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Marian E. CroweMay 07, 2001

WARNING: In this essay I use the terms conservative and liberal that no one likes. I don’t like those labels! everyone says, implying (whether intentionally or not) that their own position is too complex and nuanced to be captured by something so simplistic as a one-word label. I use those labels because I have no other choice. What else can I do if I am not to commit the stylistic sin of using 26 words instead of one each time I want to refer to a group of people who share a certain orientation in their religious opinions? I think you know what I mean. Of course, the people in both groups have differences in what they believe and how they believe it. I am not trying to cut them all out with the same cookie cutter. Every word is a linguistic compromise. If I hear one more person say, I really don’t like those labels, I’ll scream.

Where do I fit? I am a Catholic with an identity crisis. For most of my adult life, I was a liberal. Shortly after the close of the Second Vatican Council, I joined the fledgling Los Angeles Association of Laymen. I was angry at the bishops and the pope, and furious with Cardinal McIntyre for not letting Catholics in Los Angeles turn around their altars soon enough. We are the church! Yes! Soon I dropped out of the institutional church and joined a floating parish, with unauthorized Masses in my living room, singing along with Sebastian Temple records playing on our stereo. That community soon disbanded, and after a few years away from the church altogether, I decided to return to the institutional church when my oldest son was ready for first Communion. I spent many of the ensuing years parish-shopping for one I could stand. I rejected the church’s teaching on contraception, was furious that Catholic women couldn’t be priests and avidly read Hans Küng.

When my children were older and I could get away for a weekend, I started attending liberal conferences. I loved them at first, embracing the idea that the papacy is an embarrassment, the hierarchy an encumbrance, Humanae Vitae an annoyance and confession (as it used to be called), Catholic schools and nuns in habits simply joke material. Eventually, however, I started to feel a little uncomfortable. Besides being continually scolded for being white, middle class and privileged, I was told that a Eucharist celebrated by a group of like-minded believers without the presence of an ordained priest was as valid as Mass in a parish church, and that the real presence at such a liturgy was as real as any other. The flamboyant liturgies at these conferences were energetic and entertaining; but they bore little resemblance to the traditional Mass of the Roman rite that I had grown up with. Despite my early enthusiasm for guitar Masses, my affection for the ritual of the Latin Mass had never really disappeared and now began to re-emerge.

I became annoyed at tortured syntax and inane diction in the name of inclusive language. I resented the fact that all the homilies were on social justice and sometimes revamped the Gospel to make it support a politically correct agenda. Just as the contemporary way to teach U.S. history is to catalogue all the sins of an oppressive, exploitative, power-hungry, vulgar country, so also the liberal view of the Catholic Church seemed to be that it was a sexually repressive, hierarchical, power-obsessed institution that has never done anything right. Belief in the Catholic Church as a reliable source of truth seemed gone for good.

My life as a liberal Catholic came to seem too chaotic, too angry, too ideological. I wanted to put my energy into prayer and worship, into trying to uproot my moral flaws and cultivate the virtues. I wanted to learn the Scriptures, pray the psalms and love the church instead of fighting with it. So I began to look at the right. I even had the traitorous thought, Could it possibly be that the church is right about birth control?

Two books that galvanized my change of direction were Thomas Day’s Why Catholics Can’t Sing and James Hitchcock’s The Recovery of the Sacred. The liturgy was the wedge that cracked the door to conservatism. The English Mass, which I had originally welcomed enthusiastically, came to seem tedious and stale and more about the personality and showmanship of the priest than the old Latin Mass, in which the personality of the priest was hidden in the rite. I began to question whether the people were really participating more than when they read their missals. I observed that most of my liberal friends eventually ended up non-Catholic, non-Christian and in some cases non-theist.

I developed a grudging admiration for conservatives’ courage in taking positions-no artificial contraception, the immorality of homosexual acts, no easy divorce and remarriage-that were so countercultural. The opinions of some extremists at the other end of the spectrum-contraception, women priests, divorce and remarriage without annulment, homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle, and even in some cases, the acceptance of abortion-are, after all, the values of the secular culture. Not hard to proclaim them in the marketplace. But the conservatives-they were either right or just unbelievably obstinate. I did notice, however, that throughout Christian history, Jesus’ faithful disciples were usually not in tune with the reigning culture. Theologically and philosophically, the conservatives seemed to have a more coherent position. Besides, I’ve always been perversely attracted to those who are contrary.

So I became conservative. And yet.... I am more than a little put off by the stridency of much that I read in literature from the right. I shrink from being identified with those self-appointed guardians of orthodoxy who report any evidence of dissent to the Vatican. Although I am pro-life, I am offended by a brochure from a pro-life group with the headline, Find out what was found in the trash bins behind an abortion clinic! printed right next to a picture of a baby. In reading the article, however, we learn that what was found was printed records of clients-not a baby.

