Is “Catholic” a race? Obviously not, since the very word “Catholic” itself (katholike in the original Greek) means “universal,” “subsisting throughout the whole,” and “present everywhere, among all people.”
Very well then — is Catholic a tribe? That is, does the word Catholic signify nothing more than a “common heritage” or “cultural identity?” Well, clearly, there is such a heritage; no one would deny that members of the Catholic Church do have many social and cultural earmarks in common. But is that pretty much it? No; surely Catholicism is too multi-cultural for that — far too international, far too diverse, and growing more so each day.
Some people speak of having been “born Catholic” or “baptized Catholic.” And while many Catholics use these phrases regularly, both are bad Catholic theology. No one is “born Catholic.” If that were the case, there’d be no reason for the sacrament of baptism in the first place. Yet even baptism does not make a person a Catholic. Baptism makes a person a Christian, and (as St. Augustine of Hippo wisely taught us) all properly performed Christian baptisms are valid, no matter in what church body they take place. No, in order to add that mysterious word “Catholic” as a modifier to “Christian,” some other element is required. Which element is that?
Well, perhaps it’s obvious and perhaps not, but “Catholic” really is a religion.
This is what the Church reminded us last month in Cardinal Ratzinger’s important letter Dominum Iesus. The word Catholic has content. Catholic is not a sentiment, not a tribe or a culture. Catholic is not a mere “faith tradition.” Catholic is a description of that religious teaching which Jesus Christ Himself committed to the Church through His disciples. And while the venerable fathers of Vatican II were right to insist that all human religions have value (representing as they do Man’s great search for God throughout the ages), only one of them represents that quite contrary miracle — God’s great search for Man.
And is the pope Catholic?
Again, it may be silly, but even non-Christians know an obvious, self-evident truth when they see one. In other words, there’s no mystery, even in popular usage, about who gets to say what is and isn’t Catholic.
Yet somehow, just as we saw in Israel, some of our friends and neighbors want to keep the name long after they’ve abandoned the reality. There seems to be some feeling that a man ought to be able to call himself a Catholic whatever his religious beliefs, simply because his parents did, or his grandparents. Sacramentally speaking, of course, all baptized persons have a right to call themselves Christians forever — no one disputes that. But the word Catholic modifies Christian, represents a higher vision, with greater responsibilities. The word has content.
What of “dissenting Catholics,” then? Where do they stand?
If “dissent” means vigorous, lively debate over the proper application of Catholic truth to today’s problems, then dissent simply means reform, and it’s an honored tradition in the Church, from Paul the Apostle (who “withstood Peter to his face”) to Catherine of Sienna and Charles Borromeo. But if “dissenting Catholics” means “secular Catholics” (i.e., Catholics who feel that they must disagree with the pope’s religious teaching), well, we already have a term for that. Your author knows it well from personal experience, having been one for 35 years.
The word is “Protestants.”
What makes a person a Jew?
Sounds like a silly question on the surface, but it’s not at all easy to answer. In fact, the difficulty in answering it is, believe it or not, actually threatening to tear the modern state of Israel apart. It also happens to be a question that carries profound implications for Roman Catholics…
As a nation, of course, Israel is officially Jewish. That is, it makes no claim to be a liberal democracy on the western model, with equal rights for all. Modern Israel was specifically designed as a Jewish homeland, and thus offers full, complete citizenship with all privileges to Jews alone. Getting some kind of solution, then, to our puzzle — what makes a person a Jew? — is by no means an academic matter. It’s a brutally practical, day-to-day necessity.
Is a Jew someone who practices the Jewish religion? If so, then most of the people living in Israel are not Jews. A large percentage of modern Israelis — perhaps a majority — describe themselves as “secular Jews,” and of these a substantial block are self-professed atheists. Yet even within religious Judaism the lines are not clear. Orthodox Jews claim that theirs is the only true Hebrew faith, and would disqualify outright their heretical Reformed countrymen, who make up another large chunk of the Israeli population. So who’s to say? If the only true Jews are faithful Jews, then whose Jews are the faithful ones?
Right now, a government bureau called the Ministry of Religious Affairs oversees this Gordian knot; and the Ministry, at least for the time being, is run by Orthodox rabbis. Yet even under this system the only official definition that can be mustered for the all-important term “Jew” is “someone who can prove that at least one of their grandparents was Jewish.” Which, of course, leaves the mysterious question of what made them Jewish entirely unanswered — rather like the chicken and the egg.
Very well, then — is “Jewish” a race? Is anyone physically descended from Abraham a Jew, no matter what his or her religious beliefs? If so, then all of Israel’s Arab neighbors are Jews as well, for everyone on both sides admits that the same patriarch fathered both nations. Yet surely Israel’s very existence depends upon maintaining at least that one bit of Hebrew theology, i.e., that God gave this particular piece of land (formerly known as Palestine) to the Jewish side of the family. That claim, obviously, is meaningless unless Israelites really can be distinguished somehow from Ishmaelites. After all, two racially-identical atheists standing on a street corner in Tel Aviv — one calling himself a Palestinian, the other calling himself a Jew — would seem to have little cause for disagreement otherwise. Would they not?
Or is there some kind of Jewish “culture” — some way in which people who don’t believe in Judaism, and who might (ethnically-speaking) be African, European, Amerindian or Asian — still be considered Jewish anyhow?
Well, perhaps. It is just possible to imagine such a thing; some group of people united somehow by a common cultural identity, a common heritage, and nothing else. And, as a matter of fact, this is the definition that many of our modern Israeli friends do fall back upon. Right now, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, for example, is making revolutionary plans to offer a brand new constitution for Israel — a constitution that will create there, for the first time, a complete Jeffersonian “separation of church (or synagogue) and state.” Which leaves many thoughtful people, Israeli or otherwise, wondering whether the whole concept of a “Jewish” state isn’t about to swallow its own tail and vanish down its own throat.
After all, if the word “Jewish” hasn’t any more content than that — if being Jewish really isn’t all that different from being Irish, or being a Louisiana Cajun, or being a Vietnam veteran — well, isn’t it a little petty, maybe, to insist upon it so rigidly? Isn’t it just a tad unreasonable to deny citizenship to a man who has lived in Jerusalem all his life solely because he doesn’t share in somebody’s rather vague “cultural heritage?” And is the fate of world peace really hanging upon the continued existence and security of a society that isn’t, in truth, much more than a kind of glorified Moose Lodge?
Religious Jews, obviously, don’t think so. They have a much, much higher vision of what it means to be a Jew. But that, obviously, takes us right back around to square one.
Now … here’s where it gets interesting for most of us:
What makes a person a Catholic?
