We are in New Harbor, Maine, this week, for our annual family reunion...about 150 of us...something we nine siblings have done for 50 years. There is a rich menu of options: golf, Sunday and daily mass, 8 AM walk, climb of Mt. Katahdin, visit to Arcadia or Camden, men's rosary walk on beach at 7 AM, ultimate frisbee, basketball, canoeing and kayaking, swimming at beach, visit historical fort, book discussions, hiking, eating at local restaurants, drinking alcohol, swimming in pool and hot tub, visiting, reading, talking and a ton of children's activities. This elicits a consideration of our family culture.
1. Our Catholic faith is a strong foundation. Not all of us practice and accept it; but at least two thirds will participate in Sunday mass and about 15-20 come to daily mass. We have a priest and a woman dedicated to the Evangelical life. Six of us have spent time in religious life or seminary and left. Our practice is standard Irish Catholicism: Sunday mass attendance an absolute; chastity and fidelity pressing obligations; sympathy for the poor strong. With the exception of myself, there is little enthusiasm for Pentecostal/Evangelical Christianity or the Latin Mass; but a number of us are involved in or friendly to lay renewal movements.
We might consider a spectrum with four groupings which we will designate as conservative, mainstream, progressive and secular.
- Conservatives. A critical mass (perhaps 30%) adhere, with passion and certainty, to the organic, Vatican II, culture war conservatism of John Paul and Benedict.
- Mainstream. A similar quantity maintain deep Catholic devotion in a more mainstream recipe, minimizing the culture war, maintaining the postwar (1945-65) Catholic-liberal synthesis of our parents, and congenial with the progressivism reigning in suburban, blue NJ.
- Progressive. About 20% similarly retain Catholic devotion but with more acceptance of the values of leftwing politics, soft feminism (favoring women priests), tolerance of legal abortion and gay affirmation.
- Secular. Lastly, 20% are entirely detached from Catholicism and committed to political/cultural progressivism.
Our young adults of college age (about 12) are fluid in their identity, but mostly clustered in the two middle groups. They are, of course, subject to the ordinary exploratory proclivities of youth, and open to peer influence as well as pop, liberal, secular culture. Their Catholicism is largely of the garden variety, bourgeois, parish type. They have relatively little contact with stronger forms of our faith.
It is my view that the two moderate forms are not viable long term in a culture so ferociously hostile to basic Catholic values. The "middle will not hold" in a world increasing dystopian and apocalyptic. In that sense I see a clarity and depth to the secular perception of the incompatibility of Catholicism with progressivism. We face a hard binary choice: Christ and this Church or the axis of Freud, Marx, Darwin and especially Nietzsche.
2. Strong bonds of affection, respect and loyalty throughout the family, notably among cousins. These bonds are strong enough to overcome the liberal/conservative divide, political and religious, within the family.
3. Education. Our children do very well in school. Our family culture seems to encourage trust in and docility to authority as well as focus in listening and reading. All of our adults have college degrees and there are lots of master and even doctor degrees.
4. Sports. Some men golf; most share an interest in basketball and football. The children almost all compete in sports: track, basketball, soccer, swimming, football and other; some at the level of Division 1 colleges. Competitive energies are considerable and mostly channeled in wholesome ways.
5. Politics we take seriously. Like our society, we are polarized. We grew up in the postwar "Camelot" as liberal, labor union, Democrat Catholics. With the Cultural Revolution, the three brothers reacted strongly against the now pro-legal-abortion, big government, sexually liberated DNC; five of the six sisters maintained their allegiance to the party. The former's turn to conservatism was in part economics, more business and market friendly; in part a retrieval of subsidiarity as distrust of the big state; but mostly an intensification of traditional Catholic values around sex, gender, marriage and unborn life. In the 2020 election, of just over 80 adults, almost 50 of us probably voted Biden; about 15 Trump; and almost 20 for neither. There underlies both sides of the divide a populism: the liberals retaining our parents' advocacy for the poor and working class against Republicans viewed as greedy and powerful; the conservatives defending traditional Catholic values threatened by the now hegemonic secular elite.
