secularism is to erode homogeneous religious enclaves so that the religious affiliation shifts from being a matter of cultural inheritance to a matter of individual choice.” ^196 [John L. Allen Jr.] “American Catholics aren’t so much polarized as tribalized. Looking around, what one sees are a variety of different tribes, dotting the Catholic landscape: pro-life Catholics, liturgical traditional Catholics, Church reform Catholics, peace and justice Catholics, Hispanic Catholics, Vietnamese Catholics, neon-Catholics, Obama Catholics, and so on, to say nothing of the simple meat-and-potatoes Catholics out there.^152 [John L. Allen Jr.] Why do you think ordinary Catholics themselves don’t tell that story? [Catholic achievements] A number of reasons. I don’t think Catholics are comfortable talking about their faith. They were raised theologically in a way that meekness, humility, is considered a virtue, and we’re not in-your-face Bible thumpers. Second, there’s a cultural things. I don’t think we can exaggerate the fact that part of the Catholic ethos, the Catholic upbringing in America, is that we should avoid talking about religion in public. That’s just how you are raised. John Tracy Ellis talked about “Maryland-style Catholicism, a distinctly American expression of Catholicism which bent over backward to keep religion interior and to reassure culture that’s skeptical at best, and hostile at the worst, that they have absolutely nothing to fear from us Catholics, because were just like them. There is a cultural element there, meaning that we really don’t want to talk about religion because it’s not polite. Third, our people aren’t equipped with a vocabulary to talk about this stuff… 205-6 [Timothy Cardinal Dolan.] Now we have a statement on religious liberty April 12th from the U.S. bishops. It was titled, Our First, Most Cherished Liberty. The question is. How are we to meet this challenge in an appropriate way concerning the Sebelius’ Health and Human Service Mandate. HHSM [Ref. Knights of Columbus, “Columbia” - May 2012] “This year, we propose a special “fortnight for freedom” in which bishops in their own diocese might arrange special events to highlight the importance of defending our first freedom… We suggest that the 14 days from June 21 - the vigil of the feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More* - to July 4, Independence Day be dedicated to this “fortnight for freedom” - a great hymn of prayer for our country. Grant to our leaders the wisdom to protect and promote our liberties. George H. Kubeck - ^ A People of Hope - Archbishop Timothy Dolan in Conversation with John L. Allen Jr. - Image Books, New York - * St. Thomas More is the patron saint of this blog.