Saturday, March 11, 2006
What are Commonweal Catholics?
We were just talking about Commonweal Catholics when who should chime in but Margaret O'Brien Steinfels.
Today Commonweal readers no longer have this narrow and constraining view of who they are superior to. ¶ 3/11/2006 05:15:00 PM
My impression is that Commonweal's founding generation was most interested in looking beyond the sometimes narrow and constraining world of ghetto Catholicism. They were interested in art and architecture, literature and theater, politics and policy making on a larger scale than defined my the immediate needs of the vast majority of their fellow Catholics who were poor, or near poor, and many still of an immigrant generation--we're talking the twenties and thirties.
Today Commonweal readers no longer have this narrow and constraining view of who they are superior to. ¶ 3/11/2006 05:15:00 PM
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Lemme see if I remember some of the horrors of ghetto Catholicism:
•Stunning church architecture in the midst of the "ghetto" (e.g., Basilica of St Josaphat),
•Catholic hospitals nationwide,
• a system of Catholic elementary schools, high schools, colleges and universities,
• orphanages,
• homes for the indigent (Little Sisters of the Poor ring a bell?)
• structures for effective charitable giving (e.g., St Vincent de Paul)
Yeah... It's all coming back to me now—the stunning narowness and breathtaking shortsightedness of ghetto Catholicism.
•Stunning church architecture in the midst of the "ghetto" (e.g., Basilica of St Josaphat),
•Catholic hospitals nationwide,
• a system of Catholic elementary schools, high schools, colleges and universities,
• orphanages,
• homes for the indigent (Little Sisters of the Poor ring a bell?)
• structures for effective charitable giving (e.g., St Vincent de Paul)
Yeah... It's all coming back to me now—the stunning narowness and breathtaking shortsightedness of ghetto Catholicism.
# posted by 
: 9:39 PM
: 9:39 PM
Tadhg disremembers some other "ghetto" features of those days:
Mass Ordinaries composed by such narrowminded bozos as Beethoven, Mozart, Faure and Peeters;
A knowledge of music for worship that far surpasses today's;
"Ghetto" paintings, statuary, etc., gracing every church built by RC's (or at least most of them in this country...)
All that ignorance was pretty well-disguised, eh?
Mass Ordinaries composed by such narrowminded bozos as Beethoven, Mozart, Faure and Peeters;
A knowledge of music for worship that far surpasses today's;
"Ghetto" paintings, statuary, etc., gracing every church built by RC's (or at least most of them in this country...)
All that ignorance was pretty well-disguised, eh?
To use a local reference, the contemporary Church is a bit like the Park Freeway West. Everything was cleared away before they were ready to build. Decades later, where there once were old neighborhoods, much remains vacant land.
Never trust someone known by three names: Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wilkes Booth, James Earl Ray, John Kenneth Galbraith. I could go on.
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