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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/opinion/bruni-many-kinds-of-catholic.html?src=me&ref=general ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/opinion/bruni-many-kinds-of-catholic.html?src=me&ref=general Quote:These Catholics look to the church not for exacting rules, but for a locus for their spirituality, with rituals and an iconography that feel familiar and thus comfortable. In matters religious, as in “The Wizard of Oz,” there’s no place like home, and Catholicism is as much ethnicity as dogma: something in the blood, and something in the bones.
The Catholic hierarchy, meanwhile, keeps giving American Catholics fresh reasons for rebellion.
The biggest difference I see is that the Catholic church’s hierarchy has greater obstacles to connect with the lay membership (celibate clergy with a history of child sexual abuse, anti-conception, anti-abortion) and as a result it is even more out of touch with normal modern life. Both churches have gerontocratic leadership and are therefore going to have a modernity problem, but at least ours have had sex and can admit it. While their leadership doesn’t include women, at least ours are married to and fathers of women. Catholicism is at an even greater pressure point between leadership and membership right now. I think most Mormons can probably relate to the average Catholic as a result, at least I feel we can.
I read that too and was surprised. But after thinking about it some more, it makes a lot of sense. I thought it was amusing that Catholics were mistaking Santorum for an evangelical fundamentalist instead of as Catholic. Most Catholics I know and have known actually are quite pragmatic about their faith – in the sense that they are the largest player on the field, so why worry about extremism and even active “missionary work” or broad-based political activism. They generally aren’t political activists, with the primary exceptions being many who advocate for solving problems of poverty and, more recently, to opposing gay marriage. (but even in the case of gay marriage, most I know are not activists at heart) Therefore, I’m not surprised that they are supporting Romney over Santorum and Gingrich. Santorum acts like a evangelical, proposing to force through legislation his personal morality in many ways. Most Catholics have had to distance themselves from authoritarian mandate (legislative control, if you will) in order to StayCatholic, so they can’t relate to (and even fear a bit) a candidate who is trying to “play Pope”, as one friend said to me.
Gingrich is a twice divorced, serial adulterer with an enormous ego, volatile temper and hypocritical, cry-baby nature. Gingrich just doesn’t connect on any level with most Catholics I know, more than a few of whom see his conversion to Catholicism as a cynical or calculated attempt to satisfy his old mistress/new wife. They wonder what religion he will claim if he dumps her and marries a new mistress, and they aren’t positive he won’t cheat on his current wife if he doesn’t win the presidency.
Well, Liberation Theology came out of RCism. Could you ever see such a thing coming out of Mormonism? Sam, the Perpetual Education Fund came out of Mormonism (different, I know) – and there is a deep strain of Liberation Theology in the Book of Mormon and Mormonism’s meta-theology, Article of Faith 12 notwithstanding. I studied Liberation Theology in college with one of the world-wide leaders of the movement, Harvey Cox – the author of “The Secular City”. Really fascinating stuff.
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