Читать книгу Crossing the Street - Robert R LaRochelle - Страница 7

Toward the end of my high school years and on through much of college, I had developed a fascination with attending services and educational programs at other churches, in particular Protestant churches. As a matter of fact, I had calculated that during one of those years, I actually went to a service in a different church forty-five times over a fifty-two week period. This was in addition to the Catholic Mass I also attended each of those weeks as well. Thus it was not unusual that on a Wednesday evening on a hot summer night at some point during my collegiate years, I would find myself attending a midweek Bible study and prayer service at the Putnam Baptist Church, no more than a five minute walk from my home.¹

My parents did not completely comprehend why I would take summer time to head off to a Baptist church or a Friday night Folk Mass at the local Episcopal Church or why I’d be making appointments to speak with that nice Episcopal priest or the Congregational minister whom my mom’s employer liked so much. Yet they had gotten pretty used to not completely grasping where I was coming from as I spouted some of my many political and religious opinions back then so I guess they just accepted my meanderings and my wanderings as ‘Bob being Bob.’

On that sultry summer night, I walked into the lounge of the Baptist Church where the mostly elderly gathering was seated in a circle. I made my way to an empty chair near an older woman, whom I discovered quite quickly was exceptionally friendly and very kind. When the evening’s program began, the minister, quite a nice man himself, asked any guests present to introduce ourselves and, if so willing, to tell why we chose to attend this particular Bible study on this particular night. It came to my turn rather quickly as I soon discovered that newcomers were really a rarity at this gathering and when it did, I was, as usual, quite happy to oblige by speaking:

‘My name is Bob LaRochelle,’ I said, ‘and I am a college student at Holy Cross in Worcester. I am a Catholic and a member of St. Mary’s Church. I am here because I really believe that it is important for me to learn more about other Christians and what they believe. So I like to go to different churches.’

The minister and the other participants continued to be most kind and hospitable. I guess the atmosphere they had created made it quite easy for me to keep talking:

‘You know,’ I laughed as I went into this part of my story, ‘my mother told me that when she was a young girl at St. Mary’s School, some nun told her that whenever she walks downtown and goes by the Baptist Church, she should be sure to cross the street because, the nun said, “the devil lives inside the Baptist Church.” I think that is pretty silly and I don’t believe it.’

As I moved into the conclusion of my brief story, I noticed that the hand of the elderly woman seated near me had moved to touch my arm and I also saw a smile spread over her face. Once I had finished this personal introduction, the woman spoke:

‘You know, son,’ she started, ‘When I was a little girl, the minister we had here told my Sunday School class that whenever we are walking up on Providence Street and we go past St. Mary’s, we have to be sure to cross over to the other side of the street because ‘“the devil lives inside of the Catholic Church.”’

The woman smiled her broad and inviting smile. Everyone around that circle joined in as well. And I learned something that night. I learned a lesson I have never forgotten.

Roman Catholics and Protestants constitute the two largest groupings of those who call themselves Christians. They also share a longstanding history of misunderstanding, distrust and suspicion. Though much is different these days in the relationships between Catholics and Protestants from those of the days of my late adolescence, I would suggest that we really have not ‘crossed the street’ in our own understandings of those religious traditions which we have seen and experienced as ‘other.’²

The long standing tradition of ‘marrying within one’s own kind’ has most certainly changed. Where Catholics marrying only Catholics was once the norm, intermarriage with other faiths or with those of no religious upbringing is a common occurrence. The suspicion of the one who is religiously ‘other’ has most certainly and most thankfully diminished.³

Nonetheless those remnants of the misunderstanding represented in my own personal anecdote remain. Catholics and Protestants live and worship (when they worship) within their own houses. They continue to harbor misunderstandings that are the after effects of a tension that dates back to the sixteenth century and was articulated within their families and churches of origin. Though many have not only crossed the street to explore but have chosen to live in those other houses, they often carry these inaccurate notions with them and, in so doing, may unintentionally convey incomplete and inaccurate information to others. This information may end up reinforcing some of the preconceived notions of the other and may then end up contributing to an escalation of the problem.

What is lost in all of this is the fact that the Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions have great gifts to offer one another. The worldwide Christian church and local Christian congregations can and should benefit greatly from the ideas and practices of those who have been held as suspicious. Sadly, some who have repudiated their religious past have also lost the opportunities inherent in embracing aspects of their previous tradition which may very well contribute to their own spiritual growth in the present moment and in the years to come.

On a personal note, though I have become a Protestant and am a member of a church in a mainline Protestant denomination, I am deeply grateful for the influence of my Catholicism upon me. I seek to integrate some of these Catholic tendencies and expressions into my own spirituality, as well as those wonderful aspects of Protestant worship, hymnody and ‘fellowship’⁴ from which I have learned so much. I am saddened that even today, in a world that yearns for the very best each faith has to offer, Protestants and Catholics continue to hold incomplete and inaccurate understandings of both each other’s tradition and of their own!

By living in our own ecclesiastical houses we have often been insulated from what has been happening in all of those other houses. In so doing, we have lost something. What we have lost both diminishes us as well as it diminishes those new members who have come over to live in our house as well!

However, it is inadequate to say all of this in a general sense. These serious concerns both require and demand specific examples. In my view, it is vital that we identify two underlying premises crucial to Protestants and Catholics alike in understanding both their own church and that of the other:

1 Not all Roman Catholics are alike. Not all local Catholic churches are alike. Catholicism contains a wide variety of traditions, some of which are embraced more by certain Catholics than by others. Despite its monolithic look to some, worldwide Catholicism has incredible variety. Not all Catholics think alike, worship alike, vote alike or act alike.

2 Not all Protestants are alike. There are clear distinctions between ‘mainline’ and ‘evangelical’ churches as well as inherent differences between and among denominations. Even within denominations, there are significant differences among congregations in terms of styles of worship and predominant theological approaches.

Now, of course, the reality is that an individual person’s perception of what constitutes Catholicism or Protestantism is determined by those experiences she or he has had. If you grew up and were educated in a local church whose approach has been pretty consistent based on the way the clergyperson and staff presented ‘the faith,’ your perception of being a Catholic or, say, a Presbyterian would be shaped a particular way. You may very well carry that expectation to future churches you join OR it may be that approach that turns you off to any churches that carry that particular label in your future.

Conversely, if you have experienced a variety of approaches either within your own church or denomination and that of others, your perceptions and expectations might be different. The bottom line is that our personal, local experience of Protestantism or Catholicism does not represent either tradition in its full expression! Grasping this is a crucial factor in ecumenical understanding and dialogue.