6. Careers: Among over 80 adults there are clear patterns in choice of profession. Teaching and education 19; corporate business including accountants 19; medical (nurse, doctor, PA) 13; counseling and therapy 10; lawyers 6; aid and advocacy for disadvantaged 7; entrepreneurs 3. Only one served in military. We have no police or firefighters; but several prosecutors. (Only one adult owns a gun.) Human services of medicine, education and therapy are over 50% of the total. There is a strong concern for the disadvantaged as reflected in career decisions and the family's strong support for Magnificat Home and other charities.
7. Class and finances. Virtually all have made a smooth transition from roots in the working class to a secure but modest footing in the professional, middle classes. This is largely due to our competence in schools. An in-law had once described the family as "lacking ambition." This is accurate materially: there is little urgency about accumulating financial resources. We share a solid, balanced work ethic (no workaholics1) but also a basic sense of contentment. Most couples enjoy home ownership, two cars and two careers, an average of 3 or 4 children, and shared income (for the most part) above $100,000 and below $200,000. Those at both extremes share overall a similar lifestyle.
8. Sexuality and Marriage. With 42 marriages, we have (to date) 1 divorce. With some exceptions, our young wait until late college or after for romantic intimacy...this without any explicit advice. In general, adolescence is busy with school, sports, jobs and same-sex friendships. This allows (in the categories of Eric Ericson) time to solidify identity before engaging in intimacy.
9. Gender. Our marriages show, generally, a wholesome mutuality and equality between husband and wife. The men are virile in a mostly gentle, nurturing manner. No type-A males, marines, cops, evangelists, high powered businessmen! Our fathers are intensely attentive to and engaged with their children, especially athletics. This plays a strong stabilizing role through adolescence. For example, my own sons and sons-in-law all spend far more time with the kids than I did in my day. Gender roles blend the contemporary and traditional. The women place primacy on their maternity, but are confident and competent in their professional lives. Overall there is a stronger feminine influence as the six sisters are extremely close knit and all confident and assertive. Our own five daughters replicate this pattern. We three brothers, the minority, contrast in our attachment to tradition, authority, virility, and associated masculine values. The male/female binary is very pronounced in our family. There remains a soft, implicit feminism in the allegiance of the sisters and their families to the party of legal abortion as defensive of a woman's independence of the state viewed as male and oppressive. A critical mass of the sisters (4) maintain dual allegiance: to both the Catholicism and the political liberalism of our parents.
10. Shared pastimes include: reading, walking, travelling, current events, gardening. As with most families, ours shares a sense of humor that is distinctive but hard to describe. And a source of shared delight!
11. Loyal to our Irish heritage, our social life is lightened by the free flow of alcohol. Overall there is moderation; but several of us have difficulties here and some are sober in AA. Drugs, including marihuana, are not unknown but rare.
12. Psychological tendencies include: positivity that can avoid addressing the negative; aversion to and avoidance of conflict; contentment with the family and clannishness; sense of satisfaction and righteousness.
The dark cloud over us is the divide, religiously and politically, between conservative and progressive attitudes. This reflects the realities of our society, but in our family occurs along gender lines as mentioned above. From the conservative perspective, it is a great sorrow that family members have become distanced from our ancestral faith, specifically Sunday Eucharist and practices around sexuality and marriage. From the liberal viewpoint, the males enjoy privilege, power, prestige, righteousness and so adopt a Republican identity that lacks sensitivity to the poor and marginalized, including sexual and racial minorities.
A great strength is that we have maintained strong bonds of affection and respect across serious, significant differences. As mentioned, a critical mass of the family maintains loyalty to both our Catholic and our political, Democratic legacies. Equally important is that we have learned how to set aside our fierce opinions and enjoy each other in other dimensions of life.
Our family is extraordinarily blessed in so many ways. I attribute this to our parents and ancestors: their fidelity to Church and family, through ages of great trial and tribulation including poverty, immigration, prejudice, Depression, world war, cold war, and more.
May we, in God's good grace, be similarly loyal and pass on this same rich legacy to our young.
No comments:
Post a Comment