As a cradle Catholic, born well before Vatican II, I beg to differ with those (mostly adult converts) who imply that all was idyllic in the preconciliar church. I know full well that there were aspects of the pre-Vatican II church that were inhumane and repressive. Parish priests rarely seemed to know or interact with their parishioners. Church was pretty much an assembly-line business. There were no ministries for many hurting people, and too often pleas for help were met with formulaic or canned answers (Say the rosary). Many conservatives seemed to believe that before the dissenters challenged Humanae Vitae, Catholics happily accepted the church’s teaching on birth control. I know this is untrue. I had heard from my older sister and from other older Catholics about the frustrations and tensions of living with the rhythm method. Although there was no open dissent, people didn’t like it and were resentful that they had to struggle with it when their Protestant friends were free to express their love sexually without fear of another pregnancy.

I read in a conservative Catholic magazine that Oscar Wilde converted to Catholicism on his deathbed. But the article neglects to explain that he was unconscious at the time. His friend called a priest, and baptism was administered conditionally. There was a slight movement of Wilde’s hand that might have indicated assent. But it is far from the forthright acceptance of Catholic faith that the article implied. I became tired of the snide references to angry feminist nuns (as if they had no valid grievances) and the assumption that good Catholics have eight children and home-school them all. Despite my disappointment in much contemporary liturgy, I dislike the charge that all modern Masses are a three-ring circus. Some are reverent and prayerful. In one conservative Catholic magazine, I read that evolution is a fairy tale for adults. On an audiotape by a prominent conservative, I hear that Freud said you should give in to every sexual impulse. Anyone who has actually read Freud knows this is untrue. I became tired of the continual carping about dissenters.

So now what am I? While I was in the state of transition, my 25-year marriage ended in divorce. Problematic. I am divorcedbad for my conservative side. But I have an annulment and am remarried in the churchgood for the conservative side. Or is it? Conservatives are upset by the large number of annulments that are being handed out and think the practice severely compromises the church’s traditional teaching on marriage. So do I. I am happy in a second marriage and am pleased that I could be remarried in the Catholic Church; still, I am conflicted about the language of the annulment process and its basic premise (as I wrote in Commonweal, 9/13/96). My position on divorce, remarriage and annulments fits neither the conservative nor the liberal side. So what am I? Just saying you don’t like the labels doesn’t take away the problem! It is not just that I don’t have the word to describe myself. I could make up a word. I don’t know what I am, or where I fit or how to find like-minded people to talk to, a journal to read, a convention to attend.

My husband describes himself as a flaming moderate and says I am also one at heart. But my problem is, where are these flaming moderates? Why don’t they speak up? They have an annoying way of staying invisible. Although I long for a religious family, I think I want to join the flaming moderates in the closet. I want to make myself invisible, crawl into the woodwork and practice 1950’s-style private religion. The old days, with all their warts, are starting to look better: praying the rosary, frequent confession, favorite saints.

I want the old church back: Pay, pray and obey. No fellowship, no coffee and donuts after Mass. No parish councils, no congregational singing. Lists of do’s and don’t’s. Fasting from midnight before Communion. Catholics locked into miserable marriages. Rhythm. Mean nuns in ridiculous habits. Priests with Irish accents.

This is why I want the old church back: I am tired of factionalism. You were either Catholic or Protestantnot a liberal Catholic, or a conservative Catholic, or a cafeteria Catholic, or a cultural Catholic. You were a Catholic. The Mass was the Mass. You didn’t have to shop for a parish you could stand.

I think of my experience at a Catholic women’s college in the early 1960’s. We didn’t argue about women priests or birth control or abortion. (Maybe some people did. I can’t say. I didn’t hear it.) We knew that as Catholics we would be expected to use rhythm to space our children, and although we had heard from older siblings and friends that there could be frustrations and failures, we accepted it and felt we would deal with it when the time came. When I think of my college faith, I remember discovering the psalms in Sr. Laurentia’s class on The Bible as Literature. It was exciting to hear the then-new Gelineau psalms sung in English for the first time with their reverent, plaintive chant of longing to be close to the Lord. I remember going to 7:00 Mass in the beautiful college chapel, carrying my missal with five different colored ribbons. Discovering the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, memorizing bits of it and reciting it while taking walks along the fire road in the hills behind the college. Reading Cardinal Newman, Ronald Knox, Christopher Dawson, étienne Gilson, Sigrid Undset, Graham Greene. There are other vivid memories, too: the liturgical bulletin board décor, residence hall customs and prayers, going to a senior retreat at the Benedictine monastery in the sun-drenched desert at Valyermo, the sense of having graduated to a new relationship with nuns. In my college the sisters were no longer the stern, authoritarian figures of grade school and high school, but friends and colleagues. We took walks together, talked and joked. With some of them we shared our problems. One felt proud to be a Catholicnot in a polemical or tendentious way, but in the calm security of being cradled in a worldwide faith that we believed told us the truth about the meaning of being human. We didn’t think about it much. We just lived it. It was a settled kind of faith.

The Second Vatican Council was just beginning as I was finishing college, and that settled Catholicism began to appear naïve and infantile. So I became a liberal.

