Why I am a Catholic… and Why I’m Not
This essay is part of a series where I look at various faiths and explore where they have inspired me and where I have issues. Although I am a Christian, I believe that God wants us to explore and learn from other traditions as part of our spiritual journey. This is my journey, no one else’s, and the articles merely record how I see things. They are not intended to offend or convert, nor do I expect you to agree with me. I do however, appreciate feedback, friendship and further learning.
Other essays in the series:
Why I Am A Sikh… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am A Sufi… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am An Orthodox Christian… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am A Pagan… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am A Hindu… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am A Buddhist… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am A Jew… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am an Atheist… and Why I’m Not
Why I Am an Anglican… and Why I’m Not
“We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.”
That’s what it says in the Creed which we would recite in church whenever I attended as a kid.
Which was weird, because “we” clearly did not believe in that since the Catholic church was the one across the fields that we never went into; the Catholic kids were the ones who went off to a different school and we never played with, and the Catholic Church was the reason why in my village, five hundred years ago, there was a lot of bloodshed and unease because when the country became Protestant, the lord of the manor stayed with the old faith.
Which meant that being Catholic, well, it did not come naturally to me. Indeed, it was only when I travelled halfway across the globe that I actually started to explore that which had always existed on my doorstep.
The impetus was my maternal grandmother. Not actually her — she was a devout Methodist all her life — but the fact that she died. I wanted to go to church to pay my respects, but I was living in Japan so that was far from easy. I went to the United Church of Christ in Japan (the main Protestant denomination) and whilst they were friendly, it was all in Japanese. Then friend suggested the local Catholic church which had a monthly English service. The fact that he too was Anglican helped, so I went along. Still, I had reservations, what with me not being a Catholic and all, so I arranged to meet up with a nun. Her name was Sr. Nerina.
Well, what can I say? Sister Nerina was an inspiration. They say that when you meet a living saint, you just know it, and she radiated holiness. Born in Italy, she had joined the Daughters of St. Paul Order as a young woman and spent most of her adult life in Japan. When I asked her about spending so much time away from her home, she simply replied, “Our real home is in Heaven with Christ. Since everywhere else is an exile, does it matter if I am in Italy or Japan?” She talked me through some of the basics and made me feel welcome. For the first time in my life, what initially seemed like an alien faith as it was explained to me so it became clear. For the first time in my life, Catholicism was accessible. It was the start of a spiritual journey that I’m still on today.
I continued attending the Catholic church, but I still found some things rather strange, particularly the devotion to Mary. But Sr. Nerina helped me through, explaining how Mary represents the feminine side of God. This was wholly alien to me and it felt strange for some time, but then I accustomed myself to it and started to truly embrace it. Perversely, it was a religion often derided as being overly masculine (for example with an only male priesthood) that introduced me to female divinity. And as the years have passed, I have grown to love that all the more. On my last pilgrimage through Italy towards Assisi, whenever I encountered a wayside Marian shrine, I would halt and pray the words of the Hail Mary that Sr. Nerina taught me, and that connection both to femininity and nature was incredibly powerful.
My journey with Catholicism then continued. When I later moved to Vietnam, I began to attend Mass weekly at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Ho Chi Minh City and soon I wasn’t just attending, but really taking part. I read the Bible lesson once a month, donning a costume suitable for a monk and then standing up before a congregation of around a thousand (nerve-wracking or what… but it helped to make me the public speaker that I am today), joined the choir, and even a Bible discussion group run by a monk.
This time in Vietnam deepened my faith. I found fellowship in the Bible Group with other Catholics (and also a Protestant and a Buddhist!) and regular Mass attendance became a part of my life. It gave me something I needed in a time when I found living abroad hard.
When I returned home to the UK, I picked up where I had left off, by starting to attend my local parish church. This was Anglican but part of the Anglo-Catholic Movement, a grouping starting in Oxford a century and a half earlier (it is sometimes called the Oxford Movement), by sections of the Anglican Church that wanted to remain closer to Catholicism. The argument is that the Reformation in England was always political, never theological and so a reunion with the Roman Catholic Church (and potentially the Orthodox Communion) should always be the goal. I have above my desk a poster which sums this up best. It has pictures of St. Peter’s in Rome, Haghia Sophia in Istanbul and Canterbury Cathedral with the slogan “We believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic church.” In that sense, I have always been a firm Catholic.
