Crossing the Street. Robert R LaRochelle
position. This is exemplified most recently in the overtures toward dissenting Anglican priests and congregations and the new pathways to ordination and affiliation with Catholicism that have opened up.29
3. A strong emphasis on the position of the papacy exemplified by Pope John Paul’s incredible travel schedule throughout his pontificate. This emphasis was supported and reinforced by newly developing Catholic media outlets who have been very prominent in promoting this more conservative Catholic approach. One could make a very strong case that Catholicism’s pluralism could also be demonstrated by comparing ‘EWTN’ v ‘Non-EWTN’ Catholics. This needs some explanation.
The Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) came to international prominence during the period of John Paul II’s papacy and it continues today under Pope Benedict.30 EWTN presents a steady stream of programming that matches and reinforces the positions held by these two recent Popes. It is the most visible Catholic media presence in the world today and it is a conservative one. EWTN presents the church teaching to children and adults, without engaging in dialogue concerning different perspectives that may exist within the Catholic community on any particular controversial issue. EWTN’s radio operation has even paired up and has taken over some stations owned by individual dioceses. I cite the Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut, where I served as a Permanent Deacon, as a case in point.
WJMJ radio is owned and operated by the Archdiocese of Hartford. For many years, it was noted for offering an incredible variety of ecumenical programming in addition to a wide array of Catholic worship and educational opportunities. For many reasons, I have liked WJMJ Radio for a very long time. I particularly used to love its Sunday programming. During my Sunday thirty minute ride from my home to the church where I serve as pastor, I would listen to a recorded service from a Hartford area Congregational church, complete with sermon by that church’s pastor. On my way home, depending upon what time I was finished at church, I might hear a Catholic Mass or some beautiful chanted Greek Orthodox prayer and explanation of that tradition’s icons. Depending upon what else I might be doing on a particular Sunday, I might get in my car and hear a Methodist service or a consistently great meditation by a Baptist minister. Whenever possible, I would try to catch the outstanding 6:00 pm program sponsored by Connecticut’s Episcopal Diocese which blended such beautifully intelligent conversation about Scripture’s applicability to modern life with the melodic power of Anglican chant. If I had my radio tuned in toward the end of its program day, I would benefit from the Catholic recitation of Night Prayer from the daily office, co-led by a Roman Catholic priest and a local Lutheran musical leader. Every Sunday was a wonderful day on a terrific radio station.
Just a few years ago, the Archdiocese announced that the format of WJMJ was changing. Gone were all of the Protestant church services and programs. A proliferation of new programs abounded, most focused on the worship, catechetical and moral focus of the Catholic faith. As a matter of fact, the preponderance of the station’s prime time weekend religious programming was now provided by EWTN and its affiliation with EWTN was featured prominently in its advertising.
I offer this example to demonstrate the clear cut differences that exist within contemporary Catholicism and to try to provide some indication regarding the roots of these differences. Most certainly, how one sides on EWTN taking over WJMJ is indicative of where one is as a Catholic on the John XXIII- John Paul II continuum. The John XXIII Catholic would praise the Hartford radio station of years ago: open to dialogue, unabashedly ecumenical, open to truth from Congregational and Baptist pulpits as well as Episcopal talk shows. The John Paul II Catholic would praise the new arrangement, confident in the certainty that it will contribute to a clear presentation of the truth of the Catholic faith in its purest form.
These differences are played out in the field of Catholic university and liberal arts education. A major controversy ensued when President Barack Obama delivered the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame. Conservatives decried the choice of a ‘pro-choice’ speaker, someone who stood against a teaching they saw as at the core of Catholic faith.31 In 1993, Cardinal Edward Egan stripped Marist College of its Catholic designation because it invited the pro-choice Governor of New York to deliver its commencement address.32 The very policy by which he did that was solidified in the pontificate of Pope John Paul II. Certain Catholic colleges and universities, to varying degrees, send signals that they are schools dedicated to teaching the orthodox, traditional Catholic way and committed to raising up a generation of young Catholics faithful to the Pope and to Catholic orthodoxy. Such schools as Franciscan University of Steubenville have embraced this mission and have taken great leadership in promoting initiatives such as World Youth Day, an international Catholic event which developed and grew during the era of Pope John Paul II. Such colleges and universities have provided a refuge for those concerned with Catholic institutions of higher education more amenable to a progressive Vatican II agenda. This identification of educational institutions as being ‘properly Catholic’ to conservative members of the church and its hierarchy, has become part of Catholic seminary education as well. Certain bishops have shown great interest in sending prospective priests to those seminaries that are more in keeping with the core of John Paul’s approach to the Catholic Church.33
The tension between these two significantly different ways of looking at being Catholic plays itself out in varied ways. It is there in the hiring practices of Catholic parishes, dioceses, elementary schools and high schools. It is present in the selection of materials and columnists for Catholic newspapers, magazines and web based publications. It is obvious in the choice of speakers at conferences and congresses for the continuing education of the church’s local catechetical leaders, otherwise known as its teachers of CCD. Simply put, there is a major difference in the speaker selection one finds at Catholic conferences today and that of the ones I attended and spoke at in the 60s and 70s.34
For a Protestant to really understand who lives inside that Catholic house, he or she needs to know that it might not really be who it appears to be or who one has been taught that it really is. And for a Catholic to have an understanding of his or her own tradition, in its fullness and complexity, he or she could very well be surprised at what’s really going on over on his/her side of the street!
An honest examination of how Protestants and Catholics view both themselves and each other cannot ignore the fact that there is such a reality as anti-Catholicism and that it has a history that is very sad. Recognizing that Catholics of different ilks interpret this history quite uniquely and differently from each other, does not take away from the fact that anti-Catholicism has been (and to some extent remains) a historical reality. William Shea’s book The Lion and the Lamb: Evangelicals and Catholics in America35 is worth a detailed exploration for those who wish to trace the history and explore the nuances of this phenomenon. This anti-Catholicism is rather pluralistic in itself as it contains a whole mix of political, theological, ethnic and cultural suspicion. As a matter of fact, it is this sense of suspiciousness of the other that we need to examine in order to grasp this phenomenon and its relevance in our current and future context.
Among the many current issues in which discrimination and prejudice has been raised, anti-Catholicism appears to be well down on the list. Most people, other than the most committed members of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights,36 would acknowledge that discrimination against certain ethnic and racial minorities, women, Jews and homosexuals has been more prevalent in the latter twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Some of the more intense anti Muslim sentiment that has appeared in the West would appear to many to make any anti-Catholic sentiment seem fairly mum and passé.
The kind of virulent anti-Catholicism which Shea describes seems to appear only in small and isolated pockets on the contemporary scene. Most mainstream Catholicism appears not to spend time and energy engaging in concerns regarding this issue. Anti abortion homilies are far more common than warnings of anti Catholic sentiment and plotting.
Nevertheless, the vestiges of anti Catholicism have not been completely shed from American culture. As David O’Brien develops so thoroughly in his writings, Catholicism has grappled historically with its perception as a ‘foreign religion’ as the concerns surrounding the 1960 Presidential campaign involving John F. Kennedy made quite clear.37 While the issues