Now my Catholic friends on both sides feel that I have sold out, betrayed them, lost my mind. Moving either to the right or the left makes one vulnerable to hurtful epithets. A liberal friend attacked me when I told her that I didn’t want to go to the Call to Action conference, that I subscribe to Latin Mass magazine and that I have read some material put out by Catholics United for the Faith. My conservative friend was horrified that I read Garry Wills’s Papal Sin and thought he had some valid points. I have been called homophobic, pre-Vatican II, restorationist, triumphalist.

Maybe it’s time to join the flaming moderates in the closet. I am going to let all my subscriptions to Catholic magazines lapse and read the old stuff: Knox, the Chesterbelloc, Dawson, Lewis, Sheed. I know, I know; it’s triumphalist, not Vatican II, not politically correct. I don’t care.

I need to feel good about being a Catholic. Not a conservative Catholic. Not a liberal Catholic. Just a Catholic, once again.

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17 years 2 months ago
Early in Marian E. Crowe’s essay chronicling her peripatetic journey through Catholicism (“Identity Crisis,” 5/7), she issues a caveat about using words as “labels,” especially the terms “conservative” and “liberal” as applied to certain groups of Catholics.

But I couldn’t help noticing the frequency with which certain “labels” were used during the course of her reflection, especially when contrasted with “words” that were conspicuous by their absence. By my unofficial count, words such as “Catholic” (32 times), “conservative” (14 times), and “liberal” (9 times), merited substantial representation. But, curiously, aside from one passing reference to Jesus in relation to the Apostles, the actual persons of the Blessed Trinity were not mentioned at all. The words “Lord” and “Gospel” were mentioned once each.

Is it possible that a rich and thoughtful journey of faith such as Ms. Crowe’s could include numerous references to the church and groups within the church, yet not include specific references to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit? What does this say about the language we use as Catholics or the words we use—or do not use—to convey our relationship with a triune God who is supremely relational?

I am not faulting Ms. Crowe. It just seems that much of what we read regarding the church today often comes down to “labeling,” whether blatant or implied. But why use labels at all? Why “this Catholicism” versus “that Catholicism,” “this liturgy” versus “that liturgy,” “this” versus “that” ad infinitum? What seems to get lost in this Catholic tussling of preference and interpretation is the basic revelation of the paschal mystery: “Lord, by your cross and resurrection, you have set us free; you are the savior of the world.”

Ms. Crowe writes about the efficacy of using “labels” when referring to different groups of Catholics sharing “a certain orientation in their religious opinions.” Whenever the phrase “religious opinions” rears its ponderous head, I am reminded of a quote attributed to Louis Pasteur that cuts swiftly and cleanly with Gospel precision through every label we can devise: “I do not ask your religion or your opinions, only what is your suffering?” Wouldn’t Jesus have asked the same? Shouldn’t we ask the same?

17 years 2 months ago
Regarding “Identity Crisis” by Marian E. Crowe (5/7): your “identity crisis” may lessen when you find out how many of us are in the middle, part conservative and part liberal and ever growing. If as Catholics we want to come closer to the mark, we will constantly be changing and growing.

I like to think we were brave enough to question the status quo, some of which needed questioning. And that we were humble enough to look back and acknowledge the best of tradition. Putting them together in the present makes for a vital church. This creates the unity of diversity which is the only kind of unity possible anyway.

We tend to be conservative when we are fearful and we tend to be liberal when we are angry. Maybe moderates aren’t “flaming” because we are neither fearful nor angry anymore. Maybe now we can assist in the mission of the church.

17 years 2 months ago
I was glad to read, in Marian E. Crowe’s article “Identity Crisis” (5/7), that I’m not alone in this expansive middle-ground of the Catholic faith. Born in 1970, I was raised in perhaps one of the more confusing times in history to be raised a Catholic. Now 31, I am actively involved in social justice ministry at a local parish, where I am one of the few parishioners kneeling during the consecration. Politically pro-life (which is to say, anti-abortion, anti-death-penalty, anti-anything that brings about the unnecessary suffering and/or death of one of God’s creatures), I can’t see that as justification for electing a grossly unqualified president who goes against so many other values important to my faith. (Which candidate am I talking about? Take your pick.)

I go to confession regularly, pray the Rosary daily and pray the Liturgy of the Hours as often as I can (not as often as I’d like). Recently divorced, I’m still struggling with the question of annulment and/or remarriage. (I’m inclined to trust God to let me know what to do if and when it truly becomes an issue to be dealt with.) I go to daily Mass as often as I can; I love the ceremony of the Latin Mass and the spiritual energy of the less traditional Masses. The eucharistic mystery, the core of our faith, is great enough to contain all the reverence and solemnity, praise and joy our hearts can muster.

I believe that in our faith, as with most things, the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes. Jesus himself was as troublesome to the anti-establishment Zealots as to the authorities of his day. And I think he who said, “blessed are the peacemakers, they shall be called children of God,” may be calling on those of us in the middle to create a common ground of faith before those extremes cause the next great schism in this venerable (if still imperfect) institution of ours.

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