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Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

CONFESSIONS
November/December 2006

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THIN CATHOLIC STEW

And so an end: this will be my final Confession. I'm expecting a pleasant return to the life of a slightly less public Catholic. But before I go, I'd like to take note of an important work by a public Catholic who will most likely be around for years to come: Joseph Bottum at First Things magazine. His essay "When The Swallows Return to Capistrano: Catholic Culture in America" is well worth your time. Among its virtues, it asks, "If Catholicism is something elected rather than received, can Catholics achieve what earlier cultures did?" and observes, "a rebellion against a rebellion doesn't escape the problems of a rebellion, and a chosen tradition is never quite the same as an inherited one." Do read the whole thing: it's available one the web at www.firstthings.com.

The general tone of the piece is forward-looking, a hopeful attempt to see past the internecine squabbles of the past 30-odd years and spy out a new, cohesive Catholic culture. Bottum thinks he sees something in the general consensus forming around abortion, and in the general "maturation of Catholic social thought" even as he admits that "the new culture seems much, much thinner than the old." Cultures don't easily form around ideas, or even principles. "I just go to church for confession, to pray, and to take Communion," said one youngster in the piece. "At least the priests can do that." True enough, but hardly the sort of material from which to build a culture.

I was all set to mount my tiny soapbox and argue with Bottum, to accuse him of working the extremes and losing sight of the middle, of documenting the excesses (however accurately) of right and left to make it look like a genuine standoff. I was ready to accuse him of undermining his own vision when he granted that "while the general Catholic population was slowly moving right, many of the bishops were quickly running left," such that the new Catholic culture "lacks much of a role for the local bishop."This, I thought -- I think -- is a serious imbalance. He cited Orange County: "Geographically compact, Orange County is nonetheless like most dioceses in this country, with its good, its bad, and its indifferent elements jumbled together." Tod Brown is bishop; in Bottum's words, a "bishop who acts primarily as an administrator, detached from the feelings of his diocese." Exhibit A: allegedly, Brown denied responsibility for Father Rod Stephens' behavior.

Ah, Father Rod. Bottum: "To follow the Rod Stephens story is to suffer a kind of motion-sickness, your sympathies batted back and forth until you have no sympathy left for anyone. You start out outraged at a priest who cohabits so blatantly that he sends out Christmas cards that read, 'For Chanukah, Christmas, and the New Year, All the Best: From Our Digs to Yours, Howard and Rod.' But then you learn that it all came out because [Father Rod's] own family snitched on him to the conservative Catholic press. Your outrage returns when you find out his family had approached him privately first, and he told them, 'The bishop knows about it and so does Cardinal Mahony, and they approve.' But your teeth start to ache when you discover the relatives went on to hire a private detective to dig up dirt on the priest. And then you see that the dirt included $10,000-a-ticket vacation cruises taken by Father Rod and his companion."

I sympathize with Bottum -- it's an ugly story, all right -- but my sympathies weren't batted back and forth. When I read that his family "snitched on him," it made me wonder what brought them to that action. When I read that the family hired a private detective, my immediate thought was, "Of course they did. They went to Father Rod privately, and he dismissed them. They knew that if they tried to deal with authorities, they would be similarly dismissed unless they had hard proof. If Father Rod was telling the truth about the bishop knowing, wouldn't hard evidence be the only way to get a response?" It wasn't a standoff of mutual extremism. One side was flouting the Church's teaching and his own vows. One side was, plausibly, seeking to address a serious scandal -- this wasn't about liturgical irregularities.

But, I had to grant that Bottum had done his homework. I had to grant the point of the back and forth -- both sides do seem to think the other is winning. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized I wanted to be on Bottum's team. Yep, evil and sin persist. Yep, there are really horrible elements in the Church. And God bless those who keep an eye on the dark side. But love is what ought to move men, and while there is great worth in loving what the Church might be, I think, for now, I can do with a little loving what the Church is -- however thin the cultural stew.

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