51% of Catholics believe gay marriage should be legal
Her premise is posited in response to The Archbishop of Newark’s declaration “that those who support marriage equality should refrain from receiving the Eucharist.”
“With somewhere between 52 percent and 72 percent of Catholics in this country supporting same-sex marriage, a lot of people are going to be turned away hungry from the altar.”For Catholics, receiving communion is a big deal. It is one of the seven sacraments and is the very center of Catholic faith. I know the Catholic Church looks to outsiders like a legalistic fortress, and it is, but Jesus Christ is the core of the faith. Without the life, death, burial, and resurrection of God Made Man, and without Christ’s saving grace, Catholicism has no meaning.
The Catholic Imagination
Manson does a wonderful job scraping away the legalistic barnacles and exposing the Catholic soul:
In his book The Catholic Imagination, Fr. Andrew Greeley writes, "Catholics see the Holy lurking in creation. As Catholics, we find our houses and our world haunted by a sense that the objects, events and persons of daily life are revelations of grace."
The Catholic imagination, or "Catholic sacramental view of the world," as my mentor Margaret Farley calls it, has its roots in the Catholic understanding of the relationship between grace and nature.
In Catholic theology, grace perfects nature. Yes, human beings are a mess, and we're born into a very messy world. But because we are created by God and because everything God creates is good, there is intrinsic goodness in us. God offers us countless opportunities of grace to help us transform ourselves and to redeem us.
Catholics believe the finite is capable of the infinite. This is why Greely says objects, events and persons all have the capability to reveal God's grace to us. That grace can come in our experiences of love, forgiveness, compassion, justice, sacrifice, but also in the midst of suffering, brokenness and desolation. (Jamie Manson)
Ducky, a fellow Catholic, will invoke Dorothy Day every now and then. She’s not a famous actress, but rather a leftwing Catholic woman who devoted her life to social activism and helping the poor. In March of 2000, The Vatican opened the case for her sainthood. She too had the Catholic imagination:
It is the Catholic imagination that gave Dorothy Day the vision to see a prostitute with advanced syphilis as Jesus Christ on her doorstep. (Jamie Manson)This is not unlike the Theology of Bono, a world-famous rock star married thirty years to the same woman and also a devoted Catholic:
It's a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma. […]
But I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep s---. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity. (Bono: Grace over Karma)
The Bono interview and the Jamie Manson article do not deal in Catholic orthodoxy or theology, focusing instead on the hearts of two believers. Bono has departed from some Church teachings while carrying out others quite faithfully, and Manson rejects Catholic doctrine in her conclusion on gay marriage, but along the way both of them beautifully explain what moves and motivates everyday Catholics.
You could also listen to Mumford and Sons, another band caught between the sacred and the profane. Although they are not Catholic, they capture the same spirit, of celebrating life and all that is in it, because although it is full of the fallen and the broken, it’s all God’s creation, and God still blesses it with his grace.
Life does not deal in neat categories and pristine lines of demarcation. We drink, we cuss, we act out, we sin, but we are also capable of loving God so much, and getting down on our knees and crying over our sins, even as he cleanses us and forgives us.
You could also listen to Mumford and Sons, another band caught between the sacred and the profane. Although they are not Catholic, they capture the same spirit, of celebrating life and all that is in it, because although it is full of the fallen and the broken, it’s all God’s creation, and God still blesses it with his grace.
Life does not deal in neat categories and pristine lines of demarcation. We drink, we cuss, we act out, we sin, but we are also capable of loving God so much, and getting down on our knees and crying over our sins, even as he cleanses us and forgives us.
*- This is neither a defense nor an attack on Catholicism or any other religion. I will delete comments by jihadis intent on using this discussion to launch attacks on the beliefs of others.
