Ghetto Catholics: how Catholics marginalize themselves when called to service.

On consecutive days, I was treated to television appearances by two very different and, simultaneously, two very similar men. The first was Christopher Hitchens, who said during the course of his televised lecture that the source of all human failure and its attendant misery is religion. His academic audience cheered him wildly upon hearing this. The second was Bill O'Reilly, who made a sound case for limiting political 'correctness' so that retail salespeople would not be fired for uttering the phrase, "Merry Christmas." His audience responded with the same enthusiasm, which in this case I shared.

Mr. Hitchens is not a Catholic, and one probably ought to consider that fact in noting the absurdity of his claim. In his defence, we might agree that religion currently has a bad name, thanks not only to the clerical scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church in recent years, but thanks also to the fundamentalist elements in various other world religions.

Being besieged 

As one acutely aware of religion's bad name, along with the downhill slide in which secular culture finds itself, I can say unequivocally that I feel besieged by social and political forces over which I have no control. In that situation, one tends to seek out those who share the desire to hang onto a particular set of values.

But therein lies a secondary, even more insidious danger: self-induced marginalization, sometimes called the ghetto mentality. The precise trouble with such an outlook is that one may lose the balance afforded by a healthy secular culture and drift into fundamentalism without knowing it. In other words, there are ghettoes--and there are ghettoes.

A ghetto in which the healthy parts of secular culture are retained may be a nice safe place to wait out the turmoil of social upheaval. However, in a ghetto where a balance between religion and secular life does not exist, fundamentalism can quickly gain the upper hand.

Nature of fundamentalism: Hitchens

Let's revisit Mr. Hitchens's view for a moment to see how fundamentalism can capture a person without his knowledge and at the same time, perhaps we will learn a bit about the nature of fundamentalism. Mr. Hitchens would deny that he has a religion, but that claim would ring hollow when considered in conjunction with his passionate plea for others to believe as he does. His faith, which is known by many names, (1) is fundamentalist by its very nature. Although some would use Secularism as a blanket term to cover the various atheistic faiths, we would be better off bypassing that term and thus avoid confusing Secularism with secular life. We must never forget that secular life and culture are essential to human existence.

In eschewing Christianity, Mr. Hitchens unwittingly undercuts its traditions, which include the entire culture of Western civilization. He may learn about, pay lip service to, and choose to invoke that civilization in his arguments, but he cannot possess it. Indeed, for the non-Christian, Western Civilization is a mere affectation at most. As an intellectual study, it becomes nothing more than a curiosity, a subject for a typically sterile National Geographic documentary.

Thus, the non-Christian is left with nothing but a set of unsupported and unsupportable beliefs unrelated to the traditions and derivative practices that he nevertheless trusts to sustain him. For that reason, I believe Mr. Hitchens, who has described himself variously over the years as an atheist, humanist, anti-clericalist, neo-con, etc., is beyond all else, therefore, a believer first and a thinker second: in other words, a fundamentalist. Still, he trusts reason and is often in my opinion right in his judgments.

Bill O'Reilly

And that brings us to Bill O'Reilly, who was raised a Catholic. His latest book (2) does a good job of reporting on the culture wars, the theme of which is the struggle between traditionalists and secularists. Mr. O'Reilly doesn't shrink from taking sides when he perceives an injustice, no matter what the political stripe of the perpetrator. He says, "I believe that the truth doesn't have labels. When I see corruption, I try to expose it. When I see exploitation, I try to fight it. That's my political position." (3)

As far as I know, Bill O'Reilly has never mentioned the fundamentalist attitudes that often characterize a 'ghetto Catholic.' I thus am left to wonder whether he, as one who also appreciates the power of reason, might consider that traditionalists are in danger of losing the culture war if they do not come to understand the tendency to fundamentalism within their own ranks, not to mention the fundamentalist nature of Secularism.

Richard Bastien's December 2006 C.I. piece (p. 24) comparing Islam and Secularism provides a clue. Mr. Bastien was careful to point out that Catholicism combines faith and reason, and when pressed hard, most Catholics would likely agree that secular life is part of the plan of salvation. However, I'd be willing to bet that very few would be able to say much about the role it plays in that plan. In practice, therefore, I think many if not most Catholics identify religion with faith and secular affairs with reason.

Not only does that logical fracture rob our religious outlook of reason, but it also diverts our attention away from secular affairs and permits the corruption of culture. We often refer to cultural decline as something apart from us and behave as though we had nothing to do with it.

Vatican II points to the role of the laity

However, the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) pulls us up short. Forty years ago, it assigned the job of maintaining a healthy secular realm to the Catholic layman. More simply, if you are a Catholic layman, secular affairs are your business, and if rot has set in, then you've been slacking off on the job, and you had better get to cleaning up the mess. That doesn't mean you are directed to stand on a street corner and pass out handbills or grab at your co-workers' coat collars and recite Holy Scripture to them. In fact, it means something that at first glance may appear to be--but isn't--the exact opposite.

It means that we are supposed to evangelize by example and provide leadership in our particular fields when we are able to. That mission also requires that Catholic laymen use their specific talents within secular life to promote its health. As laymen, that is our call to service. Needless to say, that service isn't accomplished easily, and neither is it accomplished by becoming a deacon or a Eucharistic minister. Do that if you want to, but do not kid yourself into thinking that taking on such a job releases you from your principal responsibility as a Catholic layman.

Laity's principal responsibility

Forty years after Vatican II, most Catholics, both lay and clerical, still fail to grasp the mission of the Church. Too many see priests and nuns as full Catholics and laymen as tag-alongs whose only hope of finding meaning in their lives consists in emulating the religious life in some minor way. Such laymen are, in effect, religious groupies, whose ersatz religious life does nothing more than fill a dimly perceived emptiness. Within their frame of reference, secular life and Secularism are identical. And they deny they are called to secular life because to them the word vocation refers mainly, if not exclusively, to a call to the religious life.

At present, those who describe themselves as Catholic reside in two warring camps that, ironically, came into being for the same reason. This we can refer to, for lack of a better phrase, as the clerical view of the Church alluded to above. On both the spiritual and intellectual planes, Catholic laity and clergy alike refuse to acknowledge the distinctive natures of their callings. I think that, regardless of how the order of importance might have been established or regarded in previous eras, the secular order must be given its due before the "new springtime" of which John Paul II spoke can come about.

The wolves have scattered the flock, and a lot of people (in quiet moments, maybe even most) are frightened and alone. Pleading with governments to help will continue to represent nothing more than wasted energy, just as any hope that the clergy would renew the Church was dashed long ago. We might as well face facts: we laymen are led by a largely arrogant and ineffective clergy because we continue to behave like children--and stepchildren at that! On the political level, we have the lazy self-serving governments that our lazy, self-serving populations deserve.

I think secular life can be renewed, albeit very slowly given the nearly overwhelming odds we face after forty years of neglect. I also think that secular renewal is the only key that will unlock the door to significant renewal in the Church.

(1.) Miceli, Vincent P. The Gods of Atheism, Arlington House.

(2.) O'Reilly, Bill, Culture Warrior, Broadway.

(3.) Wikipedia.