The Uber-Catholics

I was flattered several years ago to learn that some more liberal family members referred to me and mine as "uber Catholics." It may not have been intended as a complement, but cock-eyed optimist that I am I receved it that way. I would never want to be lukewarm, milk-toast, lackadasical, accomodationist Catholic lite. I aspire to be flaming, profound, fierce, passionate,counter-cultural, radical, and yes extreme in my faith. If that is perceived as unbalanced, fanatical, and unhealthy...so be it!

So I will define an "uber-Catholic" as one for whom the faith and life in Christ is EVERYTHING! Everything else...family, work, romance, health, wealth...EVERYTHING else comes under this love for Christ. So, in various ways, the ubers are counter-cultural, they fervently embrace different dimensions of Catholicism. As an aspiring uber-Catholic, I like to hang out with other ubers, extravagants, extremists. Here are my preferred groups.

CharismaticsThis is my favorite group. They are weird, even from a traditional or mainstream Catholic point of view: praying in tonques, holy laughter, casting out of demons, healings and prophesies. In the wake of the Council when elite Catholicism was emulting late secularizing Protestantism this movement moved in the contrary direction, incorporating hard, contrarian principles of evangelical Pentecostalism: awareness of sin, centrality of Christ as Lord and Savior, literal reading of Scripture, strong gender roles, appreciation of obedience and authority, and in general a lively, graphic supernaturalism.

Neocatechumenal WayThis is the most intense, the most "uber"...the Marine Corp or maybe the Navy Seals of Catholicism. Within the old, they create a new Catholic civilization around: Jesus Christ as victor over death, small-intimate communities around the Word and liturgy, large families, a distinctive aesthetic in music and iconography and a unique catechesis which is orthodox and yet innovative. This "way" appeals largely to lower-economic groups, especially Hispanics in my NYC area. A la the "Benedict Option" its energies are focused interiorly on strenthening and sharing the faith of their communities and familes rather than on the battle for the Culture.

Traditional, Latin Mass GroupsThese, of course, retrieve elements of Catholicism that have been largely lost after the Council: the Latin mass, a vibrant Thomism, traditions of piety. These seem to have a strong appeal to young people who are disappointed with the secular drift of society and much of the Church. My impression is that the demographic is largely the educated and comfortable, if not affluent.

Catholic Worker CommunitiesThese are extreme in ways entirely different from the first three: anarchistic and pacifist, they identify strongly with the poor, and firmly reject our social order and the bourgeois way of life. In Day and Maurin there was an unusual marriage of Catholic faith with political radicalism; I am not sure how widely that admirable, if eccentric, legacy endures although Larry Chapp is true to it.

Academic CommunitiesIn strongest contrast to the secularizing momentum of mainstream, especially elite, Catholic academies, there are a handful of exceptions which develop their own distinctive, eccentric-extravagant cultures. My favorite is the John Paul Institute for the Family in Washington DC which carries on the "Communio Theology" of John Paul, Benedict and Balthasar in an American context. The small body of congenial scholars embody a "kneeling theology" that combines holiness of life with brilliance in scholarship. They are exceptional. On the undergraduate level Franciscan University of Steubenville is unparalled: under a strong charismatic influence, this community attracted disparate groups which reacted against the liberalizing trend in Catholic higher education: pro-life, home-schooling, Thomism, etc. It too combines the desire for holiness with serious learning. IPS (Institute for the Psychological Sciences) in Arlington, Virginia, is a serious graduate think tank for the dialogue between scientific psychology and a Catholic anthropology.

To be sure there are other strong Catholic cultures which may not be so "uber" in the sense of extravagant, extreme, or contrarian. Communion and Liberation is a lively, highbrow Catholic movement out of Italy that reflects a distinctive, almost neo-Renaissance confidence, positivity, lack of defensiveness and openess to the broader culture. First Things is deeply Catholic with a a pronounced Republican, neoconservative and even sometimes pro-Trumpian political ideology. EWTN, The Catholic Thing, Crisis, New Oxford Review and others reflect a fierce Catholicism.

Other Catholic academies lack the dominating Catholic ethos but foster smaller communities of vital Catholicism. My own family has experienced this at Mount St. Mary's (Emmitsburg), University of St. Francis DeSales, Assumption, University of Notre Dame and our local Seton Hall University. It is not unusual that secular universities, even the Ivys, foster small, intense countercultures in response to the militant secularism around them.

I have been blessed to participate in varying degrees, in the above communities, without becoming a fullfleged member of any. Catholicism has been, for me, a rich smorgasboard in which I taste some fruit, the fish, some vegetables, a variety of meats, and leave room for dessert. SO FUN! SO INTERESTING1 SO INSPIRING!