Even so, things changed too. There were tensions and new directions and these are best summed up as follows:
Martyn and Trad Catholicism
Martyn is a chap I met on a course in 2010. He is a convert to Catholicism and a very firm and strong Traditionalist Catholic. He only attends Latin Mass and is critical of Vatican II. This introduced me to a whole area of the Catholic Church that I had not hitherto encountered. Some things drew me towards it: the Latin Mass is beautiful and when I used to attend it with Martyn in Burslem RC Church, I found my soul drifting away. It is also friendly and well-thought out, and Martyn’s personal piety was admirable (he used to withdraw to a corner of the pub at certain times to pray in Latin). Conversely though, there seemed to be a lot of rules; it was exclusionary and seemed to ally itself with reactionary political forces. And not once, during all of our talks, did I ever hear love being mentioned.
Samuel and Pilgrimage
Starting in 2007 with a trip to Glastonbury, a new spiritual chapter opened for me: pilgrimage. Inspired by my interview with Fr. Samuel Carter at the local Orthodox church, I became interested in my local saints, visiting pilgrimage sites in and around the UK and Ireland and then going on longer walking pilgrimages. As someone who has always encountered God on the road, I found this form of piety powerful and inspiring. It was me.It was also very Catholic. Catholics provided the infrastructure at Croagh Patrick and along the Camino de Santiago, and they catered for my devotion to saints far better than the Anglicans who can still be wary of that. Conversely though, it was also not Catholic. A lot of my fellow pilgrims on the way were struggling with their Catholicism and the Lourdes mode of pilgrimage — in a group with lots of tat for sale — was not my thing.
Brian and Irish Catholicism
Perhaps naturally, anyone on a journey of Catholic discovery in England, gets drawn to Ireland. I have visited regularly since moving back to the UK, and one of the attractions is experiencing a country that is basically like my own… but if the Catholics had stayed in power. Some things are heartening — the Mass attendance and veneration of saints — but across the sea on the Emerald Isle, I also experienced a dark side. The intransience and rancour around the abortion debate, and the intolerance towards difference. It was perhaps put best by my friend Brian, brought up Catholic in Ireland. He came across to stay once and we visited the two cathedrals in Liverpool. Afterwards, he told me that he preferred the Anglican cathedral, and that it was the first Protestant church he had ever set foot in. “But there is one in your home village!” I said, staggered, assuming that one would at least visit out of curiosity, as I had done numerous times with the Catholic church in my village. “No, it was always off-limits,” he said. And then he continued: “Anglicanism,” he said, “it’s not really like Protestantism, not like the Presbyterians in the North. It’s Catholic Lite. You kept the good bits and got rid of the guilt.”
Is that summary accurate? Maybe an oversimplification but perhaps there is truth in there. Was the fact that Catholicism so appealed to me simply because it was, well… like my own faith. Except with guilt of course, but not having grown up with that, I was immune to it. After all, guilt is not something you see on a visit. Instead, it is there, in the background, lurking with the other monsters like shame, honour and self-righteousness.
Mary and the Divine Female
Perhaps the most lasting impact though of my Catholic journey, has been the introduction of Mary into my spiritual life. I wrote before that I found Marian devotion strange at first, but as the years have progressed, I have grown more comfortable with her presence and seeing God in female form. The world is male and female, yin and yang and one half needs the other. Of the many lessons that walking the Camino de Santiago has taught me, perhaps the prime one was the importance of having females in my life, for they offer something (and not just erotically…) that men cannot. In the eyes of every woman I see Mary and today my prayer regime consists of an Our Father, a Hail Mary and a Glory Be. She has a corner on my home altar and whenever someone is in need of care and loving attention, I turn to her. Mary is the great blessing that the Catholic Church has brought me and for that I shall be eternally grateful.
So, have I become a Catholic?
Erm… no.
That’s not to say I haven’t thought about it, but I’ve never made the leap. I was tempted, but as with every path, whilst some factors pull, others push away, and it is only fair that I mention them.
Perhaps the main reason why I never made the “leap to Rome” is because of something Brian once said to me. Brian is the Irish chap who was brought up Catholic. He is intensely spiritual and well-travelled who regularly engages in meditation practices and annually goes to a Catholic monastery for a retreat. When I asked him if he considered himself to be Catholic however, he replied in the negative, telling me that the reason he does not is because the late Pope John Paul II once said, “You cannot be an a-la-carte Catholic, either you accept it all or you do not.” And Brian feels that he cannot accept it all and so, therefore, is no longer a Catholic although he remains a friend of the faith and acknowledges his cultural Catholicism.[1]
So, Catholicism is an “in or out” faith, and that is that. Brian’s not in, so he must be out. End of.
And therein lies my essential problem: I simply don’t agree with the late pope. Indeed, not only do I think that you shouldn’t have to accept the whole package without exceptions, but indeed I feel that to do so is spiritually unhealthy. Brian disagrees. He is with the pope in that one must take it or leave it, but since he feels that he cannot take it all, then he is no longer a Catholic. Yet I cry out, “But what is wrong with using your mind and reason to pick and choose what you feel to be right?” Contraception, I’m not with them. An all-male priesthood, ditto. But the idea of a worldwide Church for all with the Mass at the very centre, yes!
