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I sometimes get the impression that bishops are stuck in the 19th century, when anti-Catholic (actually anti-Irish) bigotry was rampant, and Catholics were desperate to integrate and be accepted in American society. Well, those days are gone--Catholics are the single largest Christian group in the United States, and Catholics occupy the highest political and social positions in the land, so there is no reason to bend over backwards to be "more American". In fact, it's actually time to go the other way--to begin distancing Catholicism from mainstream American culture and setting up an authentically Catholic alternative. Not that I'm holding my breath--American Catholic culture really doesn't exist, since, intellectually and spiritually, American Catholics have fully integrated the dominant Protestant (and rapidly secularizing) culture--as Samuel Huntington put it, American Catholics are Protestants who go to Mass and love Mary. In all other things, they are largely indistinguishable from their Protestant brethren.
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Not that the Orthodox can be smug, either. I remember with deep chagrin the award given by the Archons o the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, presented by Archbishop Spyridon himself, to Senator Paul Sarbanes for his outstanding service to the Greek community. In some jurisdictions, at least, blood is thicker than orthodoxy.

Posted by: Stuart Koehl  |  June 11, 2008 at 01:09 AM

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