Reading through the various Papal Enragicals, it's clear that many people are commenting on something about which they have not a clue. There is plenty about which to criticize the Pope and the Catholic Church, but there seems to be, with only a few exceptions, two camps to this imbroglio: those who do nuance, and those who don't. I'm not speaking here of the two
polar opposites in the debate over how to react to the passing of the world's most famous Pole. I'm referring to the majority of the comments contained within. And I think I've located the source of much of the problem.
Sure, some folks are just as intolerant against religion and faith as are those church ladies with their mean, pinched bitter faces wagging their sanctimonious fingers at everyone who's going to hell for not believing in "their" God. But most of the friction seems to be coming from a deep confusion about American Catholicism. My eureka moment came a few minutes ago when I read this comment by Bob Johnson. Bob's right, the Catholic Church is far bigger than the Pope. Obviously the Pope is central to the institutional church, but "being Catholic" is a lot more than enclyclicals and knowing about the Popemobile. For many people, it's a way of life, a sense of community, and an identity of your place in relation to the rest of the world. It's a sense of obligation to look out for others and realize that you're part of a community. It is, for many people, and quite separate from issues of doctrine and liturgy and religious belief, a way of experiencing the world.
And for many people, Catholicism means the priest of the nun in their local parish who looked out for them, who may have provided them a safe haven from an abusive family. It may include, as I've seen a couple people write today, memories of a priest to whom someone came out to, and accepted them unhesitatingly and unconditionally. It may be memories of working in a soup kitchen on Christmas, or learning about the suffering of the saints, or dropping dimes in change box while lighting candles for a sick relative, or it may be a homily that touched you at a key moment in your life and provided guidance, support or succor.
It's a complicated thing, to be or to have been Catholic. I'm sure it's a complicated thing to be or to have been lots of other things, such as Muslim, fundementalist Baptist, Jewish, Shinto, whatever. Most of us try not to pontificate about others' religions when we're not really knowledgable about what it feels like to come from that tradition. For some reason many people feel, however, that they "know" what the Catholic Church (singular) stands for and is like. But do everyone a favor--if you're going to criticize the church's doctrines and institutional behaviors, or patterns of behavior by Catholics, whatever, at least recognize that when you say "Catholic" that, more so than with just about any other religion, the people who consider themselves Catholic are likely to have a conplicated and deeply personal sense of what they think it means to be Catholic. So, be a little more respectful, and try to be cognizant of the fact that, in America, there are about as many notions of Catholicism as there are people who consider themselves Catholic.