Catholics Come Home?

Thanks for this post, Katie. It’s been really disheartening to me, as a Protestant fairly deeply involved in Catholic communities, to hear priests go so consistently triumphalistic and anti-Protestant in their attempts to get Catholics to ‘come home.’

Very well said.

I am so tired of the Catholic superiority complex – and I’m afraid the recent efforts at evangelization are just one manifestation of this. At the parish where I work, every year we have a Protestant confirmation class that attends a Mass, followed by a Q&A session with one of the priests. I love the idea and wish that my Catholic confirmation class had been given a similar opportunity for ecumenical dialogue, but I doubt that most Catholic parishes would embrace it. This year, after the kids had left, I overheard the priest say that he purposefully made his answers to the Protestant kid’s questions vague so that it would pique their interest, and hopefully lead them to become members of the Catholic church. It made my blood boil – they did not come to be converted – they came to be welcomed as brothers and sisters in Christ, and to see our differences and our similarities.

I left the church more than 30 years ago, but never abandoned God… just took him for granted I guess. Until two Presbyterian pastors, came into my life and brought me back to prayer, service, and an ever-strengthening faith. I now go to church because I want to, not because I have to. I love my protestant friends, Catholic friends, Jewish friends, and all of my Eastern religion friends. And we often celebrate together. My faith is now one based on love of God and following Christ’s example of tolerance, charity, service, inclusiveness, and, above all, love. Your article was verly insightful and gave me a knowing smile. Thank you.

Katie, I am late to this post but wanted to thank you as it resonated quite deeply with me. I’ve been on a book tour much of this year talking about my own exile from and return to Catholicism. What has surprised me most is the volume of email and social media messages from fellow lapsed Catholics of my generation (X, roughly, and also from Y) who also left the church because it ceased to feel like home, because they’re LGBTQ, because they’ve divorced, and so on. And in these messages the longing and desire to return is clear. In my case surviving and staying in meant finding the right parish, and also finding the church within the church — sympathetic clergy and sisters, the members of the women’s group I helped found, and so on. And yet the number of exiled or lapsed younger Catholics who’ve reached out and said “I want to come back and don’t know how” is heartbreaking. Clearly there needs to be an alternative to Catholics Come Home, one not institutionally affiliated. What form that will take, what it might entail, how to do it… all unclear. Assuming I am not eaten alive by my own academic work come spring, however, this is something I want to explore and pursue. Thank you for writing this.

I am encouraged by Pope Francis, but something seems ‘lost in translation’ on he local level, for what I see is ‘business as usual.’ Singing Pan de Vida, with the whole congregation singing “there is no Jew or Greek, there is no slave or free, there is no woman or man, only heirs to the promise of God.”…and policies/actions so seldom bear that out. It’s as if folks think that if they are ‘tolerant’ enough, and sympathetic, complete conversion will happen, and that is the complete agenda. Meanwhile, don’t touch that wine and water; that is for the ‘real’ children of God, and in the moment of Holy Communion, all others are mere stepchildren to the Faith. I grew up in a Presbyterian family, married into a Catholic family (interestingly, of his siblings, all 8 girls left the Catholic church and only the males have stayed with it), and converted to the RC faith.. When my children became fairly independent, I had more time to deeply contemplate my faith, and what it means to me. (The years approaching menopause are loaded with epiphanies of all sorts!). I have two churches now, because I do attend a Spanish Mass and sing in their choir. I attend an ELCA Lutheran church on a regular basis, sing in their choir, plus other activities/ministries, and I receive communion there. 400 years seems a long time for a church or anyone to hold onto a grudge, but hold it they do (Martin Luther), even though Luther never intended to create a new church. He wanted badly needed reforms. Reforms which eventually happened. There is a document of ‘justification’ (by baptism in Christ) which shows how very close ELCA belief is to RC, but differences in respect to your points 2, 6, and 7 seemingly renders my faith somehow ‘inferior’ to that of my husband. My husband was so busy in Catholic music ministry that he was always out the door before I got the kids ready for church, etc.He leads the Hispanic choir, and I started faithfully participating in that because I stupidly thought it might bring us closer. After a few years, with Spanish pronunciation improved, I asked if, once in a blue moon, there might be a relatively uncomplicated Psalm that i could lead. I was leading Psalms when I was in the English-speaking Catholic choir. He said “No. You are not a ‘practicing Catholic’. I suspect he is more picky than the archdiocese in regards to that. Because ELCA’s open communion is not ‘the Eucharist’ (man-made rules), the idea is that I am partaking of inferior wine and water, thus in a state of sin. There is no point in confessing to that, as I don’t regard it as such, and will continue to seek most of my spiritual nourishment from a place where it flows more freely. The RC church was blessed with a new priest who is fairly liberal, but after an honest sharing of my faith journey, he told me that my present status has me eligible for ‘blessings’, but not Holy Communion. Some weeks, I am OK with that, and other times, their ‘tude depresses me. I do appreciate so many things about the Hispanic community, so at this point, I continue to attend for them, and for myself, and because whenever I am on the verge of giving up entirely on the RC congregation,a Hispanic friend gives me a big hug. My sleep is disrupted and the Holy Spirit seems to be saying ‘don’t burn that bridge. BE a bridge.’ It is crazy-making. I buy and read books written by the Pope. I read Vatican Online. The ‘practicing Catholic’ in my life does not read the books, even when I leave them available on the desk. DOUBLY crazy-making. I think he could qualify as clinically Asperger’s; my son does. Many church leaders could also land in that category, if they took the same written tests. Many successful people are cut of that cloth, and they are vital in making the world go ’round. I rely heavily upon the grace of God to get me through, and lead me in ways that I sometimes only vaguely understand. Pray for me, as I am now praying for All of you!