Allow me to get REALLY specific: When I began my ministry as the licensed pastor of my current church eleven years ago, I was scheduled to begin on February 25. In 2001, February 28 happened to be Ash Wednesday. In planning the start of my ministry, I inquired about the time of the Ash Wednesday service. I was told that this church has not had such a service in recent history and that this kind of service ‘is something Catholics do.’⁵ This statement was not intended to be derogatory against Catholics in any way. Rather, it stated a perception that had evolved within the congregation over the years, one probably based on the cumulative experience of congregants in local church experiences.

However, the reality was that in the year 2001, many Protestant churches both across the nation and in the state of Connecticut were holding Ash Wednesday services. Not only that but many of those services in plain white New England Congregational churches also included the imposition of ashes on individual foreheads and possibly even a midweek service of Holy Communion, a sacrament usually reserved in much of Protestantism for the first Sunday in each month.

This conversation bore an eerie resemblance to me of a couple of interesting ones I had back in my Roman Catholic clergy days. In one situation, as part of preparing to officiate a couple’s wedding, I received a request from the prospective groom that during the ceremony, he would like it if we could sing the hymn ‘Just a Closer Walk With Thee.’⁶ When I passed that request along to the music director in that particular Catholic church, she told me that we couldn’t because ‘That’s a Protestant hymn.’ Now, pardon the pun, but I stated my protest to her remark by saying that ‘the idea of walking close to Jesus strikes me as something that is pretty Catholic too.’ The REALITY is that this particular hymn was commonly used in many Catholic churches back then in 1996 or 1997. It just happened not to appear in the musical selections of the particular Catholic music publisher to which this director’s parish subscribed. She eventually backed down a bit and said that she would ‘ask Father’ and ‘we could sing it, ‘if Father gives his permission.’’ I will have more to say about that topic later on in this book!

In yet another situation, back in the days of the Persian Gulf war, my Catholic parish where I served as an ordained deacon, at the behest of several laypersons, held a midweek service to pray for peace. Our pastor asked me to conduct this service and I was glad to comply. As I was working closely with the youth of my Catholic parish then, I tried to get our many talented young musicians involved in both singing and instrumental musical worship. At the conclusion of one of the evening services, a member of the parish, a long standing and active Roman Catholic, came up to me and, after saying some nice things about the service, told me that the way the music was set up struck him as ‘really Protestant.’ When I asked him what he meant, he told me that in Protestant churches musicians place a lot of emphasis on ‘performance’ but that the Catholic ‘style’ is different. He was and is an extremely intelligent man but I wondered aloud to him what he would say about some of the beautiful solo renditions of the ‘Ave Maria’ that have been heard in Roman Catholic churches over the years. Were those performances as well? I wondered!

That example is not unlike the exceptionally kind woman who commended my sermon one day in a Protestant congregation years ago while also noting to me that ‘You can’t shake the Catholic out of you, can you?’ When I asked her what she meant, she said ‘You know, all those Alleluias you like to sing!’ I had never realized that the Catholic Church had a market on Alleluias!

What is unfortunate in all of this is that each of these worship expressions was really worthwhile and could enhance the experience of worship. The ‘performance’ of those young people in the Catholic Church spoke beautifully to that congregation’s yearning that our nation bring an end to war. ‘Just A Closer Walk With Thee,’ a beautiful piece of music at the time of a wedding, also provided for that young man the very real presence of his beloved, deceased and faithful Baptist grandmother who sang that song regularly in his childhood kitchen. And a few well placed ashes and appropriate Alleluias can do wonders for the Protestant soul and much to articulate its long standing, laudable commitment to the biblical message!

Behind these quite telling anecdotes lies a series of suppositions that Protestants and Catholics have about ‘the other.’ One which I hear in many different ways in my experience as a Protestant clergyperson is the Catholic preoccupation with set ritual and tradition. Those more prone to an academic analysis would choose to note that there is a real difference between the prescribed rubrics driven style of Catholic liturgy and the approach of a more ‘free church’ tradition which constitutes much of Protestantism, including my own denomination. Well ...

It was just a few days before my ordination as a pastor and teacher in the United Church of Christ. I was meeting with a deacon in the church in which I was ordained and reviewing with him the order of the service. When we got to the point where we discussed the distribution of the elements to the congregation, I said ‘So when I finish saying the words of institution, I will then say ‘Ministering to you in Jesus’ name, we now offer you this bread.’ At that point, the deacons can then just take the trays from the table and distribute them to the congregation.’

As I observed his body language, I suspected that he had the sense that I had said something wrong. I didn’t have to wait very long before he said to me ‘Do you mean that you will then give the deacons the trays to distribute?’ He then added that wonderful cross denominational phrase ‘That’s the way we do Communion here.’ I, never one to be without an opinion, responded (I hope kindly!) ‘But, this IS a church that came out of the Reformation, right? So, I have a problem with the idea that the elements in some way move down hierarchically from clergy to deacon to congregation. I’m a lot more comfortable just having you take them off of the table.’

Now, this wonderful man had no intention of vetoing the reforms set off in Europe back in the 1500s. He was just trying to organize the service well as he did so consistently in that church. Nonetheless, this brief conversation indicates that even in ‘low’ liturgical churches, i.e. congregations which would cringe at being called ritualistic in any way, there do exist prescribed rubrics, often unwritten, which are very much alive within that congregation. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with prescriptions or ritual traditions in worship, rather that to cite such as typical of a ‘Catholic’ rather than ‘Protestant’ approach may not be completely accurate.

I will also never forget an incident in my early years at my new church. About an hour before the service, one of my wonderful deacons had noticed that we were missing the tray that would contain the cups for distribution of Communion, in particular, the grape juice. A bit of panic set in as this individual is terrifically conscientious and organized. A choir rehearsal was going on just a few feet away and he inquired of choir members as to whether they had any idea where the missing plate might be, then turned to me with a plaintive query ‘What are we going to do?’

I decided to approach this humorously and, I am sure, quite sarcastically as well. I hope that by this point, my congregation had a sense of my personality and those standing around did not construe my remarks as negative. I said, with tongue firmly planted in cheek: ‘Well, we’ve got a problem. Let me go back to the New Testament and see what Jesus suggested for when they had missing Communion trays. Hmmm ... it’s probably in the same place in the Bible you will find the requirement for polished candlesticks and for grape juice!’ Fortunately, by that point in our relationship, our parishioners had a hint of both my style as well as the position I had preached about previously to them i.e. that Protestants are not immune from accruing ritual traditions and, denials to the contrary, meet some of the criteria for a religious approach based on custom, tradition and rubric!

