litlover12

AN EVANGELICAL LOOKS AT CATHOLICISM

12/31/13

I keep a rosary in the drawer of my bedside table.

It’s not that I use it to pray. As a lifelong evangelical Protestant in good standing, I don’t even know how to pray the rosary.

This rosary belonged to my Grandpa Tony. It’s the only thing I have of his—not counting the beautiful wooden doll chair he made for me, or the card in his tiny, cramped handwriting that he sent when I had appendicitis, or the little gadget he constructed to extract the toast from the toaster. Those are all things that he gave to me or my parents, but the rosary was something he owned and used. It was part of his life. That’s one reason I keep it.

But that’s only part of a larger reason. The rosary is a reminder not just of my grandfather, but also of his faith. And that faith matters to me. Though I grew up in a different tradition, I like to focus on the things we had in common—like the fact that he worshiped the same God that I do.

That’s a contentious thing to say these days. I wish it weren’t. It pains me when I hear some evangelical Protestants say things like “Catholics have crucifixes because they ignore the importance of the Resurrection.” (No, they don’t.) Or “Catholics don’t pray to God.” (Except when they do.) Or talk about how Catholics used to torture and kill Protestants, without mentioning that Protestants used to return the favor. Or refer to “Catholics and Christians.” (My favorite response to this comes from John Fischer’s novel “Saint Ben”: “‘. . . In 249 A.D. [Catholics] were the only Christians around. You either believed or you didn’t.’”)

In an old episode of “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” there’s a scene where a bunch of vampires throw a victim onto a ritual bonfire, and show host Mike Nelson quips, “This is what Southern Baptists think Catholic Mass is like.” It cracks me up because, exaggerated as it is, there’s a kernel of truth in there. I heard many a horror story about Catholicism at my Baptist high school. And I continue to hear them from various quarters today.

Out of ignorance, or misinformation, or sometimes just a fervent desire to separate themselves from error, many well-intentioned evangelical Christians believe and spread gross untruths about Catholicism. In my experience, many are unwilling to engage with Catholics themselves on these issues; they prefer to get their information, such as it is, secondhand.

I couldn’t do that if I wanted to. Though my parents left the Catholic Church before I was born, Catholicism, for good and ill, has been part of my life as long as I can remember. I’m surrounded by Catholic relatives, co-workers, and friends. I attended two years of Catholic school, where I was taught by a loving and gentle nun—and I grew up hearing my parents’ tales of Catholic school in the 1950s, with nuns who were anything but gentle. My great-aunt Sister Mary Anunciata used to collar me at family reunions and tell me my mother was doing me wrong by raising me as a Protestant, while I squirmed uncomfortably. (I did say “for good and ill,” didn’t I?)

And every time I stayed with my father’s parents, I attended Mass with them. I did the standing and the kneeling and the rest of it. So although I’m no expert on the Catholic faith, I’ve seen enough to feel baffled and bemused by some evangelicals’ confident—and wrong—ideas about it.

Of course, I don’t want to let my personal stake in this issue interfere with my judgment. I’m not arguing that, just because I dearly loved my grandfather, whatever he believed must have been true. What I am saying is that what I have seen and heard from Catholics doesn’t match what some evangelicals are saying about them. And on a larger scale, I’m suggesting that the Catholic faith doesn’t deserve to be treated like the redheaded stepchild of Christianity.

Especially when we evangelicals often end up unwittingly paying tribute to Catholicism anyway. Every time we quote our beloved C. S. Lewis, we’re quoting a man who was led to Christianity mainly by two Catholics: specifically, by the arguments of J. R. R. Tolkien and the writings of G. K. Chesterton. Speaking of Tolkien, every time we talk about the Christian worldview of The Lord of the Rings, we’re talking about the worldview of a Catholic. When Protestant evangelicals helped to make “The Passion of the Christ” a runaway success, we were promoting a movie made by a troubled but believing Catholic, and starring a devout Catholic.

Commendably, some evangelicals are aware enough and honest enough to speak openly about the debt we owe to our Catholic brothers and sisters. Just recently, Russell Moore wrote an insightful article for CNN titled “Why Christians Need Flannery O’Connor.” In his tribute to this “morbid, quirky Catholic” who was among the greatest 20th-century American writers, Moore celebrates the authenticity and realism of her faith. He even has a bit of fun with one of her quips about the Baptists—his own denomination.

I’m not trying to deny the differences between Protestantism and Catholicism. They’re very real and very important. Even Chuck Colson and Father John Neuhaus, in their seminal document Evangelicals and Catholics Together, acknowledged as much: “Our communal and ecclesial separations are deep and long standing. We acknowledge that we do not know the schedule nor do we know the way to the greater visible unity for which we hope.” They added, however, “We do know that existing patterns of distrustful polemic and conflict are not the way.”

Nor do I want to be one of those evangelicals who try to turn Catholicism into the latest hot trend, just because it’s different, or exotic, or because Pope Francis is kind to the poor or talks about sex differently from his predecessors. Catholicism is not a rare orchid or a purse dog; it’s a holistic belief system, and a rigorous one at that. Those who forget this may end up biting off more than they can chew. Personally, I find quite a few insurmountable difficulties in that system, which is why I remain an evangelical.

But despite all the teachings I don’t understand or don’t agree with, I believe that there’s truth in the Catholic Church, and that this truth is a valuable common ground where evangelicals and Catholics can come together and try to do away with those “patterns of distrustful polemic and conflict.”

What truth is that? I hear some of my evangelical friends asking. This truth: the truth in the creed that I heard when I sat and stood and knelt beside my grandparents at their church. As a child, reciting this creed with them, I would scrupulously leave out the word “catholic,” thinking it didn’t apply to me. Even after I found out that little-c “catholic” meant something different from big-c “Catholic,” I still hesitated over it. Yet I could recite the rest of it without reservation.

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,
begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered, died, and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

A quiet though affectionate man, Tony Dalfonzo rarely talked about his beliefs or anything else that mattered deeply to him. Yet he must have spoken these words thousands of times in his life. Now I keep his rosary near me, as a reminder of the things we shared.

Image courtesy of KDVR.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog. Special thanks to Marlena Graves and Lesa Engelthaler for their feedback and help.