What it means to be Catholic
From the Erie Times-News, 10.18.2008.
* * *
What it means to be Catholic
BY DANA MASSING
dana.massing@timesnews.com [more details]
Published: October 18. 2008 1:51AM
Marc Moore of Erie stands on the steps of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Erie which he has been attending for more than 15 years. Photo taken Oct. 18. |
From birth to death, the Roman Catholic Church is a force in a billion members’ lives.
Babies are baptized into it. Centenarians are buried from it.
In between, their lives are punctuated with events tied to the church, including weddings and presidential elections, that cause them to consider Catholic teachings.
The church is a feeling, a passion, hard to put into words, some Catholics say.
It’s an institution that some are born to and others aspire to, and a certain number leave.
A faith distinguished by the great good it has accomplished and also the criticism it has received.
An establishment where people follow traditions 2,000 years old and ask questions leading to change for the future.
Some of the people asking those questions are featured in Kerry Kennedy’s new book, “Being Catholic Now.”
Kennedy interviewed 37 people from different walks of life about their faith. They are among 65 million Catholics in the U.S., including 225,000 in the 13-county Catholic Diocese of Erie.
About one in three people in Erie County is Catholic, with the diocese putting the total at 95,000.
Seven of them, of different ages and occupations and roles in life, agreed to talk to the Erie Times-News about their faith and what being Catholic means to them.
The educator
Tom Gamble sees his relationship with the Catholic Church as being “like your relationship with your mother.
“You don’t always agree with your mother, and sometimes you really disagree with your mother, but you owe your mother an obligation of, sort of, loyalty and, to the extent you can, obedience.
“And so you would never reject your mom because you disagree with her. You stay in relationship with your mom because you love her and she loves you, and that’s how I think for lots of us it is with regard to the church.”
A lifelong Catholic, Gamble, 61, is president of one Catholic school, Mercyhurst College and a graduate of another, Gannon University. He worships on Sunday mornings with students on Mercyhurst’s Erie campus.
As the leader of a liberal-arts school that enrolls 4,000, not all Catholics, Gamble said it’s not up to him to impose his personal religious views.
“I have a responsibility to … create an environment where both secular knowledge, the result of natural reason, and where the results of the faith are both presented to students,” he said.
“And then have sort of a hope and trust in them to find the path that is rewarding and fulfilling to them.”
The conservative
Ruth Kowalski grew up going to church, playing Communion with Necco Wafers and dressing as Mary for an All Saints party.
“I was Catholic,” she said. “You didn’t even think about it, you just did it.”
Kowalski, 48, doesn’t remember the Latin Masses of her early childhood, but she recalls the turmoil when priests began saying services in the native language of worshippers instead. After Vatican II, the Latin or Tridentine Mass could be used only with special permission from a bishop.
In 1997, she rediscovered it and now attends Erie’s St. Ann Catholic Church, one of only two in the diocese where Mass is celebrated in Latin.
Kowalski feels a sense of reverence when she hears it.
It’s become so familiar, she no longer needs the English translation in the Missal. She knows that wherever in the world she would hear a Latin Mass, she wouldn’t be lost.
Kowalski believes the Catholic Church has “gone liberal” and does a lot of trying to please people.
“So much has been softened and broken off,” she said.
In the Latin Mass, she finds history and tradition and truth.
“It’s perfect,” Kowalski said.
The deacon
Steve Washek’s gay friend felt rejected by the Catholic Church.
It made Washek, a permanent deacon and Gannon University’s director of campus ministry, question whether his church accepts all people.
“Yes, ideally we accept all people,” he concluded. “In realistic terms, do we? I don’t know.”
Sometimes, he said, humanness gets in the way of church teaching.
So do some “bad apples,” he said. The clergy sex-abuse scandal caused Washek to dig in his heels and think about why he loves being Catholic — the ideals, the teachings, the sacraments.
As the scandal unfolded, he thought, “I can’t throw everything away because of this.”
A latecomer to Catholicism — raised Lutheran, he converted in 1981 — Washek, 48, found himself drawn to the Mass and Eucharist.
