Photo by Isabella Fischer on Unsplash
So I kind of grew up Catholic and kind of didn’t. I went to Catholic Church about once a year and attended CCD. I also went through some of the basic sacraments of the Catholic Church including: infant baptism, confession, reconciliation and confirmation. My full name, including my confirmation name, is Christopher Scott Paul Russo. I had no idea who the apostle Paul was, but I had to pick a confirmation name and the name Paul sounded sufficiently religious.
As a kid, there’s nothing about Catholicism that ever appealed to me. In full transparency, my brother Greg and I managed to entertain ourselves by trying to stifle uncontrollable laughter in what felt like the stuffy masses we had to sit through. I never got the impression there was this incredible God in heaven that deeply wanted to know me. From all the stained glass windows and pictures of Jesus I saw, it never even occurred to me that Jesus could smile or laugh. All the pictures I remember seeing depicted him as someone you wouldn’t want to invite to a party and certainly not someone you’d hang out with on Friday night.
When I was in my 30’s and was pastoring a congregation in Columbia, SC, I took the opportunity to meet regularly with a Catholic priest for a while. I wanted to see what Catholicism was really about and if my adult understanding lined up with the impressions I got as a kid. Some of it lined up and some of it didn’t.
One of the things I appreciate about Catholicism is the sense of reverence they contribute to Christianity. I feel like one of the main things you feel when you walk into a Catholic Church is a sense of reverence for the divine. What I felt like I greatly missed out on, growing up Catholic, was any sense of the gospel or good news of Jesus Christ. It seemed like there was a ton of emphasis on Christ’s crucifixion, but not a lot of emphasis on his resurrection. From the tone of the priest’s words to the somber hymns, no one ever seemed happy or like there was anything worth celebrating in the Catholic Church. I can’t imagine anyone walking out of a Catholic service feeling a sense of exuberance or excitement. I realize the purpose of religion isn’t always to make us feel good, but they don’t call it the good news (gospel) of Jesus Christ for nothing.
I don’t feel like I’m in any position to comprehend or judge Catholicism as a whole, but at least as a kid and as a teenager, it did not make me want to know Jesus on a personal level. Of all I remember from the stations of the cross to saying the Our Father and Hail Mary, I never got the impression that God loved or cared about me. If anything, God seemed like he was perpetually distant and pretty much always angry at me.
I know some of my family will read this, so believe me when I say my intent is not to disrespect Catholicism or act like I understand more about it than I actually do. That being said, Catholicism did have a very strong and early impact on my understanding of Christianity and unfortunately, it’s not an impact I think about fondly.
When I think about the core of what I believe it means to be a Christian, certain truths rush to the surface of my mind. God created mankind good, but we rebelled against our Creator very early on in our story. God would have been perfectly just to allow us to eternally suffer the consequences of our rebellion, but he instead decided to send his only begotten Son into the context of human history to die the death we deserved to die and to rise from the dead on the third day. After living a sinless life and rising from the dead, Jesus then ascended to the right hand of God and now, out of his radical love for each of us, he pursues a personal relationship with every single person on the planet…that of course includes you. In the context of that relationship with Jesus, we’re invited to receive love, hope, joy and the eternal life we were created for. If that’s not good news, I don’t know what is.
I know my explanation is brief and there’s plenty that could be added to it, but that’s the essence of what I understand Christianity to be. If what I just said at least begins to capture the essence of Christianity, then I have some questions for the Catholicism of my youth. Where was the joy? Where was the celebration? Where was the message that Jesus wanted a personal relationship with me and could actually meet me in the dark place I was in? If that message was being communicated, I was certainly blind to it and did a terrible job trying to understand it.
Needless to say, it took a ton of outside influences to draw me into a relationship with God and to begin to believe God loved me and wanted an intimate connection with me. Did anyone else have similar experiences with Catholicism? Did anyone have completely different experiences with Catholicism? I would love to hear your feedback and reflections.
My church history was 1st Episcopal/Catholic/nothing/Baptist/non Denominational/Christian Missionary Alliance / Non Denominational and now just a Believer in Christ! There were elements of all of the above that gave me a sense of love and calling to God but honestly, man gets in the way. We all get in the way of others knowing and wondering about God because we are all flawed and while our personalities are attractive are attractive to others for some time, there generally is a point in time that we find enough fault to want to get close to someone else that seems more like the Christ or at least more like the Christ we want to believe. I spent the summer one year when I was a Baptist, building an huge addition on a Catholic retirement retreat for the brothers (priests) who had served all their lives. At night I would go fishing with the father of the retreat Father Vince. At first I was opinionated with my newly Baptist attitude and knowledge. We became friends and the time on the water made me love him and appreciate the person and his faith in ways I would have never believed otherwise. Time and vulnerability, heart and love, that is where we are all to be. Judgementalism is what separates us from each other. Name tags of denominations or beliefs skew us from true loving each other. I wish I had started my life knowing the love for others that I have now, even though I am still only at the beginning.
When I hear the word "Catholicism," I think mostly of wasted opportunities, such as still not allowing priests to marry. I'm confident that alone would prove to be a tremendous catalyst toward driving more people - and younger people! - to the priesthood. There is one area, however, where I think Catholics do a better job of than any of the Christian sects whose services I've attended, and that is in openly acknowledging the existence of Satan and, in fact, being the world's leading authorities on and providers of exorcisms. No matter how miniscule the % of people suffering, or claiming to suffer, demonic possession is as a total of all the faithful identifying themselves as Catholics or Christians - and no matter how much the Catholic Church continues to keep exorcisms on the down-low, the practice is, in its own way, an act of restoring light and joy to individuals...not just the afflicted, but those closest to them. I know you're not going to like this, but i conversely think that Christians over-emphasize "joy" and a "relational Christ" at the expense of openly acknowledging Satan's existence. That's disingenuous to me. Like you, I could say much more on the subject, so how about next week when your Papa comes to Charleston! :-)