Understanding both Catholic and Protestant traditions and the tradition within each Protestant denomination must be centered on the recognition that each contains a significant pluralism often unknown to both those within and outside of that particular church. This is a pluralism or variety of practices and of emphases brought about by several factors including, but not limited to, the church’s leadership and the influences upon it. The effect of a pastor who has had a ‘significant run’ at a church, i.e. who has served that community for a good number of years is that her/his approach, theology, and style of leadership will wield enormous influence in shaping the attitudes of those in her/his care. For better or worse, a child could have the same pastor for all or most of her/his Sunday School or CCD career. That child’s perception of the church would be shaped greatly by the pastor’s leadership, i.e. her/his actions and teachings in the life of the child’s community of faith.

Within the Catholic tradition, the particular ethnicity of the parish is a powerful example of pluralism within the greater church. Though in recent years parish mergers and closings have rendered the situation considerably different, Catholic immigration carried along with it the powerful institution of the Catholic parish. If a Catholic growing up in an urban area such as New York or Boston or Chicago were to ask a fellow Catholic of the same era where that person happened to be from, it would be quite possible that the answer would contain the name of the parish to which the respondent belonged. I recently had a conversation with a woman who was raised Catholic and has recently begun attending my church. When she told me she was raised in Hartford, my state’s capital city, I instinctively asked her ‘what parish’ she grew up in, so closely linked were local neighborhood and local church! There would most likely be the high probability that the one asking this kind of the question would know that exact location based upon the parochial designation. ‘You grew up in St. Anthony’s? I was not far down the road in St. Anne’s myself!’ the French Canadian Catholic might say to his Italian colleague, the high probability existing all the while that, even if both were of the same age, their twains would most likely have never met, unless for some reason they happened to end up together in the local public school or in the regional diocesan Catholic high school.

Parish ethnic identity would have an impact upon the kinds of devotional practices to which one might be exposed. Certain Catholics would have a particular devotion to particular ‘saints’ (Italian Catholics to St. Anthony, Irish Catholics to St. Patrick, etc) and certain prayers, songs and practices such as novenas common in one parish and culture might be mostly unknown in another. Practices in certain parishes might vary with respect to celebrations such as First Communions, Baptisms, Confirmations and weddings. As a result of one’s immersion in and exposure to the power of certain customs and traditions, one could easily think that a particular practice has been a part of this particular faith since Jesus left his disciples in charge of things down here on this earth.

When I began my work in the late 1980s as a Director of Religious Education in a local Catholic parish, I lived through an example of this up close. My predecessor had instituted a controversial policy in the parish, one supported by the pastor and expected to be implemented by me, her successor. This policy banned girls making their First Communion at the age of seven or eight from wearing ‘traditional’ First Communion dresses and veils which present themselves as mini bridal gowns for young children. When I met with the parents to explain an already established policy in the same meeting in which I talked about the meaning of Communion itself, a mild uprising took place from some of the mothers, their dominant argument being that this local parish had a lot of nerve changing ‘the way things have always been in the church.’

Now, when these parents said ‘the church,’ they were not just talking about that local church. They were referring to the way things had always been in the big, vast Roman Catholic Church. Now, the historical fact is that the Communion dress and veil tradition is one that had not really been around for all that long, in the great span of church history, and that it was heavily favored in some ethnic communities more than others. ‘The way things have always been’ was more accurately translatable as ‘The way I have known things in my relatively short lifetime.’

Examples abound within that big, vast church and examples of pluralism in practice cut across ecclesiastical and denominational lines. Yet, even more significant than some of these differences in practice are the deeply held theological differences that exist within both Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. Within Protestantism, the evangelical/mainstream split is noteworthy, as we have said, carrying with it a number of implications for church practice in the areas of worship and its accompanying rituals and rubrics.

Roman Catholicism, which is perceived monolithically by many both within and outside of it, harbors a profound theological pluralism at this point in its history between those whose opinions and theology was shaped by the Second Vatican Council⁷ (1962-65) and those who have been heavily influenced by what has emerged from church leadership, in particular, papal leadership of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. One simply CANNOT understand the Catholic Church within this day and age without understanding this fact! In shorthand terms, we are discussing the difference between what we might dub Pope John XXIII Catholics⁸ (those reared on or influenced by Vatican II) and Pope John Paul II Catholics⁹ (those reared on and influenced by Pope John Paul II and his former right hand man in the Vatican and now his successor, Pope Benedict XVI).¹⁰ One cannot understand the current state of Roman Catholicism or the potential bridges and barriers to potential ecumenism without understanding and gaining a real working knowledge of this distinction.

In calling a Vatican Council for the Roman Catholic Church at the time he did so in history, Pope John XXII specifically intended to engage the church in dialogue with the modern world.¹¹ The noted writer James Carroll states in his thought provoking work Toward a New Catholic Church¹² that Vatican II engendered ‘a new awareness of what it meant to be Catholic.’¹³ This was the Council, according to Carroll, that had the intent and the effect of ‘taking the Church out of the Middle Ages.’¹⁴

The immediate and long term effects of this worldwide church gathering were quite staggering to pre Vatican II Catholics. As a result of this Council, major changes occurred in several important areas. Among the most significant included:

1. Shifts in the way the central worship event (i.e. the Mass or Eucharist) was celebrated. As a matter of fact, the use of any term other than ‘Mass’ for this act of worship only became widespread after the Council. These shifts included:

The movement from Latin as the language of the Mass toward the use of the vernacular i.e. the language of the people celebrating the Eucharist and turning the altar around so that the priest faced the people. This act also led to others: worship (liturgical) documents from the Council emphasized the importance of the Word and preaching. In basic terms, ‘going to Mass’ became a different kind of worship experience for Catholics. What had been a more ‘private’ kind of prayer albeit in a public setting was now presented differently. The participation of the congregation in the responses and the singing became a significant expectation. Those days when Catholics might quietly ‘say their Rosaries’15 or other prayers as the priest ‘said Mass’ appeared to be fading away. A new language regarding this worship experience came onto the Catholic scene, a more communitarian and participatory language. Instead of ‘going to Mass,’ Catholics were welcomed to ’participate in our shared celebration of the Eucharist. ¹⁶

2. A major change in the way Catholics viewed other Christians. Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism¹⁷ had the effect of casting Protestants in a different light. It appeared that the Catholic Church was reaching out to non Catholics in a way heretofore unforeseen on the official level. Rather than condemning the errors of Protestant ways, the Council called for deeper cooperation on all levels of the church. This would include studying together along with the church’s ‘separated brethren,’ the Council’s term for non Catholic Christians, reading the Bible together and joining with one another in prayer. In an outstanding and timely 1972 column for his local Archdiocesan newspaper, the distinguished Catholic theologian Richard McBrien spells this out in specific, helpful detail. It is a source worth reading!¹⁸

3. The Council emphasized a different kind of role for persons who were not ordained, i.e. most of the people within the church. It declared a common ‘priesthood of the faithful’¹⁹ in which all Catholics would embrace their identity as ‘ a priestly people.’²⁰ A new popular Catholic hymn also emerged, using for its title that very Biblical term ‘priestly people.’

