AmChurch

This article, from the London Times, is a very interesting take on the American Catholic Church.

April 15, 2008
American Catholics must stop and listen to the Pope

American Dwight Longenecker lived in England for 25 years. After 10 years working as an Anglican vicar he converted to Catholicism and in 2006 returned to America to become a Catholic priest. As a newcomer to the American Catholic Church, he gives his personal impressions of the Church as it prepares to greet its shepherd

by Dwight Longenecker

The American Catholic Church is big, rich and powerful. Compared to the marginalised Catholic Church in England, American Catholicism is a global force to be reckoned with. Time magazine, in a recent feature on the Pope's visit to the US, recognises that Benedict XVI understands and is intrigued by America’s "totally modern, yet totally religious" worldview.

The American Catholic Church is also highly polarised. At one extreme are the ‘rad traddies’. They argue for the Latin Mass and support schismatic groups opposed to modernising the Church. These radical traditionalists want to turn back the clock to some golden age before the Second Vatican Council. They live in a black and white world where anyone outside their group is a damnable moderniser. They come across as angry, self-righteous kooks.

At the other end of the spectrum are the ‘rad trendies’. These ‘Spirit of Vatican 2’ Catholics mistake every politically correct cause for the teaching of the Catholic faith. They seem oblivious to any traditional aspects of Catholicism, and feel compelled to reinvent the faith according to the latest ideas of popular culture. With their liturgical dance, ecology stations of the cross and encouragement of sexual ‘diversity’, they come across as wounded, angry victims who, like their opposite numbers, seem to be self- righteous kooks.

In between the ‘rad traddies’ and ‘rad trendies’ are the largest group which my friends refer to as ‘AmChurch.’ These bishops, clergy and laity do not take particularly radical views either in the ‘traddy’ or ‘trendy’ directions. Instead they follow a bland, comfortable kind of American Catholicism with a mix of traditional devotions, parish social events, mediocre modern music and social action. Moving here from England, this in between ‘AmChurch’ seems cut off from any real sense of the historical and cultural continuity of the Catholic faith. In a country separated geographically from the rest of the world, AmChurch Catholics also seem distanced from the traditions of the Catholicism, which would give their faith depth and universality.

At the end of the 19th century, the Catholic Church was highly suspicious of all things American, and even coined a name for a new heresy called 'Americanism.' Pope Leo XIII’s analysis rings true: In his 1899 encyclical, Testem benevolentiae nostrae, Leo criticised Catholics who would, in order to “attract those who differ from her…shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions.”

This pretty much sums up the problem of AmChurch: It reveals the extreme position of the ‘rad trendies’ and the extreme reaction against it evidenced by the ‘rad traddies’, but is left in the mushy situation of most in between Catholics.

The answer to the problem is the present Pope’s emphasis on the “hermeneutic of continuity”. It is a splendid sounding phrase, but what does it mean? “Hermeneutic” refers to a perspective, a method of interpretation. A "hermeneutic of continuity," means that the past informs the present and guides us into the future. Benedict wishes our understanding of the Catholic faith to be guided by that continuity.