Indeed, it was only when I had this realisation after talking to Brian that I truly understood what to be a Protestant is. For, despite my disliking Protestant aesthetics and often a lot of the theology, where I do concur with Luther et al is the fundamental importance of being able to question, object and ultimately reject parts of Church doctrine and practice. As with so many things about faith, I find that the indoctrination of my early years into the Anglican tradition runs deeper than I thought. I like a rebel, a free-thinker. I am a proud cafeteria user. And so Papal obedience and me are always going to be uneasy bedfellows at best.
That is my big objection, but it is not the only one. The other major stumbling block comes up whenever I am at Mass and it is the culmination of the service, the moment when you get up and prepare to accept the Host. The Mass is important to me, it is Christ giving Himself for everyone. Yet Catholic practice is to deny it to non-Catholics and that, I feel, is fundamentally wrong. Christ was for all, who are you to make that decision? Actually, I do take it, citing the fact that there are agreements with the Anglican Church about Anglicans partaking if there is not Anglican church nearby, plus in a sense I am a Catholic (and Anglo-Catholic), but even so, I feel bad about deceiving them and, if I have friends who know I’m not Catholic present, I do not partake. Which is okay, it works for me, but I am a confident person, not burdened with doubt, and whoever you are, I stand by my beliefs: Christ died for all, not just those in a certain group. And this exclusivity is, for me, a barrier.
There are many other points that I can take issue with, from the all-male priesthood to the insertion of the filioque clause, the obsession with abortion (my issue here is not so much their stance, which I do not hold, but can understand, more how the Church in recent decades seems to have morphed itself into an anti-abortion pressure group whilst (in my humble opinion) far more pressing issues are ignored), to the cozying up with some awful politicians. All of these though, I can cope with. No church or faith path is going to perfectly mirror your own, compromise and debates are part of being human, but the condemnation of “a-la-carte” coupled with the exclusivity seem to me to be contrary to both the teachings of Christ and the claims to be truly catholic — for all.
So, I am not a Catholic, or at least, not a Roman Catholic, but, like Brian, I do consider myself a friend of the Church which has, on a personal level, given me so much. I walk on its pilgrimages, pray at its shrines, and, whenever away from home, worship in its churches. Furthermore, within the Anglican Church, I espouse it as a friend and model, annoying my Parochial Church Council by suggesting we include a space for Marian devotion in our parish church and follow more traditional forms of liturgy.
Perhaps my relationship is best summed up with an event that took place several years ago. Back in 2006, upon returning to the UK from several years abroad, I decided to write the history of my parish, a rural Staffordshire village with a long history of Catholic-Protestant conflict. The (secular) Parish Council published the book and, after they had recovered their expenses, I was asked what I wanted to do with all the profits. I knew straightaway. I arranged for a celebration of the parish’s history to take place in our 750-year-old parish church of St. Margaret, a church that for hundreds of years had been a Catholic place of worship and where many prominent Catholics are buried. Then the congregation of St. Mary’s, the Catholic church across the fields were invited and after a joint service, cheques for half of the profits were presented to both communities, a fitting act, I feel, for someone who is both a Catholic… and not.
I hope it pleased Our Lady.
Written 23–29/06/2023 Smallthorne, UK
Copyright © 2023, Matthew E. Pointon
[1] The big question here is that whether the Pope ever actually said that. When researching this, Brian told me that he thought he did but was struggling to find the quote although the words “a-la-carte Catholic” had stuck in his mind. The phrase, it seems, is commonly-used in Ireland by stricter, more traditionalist Catholics to disparage “fair weather” adherents. Another phrase used is “cafeteria Catholic” which first appeared in 1971. Whilst John Paul II does not seem to have used either phrase, this quote of his is often associated with the terms: It is sometimes reported that a large number of Catholics today do not adhere to the teaching of the Catholic Church on a number of questions, notably sexual and conjugal morality, divorce and remarriage. Some are reported as not accepting the clear position on abortion. It has to be noted that there is a tendency on the part of some Catholics to be selective in their adherence to the Church’s moral teaching. It is sometimes claimed that dissent from the Magisterium is totally compatible with being a “good Catholic,” and poses no obstacle to the reception of the Sacraments. This is a grave error that challenges the teaching of the Bishops in the United States and elsewhere. For more on this debate, check out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cafeteria_Catholicism
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/a-la-carte-catholicism-1.439082
https://extra.ie/2021/05/09/news/defence-a-la-carte-catholicism-faith