4. In fact, the Council truly reshaped how Catholics would view the church. As some ecclesiological theologians have noted, this Council moved the church from the position of seeing itself as synonymous with the notion of Kingdom of God and more toward being a servant of a Kingdom, a realm that is far greater, broader and wider than the church.²¹ The concept that church and kingdom were not synonymous with one another had broad implications for the church’s understanding of itself.

5. The official Council documents and structure had the imprint of John XXIII’s style all over them — They struck others, including interested Protestant observers present at the Council, as open, hospitable and welcoming to others, reflecting the reality that the Catholic Church has a message for the world, but that there are other messages out there as well. The Council created the impression that the church was willing and eager to work cooperatively with all persons of good will to achieve the goals of the Kingdom of God. It should be noted that the council itself was a collegial gathering in which Bishops (and observers from all over the world and varied religious traditions) rubbed shoulders with and truly collaborated with one another.²²

The Second Vatican Council unleashed a torrent of change within the church. Much of the change was not directly intended by the documents themselves but those zealous about the reform of Catholicism saw within the Council and the direction of the church’s official pronouncements a newfound openness to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit upon the whole church, including its nonordained. Thus, as a result of Vatican II, a church that had for so long been identified as presenting answers to its ‘faithful’²³ by which they were expected to shape their lives was becoming a church in which many clergy and faithful alike became quite comfortable asking questions.

And so, through the 1960s and 1970s, controversies and questions swept the Catholic Church. Priests and theologians challenged many of the practices of the church. They stood in private disregard of and public disputation with the church’s teaching on birth control, mandatory celibacy for its priests, the ordination of women and the infallibility of the Pope. A new phenomenon emerged whereby Catholic lay men and many lay women began attending exciting graduate programs in some of the world’s finest Catholic universities and colleges and attained credentials to serve as pastoral ministers, chaplains, youth ministers and Directors of Religious Education, in many cases serving either in expanded positions with new titles or in ministries that had not been envisioned not so long before.²⁴

In Chapter 3, I will locate my own journey through the Catholicism of this post Vatican II period with these changes I have just described. As I will reiterate at that time, many of these changes took place as another phenomenon was occurring. Large numbers of men who had been ordained to the priesthood had decided to give up their priestly roles. Declines were starting to happen in the number of young men who were entering seminaries to train to be priests. At the same time, religious orders of women (popularly known as nuns) were experiencing the same reality as was the ordained priesthood. Articles, books and films regarding the relational and sexual lives of priests and nuns began to emerge. The net effect of their departure had a massive impact upon the official church’s ability to staff local parish elementary and secondary schools. The situation dramatized in films like Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary’s²⁵ was not fiction at all. It was real. Catholic schools depended for decades upon the incredible, herculean efforts of these sisters and their departure, oftentimes documented as ‘leaving to be married,’ had a powerful effect on the configuration of Catholicism in many countries, most definitively in the United States!

As has also been demonstrated by the data, the departure from the priesthood of so many men who opted to marry women also has had a net effect on the high proportion of Catholic priests who are homosexual in their orientation. We will examine how this fact has provoked reactions in the church reflective of the divide between the ‘John XXIII’ Catholics and those of a more ‘John Paul II’ persuasion.

In October 1978, the College of Cardinals elected a Pope whose over twenty six year pontificate (1978-2005) would have an incredibly powerful impact upon the Roman Catholic Church as it entered the twenty-first century. Pope John Paul II, born Karol Wojtyla, was a renowned Catholic bishop in his native Poland who by the strength of his powerful intellect and his charismatic personality, used the ministry of his papacy to reshape the church.

That Pope John Paul reshaped Catholicism is not disputed by those who would call themselves Catholic progressives or Vatican II Catholics. There is disagreement between the more conservative proponents of John Paul’s approach and their liberal counterparts regarding where John Paul stood in relation to that prized jewel in the crown of Catholic reform, namely Vatican II.

John Paul’s adherents would contend that the Pope was very much a Vatican II Catholic and that he firmly believed that many of the changes in the church as well as the passionate cry for even more changes was a misinterpretation of both the letter of the Vatican II documents and the spirit of the Council. So called progressive Catholics saw the era of John Paul II as ‘restorationist’ i.e. moving away from the ‘modern’ approach of Vatican II and back to what they would call a ‘Catholic triumphalism’ based on a powerful papacy. They saw the work of John Paul II, in conjunction with his righthand man, the distinguished German theologian Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who would later become Pope Benedict XVI, his successor, as moving the church backward and ignoring the positive thrust of Vatican II.

Those who would look upon the work of Pope John Paul and eagerly declare him ‘John Paul the Great’ hold him in high esteem for what they perceive as changes he effected within the Catholic Church. The historical facts indicate the following, regardless of an individual’s interpretation of them: Under John Paul II, many significant changes were made in the Roman Catholic Church. These changes include:

1. A movement toward uniformity in doctrine and a clarification of the ‘Catholic’ teaching on a topic. This was manifest in the publication of a universal catechism,²⁶ discipline imposed upon dissenting theologians,²⁷ the selection of bishops, the relationship of many local Catholic bishops to colleges and universities in their dioceses, changes in curriculum in seminaries responsible for priestly formation and in schools in Catholic dioceses, and public clarification that discussion and dissent is not acceptable in such areas as the ordination of women, homosexuality and birth control, among others. It also provided the impetus for changes in the Mass which would ultimately lead to the publication of the new Roman Missal that went into effect in Advent 2011.²⁸

2. A shift in ecumenical attitude which reflected a discomfort with those church communities which held different positions on the above mentioned ‘hot button issues’ and an openness toward those who sided with the Catholic position. This is exemplified most recently in the overtures toward dissenting Anglican priests and congregations and the new pathways to ordination and affiliation with Catholicism that have opened up.²⁹

3. A strong emphasis on the position of the papacy exemplified by Pope John Paul’s incredible travel schedule throughout his pontificate. This emphasis was supported and reinforced by newly developing Catholic media outlets who have been very prominent in promoting this more conservative Catholic approach. One could make a very strong case that Catholicism’s pluralism could also be demonstrated by comparing ‘EWTN’ v ‘Non-EWTN’ Catholics. This needs some explanation.

The Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) came to international prominence during the period of John Paul II’s papacy and it continues today under Pope Benedict.³⁰ EWTN presents a steady stream of programming that matches and reinforces the positions held by these two recent Popes. It is the most visible Catholic media presence in the world today and it is a conservative one. EWTN presents the church teaching to children and adults, without engaging in dialogue concerning different perspectives that may exist within the Catholic community on any particular controversial issue. EWTN’s radio operation has even paired up and has taken over some stations owned by individual dioceses. I cite the Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut, where I served as a Permanent Deacon, as a case in point.

WJMJ radio is owned and operated by the Archdiocese of Hartford. For many years, it was noted for offering an incredible variety of ecumenical programming in addition to a wide array of Catholic worship and educational opportunities. For many reasons, I have liked WJMJ Radio for a very long time. I particularly used to love its Sunday programming. During my Sunday thirty minute ride from my home to the church where I serve as pastor, I would listen to a recorded service from a Hartford area Congregational church, complete with sermon by that church’s pastor. On my way home, depending upon what time I was finished at church, I might hear a Catholic Mass or some beautiful chanted Greek Orthodox prayer and explanation of that tradition’s icons. Depending upon what else I might be doing on a particular Sunday, I might get in my car and hear a Methodist service or a consistently great meditation by a Baptist minister. Whenever possible, I would try to catch the outstanding 6:00 pm program sponsored by Connecticut’s Episcopal Diocese which blended such beautifully intelligent conversation about Scripture’s applicability to modern life with the melodic power of Anglican chant. If I had my radio tuned in toward the end of its program day, I would benefit from the Catholic recitation of Night Prayer from the daily office, co-led by a Roman Catholic priest and a local Lutheran musical leader. Every Sunday was a wonderful day on a terrific radio station.

Just a few years ago, the Archdiocese announced that the format of WJMJ was changing. Gone were all of the Protestant church services and programs. A proliferation of new programs abounded, most focused on the worship, catechetical and moral focus of the Catholic faith. As a matter of fact, the preponderance of the station’s prime time weekend religious programming was now provided by EWTN and its affiliation with EWTN was featured prominently in its advertising.

I offer this example to demonstrate the clear cut differences that exist within contemporary Catholicism and to try to provide some indication regarding the roots of these differences. Most certainly, how one sides on EWTN taking over WJMJ is indicative of where one is as a Catholic on the John XXIII- John Paul II continuum. The John XXIII Catholic would praise the Hartford radio station of years ago: open to dialogue, unabashedly ecumenical, open to truth from Congregational and Baptist pulpits as well as Episcopal talk shows. The John Paul II Catholic would praise the new arrangement, confident in the certainty that it will contribute to a clear presentation of the truth of the Catholic faith in its purest form.

These differences are played out in the field of Catholic university and liberal arts education. A major controversy ensued when President Barack Obama delivered the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame. Conservatives decried the choice of a ‘pro-choice’ speaker, someone who stood against a teaching they saw as at the core of Catholic faith.³¹ In 1993, Cardinal Edward Egan stripped Marist College of its Catholic designation because it invited the pro-choice Governor of New York to deliver its commencement address.³² The very policy by which he did that was solidified in the pontificate of Pope John Paul II. Certain Catholic colleges and universities, to varying degrees, send signals that they are schools dedicated to teaching the orthodox, traditional Catholic way and committed to raising up a generation of young Catholics faithful to the Pope and to Catholic orthodoxy. Such schools as Franciscan University of Steubenville have embraced this mission and have taken great leadership in promoting initiatives such as World Youth Day, an international Catholic event which developed and grew during the era of Pope John Paul II. Such colleges and universities have provided a refuge for those concerned with Catholic institutions of higher education more amenable to a progressive Vatican II agenda. This identification of educational institutions as being ‘properly Catholic’ to conservative members of the church and its hierarchy, has become part of Catholic seminary education as well. Certain bishops have shown great interest in sending prospective priests to those seminaries that are more in keeping with the core of John Paul’s approach to the Catholic Church.³³

The tension between these two significantly different ways of looking at being Catholic plays itself out in varied ways. It is there in the hiring practices of Catholic parishes, dioceses, elementary schools and high schools. It is present in the selection of materials and columnists for Catholic newspapers, magazines and web based publications. It is obvious in the choice of speakers at conferences and congresses for the continuing education of the church’s local catechetical leaders, otherwise known as its teachers of CCD. Simply put, there is a major difference in the speaker selection one finds at Catholic conferences today and that of the ones I attended and spoke at in the 60s and 70s.³⁴

For a Protestant to really understand who lives inside that Catholic house, he or she needs to know that it might not really be who it appears to be or who one has been taught that it really is. And for a Catholic to have an understanding of his or her own tradition, in its fullness and complexity, he or she could very well be surprised at what’s really going on over on his/her side of the street!

An honest examination of how Protestants and Catholics view both themselves and each other cannot ignore the fact that there is such a reality as anti-Catholicism and that it has a history that is very sad. Recognizing that Catholics of different ilks interpret this history quite uniquely and differently from each other, does not take away from the fact that anti-Catholicism has been (and to some extent remains) a historical reality. William Shea’s book The Lion and the Lamb: Evangelicals and Catholics in America³⁵ is worth a detailed exploration for those who wish to trace the history and explore the nuances of this phenomenon. This anti-Catholicism is rather pluralistic in itself as it contains a whole mix of political, theological, ethnic and cultural suspicion. As a matter of fact, it is this sense of suspiciousness of the other that we need to examine in order to grasp this phenomenon and its relevance in our current and future context.

Among the many current issues in which discrimination and prejudice has been raised, anti-Catholicism appears to be well down on the list. Most people, other than the most committed members of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights,³⁶ would acknowledge that discrimination against certain ethnic and racial minorities, women, Jews and homosexuals has been more prevalent in the latter twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Some of the more intense anti Muslim sentiment that has appeared in the West would appear to many to make any anti-Catholic sentiment seem fairly mum and passé.

