Not exactly news.
In hindsight, it is scarcely surprising that American Catholics – now themselves more than ever American in their individualism and consumerism – began to choose teachers and tenets for themselves. Small wonder also that priests in the pulpit and in the confessional exhibited considerate variety of opinion on issues like birth control. It was at this moment that American Catholicism began to become, in effect, the largest mainline Protestant denomination in the country, precisely in its loss of a single vision and a single voice.
Luke Timothy Johnson said that a while ago. He wasn't even talking about the liturgical reform/iconoclasm that swept through the RCC, or about parishes like this - http://www.holyfamilyparish.org/ - or other "excellent" places of worship a la Wilkes.
I disagree with this assesment for a variety of reasons.
First of all, I still think that the Catholic "tribal" identity is still very much in place, especially among ethnic groups. There is still a difference between being Presbyterian, Seven Day Adventist, and Catholic, and everyone when I was going to school not too long ago acknowledged this, even if it was not deemed important. (Now if you were a Mormon, then you were a real freak, although there were many Mormons in my school.)
Catholicism is an identity is distinct from Protestantism, but to say that it is morphing into Protestantism is too much of a compliment for it, in my opinion. What Catholicism has become in many parts of this country is a semi-ritualistic cult of niceness. There is no Sola Scriptura, sola fide, or TULIP involved here. It is functional agnosticism pure and simple. Of course, mainline Protestant sects are also experiencing this phenomenon.
It is functional agnosticism pure and simple. Of course, mainline Protestant sects are also experiencing this phenomenon.
Maybe that was the point.
But what is "functional agnosticism"? The reason I ask is that all of the professed "agnostics" I've ever met were functional atheists -- that is, they acted as though God did not exist. It seems to me that if one is not certain that God does not exist, then to be "safe" one ought to behave as though He does.
Arturo,
Excellent points. As many of the RC traditionalists have said (I forget who coined the saying which I am paraphrasing), the Novus Ordo Church has leap frogged Protestantism and dove straight into Humanism.
Not that the Roman Catholics are the only ones faced with this problem - I know full well you'll find similar "modernism" in the Orthodox Churches of the "diaspora". Fortunately, the punchiness of the Orthodox, and their liturgical conservatism have done a lot to prevent this problem from having more prominance than it does.
Arturo, actually we agree: I've been saying for some time that mainstream RC has turned into mainline Protestantism not the conservative kind (except the charismatic movement, an imitation of Pentecostal Protestantism blending into Catholic devotionalism that now seems on the wane). 'A semi-ritualistic cult of niceness' differentiated from the mainline Protestants only by those tribal loyalties. ('I don't agree with what the Pope teaches but belong to St Novus not St Alban's or First ___ because I'm Irish and don't like that artsy-fartsy stuff.') As sociologist Michael Cuneo, not a fan of traditionalism, admits, it enshrines middle-class decorum (including cubicle culture?) with some God-talk slapped on. With the exception of the charismatics it leapfrogged conservative Protestantism to the modern mainline but without the high-culture trappings of the latter or the English tradition of tolerant conservatism, a gift of Anglicanism. (Right, that's enough links.)
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