I used to pride myself on being mainstream. I didn’t want to be an intellectual or a scholar. I did not want to write books that would be read and admired by eleven of my friends. I wanted to write for regular folk. I liked being invisible and was always grateful for the fact that as a writer, I could be. As far as my beliefs went, I considered myself what I called a “meat and taters Catholic.”
And then I became a “radical.” I did so without moving an inch. Instead, the world moved under my feet, and, sadly, the Church moved as well. Everything around me shifted and suddenly I went from being mainstream to being considered a member of the fringe element. I did so because I could not swallow “it’s all good,” just as I cannot now swallow “Jesus gets us.” I knew that it was not all good. Anyone who has been paying attention knows that it hasn’t been “all good” since Adam and Eve. And yes, I came to be considered part of the fringe element because I clung to my Bible. I had to. It was the only thing not moving.
And so, I figured, if I’m going to be labeled a radical, I might as well be one. I shifted everything about me in a more conservative direction, since the side I’d been on was now booing God at their conventions, and I let go of Buddy Jesus and embraced the Creator of the Universe. I re-read the Bible and paid close attention. I befriended a Bible scholar who could tell me what the original text had said. I traded casualness for reverence and comfort for duty. In doing so, I came to realize that from God’s perspective my world had been upside down.
If you are Catholic and you believed what the Church taught up until the current papacy, you are now considered to be a member of the radical fringe. Why not stop defending yourself against the charge and embrace it? You don’t have to, I won’t look down at you if you don’t, and you might do just fine at the Pearly Gates without doing so. But it’s something you can do and doing something made me feel a lot better.
I wrote a book about a Jesuit friend of mine who was a radical Catholic, at least as measured against today’s median (The Sound of Silence: The Life and Canceling of a Heroic Jesuit Priest). He decided to wear his clerics all the time as a testament against the ways in which the Jesuits were at odds with the Magisterium. He called it “a permanent black arm band.”
I believe that having to watch the world slip further and further into the black hole is draining the life out of those of us who are trying to live decent lives, and that taking active steps against this deadly current is a way to offset that.
Permit me to offer you three suggestions on how to quickly become a radical Catholic. The first is to start living like God meant what He said. Re-read the Old Testament and pay close attention. What God said to His prophets is no less true now than it was when He said it, no matter what the “synodal” Church tells you. Take the Ten Commandments, for instance. The first commandment does not mean that you shouldn’t put a golden calf in your living room. God said NO idols, and He meant NO idols. Not money, not your career, not your favorite hobby, not sports (trust me, that one pains me), not even the fruits of your talents.
The current uproar over the Paris Olympics provides a clear example. I have been waiting to see if a single Christian athlete would pack up and go home in protest of the satanic, Christ-mocking opening ceremony. It looks like I’m going to wait in vain. My friends say, “But the athletes have been working for this their whole lives and they shouldn’t be punished for the debauchery that they knew nothing about.” Well, they knew about it the next day.
A wise friend of mine, whose world is right-side up, said, “Maybe they have been working their entire lives to have the opportunity to walk out and thereby stand up for God.” God is the most important thing in this scenario (or in any scenario). If a Christian athlete were to announce that he/she was dropping out in protest of the horrible mocking of his/her Savior, their reward would be something much greater than a gold medal. That is a radical thought. It is also the truth.
My second suggestion for embracing a radical Catholic life is to bring reverence back into your life. What does this look like? It looks like silencing yourself once you sit down in the pew – or better yet, kneel on the kneeler – instead of talking to the woman next to you about how hard it was to find parking and how hot it has been. It means kneeling and sticking out your tongue to receive the King of the Universe, instead of standing and sticking out a paw like someone is about to give you a Skittle. (Or, as my priest said recently, “You don’t want to receive Jesus the same way you receive a hamburger at McDonald’s.”) Granted, you might have to change parishes and drive a long way to make that happen, but I believe it is that important. (And it’s crucial if you want to be radical.)
The reason so few people believe in the Real Presence anymore is that for decades now, we have not been acting like it is the truth. I blame our priests for this more than I blame us lay people. I have been asking for a prie-dieu at the church where I go to daily Mass, to no avail. I have asked at other churches with the same result. I am told it would be too much trouble. “Who would bring it out?” asked one priest. (I refrained from saying, “I don’t know, maybe one of the 28 “Extraordinary” Eucharistic Ministers?) Another told me that such a change would require committee meetings.
This is a particular problem for people of a certain age. We can kneel on the floor, but we can’t get back up. Priests always tell me, “You are free to kneel.” On the tile floor with nothing to hold on to when I need to get up? (The last priest who told me that could not have knelt on the floor and gotten back up if Jesus had requested it. Just an observation.)
This is especially important at daily Mass because, let’s face it, there’s no one at most daily Masses except elderly people. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that most of us would kneel were it made available to us. We would kneel not because we think we’re holier than everyone else, but because we remember when the Eucharist was treated with great reverence, and we don’t think that should have stopped. Mere logic tells us that it shouldn’t have stopped.
But I digress…
The third way to change your Catholic life radically is to take up fasting. Jesus said that some demons can only be driven out by fasting, and we are clearly awash in the demonic right now. If you can’t fast, then at least stop eating meat on Fridays. I remember, years ago, when someone told me that Catholics no longer give up meat on Fridays, I thought, “Great!” It took me a couple of decades to realize that we were never granted full freedom on Fridays.
The initial reason for not eating meat on Friday was to give up something to thank Jesus for dying for us on a Friday. In 1966, the bishops released a document called “Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence” which stated that Catholics were no longer required to abstain from meat on Fridays, so long as they performed some other form of penance. Just like me, most Catholics did not hear that last part. It doesn’t matter what form a penance you substitute, but if you want to be radically Catholic (which means actually Catholic) you need to substitute something. I have found that I am lousy at remembering to substitute an alternative, so I don’t eat meat on Fridays. It’s easy to remember, and it also provides an excellent opportunity to evangelize when you have a Friday lunch with a secular friend.
I have been thinking lately about my favorite line from the John le Carré novel The Russia House which is this: “These days you have to think like a hero merely to behave like a decent human being.” It was not nearly as true when he wrote it in 1989 as it is now. Today, if someone declares that he/she wants to live like a decent human being, they are considered part of the radical fringe. Declaring for decency has become hate speech. So becoming a “radical” Catholic is a great way to tell the world that you will not embrace even a smidgeon of its decadence. It helps you see the world from God’s perspective, and that can make all the difference.
Editor’s Note: This author’s book The Sound of Silence is available from Sophia Institute Press.
Photo by Nick Castelli on Unsplash