The kind of virulent anti-Catholicism which Shea describes seems to appear only in small and isolated pockets on the contemporary scene. Most mainstream Catholicism appears not to spend time and energy engaging in concerns regarding this issue. Anti abortion homilies are far more common than warnings of anti Catholic sentiment and plotting.

Nevertheless, the vestiges of anti Catholicism have not been completely shed from American culture. As David O’Brien develops so thoroughly in his writings, Catholicism has grappled historically with its perception as a ‘foreign religion’ as the concerns surrounding the 1960 Presidential campaign involving John F. Kennedy made quite clear.³⁷ While the issues that dominated that campaign have seemed to be quite removed from contemporary political parlance, a semblance of suspicion nonetheless remains.

In many social contexts, Catholicism was seen by Protestants as a religion of the working class, often an immigrant one at that. In the small Connecticut mill town where I grew up and its surrounding region, it would not be complete hyperbole to say that it was the Protestants who owned the mills and the Catholics who worked in them. Of course, this simple delineation ignored the reality that many Protestants worked in mills too. Nevertheless, in the history of Protestant-Catholic relations in the United States, one cannot discount the presence of some economic and cultural factors. The tension was not completely about religious tenets, per se. Such, of course, has also been part and parcel of the religious tensions in Northern Ireland!

Protestant suspicion also arose over some of the unique practices that set Catholics apart from their Protestant peers in local neighborhoods and sometimes even in schools. Protestants knew about these mysterious figures usually shrouded in unique clothing and who went by the name of ‘nun.’ Protestant children were aware of the fact that their Catholic friends would avoid meat on Friday and would oftentimes rush off on Saturdays to this ‘strange’ entity called confession. Back in the 1950’s and 1960’s teenagers would tell their Protestant peers that they could not attend certain movies that were ‘condemned’ by the Catholic Church. Parenthetically, one of the earliest battles I ever ‘won’ on a religious issue was when I convinced my mom to let me see an Elvis movie, rated by the Catholic Legion of Decency³⁸ as ‘objectionable in part for all.’

Protestants were also cognizant of the fact that rare was the Catholic whose mother and father were divorced and many was the Catholic family with many a child in it. As contraceptive methods were developed and improved, the disregard in which the Catholic Church held birth control was quite noticeable to members of Protestant faiths. Many Protestants had a hard time understanding Catholic opposition to birth control and even in recent years the difficulties involved in simply purchasing condoms over the counter in states so heavily Catholic. The cumulative effect of all of this was that there developed a certain sense of suspicion about Catholics, a suspicion that must be distinguished from any sense of overt discrimination.

Interestingly enough, the 2012 campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination has been marked by an alliance between conservative Protestants and traditional Catholics, the kind of coalition that simply did not exist decades ago. This coalition emerged in response to the Obama administration’s ruling concerning contraceptives and insurance payments for Catholic workers. Protestantism’s traditional suspicion of the Catholic position on birth control took a back seat to common concerns about both religious liberty and ‘traditional family values.’ In fact, this coalition was first forged in political efforts dating back to the 1980’s as many traditional Catholic Democrats joined forces with conservative Protestants in support of Ronald Reagan.

Remnants of this sense of suspicion remain. I have heard it in conversations with Protestants about Catholics. In fact, one of the gut level concerns that I have heard expressed by some Protestants is that a certain religious practice smacks of being ‘too Catholic.’ In my conversations, my preaching and my teaching on ecumenical issues in my local Protestant congregation, I have made the point many a time that one could not evaluate the value of a certain religious practice by whether or not it is ‘too Catholic,’ but instead by whether it conveys the proper sense of what it means to seek to follow Jesus.

Were I to walk into most New England Congregational churches on a Sunday morning to lead a service of worship and were I to do some combination of what I will list below, I think a few eyebrows would be raised and there would be people out there who would say that I am being ‘too Catholic.’ Let’s look at this imaginary list: I make the sign of the cross, I sprinkle people with water, I light up some incense. In doing Communion, I wear a garment over my alb. I incorporate some chanting of a Latin phrase as part of the service. I offer anointing with oil as part of a healing ritual during worship. In my preaching, I pull out a crucifix to show my congregation, explaining to them the value of reflecting upon Jesus and his passion and suffering, including the use of this representation of his hanging upon a cross.

Now, it is unlikely that in any New England UCC church, that would all happen in the course of sixty Sunday minutes and this listing has an intentional absurdity about it. Yet the fact is that any one of those actions could happen and has happened in many churches that are not even considered ‘high church’ Protestant. We are not talking about Anglo-Catholic Masses or highly liturgical Lutheran services that might even fool some Catholics temporarily into thinking they are in a Catholic church!

Yet, if even SOME of these actions were to take place, is not the central question whether any of these contribute to what it means in our lives as individuals who seek to follow Christ? Using one simple example: In making the sign of the cross on one’s body, what is more important: that one avoid it because it is Catholic or that in so doing, one comes to a deeper appreciation of the meaning of the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in one’s own spiritual life?

I am not suggesting or implying that Protestants should necessarily embrace all religious devotional practices associated with Catholicism. The possibility might exist that a particular practice might either conflict with one’s understanding of her/his faith or in no way enhance her/his spiritual life. Thus each practice should be evaluated on its merits. Personally, I would be happy if all Christians avoided any practice that crossed the line from piety to superstition as they pursue playing sports. The point I wish to make above all is that the argument that any rejection of a practice should be based on the fact that it is seen as ‘Catholic’ is both insufficient and ecumenically flawed. The larger issue is always consistency with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Many of my fellow New England Congregationalists, especially, I would suspect, those raised in that tradition, would be shocked to read this interpretation of ‘free church’ worship from colonial days to 1880. In it, Henry Martyn Dexter affirms the right of any local Congregational Church to establish worship which may utilize the ‘higher church’ Anglican ritual, a liturgy whose roots are in Catholic tradition. Dexter writes:

So long as it (the church) does nothing which shall give reasonable ground of offense to the other churches with which it is in fellowship, it may order its prayers, its praise and all the methods of its worship to its own entire content; and its pastor, remaining true to our fundamentals of doctrine and polity, though enrobed and endowed with ‘chausable, alb, amice and maniple, with two blessed towels and all their appendages, would remain, in good faith and entirely, a Congregational minister still.’³⁹

This quotation affirms the fact that there is a historical basis, even in churches perceived to be the most non ritualistic, for the kind of higher liturgical style so often deemed as ‘Catholic.’ The key to this passage is the phrase regarding ‘remaining true to doctrine and polity.’ This leads one to appreciate that the keys to a Congregational approach are found more in one’s actual theology and establishment of church governance and far less on worship style. In fact, this interpretation actually expands the ‘free church’ tradition to make room for elements of worship heretofore seen as being something other than purely ‘Protestant.’

