{"id":1098,"date":"2008-04-16T12:05:37","date_gmt":"2008-04-16T12:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2008\/04\/dan-barry-the-view-from-his-pe.html"},"modified":"2008-04-16T12:05:37","modified_gmt":"2008-04-16T12:05:37","slug":"dan-barry-the-view-from-his-pe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/04\/dan-barry-the-view-from-his-pe.html","title":{"rendered":"Dan Barry: The View From His Pew"},"content":{"rendered":"

There have been many interesting articles on the state of the American Catholic Church, but I found this essay by Dan Barry in the New York Times<\/a> especially charming and intriguing, probably because I agree with so much of it. Get to the article by clicking here.<\/a> Following are some sound bites.<\/p>\n

Let me say at the outset that I am your classic stumbling, grumbling, trying-to-sort-it-all-out American Catholic. I consider myself a practicing Catholic because I dearly need the practice. My family and I attend Sunday Mass with some regularity, though not always at the same parish \u2014 in case anyone is taking attendance. Our older child goes to catechism class, as will our younger child when she is of age. I have eaten enough stale crumb cake at after-Mass socials to earn penance for at least a few of my many venial sins.
\nIn other words, for all you nativists out there, I\u2019ll use one of your terms to explain: I am proud to be a mackerel snapper.
\nThen why is our papal blessing not on display? Is it because the document might clash with a haphazard interior design that includes a W.C. Fields movie poster? Is it because we worry that in some circles our faith might be considered a bit \u2014 uncool? (You actually attend Mass? Really?) Or is it because, quite frankly, we feel virtually no connection to the papacy?
\nAs the Thursday night players used to shout in the church basement of my Long Island parish long ago: Bingo!
\nPope Benedict XVI plans to visit the United States this week, a tour that will include touchstones in my own life \u2014 ground zero, St. Patrick\u2019s Cathedral, Yankee Stadium \u2014 and will attract throngs of American Catholics. Still, beyond the fact that I\u2019m not much of a throng guy, I will not be among those craning their necks for a glimpse. I feel a palpable papal disconnect.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

The disconnection I feel may be rooted in the good old American distrust of monarchs and frippery. And, unlike American Catholics of 150 years ago, I do not feel the sting of prejudice that would cause me to embrace the pope in defiant declaration of my faith.
\nSince the day my in-laws first displayed their papal blessing nearly 50 years ago, much has happened to wear away at the authority of the pope. There remains great awe and respect for anyone charged with managing a 2,000-year-old institution and spiritually guiding more than a billion people around the world. For stumbling, grumbling worshipers like me, though, obedience to the pope has morphed into a respectful taking of his pronouncements under advisement \u2014 a cafeteria-like approach that drives more rigid Catholics to the brink of saying the Lord\u2019s name in vain.
\nAnd peace be with you.
\nAs Peter Steinfels, the Beliefs columnist for The New York Times, recently noted, there is nothing particularly new in this tension. He wrote that many American Catholics \u201chonor the pope yet disagree with papal positions, whether about using contraception, restricting legal access to abortion, ordaining married men or women to the priesthood or recognizing same-sex relationships.\u201d I would add to that list disgust, more than mere disagreement, with the way the church has handled the priest scandals of the last decade.
\nBut what does all this mean?
\nIt means that I got my Catholic Irish up when I read recently that the Rev. John Hagee, a Texas televangelist, uses code language for the Catholic Church when he speaks of a \u201cfalse cult system\u201d and \u2014 what was it again? Oh, yes: \u201cthe great whore.\u201d The good reverend says his words have been misconstrued, and I don\u2019t want mine to be: It would be my humble honor to share a dinner of solidarity with the pope \u2014 a dinner, even, of mackerel.
\nBut all this also means that I read the parish bulletin and the gospels, not papal encyclicals or L\u2019Osservatore Romano. That I mutter more about the priest\u2019s aimless homily or some action by the local bishop than about anything the pope has said or done. That on Sundays, though hardly every one, I try to concentrate on the Gospel and on the celebration of the Eucharist as best I can with a distracted 10-year-old and a squirming 4-year-old. That I never once ask myself: What would the pope do?
\nI am just an American Catholic shirt in a pile of human laundry, rinsing, twirling, praying that things don\u2019t spin out of balance.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There have been many interesting articles on the state of the American Catholic Church, but I found this essay by Dan Barry in the New York Times especially charming and intriguing, probably because I agree with so much of it. Get to the article by clicking here. Following are some sound bites. Let me say…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholicism"],"yoast_head":"\nDan Barry: The View From His Pew - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/04\/dan-barry-the-view-from-his-pe.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dan Barry: The View From His Pew - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There have been many interesting articles on the state of the American Catholic Church, but I found this essay by Dan Barry in the New York Times especially charming and intriguing, probably because I agree with so much of it. Get to the article by clicking here. Following are some sound bites. Let me say…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/04\/dan-barry-the-view-from-his-pe.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-04-16T12:05:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Dan Barry: The View From His Pew - Beyond Blue","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/04\/dan-barry-the-view-from-his-pe.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Dan Barry: The View From His Pew - Beyond Blue","og_description":"There have been many interesting articles on the state of the American Catholic Church, but I found this essay by Dan Barry in the New York Times especially charming and intriguing, probably because I agree with so much of it. Get to the article by clicking here. Following are some sound bites. Let me say…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/04\/dan-barry-the-view-from-his-pe.html","og_site_name":"Beyond Blue","article_published_time":"2008-04-16T12:05:37+00:00","author":"Beyond Blue","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/04\/dan-barry-the-view-from-his-pe.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/04\/dan-barry-the-view-from-his-pe.html","name":"Dan Barry: The View From His Pew - Beyond Blue","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-04-16T12:05:37+00:00","dateModified":"2008-04-16T12:05:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/04\/dan-barry-the-view-from-his-pe.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/04\/dan-barry-the-view-from-his-pe.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/04\/dan-barry-the-view-from-his-pe.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Dan Barry: The View From His Pew"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/","name":"Beyond Blue","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Therese J. Borchard","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75","name":"Beyond Blue","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/45c\/45c6e619a20a364bd981e9dda64eaa02x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/45c\/45c6e619a20a364bd981e9dda64eaa02x96.jpg","caption":"Beyond Blue"},"description":"Therese J. Borchard writes the daily blog, Beyond Blue, on Beliefnet.com. She is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes and The Pocket Therapist. You may find her at her personal blog, her website, or you may follow her on Twitter @thereseborchard.","sameAs":["http:\/\/thereseborchard.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/author\/tborchard"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}