Catholic Culture Part 2
Author Alex Long
Father preached pretty recently about the importance of recreating a distinct Catholic culture. I wanted to unpack that a little bit, because there's a lot there.
In the first part I explained what Catholic culture is. In this post I'll talk about how it can be a tool for the New Evangelisation, and in the third post I'll talk about it as a way of preserving our own faith.
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I can’t find the exact quote, but I once heard a Catholic philosopher, rephrasing Plato’s Gorgias, say that the new Evangelism isn’t about introducing new ideas to people out of the blue, but about revealing how things they already want and half-believe are most concretely revealed by Catholic doctrine.
God is the author of both Catholic tradition and reality. Before we can convince people of the truth of divine revelation specific to Catholicism, we have to show how Catholic language and ways of thinking best capture the reality everyone experiences.
We live in an Apostolic age where many people think they’ve heard all they need to about Jesus and the church to fully understand it and have rejected it. Catholic culture should make Catholicism compelling and elicit curiosity, which paves the way for education and conversion.
Evangelism can be intimidating because we’re taught to view our faith as just one among hundreds of religious or spiritual options. And while it’s important to respect and love neighbors of other faiths, it’s also important to not let respect for others turn into a downplaying of how awesome and true Catholicism is. If you lack confidence in communicating the truth of Catholicism because you’re not sure yourself how valid its truth claims are, there are plenty of educational resources to help with that. The work of secular (which means he's not particularly biased towards Christianity) historian Tom Holland has shown how contemporary notions of things like social justice and political equality are directly linked to historic Christianity. The work of Brade Pitre helps us understand why we can trust the historical veracity of the gospels. Materials from Word on Fire and Robert Barron are especially helpful for understanding the sound logical foundations for Catholic truth claims.
But it can be hard to have these conversations with others in the first place. The way most of us live and talk outside church is antithetical to religious conversation. Not just because religion is seen as impolite in some contexts, but because there are so many invisible assumptions we rely on in secular situations that undermine Catholic doctrine. One example being popular phrases like “good vibes” and “positive energy” which imply a pantheist New Age worldview. They’re typically used so casually that you can’t assume the person saying them consciously believes that bouncing atoms have the capacity for moral goodness, but those concepts influence everything else the person says and shifts the conversation's meaning in un-Christian directions.
With that reality in mind, one way I personally like to use culture as an evangelism tool is through clothing. The obvious method is to wear religious jewelry, so that even when you’re not talking about your faith, people understand that whatever you say comes from that faith perspective. But, this won’t lead to conversations with people who reject Catholicism because they think they know all about it. It doesn’t introduce anything they think they don’t know already, so it doesn't create the awareness of a lack of knowledge that's necessary for generating curiosity and exploration.
That’s why evangelism is sometimes more effective when you take an unexpected angle. For instance, my favorite shirts have dancing skeletons on them. Secular friends and family, who would never in a million years ask me about my prayer life or relationship with Jesus, will comment that these designs are cute. That gives me an opportunity to talk about Danse Macabre, an artistic tradition dating back to medieval France rooted in Catholic sermons about Memento Mori, the practice of remembering one's death. Historically, Danse Macabre images depicted people from every socio-economic class dancing together and being made equal in death, illustrating the futility of worrying about things like money and social prestige which have no impact on our immortal souls.
In secular society, we’re uncomfortable talking about death because we don’t like teleology- looking at things with their ends in mind. We want everything to be centered on the present moment. Broaching a conversation about things beyond the present moment, and introducing the necessity of incorporating one’s end into one’s sense of self, addresses one subtle, yet powerful, invisible barrier to evangelism.
Catholic culture gives us more creative and surprising angles to do that with than straightforward theology or doctrine.