Before going on much further, I would be completely remiss were I to ignore the outbreak of clergy abuse scandals which burst onto the international Catholic scene in the early twenty-first century. These scandals also served to contribute to the sense of suspicion of Catholics of which we have been speaking. Protestant clergy have not had the requirements about priestly celibacy, as we know, and the great reformer Martin Luther himself has been held up as an exemplar of the clerical right to marry. This area of mandatory priestly celibacy has been one that has caused many a Protestant to be quizzical over the years.

The barrage of reports concerning illegal and abusive sexual activity among Catholic priests who had made the promise or vow of celibacy may very well have exacerbated this sense of suspicion. Likewise this abuse crisis set off a variety of reactions within the Roman Catholic community which are reflective of the vast differences that have existed not only on this issue but on related sexual matters as well. As I noted before, I will speak to this at a subsequent point in this book. For now, it is sufficient to note the fact that the headlines these abuse cases made contributed to a reinforcement of some previously held suspicions about the Catholic Church among those who claim Protestantism as their heritage.

In any attempt to be both historically accurate and to attempt to lay out all important issues so that true dialogue between Catholics and Protestants may be achieved, it is necessary to acknowledge an anti-Protestantism existent among Catholics as well. As with anti-Catholicism, we are now seeing the remnants of historical battles which are simply not as relevant to this generation or this culture as to generations and this culture in its past. For Catholics as for Protestants, some of the antagonism stems from forces beyond religious dogma, though certainly religion is part of an often complicated mix. The battle between the Irish and the British, as we have noted with respect to conflicts in Northern Ireland, is rooted in political decisions quite removed from discussions of theology or the polity of one church over and against another. Whatever the causation, there has been a historic pragmatic impact upon behavior. The facts that I never set foot in the ‘Protestant’ funeral home in my native Putnam for the entirety of my youth or that several Catholic parents I have known were troubled that their Boy or Girl Scout son or daughter had to recite the ‘Protestant Our Father’⁴⁰ at a scouting event is most certainly indicative of something!

Theologically speaking, if members of a church accept the claim that they belong to ‘the one true church’⁴¹ as many Catholics have done throughout the years, based on what they have been taught was the teaching of the church, there does evolve a certain sense of the deficiency of other churches and the attendant supposition that Christian unity would best be served by the conversion of Protestants to the Catholic faith. Does this position represent an anti Protestantism as such? While the degree to which the Catholic would go to promote the conversion of the Protestant would most likely be a determining criteria in responding to that question, it could be argued convincingly that there remains even today a tendency within many members of the Roman Catholic Church to have knowledge that they as a church have something that others don’t. On some level, even among Catholics who would freely label themselves as progressive, the need to assert the special place of Roman Catholicism strikes me as a part of their mindset.

Bear with me as I take you through what may at first seem like a diversion. I am a Boston Red Sox baseball fan. To Red Sox fans, the Yankees are the archrival and the passion between the teams intense. I have a wonderful relative, someone very close to me, in fact, who happened to grow up in Massachusetts, home base of Red Sox Nation! When this relative of mine discovered back in late 1990s that I was leaving the Catholic Church and then becoming a Protestant minister, I think it is fair to say he was not pleased. He comes from a family with deep Catholic roots going back many generations. He was also extremely supportive of me as I pursued my training for the Permanent Diaconate in the Catholic Church. Now, fortunately, he is also a wonderfully kind and good humored guy and has been consistently terrific to all of us in what has become a large extended family. In his own unique and jocular way, he loves to talk about ‘how I’ve gone over to the other team.’ He says that I have left the Red Sox and joined the Yankees, the implication being that there is something better about the Red Sox and worse about the Yankees. While I think he’s correct on that premise, I happen to disagree with him regarding its applicability to one’s church of choice.

To be honest, in my lived experience as a Protestant and my prior experiences as someone seeking to learn about Protestant churches and theology going back into my late high school and my collegiate days, I have not seen anything within individual Protestant denominations with respect to one another along the lines I have described in the example of my Catholic relative. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that while his reaction was unique to him, the underlying need to identify the primacy of the Catholic Church as, in some way, THE church, is one held in common by Catholics across the conservative-progressive spectrum.

I am not saying that it is not important to Protestants to see the Reformation approach as more Biblical or sensible to them. Nor am I saying that there are not large numbers of Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians or Baptists who are deeply connected to their heritage. Yet despite these connections, it has also been a typical occurrence for a Protestant to join a Methodist church while living in one state and then a Congregational Church in another, to be Presbyterian in New Jersey and join the UCC in New Hampshire. My experience with Roman Catholics, including my reflection on my own evolving mindset through the years, is that there is a Catholic impulse to see the Catholic Church as THE church and to somehow measure other churches against it. In fact, a quote that has long stood out to me is the one in which someone contended that the Catholic Church is ‘the one church that sees itself as THE church.’⁴²

How often do we hear of Catholics who have decided to leave Roman Catholicism and have found themselves in the Episcopal Church, landing there with the claim that ‘it is the closest thing to the Catholic Church.’? Is the implication there that the ideal by which all ecclesial bodies are to be measured is that of Roman Catholicism or is it simply an expression of spiritual comfort level? My experience as a Catholic Permanent Deacon who taught in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults program in my parish, a process by which people enter the Catholic Church as adults, is that there exists a yearning among a large number of Catholics, even among those sincerely and consistently ecumenically understanding and kind, to establish the uniqueness of the Catholic Church among all of the other churches. Many Protestants might assert the preferability of Protestantism, for sure, but fewer zone in on the outright superiority of a specific denomination!

This sense I have was exemplified quite powerfully in a lengthy conversation I had after one of these RCIA sessions. As part of our parish’s program, we had an ‘RCIA team’ consisting of a priest, a deacon and several active lay members of our parish community. Our RCIA candidates, in my view, were most fortunate to be surrounded and supported by a group of fine Catholics who happened not to be members of the church’s official clergy. One particular couple who was deeply involved exemplified a life of deep commitment to Catholicism’s highest ideals having served the parish and the wider church in a variety of ways over the course of their life in their local church.