“My heart found a home,” he said.
He’d like the church to welcome more people to the Communion table, such as those from other faith traditions or Catholics who have divorced and remarried.
“Because the Eucharist means so much to me, I want everyone to experience the joy of receiving it,” Washek said.
The politician
Joy Greco once thought of priests as mysterious.
That was before she worked as assistant director of communications for the diocese in the ’80s.
“That helped deepen my faith in a sense because it showed me we’re all human whether we’re laypeople or (women) religious or in the priesthood,” she said. “We’re all God’s creatures, of equal value to God.”
Greco, 67, a member of St. Julia Catholic Church and a graduate of Catholic schools, thinks the Catholic Church ultimately will have to allow married and female priests. She supports both.
She’s optimistic that the church will adapt to draw in people rather than exclude them.
After working for the diocese, Greco was elected to four terms on Erie County Council.
Formerly a conservative Republican, she today works for a Democratic state representative. They don’t agree on all the issues, she said, although she wouldn’t go into specifics.
“I am a pro-life Democrat,” Greco said now. “I’m also a conservative one.”
She believes religion has some effect on picking a presidential candidate, but said there are many issues to consider.
The student
Brian Reddan has a favorite saying, attributed to St. Francis: “Preach the Gospel at all times and, if necessary, use words.”
For Reddan, that means living a Catholic lifestyle, being a role model.
A Mercyhurst College student, he said he doesn’t go to parties with drugs or alcohol, although at 21 he’s old enough to legally drink.
“I know not all of my peers go to church on a regular basis,” the senior intelligence-studies major said. “I am one of the people who essentially goes every week.”
In Erie, the Colorado native worships in the college’s Christ the King Chapel, or at St. Luke Catholic Church.
When he was little, he thought of God as a big guy in white robes. Now Reddan doesn’t think of a physical presence, but rather something he shares with the world’s other Catholics.
“Being Catholic means you’re part of a larger, kind of a global community,” Reddan said.
His dorm wall holds a picture of Pope John Paul II, the pontiff for Reddan’s first 18 years.
“He struck me as a realistic person, someone who could be religious but also live in the everyday real world,” Reddan said.
The prayer
Marc Moore got mistaken for a Baptist when he came to Erie from Long Island more than 20 years ago.
“I am African American,” he explained.
And Catholic. All his 38 years.
A Eucharistic minister, he tries to be faithful to church teachings, even if he wrestles with the prohibition against married priests.
“It says in the Bible it’s not good for man to be alone,” said Moore, a husband of six years.
He goes to Mass on Saturday evenings at Holy Trinity Church with his wife and as many of their seven children, ages 1 to 20, as can make it. He’d like the Catholic Church to do more to get kids involved, maybe offer Sunday school.
He encourages a teenage daughter to wait for marriage before having sex.
He prays. Every day. In the morning. On the way home from work, in his Ford Explorer, with the rosary beads hanging from the rearview mirror. With his children at night.
Moore usually recites the Lord’s Prayer, adding on thanks for people in his life and requests for safety for those who are traveling.
It leaves him feeling satisfied.
“When I don’t pray, I feel bad,” Moore said.
The newcomer
Linda Bayle needed a rock.
She was searching for something to help her through tough times, a divorce, a mother dying of cancer. She wanted to introduce religion to her daughters.
Although baptized in the Methodist church, Bayle hadn’t been a practicing Methodist since childhood. She started visiting different churches — Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic.
“Catholic, that religion, going to those Masses, there was a different feel about it, a passion to it,” Bayle said.
Now 33, she’s been Catholic since the spring, when she finished the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.
“I feel like I’ve been given a gift,” said Bayle, a new member of Erie’s St. Peter Cathedral.
Her older daughter took first Holy Communion at the same time as Bayle. Her younger daughter was baptized.
“I just told them I feel this is where we belong,” she said.
All three have crucifixes above their beds and rosaries in their rooms in Waterford. They pray at night and say grace before meals.
“It’s gone from whenever we remember, to we do it every day now,” Bayle said.
DANA MASSING can be reached at 870-1729 or by e-mail.