One night, our RCIA session centered on the sacraments and moved to the Roman Catholic view of the Eucharist, including the issue of what it means to receive the body and blood of Christ in Communion. As I had been actively involved in the teaching that evening, I had presented the group with my perspective that much of the alleged division among Catholics and Protestants on this question of Christ’s real presence is both overstated and misunderstood. This is a position to which you will be subjected as you move on through this book.

After this session, this gentleman on our team came up to me and, after saying how well he thought the evening went and how interesting the discussion was, proceeded to ask me this question: ‘Bob, were you in church a couple of weeks ago when Father preached about the Eucharist and Communion?’ I told him that I was away that weekend (actually, I think on that day off from church responsibilities I went to a Red Sox game!) and had not heard this particular homily. He then told me how good it was and how helpful it was to him in getting a better sense of the Catholic perspective on Communion.

He explained to me how ‘Father’ told the congregation that morning that if they were to see Communion celebrated in a Protestant church, they would notice a difference between what Catholics do with the leftover element of bread and what they would see at that particular church. He then explained how it was typical for Protestants to take whatever is left over and just throw it out and how the very act of taking this bread and placing it in the garbage shows the difference in Eucharistic theology. He contrasted this with the Catholic practice of the reserved sacrament whereby consecrated hosts or any other unleavened bread are placed in the tabernacle for future use or for bringing Communion to those unable to worship at church.

I told this man that, while I had not heard the entire homily, I did feel, based on what he was saying, that this good and experienced priest had oversimplified the distinction and had minimized the Protestant sense of profound respect for that which was ordained by Christ ... as stated in the Bible!! I then gave a different perspective on it, probably showing some evidence of my ‘Protestant’ tendencies indeed. But my point here is not to debate Eucharistic theology. It is instead to demonstrate how important it is to Catholics to draw that distinction which, in some way, exhibits the uniqueness and, as I said before, the primacy of Catholicism.

This tendency comes out in different ways. Since I left the Catholic Church and became a Protestant, as you can well imagine, I have had a lot of discussions with Catholics, especially those in whose parish I used to serve, around the question ‘Why?’ i.e. ‘Why did I leave?’ While most have been kind, in fact, the overwhelming majority, several think that I did a bad thing. One day I asked one of these critical individuals if he thought that Protestants had any chance to go to heaven. He said assuredly ‘Of course they do!’ What I discovered in reflecting upon that conversation was that he really meant that it’s OK for someone born Protestant to be Protestant, but there is something inherently wrong in someone ‘who has the true faith’ proceeding to turn around and give it up!

This all evinces itself in so many different ways indeed! Many Catholics operate under what I would label the ‘more principle’ in distinguishing their faith from that of their Protestant counterparts. This centrality of the Eucharist and what it is serves as a driving force behind such actively progressive Catholic organizations as Voice of the Faithful⁴³ and CORPUS.⁴⁴ In their literature, CORPUS, an organization of priests, many of whom have left active ministry to marry, argue that by not ordaining married men and moving toward the ordination of women, the church is in danger of ‘losing the Eucharist’ i.e. there will not be priests around to say Mass and Catholic access to this central act of worship will be limited.

This position, of course, is tied into a developed theology of what Catholics see as a sacrament, the sacrament of Holy Orders, by which the ‘power to consecrate the bread and wine’⁴⁵ is conferred upon the priest. In this example, there is ‘more’ in the ordained Catholic priesthood than one might find in the clergy of other Christian denominations. In Catholicism, Holy Orders is one of the seven sacraments and it is significant to many Catholics that they can identify seven as opposed to the Protestant two, which in some denominations are not even described as sacraments, identified instead as something strangely labeled an ‘ordinance of the church.’⁴⁶ In Catholicism, marriage is more than a rite. It is a sacrament. Churches are more than some of those Protestant meetinghouses. They are places where you can go in, sit before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in that tabernacle and quietly pray. Mass is ‘more’ than just a service where you will sing hymns and hear a sermon. At Mass, which is actually available in many Catholic churches seven days a week (used to be all, before the priest shortage!), you can get all of those benefits and then even get to receive Jesus too!

It is my firm contention that there is enormous room for healthy and conciliatory dialogue between Protestants and Catholics on these matters. I am firmly convinced that there is significant common ground. As one example, I am quite certain that if you put a committed Catholic married couple in conversation with a Protestant married couple and asked them to talk about their love and their long term relationship, in essence they would be talking about the same thing. Whether it fell on the official list of seven sacraments or not would be far less important than the actual nature of the relationship. Would not both be living out their calling to love God through a committed love to the other person? As a Catholic Permanent Deacon, I officiated at many marriage ceremonies. As a Protestant clergyperson, I have done the same. There is no difference in how I approach the service or the message I deliver from what I said back then in my Catholic days. Some of the language of the Church’s official rite may be different with the Catholic ritual explicitly using the word ‘sacrament’ but the heart and the essence of the matter, in my honest view, is really the same.⁴⁷ Likewise, some of the most moving and reverential Communion experiences I have had occurred in Protestant worship services. On the other hand, there have been times when I felt an ‘assembly line’ feel to the practice of receiving the little wafer at some Catholic Masses.

In saying this, I am NOT contending that the Catholic approach to Eucharist promotes the assembly line model. In fact, distinguished Catholic liturgists have done magnificent work in helping Catholic presiders at Mass lead worship experiences which are more attentive to the dignity of the Last Supper which the Eucharistic celebration makes present.⁴⁸

Through these examples I have given and by delving into some of the historical background which explain how these examples have come to be, I have been attempting to express a matter of grave concern: There is an incredible lack of understanding among Catholics and Protestants about who lives in that other ecclesiastical house and about what’s really happening over on that other side of the street . Likewise, there is a dangerous misunderstanding among us about the depth and the breadth of our own traditions, whether they be Protestant or Catholic. We need to move beyond this. We need to get it right so that we can teach it right. We need to teach our church tradition and the broader Christian tradition correctly so that we can pass it along responsibly both to our children and to all who walk through the doors of our respective churches seeking something that will keep their lives grounded and imbued with meaning! We need to get it right so that we can pray and work with other Christians, so that our children can see that their Protestant dad and their Catholic mom really, at the core, share a common faith. We need to get it right so that the words of that hymn we will find both in our Catholic missalettes and our Protestant hymnals will resonate so deeply within us that we can joyfully sing them together:

We are one in the Spirit, We are one in the Lord ...

We will walk with each other, We will walk hand in hand ... and together we’ll spread the news that God is in our land

And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love⁴⁹